LAVENDER LODGE
Lavender Lodge, the residence of the manager of Fennings'
bank, where he lived along with his widowed mother, was not a
large house, for, indeed, in this pottery town there were few
large houses; but it was distinguished from the habitations of
the artisans by having a window on each side of a central door, and the doorway was decorated with a pair of pilasters, and a pediment, painted drab, and repainted annually to preserve them from absolute nigritude.
It had an upper storey with three windows. The house was set
back from the street, as though it had withdrawn itself in
conscious superiority, leaving an oblong open space between the
front of the house and the street from which it was railed
off.
This space, supposed to be a garden, contained two
quadrangular beds of black soil composed of fragments of tile and
cinders, and a modicum of earth in worm-cast, with a pyramid of
clinkers in the midst of each, serving as rockeries, in which, however, no green thing grew except chickweed, which will grow anywhere, and which adorns nothing, and a solitary tuft of hart's-tongue fern that was only kept alive by Mrs. Mangin sponging the fronds every week.
In a pottery town everything that elsewhere is constructed of
or laid in stone is dealt with in earthenware. Accordingly, the
footways are paved with tiles, and kerbs of steps are of the same
material.
From the iron gate, the iron of which was diseased and broke
out in rusty sores through the paint, such a tile-paved path led
to the front door, bordered by terracotta edgings, of a florid
character—the only florid thing about a flowerless garden.
Joan ascended a couple of steps, and put her hand to the
knocker. By the time she had wiped her fingers free from the dirt
adhering to the hammer a maid appeared, who asked what she
wanted. Joan replied, and was invited to enter the lobby, and the
servant spoke with Mrs. Mangin through a side door into one of
the sitting-rooms.
Then a stiff old lady, tall and hard in face, came out, looked
scrutinisingly at Joan, and having apparently satisfied herself, asked what she required.
"I have come here to see Mr. Mangin about a small matter."
"He is out, but expected shortly. Can I take a message?"
"I wish particularly to give it to him myself."
Again the widow studied Joan, and said, "If you like, you may
come into the room and sit down. It is chilly in the passage, and
I daresay Mr. Fenning will not object."
She led the way into a little parlour, that served for a
dining-room, as might be judged from the existence of a
cruet-stand on a sideboard, and from a general flavour of stale
meals that clung to the atmosphere. The walls were covered with
leather paper. Against that, opposite the window, and above the
sideboard and cruets, hung in heavy tarnished gold frames the
portraits of the late Mr. Mangin and of his wife, taken ten years
previously.
The painting was hard and unidealised.
The pictures were calculated to strike the impartial observer
with wonder that the late Mr. Mangin should ever have been drawn
by tender feelings towards so wooden and grim a lady, and that
the lady could ever have been induced under any consideration to
swallow such a pill as the late Mr. Mangin.
By the table sat an elderly gentleman, leaning his elbow on
it, and with his chin in his hand.
"You will not mind, Mr. Fenning, if I let this young lady sit
here? She wishes to speak with my son."
"Not at all. He will be here soon, I think you said?"
"I trust so. If you had written word, he would have made a
point of conscience to await you."
"A bit of business was thrust on me—one does not expect
orders to rain in on Christmas and Boxing Days. I drove over at
once on receipt of a letter by the evening delivery. I can wait a
few moments."
He looked at Joan, who had taken a seat near the door. Mrs. Mangin misinterpreted the look, and said—
"Of course she shall wait your convenience, till you have had
your interview with Charles."
"Not at all. Ladies take precedence." Then a little
doubtfully, "You are not in any way concerned in our
business—Fennings' bank?"
"Yes, sir, I am in it—in the painting-room," and Joan rose
from the chair to make answer.
"Sit down, sit down!" said he emphatically.