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Learning Neo4j 3.x
Second Edition

Effective data modeling, performance tuning and data visualization

techniques in Neo4j
Jérôme Baton

Rik Van Bruggen

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Learning Neo4j 3.x
Second Edition

Copyright © 2017 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the
prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the
accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in
this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the
authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held
liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly
by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all

of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use
of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this
information.

First published: August 2014

Second Edition: October 2017

Production reference: 1171017

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78646-614-3

www.packtpub.com
Credits
Authors
Copy Editor
Jérôme Baton
Tasneem Fatehi
Rik Van Bruggen

Reviewers
Project Coordinator
Taffy Brecknock

Jose Ernesto Echeverria

Manthan Patel
Adriano Longo

Commissioning Editor Proofreader

Amey Varangaonkar Safis Editing

Acquisition Editor Indexer

Vinay Argekar Tejal Daruwale Soni

Content Development Editor Graphics
Jagruti Babaria

Tejas Limkar
Tania Dutta
Technical Editor Production Coordinator
Dinesh Chaudhary

Dharmendra Yadav
Deepika Naik
About the Authors
Jérôme Baton started hacking computers at the age of skin problems, gaming
first then continued his trip by self-learning Basic on Amstrad CPC, peaking
on coding a full screen horizontal starfield, and messing the interlace of the
video controller so that sprites appeared twice as high in horizontal beat'em
up games. Disks were three inches for 178 Kb then.

Then, for gaming reasons, he switched to Commodore Amiga and its fantastic
AMOS Basic. Later caught by seriousness and studies, he wrote Turbo
Pascal, C, COBOL, Visual C++, and Java on PCs and mainframes at
university, and even Logo in high school. Then, Java happened and he
became a consultant, mostly on backend code of websites in many different
businesses.

Jérôme authored several articles in French on Neo4j, JBoss Forge, an

Arduino workshop for Devoxx4Kids, and reviewed kilos of books on
Android. He has a weakness for wordplay, puns, spoonerisms, and Neo4j
that relieves him from join(t) pains.

Jérôme also has the joy to teach in French universities, currently at I.U.T de
Paris, Université Paris V - René Descartes (Neo4j, Android), and Université
de Troyes (Neo4j), where he does his best to enterTRain the students.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once
in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Rene Descartes
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/rene_descartes.

When not programming, Jérôme enjoys photography, doing electronics,

everything DIY, understanding how things work, trying to be clever or funny
on Twitter, and spends a lot of time trying to understand his kids and life in
general.

Rik Van Bruggen is the VP of Sales for Neo Technology for Benelux, UK,
and the Nordic region. He has been working for startup companies for most
of his career, including eCom Interactive Expertise, SilverStream Software,
Imprivata, and Courion. While he has an interest in technology, his real
passion is business and how to make technology work for a business. He
lives in Antwerp, Belgium, with his wife and three lovely kids, and enjoys
technology, orienteering, jogging, and Belgian beer.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank many people for this project that is truly a great
personal achievement for me.

First of all, Rik Van Bruggen, who is the original author of this book and
literally, the giant on whose shoulders I stand. Secondly, Vinay and Jagruti
from Packt Publishing for their patience with a slow writer.

Thank you, William LyOn, Cédric FauVEt, Mark NEedham, BenOit Simard,
Michael Hunger, Craig Taverner, and Jim Webber from Neo4j for their help
and sharing their knowledge over the last few years on Stack Overflow, on
Slack, or in person.

This would not have been possible if I myself had not had inspiring teachers
such as Daniel 'DG' Guillaume, Françoise Meunier, Florence Fessy-Mesatfa,
and Jérôme Fessy from IUT de Paris, and Dr. Robert T Hughes, Richard N
Griffith, and Graham Winstanley from the University of Brighton.

Going further in the past, there are more teachers from whom I learned
pedagogy and inspired me to share; I remember you, Mrs. Legrand, Mrs.
Viala, and Mr. Bouhadda. Also, not being a native English speaker, I was at
first very bad at speaking English. Extra energy from Mrs Goddard and Mrs
Maluski really unlocked this second language for me.

Teachers change lives!

Also thanks to the doctors of my national health service without whom I

would be a souvenir already. Vive la Sécurité Sociale!

Basically, I would like to thank all the people I learned from, be they
teachers or not. Including my students.

Thank you, Romin Irani (@iRomin), my friend--you are an example.

Thank you, Anny Naïm, you are a truly shining person.

Above all, love you, kiddos!

I really should make a graph of all the people I would like to thank.
About the Reviewers
Taffy Brecknock has worked in the IT industry for more than 20 years.
During his career, he has worked as a software developer, managed
development teams, and has been responsible for application design and
more recently systems architecture.

He has held roles with both public and private sector organizations. While
working with the Australian Government, Taffy got first-hand exposure to the
use of connected data in law enforcement. After using relational database
systems as the data repository, he is experienced in the short comings of
using this paradigm to model such systems.

After learning about graph databases, specifically Neo4j, he has become

extremely interested in the many different applications of this technology. He
feels that there are few problems in today's business world that cannot
benefit from being modeled in a graph.

Jose Ernesto Echeverria started working with relational databases in the

90s, and has been working with Neo4j since 2014. He prefers graph
databases over others, given their capabilities for real-world modeling and
their adaptability to change. As a polyglot programmer, he has used
languages such as Java, Ruby, and R with Neo4j in order to solve data
management problems of multinational corporations. He is a regular attendee
of GraphConnect, OSCON, and RailsConf. When not working, he enjoys
spending time with family, road trips, Minecraft projects with his children,
as well as reading and drinking craft beers.
Adriano Longo is a freelance data analyst based in the Netherlands with a
passion for Neo4j's relationship-oriented data model.

He is specialized in querying, processing, and modeling data with Cypher, R,

Python, and SQL and has worked on climate prediction models at UEA's
Climatic Research Unit before focusing on analytical solutions for the private
sector.

Today, Adriano uses Neo4j and Linkurious.js to explore the complex web of
relationships that nefarious actors use to obfuscate their abuse of
environmental and financial regulations--making dirty secrets less
transparent, one graph at a time.
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Table of Contents
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Graph Theory and Databases
Introducing Neo4j 3.x and a history of graphs
Definition and usage of the graph theory
Social studies
Biological studies
Computer science
Flow problems
Route problems
Web search
Background
Navigational databases
Relational databases
NoSQL databases
Key-value stores
Column-family stores
Document stores
Graph databases
The Property Graph model of graph databases
Node labels
Relationship types
Why use graph databases, or not
Why use a graph database?
Complex queries
 In-the-clickstream queries on live data
Pathfinding queries
When not to use a graph database and what to use instead
Large set-oriented queries
Graph global operations
Simple aggregate-oriented queries
Test questions
Summary
2. Getting Started with Neo4j
Key concepts and characteristics of Neo4j
Built for graphs from the ground up
Transactional ACID-compliant database
Made for online transaction processing
Designed for scalability
A declarative query language - Cypher
Sweet spot use cases of Neo4j
Complex join-intensive queries
Pathfinding queries
Committed to open source
The features
The support
The license conditions
Installing Neo4j
Installing Neo4j on Windows
Installing Neo4j on Mac or Linux
Using Neo4j in a cloud environment
Sandbox
Using Neo4j in a Docker container
Installing Docker
Preparing the filesystem
Running Neo4j in a Docker container
Test questions
Summary
3. Modeling Data for Neo4j
The four fundamental data constructs
How to start modeling for graph databases
What we know – ER diagrams and relational schemas
 Introducing complexity through join tables
A graph model – a simple, high-fidelity model of reality
Graph modeling – best practices and pitfalls
Graph modeling best practices
Designing for query-ability
Aligning relationships with use cases
Looking for n-ary relationships
Granulate nodes
Using in-graph indexes when appropriate
Graph database modeling pitfalls
Using rich properties
Node representing multiple concepts
Unconnected graphs
The dense node pattern
Test questions
Summary
4. Getting Started with Cypher
Writing the Cypher syntax
Key attributes of Cypher
Being crude with the data
Create data
Read data
Update data
Delete data
Key operative words in Cypher
Syntax norms
More that you need to know
With a little help from my friends
The Cypher refcard
The openCypher project
Summary
5. Awesome Procedures on Cypher - APOC
Installing APOC
On a hardware server
On a Docker container
Verifying APOC installation
Functions and procedures
 My preferred usages
A little help from a friend
Graph overview
Several key usages
Setup
Random graph generators
PageRank
Timeboxed execution of Cypher statements
Linking of a collection of nodes
There's more in APOC
Test questions
Summary
6. Extending Cypher
Building an extension project
Creating a function
Creating a procedure
Custom aggregators
Unmanaged extensions
HTTP and JAX-RS refreshers
Registering
Accessing
Streaming JSON responses
Summary
7. Query Performance Tuning
Explain and profile instructions
A query plan
Operators
Indexes
Force index usage
Force label usage
Rules of thumb
Explain all the queries
Rows
Do not overconsume
Cartesian or not?
Simplicity
Summary
 8. Importing Data into Neo4j
LOAD CSV
Scaling the import
Importing from a JSON source
Importing from a JDBC source
Test setup
Importing all the systems
Importing from an XML source
Summary
9. Going Spatial
What is spatial?
Refresher
Not faulty towers
What is so spatial then?
Neo4j's spatial features
APOC spatial features
Geocoding
Setting up OSM as provider
Setting up Google as provider
Neo4j spatial
Online demo
Features
Importing OpenStreetMap data
Large OSM Imports
Easy way
The tougher way to import data
Restroom please
Understanding WKT and BBOX
Removing all the geo data
Summary
10. Security
Authentication and authorization
Roles
Other roles
Users management
Linking Neo4j to an LDAP directory
Starting the directory
 Configuring Neo4j to use LDAP
Test questions
Summary
11. Visualizations for Neo4j
The power of graph visualizations
Why graph visualizations matter!
Interacting with data visually
Looking for patterns
Spot what's important
The basic principles of graph visualization
Open source visualization libraries
D3.js
GraphViz
Sigma.js
Vivagraph.js
yWorks
Integrating visualization libraries in your application
Visualization solutions
Gephi
Keylines
Keylines graph visualization
Linkurio.us
Neo4j Browser
Tom Sawyer Software for graph visualization
Closing remarks on visualizations - pitfalls and issues
The fireworks effect
The loading effect
Cytoscape example
Source code
Questions and answers
Summary
12. Data Refactoring with Neo4j
Preliminary step
Simple changes
Renaming
Adding data
Adding data with a default value
 Adding data with specific values
Checking our values
Removing data
Great changes
Know your model
Refactoring tools
Property to label
Property to node
Related node to label
Merging nodes
Relations
Consequences
Summary
13. Clustering
Why set up a cluster?
Concepts
Core servers
Read replica servers
High throughput
Data redundancy
High availability
Bolt
Building a cluster
The core servers
The read replicas
The bolt+routing protocol
Disaster recovery
Summary
14. Use Case Example - Recommendations
Recommender systems dissected
Using a graph model for recommendations
Specific query examples for recommendations
Recommendations based on product purchases
Recommendations based on brand loyalty
Recommendations based on social ties
Bringing it all together - compound recommendations
Business variations on recommendations
 Fraud detection systems
Access control systems
Social networking systems
Questions and answers
Summary
15. Use Case Example - Impact Analysis and Simulation
Impact analysis systems dissected
Impact analysis in business process management
Modeling your business as a graph
Which applications are used in which buildings?
Which buildings are affected if something happens to App
l_9?
What business processes with an RTO of 0-2 hours would b
e affected by a fire at location Loc_100?
Impact simulation in a cost calculation environment
Modeling your product hierarchy as a graph
Working with a product hierarchy graph
Calculating the price based on a full sweep of the tree
Calculating the price based on intermediate pricing
Impact simulation on product hierarchy
Questions and answers
Summary
16. Tips and Tricks
Reset password
Check for other hosts
Getting the first line of a CSV file
Enabling SSH on a Raspberry Pi
Creating guides for the Neo4j browser
Data backup and restore
Community version
Enterprise version
Tools
Cypher-shell
Data integration tools
Modeling tools
Arrows
OmniGraffle
Community projects
Online documentation
Community
More proverbs
Preface
Learning Neo4j 3.x will give you the keys to graph databases and Neo4j in
particular. From concepts to applications, you will learn a lot about Neo4j
and will wonder why using relational databases again.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
not choked with weeds in March, and the girls, who were used to the river,
were not so foolish at that season as to approach the weir. The Rector
looked out upon his niece, of whom he was proud, with a look of
helplessness; for even from his sister he had kept the secret (knowing
nothing of Florry’s indiscretions) of the sad state of affairs with Jim.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘it is quite true that Jim is here: but he’s busy, almost
as busy as I am, reading up, don’t you know, for his examination. You really
must not tempt him to-day. I am sure you know the river so well, you will
take care not to go near the weir.’
‘But, Uncle James, it is getting near four o’clock, we shan’t be more than
an hour. Don’t you think he will get on much better with his work when he
comes back?’
Jim had gradually expanded himself while this conversation was going
on; his father’s back being turned he actually, not metaphorically, kicked up
his heels a little in secret demonstration of his joy. Then he rose, and
appeared exceedingly composed and respectful behind his father, who was
leaning out of the open window. ‘Since it is a question of the girls’ comfort,
sir,’ said Jim, ‘an hour won’t make very much difference. I can get up that
Sophocles just as well after dinner as now.’
‘I don’t put much faith in you after dinner,’ said the Rector, without
turning his head.
‘Oh, but why shouldn’t you, uncle?’ said Mab, ‘I’ll answer for him! Of
course he’ll work! Why there’s nothing to do after dinner. Uncle says you
may come, Jim.’
‘I don’t say anything of the kind,’ said Mr. Plowden. But his eyes went
from Mab outside to Jim within. They were both of them so young, and
surely if there could be anything innocent in this world it would be an hour
on the river with your sister and your cousin, both interested in keeping a
boy straight. What was Sophocles after all (in which Jim took so little
interest) in comparison with a more healthy rule of habit and purified
nature? If only he would but be good, what would it matter about
Sophocles? The Rector sighed with perplexity and impatience. It was all
very well to attempt to keep Jim back, to say he was busy. Would all that
keep him at his book a moment longer than his father’s eye was on him?
And if Jim escaped and stole out by himself, how could it be known
whether his companions would be as innocent as Mab and Florry? Was it
not even a good point in the boy, showing at bottom some traces of early
innocence, that it was with Florry and Mab that he wished to go? Mr.
Plowden turned in from the window and looked at his boy. He was the only
boy of the house, and no doubt he had been petted and spoiled, and taught
to think that everything was to give way to him. The Rector looked at him
with that longing of disappointed love, the father’s dreadful sense of
impotence, the intolerable feeling that a touch given somewhere somehow,
at the right moment, might bring all right if he only could tell when and
how to give it. What did it matter that all his plans and arrangements should
be put out the moment he had made them, if the right effect could be
produced anyhow? Perhaps this little girl, with her childish innocent mind
—who could tell? And at least how innocent it all was, the boy and the two
girls! They would bring no harm to him, and perhaps—who could tell?
‘You will come home straight, Jim, and get to work again as soon as you
return?’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Jim, opening large eyes, as if he had never departed
from his word in his life. ‘Of course, when I say it I will do it. If you would
but learn that it is the best thing to trust a fellow,’ he said, looking at the
Rector with a grieved disappointment which quite outdid Mr. Plowden’s
sentiments of the same kind. The poor Rector could not restrain a laugh as
the young man hurried out of the room, leaving Sophocles just ready to
topple over, on the very edge of the table; but it was not a cheerful laugh:
though, perhaps, there was the chance that little Mab, if she had only been a
little prettier—— Prettiness, however, as he knew, is not the only thing that
matters in things of this kind.
‘You little brick!’ cried Jim, as they hurried along. ‘I owe you one for
that. What put it into your little head to come and get me off to-day? for I
was at the end of my patience, and could not think of any excuse to get
away.’
‘What should you have done, Jim, if I had not come? read your Greek?’
‘Not if I know it,’ said Jim. ‘I should just have cut and run, excuse or no
excuse. A fellow can’t be shut up all the afternoon, and the sun shining. It’s
cruelty to animals. The old Pater has forgotten that he was ever young.’
‘But you will keep your promise, Jim, and go back and learn up your
Greek?’
 ‘Oh, we’ll see about that. Let’s get our pull first. Oh, there’s Flo! I
thought you and I were going alone.’
‘It was Florry who wanted you to come,’ said Mab, with the frankness of
extreme youth, ‘not me. I like to do the pulling myself.’
‘You shall if you like,’ he said. ‘I’m not fond of trouble. And it’s not
much fun you know, after all, to go out with your sister and your cousin. It’s
too much bread and butter. If I’d known that Flo was in it I shouldn’t have
come.’
‘You can go back if you please—to your Greek.’
‘Oh, catch me,’ said the young man.
‘But you will when we come back, Jim?’
‘Perhaps I shall; not if you bully me. So I warn you. I should do my
work all right and make up lost time if I wasn’t bullied for ever and ever.
Every one is at me. You heard what papa said. He ought to know how a man
feels and shut up. But it’s being so much among women, I suppose, makes a
clergyman like that. If he wasn’t a clergyman he wouldn’t nag, he’d leave
that to the women, and then I should feel that there was some one who
understood. But how do you suppose a fellow is to do anything when from
morning to night he hears nothing but “Are you going to your work, Jim?
When do you begin your work? How are you getting on with your work?”
and so forth. If I don’t pass it will be the family’s fault, it will not be mine.
Mab, do you row stroke or bow?’
Mab jumped into the boat and took her place, without otherwise
answering his question; but when they had floated out amid the reflections
of the still river, she found that little tongue, which was not always under
proper control.
‘I like pulling,’ she said, ‘very much. I’d rather a great deal have an oar
myself than sit still and let other people row me; and I like to bring mother
out or—Aunt Jane.’ She was about to say even Aunt Jane, but happily
remembered that Aunt Jane was the mother of both her companions. ‘But,’
said Mab, with a long, slow stroke, to which Florence, very anxious to hear
what was passing, kept time very badly, ‘one thing I do hate is to pull an
idle man.’
‘By Jove!’ burst from the lips of Jim. He had been listening very calmly
up to the last two or three words, amused to hear little Mab’s statement of
what she liked and didn’t like, but quite sure that she could say nothing that
was derogatory to himself. ‘I say, you little cat, why did you ask me to
come out if you meant next moment to give me a scratch like this?’
‘I told you it was Florry who wanted you and not me.’
‘You might be civil at least,’ said Jim, who had actually reddened under
this assault. ‘What did you come and butter up my father for, to let me go?’
‘That was different,’ said Mab. ‘When it is against the old people, of
course you are my own side; and then it was fun carrying you off as if you
were something one had captured; and you looked so silly with uncle
holding forth.’ She broke into a laugh, while Jim grew redder and redder.
‘But one thing I will never hold with,’ said Mab, ‘is that girls, who are not
nearly so strong, should take and row a big heavy man.’
‘Not so heavy,’ cried Florence, pushing her head forward, neglecting her
stroke entirely, and putting the boat out of trim. ‘Oh, Mab, why should you
reproach him too? He’s no heavier than I am.’
‘Shut up, Flo,’ cried Jim indignantly, ‘I’m close upon eleven stone, and
that’s the least a man should be of my size.’
‘Well,’ said Mab (‘I’ll pull you round, Florry, if you don’t mind)—that is
what I say; girls may do for themselves as much as they please, but to drag
about a great heavy man, whether it is pulling in a boat or driving in a dog-
cart, or whatever it is, is what I don’t like. It is not what ought to be.’
‘You are so old-fashioned, Mab,’ said Florence anxiously from behind.
‘You and Aunt Emily, you have the old antiquated ways of thinking about
women, that men should take care of them, and work for them, and all that,
when perhaps it is the women that are most able to work, and take care of
others too.’
‘I have no antiquated ways,’ said Mab. ‘I have no ways at all. I don’t
think about women any more than about—other people. Mother and I have
not got many men to take care of us, have we? But I say, it isn’t our place to
pull a heavy man. He should do that for us. I prefer to pull myself. Do, do,
Florry, keep time! And I don’t want your help, Jim. I am not talking of to-
day; I am talking of things in general. It isn’t nice; it doesn’t look well; it’s
not the right thing. I don’t want to have any man working for me; I’d much
rather do it for myself. But he is the biggest and the strongest, and we
oughtn’t to be doing things for him. That’s my opinion, without any
reference to to-day.’
 ‘You are not very civil,’ said Jim. ‘Why didn’t you leave me at my
Greek, Miss Mab? I might have done a lot, and been free after dinner. Now,
instead of father’s jawing, which I’m used to, I have yours, which I’m not
used to, and a slave in the evening as well. Hold hard a moment, till I shake
off my coat and my boots, and I’ll swim ashore.’
‘Oh, Jim! it will be your death,’ said the frightened Florence, starting
from her seat, and once more putting the boat dreadfully out of trim.
‘Be quiet, sit down!’ cried Mab, ‘or we shall have an accident. Do you
hear? Jim is not going to do anything so silly. I was not speaking of him; I
was only making a general remark. You can sit there and welcome so long
as you steer against me, Jim: for I am pulling the boat round, can’t you see,
and Florry is not the least good.’
‘Girls never are,’ said Jim; ‘the least little thing puts them out.’
‘You see, Florry:’ said Mab, ‘it was on his account you were exciting
yourself and behaving like one of the cockneys on Bank Holiday, and he
doesn’t mind. Let him alone. How far can we go to get back in daylight,
Jim?’
Florence once more put in her word. ‘We can go as far as the island,’ she
said.
‘Coming back to-morrow morning?’ said Jim. ‘How should she know?
Going up you can go as far as the lock, and going down you can go as far as
the lock, but not a step more.’
‘That’s like an oracle,’ said Mab.
‘Well, so I am. If I don’t know anything else, I know the river. I know it
every step up to Oxford and down to London. I’m as good as the Thames
Conservancy man. They’d better put me on if they want to look after all the
backwaters and keep the riparians in order. That’s what I could do. I may
not be a dab at Sophocles, but there isn’t a man knows the river better. You
ask any man that knows me, either at Oxford or here.’
‘Then why does not Uncle James try to get you an appointment on the
river? It would be better than going out to the colonies.’
‘Oh, they don’t think so here. In the colonies nobody knows you. You
may go about in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and a revolver in your
belt; but if you stay at home they want some work for you that you can do
in a black coat and top hat.’
 ‘Couldn’t you take care of the riparians and the backwaters in a top hat,
if you liked?’
‘Oh, they like a naval man,’ said Jim; ‘their uniform gives them a little
dignity, don’t you know, whereas I’m nobody.’
‘But it is the same in everything. You can’t be somebody all at once. You
must begin low down,’ said Mab, bending her little person over her oar with
that slow, steady stroke which confused Florence. Florry was choppy and
irregular—one time slow, the next fast; never able to hit the time which
Mab gave her with such steady composure. ‘The way to do,’ said Mab, ‘is
to put everything else out of your head, as long as you are able to, and think
of nothing but that. You should never mind what you like, or what you
want, but just set your thoughts on what you are doing. Look at Florry; she
wants to hear what we’re saying, and she wants to defend you, Jim, that I
mayn’t say anything unpleasant; and the consequence is that if you were not
steering against me with all your might, I should pull the boat round and
round.’
‘Florry is only a girl, and a bad specimen,’ said Jim. ‘You should have let
me pull, and then you’d have seen something like pulling.’
‘I am only a girl myself,’ said Mab.
‘But, then, you’re a good specimen,’ said the young man, with a laugh.
‘You keep your eyes in the boat.’
‘Which is what you don’t do, Jim!’
‘How do you know, you little thing, lecturing people older than yourself?
I may not with Sophocles—but I do with other things.’
‘Which other things?’ said Mab.
But Jim made no reply; and here Florry interposed again with strokes
shorter and more irregular than ever, to talk over her cousin’s shoulder, and
ask, though they were not half-way to the island, or even to the lock for that
matter, whether it would be better to turn back and go home. They lay for a
moment in midstream. Mab pausing on her steady oar to remonstrate,
making a picture in the water, the boat floating as a bird floats in mid air,
between the sky and the river, which reflected every line of cloud and
stretch of blue. Some cows at the water’s edge stood double, feeding, on the
very brink, and the trees still bare, but all downy with life, pushing out a
greenness here and there, seemed to stretch out of the water in reflection to
meet the others on the bank. Watcham lay glorified, one white house above
the rest lighting up all the river with its white shadow in the stream. The
boat lay like a thing enchanted with the three figures shining in afternoon
light, above and below.
 VII
Jim strolled down into the village when the boat came to shore. It was
before the hour at which he had concluded he would go home, which, as
was natural, was considerably later than the hour proposed by Mab. What
was the good, he said to himself, of going in before dinner, or at least before
the time which was necessary to get ready for dinner? In that hour, as
everybody knows, very little can be done. Mrs. Plowden and the girls would
be in the drawing-room talking about what had happened in the afternoon,
and the Rector would not have come in. So it was quite a certainty in Jim’s
mind that no Sophocles would come of it if he had returned home when
Florence did, as she begged him to do. He would not have worked; and,
indeed, it would be a kind of breaking of his word if he had done so then,
for had he not promised his father to work after dinner, which was quite a
different thing? And it was more amusing to prowl along through the village
on the outlook for anything that might happen, than to go in and listen to
the girls chattering, probably about the Swinfords. And Jim was sick of the
very name of the Swinfords. He had that distaste which a young man who
has fallen into objectionable ways so often acquires of party-givings and
society in what his mother called ‘his own rank of life.’ He flattered himself
that what he did dislike was the conventionalities and stiffness of society,
and that his own desire to see ‘life’ was a more original and natural sort of
thing. He liked to hear what the people said when they were at their ease in
inn parlours and tap-rooms. He liked, it is to be feared, what accompanied
these sayings. And the more familiar he became in such localities, the more
‘out of it’ he felt in the drawing-rooms, and among the staid and quiet folk
who represented society in Watcham. So that the Swinfords represented
nothing but a succession of fresh annoyances to Jim. If they gave parties, as
his mother and the girls hoped, he would be obliged to get himself up in
gorgeous attire and take a part in these entertainments. There was a time
when he, too, would have been excited by such a prospect; but that had
departed after his first experiences of the life of the somewhat disreputable
undergraduate, into which he had been so unfortunate as to fall. Now that
he could not lounge into any resort where he could meet his peers in that
class, Jim found his distaste for the home society grow upon him. He was
tired to death of the girls. The old ladies bored him, which was not so
wonderful. The correct old General and the clergymen about were old
fogeys, which indeed was true enough. Where was the poor boy to find any
one whom he could talk to with the freedom of those delightful but too brief
terms at the University where he had been taught what life meant? It had
been a shock to his own remaining scruples, and all the force of tradition,
when he first strayed into the public-house. Oh no; not the public-house, but
the little inn at Watcham, which was quite a pretty little house, all brilliant
with flowers, and where people from town came down to stay in the
summer; it was so nice, so quaint, so respectable, and so near the river. But
it is a very different thing coming to stay at an inn for the sake of being near
the river, and stealing in in the evening to the same place for society and
amusement. There was nothing disreputable going on in the parlour of the
‘Swinford Arms,’ or the ‘Blue Boar,’ as it was vulgarly called, in reference
to the Swinford crest, which presented that aspect to the common eye. The
people who went there were respectable enough—the tradesmen in the
village, good decent men who liked to see the papers and talk them over
with the accompaniment of a glass of something, and a pipe: and the
veterinary surgeon, who was a great deal about the country, and talked
familiarly of Sir Thomas Barnes, and the Mortlocks of Wellwood, the great
hunting people. It made a young man who felt acutely that he did not
belong to the class of the tradesmen, more satisfied with himself to talk
with a man who spoke of such people familiarly in a sort of hail-fellow well
met way, even though he was only the vet. But by degrees as Jim acquired
the habit of dropping in in the evenings to the ‘Blue Boar,’ he got to think
that the village shopkeepers were very good fellows, and their opinions well
worth hearing. So they were, indeed, as a matter of fact: solid, decent men,
whose measured glass of something probably did them no harm, and whose
wives were rather glad than otherwise that they had this little enlivenment
in the evening of a little respectable society in the parlour of the ‘Blue
Boar,’ which was itself as respectable as could be desired. But yet it was not
respectable, alas! for Jim.
When the Rector first discovered that this was where his son went when
he went out in the evenings to take a walk, as he said, Mr. Plowden’s
feelings would be difficult to describe. The misery, the shame, the acute and
intolerable sense of downfall were perhaps exaggerated. But who can say
what the descent is from the drawing-room of the Rectory to the parlour of
the village public-house? which is what it really was, no doubt, though it
was a most respectable little inn, and frequented in summer by the best of
company. The first interview between the father and the son was very
painful, but not without hope, for Jim himself was very well aware of all
that it meant, and did not stand against his father’s reproaches. ‘I know it is
not a place for the Rector’s son,’ he said, humbly enough. ‘It’s not a place
for anybody’s son,’ the Rector said. ‘Do you think even White and
Slaughter would like their sons to go there?’ This was an argument Jim was
not prepared for, and he acknowledged with humility that he did not think
they would. The Rector was very gentle with the boy that first time. He
pointed out that for Slaughter and White, and even the vet., it was a sort of
club where they went to meet their friends—and whether or not there might
be any objections morally to their glass of something, yet at all events it
was a very moderate indulgence, and went no further. ‘I don’t say it is quite
right even for them; but that’s a very different question,’ Mr. Plowden said,
and Jim acknowledged the self-evident truth. The Rector said nothing to his
wife for that first time, nor for several times afterwards; but he could not
conceal his anxiety when Jim disappeared in the evening, as, after a few
very quiet and dull nights at home, he again began to do. When Mrs.
Plowden heard she cried, almost with indignation, ‘But why didn’t you
speak to him, James?’ Speak to him! After two or three interviews poor Mr.
Plowden soon began to recognise how little use there was in that.
Jim, accordingly, when he left the girls to stroll down the village street,
did so against the remonstrances of Florry, who tried hard to persuade him
to come back and hear what mamma and Emmy had been doing at the Hall,
then offered herself to share his walk, with equal seriousness. ‘I like a stroll
by myself,’ Jim said.
‘It will very soon be dark, Jim; it is no fun walking in the dark.’
‘Not for you. But let me alone; if I like it, that’s enough, Flo.’
‘Oh, Jim, mamma is so pleased when you come in early,’ cried Florence,
pleading; ‘it does us all so much good. If you only saw the difference in
poor papa’s face when he knows you’re in the drawing-room.’
‘I shouldn’t be in the drawing-room in any case. I’ve got my Greek to
do.’
‘Still better if you are at your Greek. Oh, Jim, do for once come home
with me!’
 ‘I’ll come in in half an hour—will that satisfy you? I only want to shake
myself up a bit after sitting there with nothing to do.’
‘Well, mind you don’t forget: in half an hour,’ said Florence.
He went off waving his hand to her. Then thrusting his hands into his
pockets, with that idle lounging step of the man who is ready for any
mischief, but has none immediately in sight, he strolled away. Florence
stood looking after him, with anxiety in every line of her face, until she
remembered Mab looking on, whom it was necessary to keep from knowing
if possible: and then the poor girl laughed. ‘Isn’t he lazy?’ she said; ‘and it
does vex papa so. Papa thinks Jim should like Sophocles as much as he
does, which is nonsense, isn’t it? But Jim says that old people never can
understand young ones, and perhaps it’s true.’
‘Mother always understands me,’ said Mab, with a child’s unhesitating
confidence.
‘Oh,’ said Florence. Her secret thought was, ‘What is there in you, you
little thing, to understand?’ She said after a moment, ‘Boys are so different!’
with a sigh.
‘You should not nag at him so much,’ said Mab, with a reflection of her
mother’s sentiments, who as yet knew little of Jim’s case, and gave her
opinion privately in the bosom of her own home that the boy was being
driven out of his senses by never being left alone.
‘I don’t think we nag at him,’ said Florence meekly: and then the two
girls parted, Mab taking the way to the cottage, and Florry that which led to
the Rectory. ‘You don’t want to hear what they have got to say?’ Florry
said, with a faint smile, before the other left her.
‘I shall hear it from mother,’ said Mab, ‘and I don’t know that I care.’
So the cousins separated—with thoughts so different. And Jim strolled
away in the other direction with a thirst which was both physical and
mental, in his whole being. It was physical, alas! and that was perhaps in its
immediate development the worst: but it was also mental, a craving for
something he knew not what; something that would supply the atmosphere,
the novelty, he wanted, the something he had not got. He knew very well at
other moments that the inn parlour, and the village society, and the pipes
and the glass—in his own case so often repeated—would not give that.
Ordinarily, he thought Oxford would give it and the society of the young
men with whom he sometimes talked metaphysics, though usually it was
only horses and racing, and boats and bumps, and the qualities of the
different dogs of the circle, that they discussed; but still, it was not to be
denied that there was something in Jim’s being which thirsted, as well as
that fatal thirst in his body, which, alas! it was so much more easy to satisfy.
The drab-coloured house at home, with its habits fixed like iron; the
evening round the lamp; the mother’s prolonged talk about her neighbours,
and about people she once knew, and about getting on; his father’s scanty,
careless replies; the girls’ talk, which was very often about their dresses,
and how things were worn now—all these had become wearisome to the
young man: and he did not care at all for his Sophocles. He had found in
Oxford that opening out of the restricted household circle for which his
young being craved; but it had not been the best of openings, and now poor
Jim prowled down the village street, wanting that something which he
could not tell how to attain to, neither what it was. He did not want to go to
the ‘Blue Boar.’ He had never yet gone in daylight openly, but under cover
of night, when the parlour window looked so bright in the dull village
street. It wanted some courage to go now, in cold blood as it were, when
there was no reason for it, and he felt all that it meant, the son of the
Rectory going in, in the light of day, to the village public-house. He did not
want to do it, if he could only find somewhere else to go.
It happened in this way that Jim was very ready to be led in any quarter
where a little novelty or amusement was to be found. Not in any quarter; for
supposing he had at that moment met the good old General, whose
company could do him nothing but good, who had told him, perhaps, that
he had a young nephew, perhaps a pretty niece, to whom he wished to
introduce the Rector’s son, Jim would at once have found that he had to go
back to his Greek: he would not have gone to the General’s, nor to any
house, as his mother said, ‘in his own rank of life.’ And why this should be I
am quite unable to tell. Houses which were in his own rank of life did not
seem to him to have what he wanted; he would have felt sure in advance
that the General’s nephew would be a prig, or perhaps an insolent young
soldier, thinking nobody was anybody who was out of the service; and the
General’s niece, ugly and stupid. This he would have felt sure of, though he
could not have told why. Neither can I tell why, nor any of those to whom it
would be of the greatest advantage to make this all-important discovery. It
would be even more important than finding out how to resist a deadly
disease; and in the one case as in the other, there are many surprises and
many experiments. But nobody as yet has been able to find out the way.
It was while he was thus moving along on the other side of the street, not
desiring to go to the ‘Blue Boar,’ yet not knowing where else to go, and
having within him an imperious wish to go somewhere, that Jim suddenly
heard in the soft stillness of the evening air—for the wind had quite fallen
as night came on—a pleasant voice saying, ‘Good evening, Mr. Plowden’; a
voice which was quite new to him, and which he could not associate with
anybody in Watcham. He knew everybody in Watcham, great and small, so
that it was not easy to take him by surprise. He turned round, startled, and
saw a woman, a lady, standing in the half-light in the door of the house next
to the schools, which was appropriated to the village schoolmistress. He
knew there was a new schoolmistress, for he had heard it talked of, but he
had not seen her, so that this was about the only person in Watcham whose
voice he did not know. Jim stopped suddenly and made a clutch at his cap. I
hope he would on any occasion have taken off his hat to the schoolmistress,
but at all events this voice made it imperative, for it was a refined voice, the
voice of a lady, or else an exceedingly good make-believe.
‘Good evening,’ he replied vaguely. He could not very well make out her
face, but yet there was something in it which it appeared to him he had seen
before.
‘You do not remember me?’ she said.
‘You have newly come to the school, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I beg your
pardon. I don’t think I have seen you before.’
‘You have seen me before, but not here, and if I were quite sure you did
not remember me I should be very glad.’
‘That is rather a queer thing to say,’ said Jim.
‘Perhaps; but it is a true thing. I wanted to ask you, if you did remember
me, not to do so—at least, to say nothing about it.’
‘This is more mysterious still.’
‘Yes, I daresay it does sound mysterious; but it is important to me. I
don’t know whether to trust to you in this way, that if you remember me
after you will say nothing about it; or to be frank and recall myself to your
mind.’
‘You had better let me judge,’ said Jim.
 Here was the something he wanted, perhaps—an adventure, a mystery;
of all things in the world the least likely thing to find in Watcham village
street.
The woman—lady he called her—gave a glance round to see if any one
was looking, then suddenly stepping back, bade him come in. There was
nothing in the house of the schoolmistress that looked like mystery. He
knew it well enough. He had been there with his mother when he was a
child. He had come with errands from her to the late mistress. The narrow
passage and the tiny little sitting-room that opened off from it were as
familiar to him as the Rectory. He walked into the parlour, which, however,
startled him, as if it had been a new place which he had never seen before.
How well he remembered the black haircloth sofa, the square table with its
heavy woollen table-cover, which left so little room for coming or going. It
was newly furnished, draped with curtains much more fresh than anything
in the Rectory, a small sofa with pretty chintz, an easy-chair or two, the
small tables which were not so common in those days. Jim did not notice
those things in detail, but the general effect was such as to turn his head.
‘Hullo!’ he said, in his surprise.
‘You see the difference in the room? No; I wouldn’t have my
predecessor’s old things. I have done it almost all with my own hands. Isn’t
it nice?’
‘It is very different,’ said Jim. His home was dingy, but it was natural,
and he had an undefined sense that this was not natural. There was
something fictitious in the air of the little room with its poor, coarsely-
papered walls—a sort of copy of a boudoir out of a novel, or on the stage.
He was not very learned in such things, and yet it seemed to him to be part
of a décor rather than a room to live in. In Mrs. Peters’ time it was very
ugly, but as honest as the day.
‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘and let me give you a cup of tea; or perhaps—for I
think I know gentlemen’s tastes—there may be something else that you will
like better. Sit down, at least, and I will try if I can find something to your
taste; for I want to make a little bargain with you, Mr. Plowden, that may be
for my advantage and yours, too. Sit down for a moment, and wait for me
here.’
She vanished as she spoke, and left him much bewildered in the little
bedizened room. It occurred to him during the moment he was left there
that perhaps, on the whole, it would have been better had he gone after all
to the parlour in the ‘Blue Boar.’ But his entertainer reappeared in a minute
or two, bearing in her hands a tray, upon which stood a tall glass, foaming
as nothing ever foamed in the ‘Blue Boar.’ I don’t pretend to say what its
contents were. They were foaming, and highly scented, and they pleased
Jim Plowden, I am sorry to say, better than tea.
‘That is something like what we had at Nuneham that lovely day. Don’t
you recollect me now?’
‘Mrs. Brown!’ cried Jim. It was not a name which said very much to the
ordinary ear. It would, indeed, be difficult to say less. But the new
schoolmistress made him a curtsey such as had never been seen in Watcham
before.
‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘that you remember me; though I ought to have
been pleased and satisfied that you did not—for a woman, however she may
came down in the world, never likes to think that she has been forgotten. I
have recalled myself to your recollection, Mr. Plowden, in order to say that
I hope you won’t say anything to your father or any one of where we met
last. I was then, if you remember, chaperon, to some young ladies.’
‘Oh yes, indeed, I remember perfectly,’ cried Jim, ‘your nieces.’
‘Well, yes, my nieces if you like; and I was not at all like a village
schoolmistress, was I? Things happen so in this life; but it would do me no
good, Mr. Plowden, with the Rector or the other good people, to know that I
had been—well, helping you to squander your money at Oxford only last
year.’
‘You did not help me to squander my money, Mrs. Brown. I was only
one of the guests. I had no money to squander; but I fear what you mean is
that you have come down in the world. I am very sorry, I am as sorry as I
can be. It is very different, this, from anything you have been accustomed
to; but instead of saying nothing about it, which I can understand as a
matter of pride, don’t you think it would be better for me to tell my mother,
who though she has her own ways which you might perhaps not care for, is
very kind, and would, I am sure, try to make things as pleasant as she could
and as little hard, and ask you up to the Rectory and all that?’
Mrs. Brown turned her back upon Jim, and he feared that she wept. But I
don’t think she wept, though when she turned round again she had her
handkerchief to her eyes. She said, ‘I am sure your mother is goodness
itself, Mr. Plowden; but I am a proud woman, as you perceive. No, you
must not breathe a word to your mother. I have one friend who knows all
about me; and that is Mrs. Swinford, at the Hall; but except her and yourself
I want nobody to know. Will you promise me that nobody shall know from
you, Mr. Jim?’
How did she know his name, Jim? How did she remember him at all, a
little, young, ignorant freshman much honoured to make one of the brilliant
water party of which she and her nieces had been the soul? He was ready to
have promised anything, everything she asked.
 VIII
‘She was nice enough to us,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘but very hoighty-toighty
with your aunt. Did you observe that, Emmy? Poor Aunt Emily was very
kind. She said in such a pretty way, “That is Emily Plowden now,” and
really Emmy looked so very like her at that moment—with the charm of
youth, of course, added on—that nobody could help remarking it. Mr.
Swinford looked from one to the other, making a little comparison I could
see—and you may imagine in whose favour it was.’
‘It was in my sister’s favour, of course,’ said the Rector. There was
something in the way in which he emphasised the my, as if to mark the
difference between his daughter, who was her mother’s as well as his, and
his sister who was all his own, that might have been amusing to a bystander,
but to Mrs. Plowden was not amusing at all.
‘It is most curious,’ she said, ‘the way you always stand up for your own
family——’
‘Whom do you mean by my own family? Emmy is my own family, I
suppose?’
‘You know very well what I mean. I mean your side of the house in
opposition to mine. One would think that nobody born was ever equal to
your people—not even your own children.’
‘My own children are as God has made them,’ said the Rector. He added,
as if she had been somehow of a superior manufacture, ‘But my sister
Emily was the sweetest creature I ever saw when she was Emmy’s age.
Emmy is a good girl, and she is very nice-looking or she could not be
supposed to be like my sister. But as for comparing the one to the other, my
dear, it only shows how little you know.’
‘Upon my word!’ cried Mrs. Plowden, not without reason, ‘I hope my
Emmy may be compared to any one. Your sister had always a great deal too
much intellectual pride about her to please me. She was not content to be
nice-looking, which nobody ever denied, but she went in for being clever,
too. I know you don’t approve of women taking that sort of position, James.
Indeed, you have said as much a hundred times—and now to go on raving
about your sister, as if we haven’t all had sisters that were out of the
common in our day!’
‘My dear, I didn’t know there was anybody out of the common
connected with you. My impression is I never heard you brag of that before
—no more than poor Emily ever did about being more clever than the rest
of us. Poor girl, it hasn’t come to much in her case.’
‘I am not one to be always blowing a trumpet about my family,’ said
Mrs. Plowden angrily; ‘but if you think my brother Thurston is nobody
——’
‘Not in the least; he is a very nice fellow, and a Q.C.’
‘Or my sister Florence!’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘poor Florry’s godmother
—and the girl takes after her, I’m glad to say—and it’s to her credit,
whatever you may think.’
‘Oh, your sister Florence!’ said the Rector. This was a point that had
been argued between them often before, for, as a matter of fact, though
Emily Plowden was understood to have done very little good for herself by
her distinguished marriage, yet it was a distinguished marriage, and one of
which the Rector’s wife herself was more proud than any one. She quoted
Lady William in her own family in a way which made her brother who was
a Q.C. and her sister who was Florence’s godmother very angry. ‘I wish you
would not be always dinning that eternal Lady William into our ears,’ was
what these good people said. But at home, in face of her husband, Mrs.
Plowden liked to show her independence, and that she and her brothers and
sisters were as remarkable as he and his brothers and sisters any day.
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘they were really more nice to Emmy, though
she is only my daughter, than they were to your sister Emily, James. I did
not think that Emily was received as her rank demands. They were more
civil to me, a simple clergyman’s wife, than they were to her. Now, though
one is always pleased, of course to be put in the first place, I don’t think it
was right. Oh! not Mr. Swinford, he was very attentive; but in such cases
the man does not count, and the old lady——’
‘Is she really an old lady, mamma?’ said Florry, who had not yet found
the opening for her anxious questions which she desired.
‘Well—her son is not quite young. He is not like Jim; he is a full-grown
young man of the world. As for Mrs. Swinford, she is so curled and frizzed
and powdered and everything done to her, that you can’t tell how old she is.
But it is always safe to say the old lady when there is a son quite old enough
to marry. Of course she will be the old lady as soon as he gets a wife.’
‘I am sure, mamma, it would not make you an old lady if Jim were to
marry,’ said Emmy, always exemplary in her sentiments.
‘Jim!’ Mrs. Plowden said, with a sort of shriek. And then she added:
‘Poor Jim’s not a landed proprietor like Mr. Swinford. He can never make
me a Dowager, poor boy! And what chance has he of ever marrying? none
that I know of, without any money, and not even a profession. Alas! there is
a great difference between Leo Swinford and Jim.’
‘Is Leo his name? What an odd name!’
‘But pretty, don’t you think—and so uncommon?’ said Emmy.
Emmy had a slightly dazzled look about the eyes, as one that has seen
visions. She had been into that fairy palace, and come into absolute contact
with Prince Charming. Florry knew that the details of the interview were
not likely to come out until they two came face to face in their room, with
no father or mother in the way.
‘By the way,’ said the Rector, as if it had not been the prominent thing in
his mind all the time, ‘did Jim come back with you from the river, Flo?’
‘He thought he would like a little stroll before he came back—for half an
hour. He promised me faithfully he would come back in half an hour.’
‘It is more than half an hour now,’ said the Rector, with his watch in his
hand; and then he sighed and went away.
‘Oh, children,’ said Mrs. Plowden, when his steps had died out in the
distance of the rambling house, ‘how often must I tell you not to be so
pointed with your half-hours? How can a young man tell, if he strolls out in
the evening, exactly to a moment when he’s to get back? He may meet a
friend, or some little accident may happen, and he is kept, without any
doing of his. And there is your father with his watch in his hand as if he had
never been a young man himself. I don’t want you, I am sure, to be
anything but truthful—but if you could throw a little veil over such things!
Now, however soon he may come, and however right he may be, your
father will never forget having looked at his watch. He will say you can
never trust in his word because of that half-hour.’
‘I only said what he told me, mamma,’ said Florence, half offended.
 ‘As if there was any use in saying what he told you!’ cried Mrs.
Plowden, ‘when you know that’s Jim’s weakness never to be sure when he
is coming in; and to say in half an hour is just as easy as in—— Jim! why,
here he is, as exact as clockwork. Run and tell your father, Florry: he can
put his watch in his pocket. Oh, I am so glad! It is always a little triumph
for us womenfolk who believe whatever you say, you troublesome Jim!’
‘Do you believe whatever I say, mother?’
‘Oh, more than I ought—more than I ought. And oh, Jim, if you only
knew the pleasure of it, the pride of it! To see you walking in at your time
as a gentleman should—and like a gentleman in every way!’
The words were, perhaps, capable of various interpretations; but the little
party in the Rectory drawing-room knew precisely what they meant; and
Jim knew very well that his mother, in the darkness of the room, where no
lights as yet were lighted, was crying quietly to herself over his virtue and
punctuality. It struck him with a sort of mingled shame and ridicule to think
that, perhaps, had she known where he had been, she would not have been
so much content. I may say that it was much more like an hour and a half
than half an hour since he had left the two girls at the landing-place; so that
he was not precisely a model of exactness after all.
When Jim came in all the other subjects in the world went out; and as he
had no interest in the Hall and its inhabitants there was no further gossip
about the Swinfords in the Rectory family that night, until, indeed, the
evening was over, and the girls found themselves face to face in the room
which they shared, which was a long and low one, under the eaves, with a
number of small windows, and space enough to make up for a slanting roof
on one side. It was indeed quite a large room, with two little beds, two little
white-draped toilet tables, two sets of drawers, everything double, as the
two were who had lived in it all their lives. All their little confidences had
been made to each other there, all that had happened had been discussed;
their whole life, which was not eventful, had passed in this dim chamber,
where the light came in through greenish lattices, and under the shadow of
the waving trees. They came upstairs, following each other very demurely,
each with her candle, but when they were safe in their shelter, and had shut
their door, each put down her candle on her own table, and they rushed
together, seizing each other’s hands. ‘Oh, Emmy, tell me!’ cried the one
who had been left at home.
 ‘There is nothing to tell, indeed,’ said Emmy, ‘except what you have
heard already.’
‘I have heard nothing about him,’ said her sister.
‘Oh, Flo, dear! all that nonsense was amusing enough as long as he was
only a dream. He has been a dream for so long; but now he’s a man, just
like another.’
‘Not like any other in the world, Em.’
‘That is, to you and me; but, thank heaven, nobody knows except us two,
and it is all over. He is like any other man, rather more nicely dressed,
rather more careful of his clothes.’
‘Oh, Emmy!’
‘That doesn’t sound like our hero, does it? I suppose it is because he is
half French: red stockings and patent-leather shoes, as Mab said.’
‘Well,’ said Florry, ‘if true hearts are more than coronets, they are
certainly more than patent-leather shoes.’
‘That is very true, but somehow it goes dreadfully against one’s ideal.
And, Flo, he is not—tall.’
Florence burst into a somewhat agitated laugh. ‘What does that matter?’
she said.
‘Oh, nothing at all. I know that little men are just as nice, sometimes
nicer, than big ones; but you know what we always thought: and he is not
the least like it—not one little bit.’
Emmy looked as if she were going to cry; for the fact was that Mr.
Swinford had been, by a piece of girlish romance not very uncommon
among such unsophisticated girls as those of the Rectory, the hero of an
entirely visionary castle in the air on the part of this young lady. Florence
was more wise; she had the ideas of her century, and was very strongly
convinced that for her sister to marry well was a thing most essential at the
present crisis of the family fortunes; but she had been very indulgent to
Emmy’s romance, possibly from the conviction that this was the only way
in which her sister could be moved to take such a step—and partly because
she had herself a sentimental side, and was deeply convinced that no true
marriage could be made without love.
‘Well,’ she said soothingly, ‘never mind; he may be everything that is
delightful in himself, even though he is short and not handsome.’
 ‘I never said he was not handsome,’ said Emmy, with some indignation,
‘nor yet short. How exaggerated you are! I said he was not tall. He is very
nice-looking. Not the way we used to think; not dark-haired and with deep
dark eyes as we used to imagine—and not fair either, which is perhaps
better: but yet very nice—in his own way.’
‘Brown!’ cried Florence, ‘sober, sensible, common brown—like most
people. After all, that must be the best and safest since Providence makes
the most of us of that hue.’
‘If you think he is common,’ said Emmy indignantly, ‘you are making
the greatest mistake. He is not heroic—in appearance: but unusual—to a
degree.’ Emmy’s powers of language were not great, but her feeling was
unmistakable. ‘I never saw any one at all like him,’ she said. ‘If he is not
like a man in a poem or on the stage, he is just as little like the ordinary man
you meet. Fancy, it was he who made the tea! His mother said he always
did it. The way she calls Leo at every moment is the most curious thing.
She has a sweet voice, but it is so imperious, as if she never thought it
possible that any one could resist her; and, though it is quite low, he hears
her before she has half called him, whatever he may be doing.’
‘All that is very interesting,’ said Florence, ‘but’—she seized her sister’s
hands and looked anxiously into her face—‘of course you can’t see how
things are to go the first time—but, Emmy, oh, tell me——!’
Emmy shook her head; she withdrew her hands; her eyes drooped before
her sister’s gaze. ‘How can you ask?’ she said, ‘how could anybody tell? He
was very nice, of course—as he would have been to the housemaid if we
had sent her, or to Mrs. Brown at the school.’
‘Mamma said he was exceedingly nice to you, and not so nice to Aunt
Emily.’
‘Ah, that was Mrs. Swinford she was thinking of. Mamma naturally
thinks of her. No, no, Flo, we must not deceive ourselves; it was all the
other way. If there is any one here whom Mr. Swinford thinks it worth his
while to talk to and make friends with, it will neither be you nor me.’
‘Me, no! I never thought of such a thing. But why not you, Emmy? and,
if not you, who else?’
Emmy clasped her hands together and shook her head. She had been
shaking it for at least a minute before she let the words ‘Aunt Emily’ drop
from her lips, with an accent of something like despair.
 ‘Aunt Emily!’ said Florence in the profoundest surprise: her tone
changed in a moment into one of disdain. ‘Aunt Emily! why, she is old
enough to be—she is almost as old as mamma. She has nothing to do with it
at all.’
‘Do you remember,’ said Emmy, with some solemnity, ‘that French
novel which we found in Uncle Thurston’s room?’
Florence nodded her head. It had been a fearful joy to find in their
uncle’s room anything so wildly wicked, so universally condemned, as a
yellow French novel. It had not been so delightful in the attempt to read it—
for the girls were far too innocent to understand the stimulating fare there
placed before them. But it was a terrible and alarming memory in their
lives.
‘Well, the heroine in that was a widow,’ cried Emmy. ‘She was the one
everybody thought of. And Mr. Swinford is quite French, and Aunt Emily
doesn’t look old, and she is really handsome. Don’t you know when people
want to be very complimentary to me they say I am like Aunt Emily?—only
when they want to be very complimentary.’
‘So you are; and the more he thinks of her the more he ought to turn to
you, who are so like her.’
‘Oh! do you think so? I, for my part, feel sure that he will like her best.
She will be able to talk to him. She has been in Paris, where he comes from.
She will be like the people he has been used to.’
‘Oh! not like the people in Uncle Thurston’s novel!’
‘I did not mean that; but she can talk, and she is what people call elegant,
and you’ll see he’ll think more of her than either of you or me.’
‘It is impossible,’ cried Florence, with the confidence of youth. ‘A
woman with a grown-up daughter!’
‘Wait,’ said Emmy oracularly, ‘and you will see.’
 IX
It was a day or two after these events before any new incident happened;
and, indeed, the appearance of Mr. Swinford in the village of Watcham was
not a very remarkable incident. For Watcham was not in the depths of the
country, where the sight of a new face was in itself extraordinary. People
from London were continually appearing in this little place. To be sure, it
was too early in March for the shoals of men in flannels who were to be
seen lounging about in summer; but still there were people who would
come down ‘to have a look at the river’ even in the winter season, when the
boats were laid up. And boating men, and indeed others, had a way of
appearing at the ‘Blue Boar’ on visits from Saturday till Monday, and were
very correct in their town costumes when they arrived, though afterwards
falling into many eccentricities of apparel. Mr. Swinford might have been
one of them, as he walked down on Saturday afternoon. He was not very
fond of walking, having had a French rather than an English education. It
had already been discovered that his usual way of going about was in an
exceedingly smart dog-cart, which he drove in a way rather unusual to the
aborigines, with a rein in each hand. I need not pause to point out that Leo
Swinford, an Englishman educated in France, was not at all an Anglomane,
but probably more French than most young Frenchmen whose desire would
have been to look English—at least in everything that had to do with riding
or driving. But on this occasion he walked, and might have been taken
simply for one of the Saturday to Monday men. But no; Watcham was too
clever for that. None of them were so point devise as the young master of
the Hall. Though it is always a little muddy on this riverside road, he still
had the chaussure, so much admired yet scorned by the young ladies who
had discussed it—the red silk stockings and glistening patent-leather shoes
which had filled Mab with wonder and disdain. He had a warm greatcoat
buttoned over a white silk cache-nez which was round his throat. The cut of
the coat, though excellent, was not like Bond Street—or is it Savile Row? I
am of opinion that it had been made there, but it had acquired from the
wearer a something, a little more shape than is common to a young
Englishman, a je ne sais quoi of foreign and stranger. His hat, I suppose,
was also an English hat, but somehow curled at the brim, as an
Englishman’s hat rarely does. The village got note of his arrival in some
extraordinary way before he was within its bounds. People peeped over the
little muslin blinds in the cottages; a woman or two bolder than the rest
came out to the door to have a good look at him. Even the men in the
bakers’ and butchers’ carts stopped and winked at each other; ‘awful
Frenchy,’ they thought he was.
After a while it became apparent that this exquisite figure was bound for
the Rectory; and some thrill running through the very path brought the news
before he did to the Plowdens, who came together as by some electric
current driving the different atoms towards each other. I have no doubt this
is an impossible metaphor, and that electric currents have nothing to do
with atoms; but the reader who knows better will, I hope, derive a little
gratification from his smile at my ignorance. Anyhow, the ladies of the
house flew as by an instinctive movement into the drawing-room. Mrs.
Plowden was the first to get there; and the girls found her shaking up the
sofa cushions, and drawing the chairs about—not to range them against the
wall and make everything tidy as her grandmother would have done, but to
give them that air of comfortable disorder which is the right thing
nowadays. Emmy followed her mother’s example with a little, flutter and
agitation, shaking up anew the sofa cushions which Mrs. Plowden had just
arranged to the best advantage, while Florence gathered up a leaf or two
which had fallen from the flower vases, and picked off a faded flower or
two from the pots of narcissus and jonquils which were in the room. It
might have been the Queen who was coming, though it was only a natty
young man. Then the Rector appeared, a little anxious, rubbing his hands.
‘What had I better do?’ he said; ‘shall I be here with you to receive him, or
wait in my study? He may be coming only to call on me.’
This view of the subject filled the ladies with consternation, though they
allowed there was a certain truth in it.
‘You had better be in the study, anyhow, James,’ Mrs. Plowden said; ‘and
if he asks for me, of course I will send for you; if he is shown in to you
instead, of course you will say, after you have had your conversation, “You
must come into the drawing-room, Mr. Swinford; my wife and daughters
will be rejoiced to see you;” or words to that effect.’
‘Oh, I don’t suppose I shall be at a loss for words,’ said the Rector, who
had no respect for his wife’s style. He gave a glance round the room; not
with any satisfaction, for he felt that it was rather dingy, and that a stranger
would not be likely to see what he felt, being so accustomed to it, to be the
real comfort of the room. It was looking its best, however. The sunshine
was bright in the windows, the jonquils and narcissus filling it with the
fragrance of spring—a little too much, perhaps; but then one window was
open, so that it was not overpowering. The green of the lawn showed
through that open window, just on a level with the carpet; but it was so
bright outside that there was no chilling suggestion in this. And the girls
looked animated, with more colour than usual, in their fervour of
anticipation. The Rector gave a little note of semi-satisfaction, semi-
dissatisfaction peculiar to men and fathers, and which is not in the least
expressed by the conventional Humph! but I don’t know what better
synonym to give than this time-honoured one; and then he turned away and
shut himself into his study to await there the advent of the great man. There
was no reason why he should be deeply moved by the coming of Leo
Swinford. It would be well that the Rectory and the Hall should maintain
amicable relations, but that was all. Mr. Plowden was not likely to be any
the better whatever happened, except perhaps through the parish charities.
There was no better living or dignity of any kind to which this young man’s
influence was likely to help him. Jim? Was there perhaps a possibility that
Leo, if he pleased, might do something for Jim? or at least bring him into
better society, make him turn to better things, even if he did nothing more?
There was surely that possibility. One young man can do more for another,
if he likes to try, than any one else could do—if Jim would but allow
himself to be influenced. And surely he would in this case. He would be
flattered if Mr. Swinford sought him, if he was invited and made welcome
at the Hall. These thoughts were not very clearly formed, as I set them
down, in Mr. Plowden’s head; but they flitted through his mind, as many an
anxious parent will know how. And this was what made his middle-aged
bosom stir as he sat and waited for Leo Swinford. Then a smile just crept
about his month as he remembered what his wife had been saying about,
perhaps, one of the girls. But the Rector shook his head. No, no, that was
not to be thought of. They were good girls—invaluable girls. But she might
as well think of a prince for them as of Leo Swinford, who was a sort of
prince in his way. No, not that; but perhaps Jim——
The question between the drawing-room and the study was now put to
rest, for Mr. Swinford, when he had walked up briskly to the door, admired
by the ladies from between the bars of the venetian blinds in the end
window, asked for Mrs. Plowden, and was triumphantly ushered into the
room by the parlourmaid, who secretly shared the excitement, wondering
within herself which of the young ladies? And he was received and shaken
hands with, and set in a comfortable chair; and a polite conversation began,
before Mrs. Plowden, looking as if the matter had just occurred to her, in
the midst of her inquiries for Mrs. Swinford, broke off, and said, ‘Florry,
my dear, your papa will be in the study; go and tell him that Mr. Swinford is
here.’
‘Can I go?’ said the young man; ‘it is a shame to disturb Miss Florry on
my account; tell me which door, and I will beard the Rector in his den.’
‘No, no! run, Flo; my husband will be so glad to see you here. I daresay
you remember him in old times, though we were not here when you were a
child. It was his father then who was Rector, and Lady William—I mean my
sister-in-law Emily—was the young lady at home, as it might be one of my
girls now.’
‘I recollect it all very well,’ said Leo, with a look and a smile which did
not betray his sense that the girls now were not by any means what the
Emily Plowden he remembered had been. He even paused, and said with a
tone which naturally came into his voice when he spoke to a young woman
—‘I see now how like your daughter is to the Miss Plowden who used to
play with me, and put up with me when I was a disagreeable little boy.’
‘I am sure you never were a disagreeable little boy,’ said Mrs. Plowden.
‘I have often heard Emily speak of you. She was very fond of you as a
child.’
‘I hope she will not give up that good habit now I am a man. I hope,
indeed, I am a little more bearable than I was then. I was a spoiled brat, I
am afraid. Now, I am more aware of my deficiencies. Ah, Rector, how do
you do? I am so glad to meet another old friend.’
‘How do you do, Leo?’ said the Rector. The girls admired and wondered,
to hear that their father did not hesitate to call this fine gentleman by his
Christian name. ‘It is a very long time since we met, and I don’t know that I
should have recognised you: a boy of twelve, and a man of——’
‘Thirty,’ said Leo, with a laugh, ‘don’t spare me—though it is a little
hard in presence of these young ladies. But it has not made any such change
in you, sir, and I should have known you anywhere.’
 ‘Twenty years is a long time. What do you say, Jane? Eighteen years:
well, there’s no great difference. And so you have come home at last, and I
hope now you are at home you mean to stay, and take up the duties of an
English country gentleman, my dear fellow—which is your real vocation,
you know, as your father’s son.’
‘And what are those duties, my dear Rector,’ said Leo, with a laugh;
‘perhaps my ideas are rather muddled by my French habits—to keep up a
pack of fox-hounds, and ride wildly across country: and provide a beef
roasted whole for Christmas?’
‘Well, you can never go wrong about the beef at Christmas—but I think
we’ll let you off the fox-hounds. If you’ll subscribe to the hunt, that will be
enough.’
‘That is a comfort,’ said the unaccustomed squire, ‘for I am not, I fear, a
Nimrod at all.’
To hear the familiar way in which their father talked, laying down the
law, but not in the least in his imperative way, filled the girls, and even Mrs.
Plowden, with an admiration for the Rector which was not invariable in his
own house. He was at once so bold and so genial, so entirely at his ease
with this gentleman, who was so much out of their way, and beyond their
usual range, that they were at once astonished and proud—proud of their
father, who spoke to Leo as if he were no better than any other young man
in the place, and astonished that he should be able to do so. But Mrs.
Plowden could not longer allow these two to have it all their own way.
‘It is so nice of Mrs. Swinford to give up her favourite place, and to
consent to come home, in order that you may live among your own people
—for it must be a sacrifice. We can’t say anything in favour of our English
climate, I fear. We all get on very well, but then we are used to it—but Mrs.
Swinford——’
‘Oh, your mother is with you, of course,’ the Rector said in no such
conciliatory tone.
‘Yes, my mother is with me. But, so far as that goes, Mrs. Plowden,
Paris, where we have chiefly lived, is no great improvement, that I know,
upon England. It’s very cold, and now and then it’s foggy too: but she likes
the society: you know it’s generally supposed to be more easy than in
England. Not knowing England, except as a child, I can’t tell; but if you can
manage to be more conventional here than people are in France, I shall be
surprised. Of course, I should not have come, unless my mother had seen
the necessity: for I am all she has, you know, now——’
‘Now,’ said the Rector, with pointed emphasis.
At which Leo Swinford showed a little uneasy feeling. ‘For a great many
years,’ he said. ‘You know my father died—shortly after we left here.’
‘I know,’ said the Rector, very gravely. Then he added, in a softened
tone, ‘It is a very long time ago.’
‘Yes,’ said the young man, more cheerfully, ‘so long, that almost my
only experience of life is, that of being always with my mother, her
companion in everything. We have been a sort of lovers,’ he said, with a
laugh; ‘everything in the world to each other.’
Oh, how the girls admired this man, who said that his mother was
everything in the world to him! It brought the tears to their eyes. An
Englishman, they thought, would not have said it, however much it might
have been the case: and Leo said it so pleasantly, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world; but papa, who had been so cheerful—papa kept a
very serious face.
‘I hope it will be found that Watcham is not injurious to Mrs. Swinford’s
health,’ he said, and then there was an uncomfortable pause.
‘I suppose,’ cried Mrs. Plowden, rushing in to break it, ‘that you do not
know any of your neighbours in the county, Mr. Swinford? They will be
eager, of course, to make your acquaintance. There is quite a nice society in
the county. We only see them now and then, of course, in this little village.’
‘Lady Wade was here on Tuesday, mamma, and the Lenthall people the
Saturday before, and Miss Twyford——’
‘Yes, that is true,’ said Mrs. Plowden, delighted that Emmy had been
sensible enough to remember so opportunely, and bring in all these
appropriate names. ‘They do not neglect us, though it is rather a long drive,
from Lenthall especially; but Mr. Swinford will have better opportunities of
seeing a great deal of them. When you have plenty of carriages and horses,
everything is so much easier.’
‘Bobby Wade came to see us in Paris,’ said Mr. Swinford, ‘a funny little
man: and I have met some of the Lenthalls. One drifts across most people
one time or another. The world is such a small world.’
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