I gazed, and O with what a burstOf pride, this heart was striving!His tongue was out! that touched me first.My pup! and art thou thriving?
I sniffed one sniff, I wept one weep(But checked myself, however),And then I spake, my words went deep,Those words were, "Well, I never."
Tyrants avaunt! henceforth to meWhose Harrow'd heart beats faster,The coach shall as the coachman be,And Butler count as master.
That maiden's nose, that puppy's eyes,Which I this happy day saw,They've touched the manliest chords that riseI' the breast of Gifford Crayshaw.
John Mortimer was pleased when he saw his girls laughing over this effusion, but anxiety still weighed heavily on his soul—he did not live on any hope of his own, rather on Emily's hope and on a kiss.
He perceived how completely but for his father's companionship he had all his life been alone. It would have been out of all nature that such a man falling in love thus unaware should have loved moderately. All the fresh fancies of impassioned tenderness and doubt and fear, all the devotion and fealty that youth wastes often and almost forgets, woke up in his heart to full life at once, unworn and unsoiled. The strongest natures go down deepest among the hidden roots of feeling, and into the silent wells of thought.
It had not seemed unnatural heretofore to stand alone, but now he longed for something to lean upon, for a look from Emily's eyes, a touch from her hand.
But she vouchsafed him nothing. She was not so unconscious of the kiss she had bestowed as he had believed she would be; perhaps this was because he had mistaken its meaning and motive. It stood in his eyes as the expression of forgiveness and pity,—he never knew that it was full of regretful renunciation, and the hopelessness of a heart misunderstood.
But now the duties of life began to press upon him, old grey-headed clerks came about the place with messages, young ones brought letters to be signed. It was a relief to be able to turn, if only for a moment, to these matters, for the strain was great: little Nancy sometimes better, sometimes worse, was still spoken of as in a precarious state.
Every one in the house was delighted, when one morning he found it absolutely necessary to go into the town. Valentine drove him in, and all his children rejoiced, it seemed like an acknowledgment that they were really better.
Johnnie ate a large breakfast and called to Swan soon after to bring him up the first ripe bunch of grapes—he had himself propped up to eat them and to look out of the window at the garden.
"What a jolly bunch!" he exclaimed when Swan appeared with it.
"Ay, sir, I only wish Fergus could see it! The Marchioness sent yesterday to inquire,—sent the little young ladies. I haven't seen such a turn-out in our lane since last election time. Mr. Smithers said they were a sight to be seen, dressed up so handsome. 'Now then,' says he, 'you see the great need and use of our noble aristocracy. Markis is a credit to it, laying out as he does in the town he is connected with. Yes, they were a sight,' Mr. Smithers was the 'pink' Wigfield draper. 'Ay, ay,' says I, 'who should go fine if not the peahen's daughters?'"
"Everybody seems to have sent to inquire," said Johnnie ungraciously. "I hate to hear their wheels. I always think it is the doctor's carriage."
"Old Lady Fairbairn came too," proceeded Swan, "and Miss Justina. The old lady has only that one daughter left single, as I hear; she has got all the others married."
Johnnie made a grimace, and pleased himself with remembering howValentine, in telling him of that call, had irreverently said, "OldMother Fairbairn ought to be called the Judicious Hooker."
Johnnie was sincerely sorry these acquaintances had returned; so was Emily. Had she not given John a positive denial to his suit? Who could be surprised now if he turned to her rival?
It was afternoon when John Mortimer came in. The house was very quiet, and a little flag hung out of Nancy's window, showing that the child was asleep. He therefore approached quietly, entered the library, and feeling very tired and disquieted, sat down among his books. He took one down, and did not know how long he might have been trying to occupy himself with it, when he heard the rustle of a silk dress, and Dorothea stood in the open window. She looked just a little hurried and shy. "Oh, Mr. Mortimer," she began, "Emily sent her love to you, and——"
"Emily sent her love to me?" he exclaimed almost involuntarily, "sent her love? are you sure?"
Dorothea, thus checked in her message, drew back and blushed—had she made herself very ridiculous? would Emily be displeased? His eyes seemed to entreat her for an answer. She faltered, not without exceeding surprise, at the state of things thus betrayed, and at his indifference to her observation. "I suppose she did. I thought all this family sent love to one another." Thus while she hesitated, and he seemed still to wait for her further recollection, she noticed the strange elation of hope and joy that illumined his face.
"I don't think I could have invented it," she said.
"Ah, well," he answered, "I see you cannot be sure; but let me hear it again, since it possibly might have been said. 'Emily sent her love,' you began——"
"And she is sitting with Nancy, but she wanted you to know as soon as you came in that the doctors have paid another visit together, and they both agreed that Nancy might now be considered quite out of danger."
"Oh, I thank God!" he exclaimed.
Emily had sent her love to him to tell him this. He felt that she might have done, it was not impossible, it reminded him of her kiss. He had been weighed down so heavily, with a burden that he was never unconscious of for a moment, a load of agonized pity for his little darling's pain, and of endless self-reproach; that the first thing he was aware of when it was suddenly lifted off and flung away was, that his thoughts were all abroad. It was much too soon yet to be glad. He was like a ship floated off the rock it had struck on, a rock like to have been its ruin, but yet which had kept it steady. It was drifting now, and not answering to the helm.
He could not speak or stir, he hardly seemed to breathe.
A slight sound, the rustling of Dorothea's gown as she quietly withdrew, recalled him a little to himself, he locked himself in and went back to his place.
He was not in the least able to think, yet tears were raining down on his hands before he knew that they were his tears, and that, as they fell, his heart long daunted and crushed with pain, beat more freely, and tasted once more the rapture of peace and thankfulness. Presently he was on his knees. Saved this once, the almost despairing soul which had faintly spoken to God, "I do not rebel," was passionate now in the fervour of thankful devotion. The rapture of this respite, this return to common blessings, was almost too ecstatic to be borne.
It was nearly dusk before he could show himself to his children; when he stole upstairs to look at his little Nancy she was again asleep. "Mrs. Walker had gone back to her own house for the night," the nurse said, "but she had promised to come back after breakfast."
That night Emily slept exquisitely. The luxury of a long peaceful interval, free from anxiety and responsibility, was delightful to her. She came down very late, and after her breakfast sauntered into the drawing-room, looking fresh as a white blush rose, lovely and content; next to the joy of possession stands, to such as she was, the good of doing good, and being necessary to the objects of their love.
A little tired still, she was sitting idly on a sofa, more wistfully sweet and gravely glad than usual, when suddenly John Mortimer appeared, walking quickly through her garden.
"He was sure to come and thank me," she said simply, and half aloud. "I knew he would sooner or later," and she said and thought no more.
But as he advanced, and she saw his face, she remembered her kiss, hoped that he did not, and blushing beautifully, rose and came a step or two forward to meet him. "None but good news, I hope," she said.
"No, they are all better, thank God; and my little Nancy also. Emily, how can I ever thank you? My obligation is too deep for words."
"Who could help wishing to be of use under such circumstances? Am I not enough thanked by seeing you all better?"
"I hardly know how I could have presumed to intrude here and disturb you and—and trouble you with such things as I can say—when you are come home for an interval of rest and quiet. Emily, if I had lost her, poor little girl, I never could have lifted up my head again. It was hard on that blameless little life, to be placed in such peril; but I suffered more than she did. Did you sometimes think so? Did you sometimes feel for me when you were watching her day and night, night and day?"
"Yes, John, I did."
"I hoped so."
"But now that the greatest part of the sorrow is over, fold it up and put it away, lay it at the feet of the Saviour; it is his, for He has felt it too." When she saw his hands, that they had become white and thin, and that he was hollow-eyed, she felt a sharp pang of pity. "It is time now for you to think of yourself," she said.
"No," he answered, with a gesture of distaste. "The less of that the better. I am utterly and for ever out of my own good graces. I will not forgive myself, and I cannot forget—have I only one mistake to deplore? I have covered myself with disgrace," he continued, with infinite self-scorn; "even you with your half divine pity cannot excuse me there."
"Cannot I?" she answered with a sweet wistfulness, that was almost tender.
He set his teeth as if in a passion against himself, a flash came from the blue eyes, and his Saxon complexion showed the blood through almost to the roots of the hair. "I have covered myself with disgrace—I am the most unmanly fool that ever breathed—I hate myself!" He started up and paced the room, as if he felt choked, whilst she looked on amazed for the moment, and not yet aware what this meant.
"John!" she exclaimed.
"I suppose you thought I had forgotten to despise myself," he went on in a tone rather less defiant. "When that night I asked you for a kiss—I had not, nothing of the kind—I thought my mind would go, or my breath would leave me before the morning. Surely that would have been so but for you. But if I have lived through this for good ends, one at least has been that I have learned my place in creation—and yours. I have seen more than once since that you have felt vexed with yourself for the form your compassion took then. I deserve that you should think I misunderstood, but I did not. I came to tell you so. It should have been above all things my care not to offend the good angel so necessary in my house during those hours of my misfortune. But I am destined never to be right—never. I let you divine all too easily the secret I should have kept—my love, my passion. It was my own fault, to betray it was to dismiss you. Well, I have done that also."
Emily drew a long breath, put her hand to her delicate throat, and turning away hastily moved into the window, and gazed out with wide-opened eyes; Her face suffused with a pale tint of carnation was too full of unbelieving joy to be shown to him yet. He had made a mistake, though not precisely the mistake he supposed. He was destined, so long as he lived, never to have it explained. It was a mistake which made all things right again, made the past recede, and appear a dream, and supplied a sweet reason for all the wifely duty, all the long fealty and impassioned love she was to bestow on him ever after.
It was strange, even to her, who was so well accustomed to the unreasoning, exaggerated rhapsody of a lover, to hear him; his rage against himself, his entire hopelessness; and as for her, she knew not how to stop him, or how to help him; she could but listen and wonder.
Nature helped him, however; for a waft of summer wind coming in at that moment, swung the rose-branches that clustered round the window, and flung some of their white petals on her head. Something else stirred, she felt a slight movement behind her, and a little startled, turned involuntarily to look, and to see her cap—the widow's delicate cap—wafted along the carpet by the air, and settling at John Mortimer's feet.
He lifted it up, and she stood mute while she saw him fold it together with a man's awkwardness, but with something of reverence too; then, as if he did not know what else to do with it, he laid it on the table before an opened miniature of Fred Walker.
After a moment's consideration she saw him close this miniature, folding its little doors together.
"That, because I want to ask a favour of you," he said.
"What is it?" she asked, and blushed beautifully.
"You gave me a kiss, let me also bestow one—one parting kiss—and I will go."
He was about to go then, he meant to consider himself dismissed. She could not speak, and he came up to her, she gave him her hand, and he stooped and kissed her.
Something in her eyes, or perhaps the blush on her face, encouraged him to take her for a moment into his arms. He was extremely pale, but when she lifted her face from his breast a strange gleam of hope and wonder flashed out of his eyes.
She had never looked so lovely in her life, her face suffused with a soft carnation, her lucid grey-blue eyes full of sweet entreaty. Nevertheless, she spoke in a tone of the quietest indifference—a sort of pensive wistfulness habitual with her.
"You can go if you please," she said, "but you had much better not."
"No!" he exclaimed.
"No," she repeated. "Because, John—because I love you."
Horatio.—"Look, my lord, it comes!" Hamlet the Dane.
Valentine was at Melcombe again. He had begun several improvements about the place which called for time, and would cost money. It was not without misgiving that he had consented to enter on the first of them.
There was still in his mind, as he believed, a reservation. He would give up the property if he ever saw fit cause.
Now, if he began to tie himself by engaging in expensive enterprises, or by undertaking responsibilities, it might be impossible to do this.
Therefore he held off for some little time.
He fell into his first enterprise almost unawares, he got out of his reluctant shrinking from it afterwards by a curious sophistry. "While this estate is virtually mine," he thought, "it is undoubtedly my duty to be a good steward of it. If, in the course of providence, I am shown that I am to give it up, no doubt I shall also be shown how to proceed about these minor matters."
He had learnt from his uncle the doctrine of a particular providence, but had not received with it his uncle's habit of earnest waiting on providence, and straightforward desire to follow wherever he believed it to lead.
Valentine came almost at once under the influence of the vicar, Mr. Craik, the man who had always seen something so more than commonly mysterious about the ways of God to men. Mr. Craik wanted Valentine to restore the old church, by which he meant to pull it almost to pieces, to raise the roof, to clear away the quaint old oaken galleries, to push out a long chancel, and to put in some painted windows, literally such, pictures of glass, things done at Munich.
When Valentine, always facile, had begun to consider this matter, a drawing of the building, as it was to look when restored, was made, in order to stir up his zeal, and make him long for a parish church that would do him and the vicar credit. He beheld it, and forthwith vowed, with uncivil directness, that he would rather build the vicar acrack churchto his mind, in the middle of the village, than help in having that dear old place mauled and tampered with.
Mr. Craik no sooner heard this than he began to talk about a site.
He was a good man, had learned to be meek, so that when he was after anything desirable he might be able to take a rebuff, and not mind it.
In the pleasant summer evenings he often came to see Valentine, and while the latter sauntered about with a cigar, he would carve faces on a stick with his knife, walking beside him. He had given up smoking, because he wanted the poor also to give it up, as an expensive luxury, and one that led to drinking. Valentine respected him, was sure the scent of a cigar was still very pleasant to his nostrils, and knew he could well have afforded to smoke himself. That was one reason why he let himself be persuaded in the matter of the site (people never are persuaded by any reason worth, mentioning). Another reason was, that Mr. Craik had become a teetotaller, "for you know, old fellow, that gives me such apullin persuading the drunkards;" a third reason was, that there was a bit of land in the middle of the village, just the thing for a site, and worth nothing, covered with stones and thistles. Mr. Craik said he should have such a much better congregation, he felt sure, if the church was not in such an extremely inconvenient out-of-the-way place; that aged saint, who was gone, had often regretted the inconvenience for the people.
Valentine at last gave him the site. Mr. Craik remarked on what a comfort it would have been to the aged saint if she could have known what a good churchman her heir would prove himself.
But Valentine was not at all what Mr. Craik meant by a good churchman. Such religious opinions and feelings as had influence over him, had come from the evangelical school. His old father and uncle had been very religious men, and of that type, almost as a matter of course. In their early day evangelical religion had been as the river of God—the one channel in which higher thought and fervent feeling ran.
Valentine had respected their religion, had seen that it was real, that it made them contented, happy, able to face death with something more than hope, able to acquiesce in the wonderful reservations of God with men, the more able on account of them to look on this life as the childhood of the next, and to wait for knowledge patiently. But yet, of all the forms taken by religious feeling, Valentine considered it the most inconvenient; of all the views of Christianity, the most difficult to satisfy.
He told the vicar he did not see why his grandmother was to be called a saint because she had gone through great misfortunes, and because it had pleased her to betrundledto church, on all Sundays and saints' days, besides attending to the other ordinances of the church and the sacraments.
When he was mildly admonished that a site seemed to presuppose a church, he assented, and with one great plunge, during which he distinctly felt, both that his position as landlord was not to be defended, and that this good use of the money might make things more secure, he gave a promise to build one—felt a twinge of compunction, and a glow of generosity, but blushed hotly when Mr. Craik observed that the old church, being put in decent repair, and chiefly used for marriages and for the burial service, it might, perhaps be a pleasing testimony, a filial act, to dedicate the new one to St. Elizabeth, "Simply in reverend recollection, you know, Melcombe, of that having been—been your grandmother's name."
"No, I shouldn't like it," said Valentine abruptly. Mr. Craik was not sure whether his evident shrinking was due to some low-church scruple as to any dedication at all, or whether the name of the sainted Elizabeth had startled him by reminding him of self-renunciation and a self-denial even to the death, of all that in this world we love and long for. This Elizabeth, his grandmother, might have been a saintly old woman in her conversation, her patience, her piety, for anything Valentine knew to the contrary, but he had hold now of all her accounts; he knew from them, and from investigations made among the tenants, that she had held a hard grip of her possessions, had sometimes driven shrewd bargains, and even up to her extreme old age had often shown herself rather more than a match for some of those about her. Things to be done by others she had seen to with vigilance, things to be done by herself she had shown a masterly power of leaving undone. Her property had considerably increased during her term of possession, though in ordinary charity a good deal had been given away. All was in order, and her heir whom she had never seen was reaping the fruits of her judgment and her savings; but whether she ought to be called a saint he rather doubted.
He had returned to Melcombe, not without shrewd suspicions that his cousin was soon to be his brother-in-law. A letter following closely on his steps had confirmed them. Some time in September he expected a summons to be present at the wedding; he wished after that to travel for several months, so he allowed Mr. Craik to persuade him that his good intentions ought not to be put off, and he made arrangements for the commencement of the new church at once.
It was to cost about three thousand pounds, a large sum; but the payment was to be spread over three or four years, and Valentine, at present, had few other claims. He had, for instance, no poor relations, at least he thought not; but he had scarcely given his word for the building of the church when he received a letter from Mrs. Peter Melcombe—"an ugly name," thought Valentine. "Mrs. Valentine Melcombe will sound much better. Oh, I suppose the young woman will be Mrs. Melcombe, though." Mrs. Peter Melcombe let Valentine know that she and Laura had returned to England, and would now gladly accept his invitation, given in the spring, to come and stay a few weeks with him whenever this should be the case.
"I have always considered Laura a sacred trust," continued the good lady. "My poor dear Peter, having left her to me—my means are by no means large—and I am just now feeling it my duty to consider a certain very kind and very flattering offer. I am not at all sure that a marriage with one whom I could esteem might not help me to bear better the sorrow of my loss in my dear child; but I have decided nothing. Laura has actually only five hundred pounds of her own, and that, I need not say, leaves her as dependent on me as if she was a daughter."
"Now look here," exclaimed Valentine, laying the letter down flat on the table, and holding it there with his hand—"now look here, this is serious. You are going to bring that simpleton Laura to me, and you would like to leave her here, would you? Preposterous! She cannot live with me! Besides, I am such a fool myself, that if I was shut up with her long, I should certainly marry her. Take a little time, Val, and consider.
"'Wilt them brave?Or wilt thou bribe?Or wilt thou cheat the kelpie?'
"Let me see. Laura is my own cousin, and the only Melcombe. Now, if Craik had any sense of gratitude—but he hasn't—it seems so natural, 'I built you a church, you marry my cousin. Do I hear you say you won't? You'd better think twice about that. I'd let you take a large slice of the turnip-field into your back garden. Turnips, I need hardly add, you'd havead lib.(very wholesome vegetables), and you'd have all that capital substantial furniture now lying useless in these attics, and an excellent family mangle out of the messuage or tenement called the laundry—the wedding breakfast for nothing. I think you give in, Craik?' Yes; we shake hands—he has tears in his eyes. 'Now, Laura, what have you got to say?' 'He has sandy hair.' 'Of course he has, the true Saxon colour. Go down on your knees, miss, and thank heaven fasting for a good man's love (Shakespeare).' 'And he has great red hands.' 'Surely they had better be red than green—celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.' Good gracious! here he is."
"Ah, Craik! is that you? How goes it?"
One of Mr. Craik's gifts was that he could sigh better than almost anybody; whenever he was going to speak of anything as darkly mysterious, his sigh was enough to convince any but the most hardened. Hefetcheda sigh then (that is the right expression)—he fetched it up from the very bottom of his heart, and then he began to unfold his grievances to Valentine, how some of his best school-girls had tittered at church, how some of his favourite boys had got drunk, how some of the farmers had not attended morning service for a month, and how two women, regular attendants, had, notwithstanding, quarrelled to that degree that they had come to blows, and one of them had given the other a black eye, and old Becky Maddison is ill, he concluded. "I've been reading to her to-day. I don't know what to think about administering the Holy Communion to her while she persists in that lie."
"Do you mean the ghost story?" asked Valentine.
"Yes."
"It may have been a lie when she first told it; but in her extreme old age she may have utterly forgotten its first invention. It may possibly not be now a conscious lie, or, on the other hand, it may be true that she did see something."
"Your grandmother always considered that it was a lie, and a very cruel lie."
"How so? She accused no one of anything."
"No, but she made people talk. She set about a rumour that the place was haunted, and for some years the family could hardly get a servant to live with them."
"Poor old soul!" thought Valentine. "I suppose it would be wrong to try and bribe her to deny it. I wish she would though."
"I think," said Mr. Craik, an air of relief coming over his face—"I think I shall tell her that I regard it in the light you indicated."
Soon after that he went away. It was evening, the distant hills, when Valentine sauntered forth, were of an intense solid blue, gloomy and pure, behind them lay wedges of cloud edged with gold, all appeared still, unchanging, and there was a warm balmy scent of clover and country crops brooding over the place.
Valentine sauntered on through the peaceful old churchyard, and over the brow of the little hill. What a delightful evening view! A long hollow, with two clear pools (called in those parts meres) in it, narrow, and running side by side, the evening star and crescent moon, little more than a gold line, reflected in one of them. The reed warbler was beginning to sing, and little landrails were creeping out of the green sedges, the lilies were closing and letting themselves down. There was something so delightful, so calm, that Valentine felt his heart elevated by it. The peace of nature seems a type of the rest of God. It reminds man of that deep awful leisure in which his Maker dwells, taking thought for, and having, as we express it, time, to bless and think upon his creatures.
Valentine watched the gold in the sky, and the primrose-tinted depths beyond. He was thankful for his delightful home; he felt a good impulse in him, urging that he must do his duty in this his day and generation; he seemed to respond to it, hoped the new church would be of use in the neighbourhood, and felt that, even if it cost him some sacrifice, Laura must be provided for; either he must settle on her something that she could live on, or he must promise her a marriage portion.
As for himself, he was a good young fellow, better than many, and when he went on to think of himself, he saw, in his vision of his own future, nothing worse than an almost impossibly pretty girl as his bride, one with whom he was to take a specially long and agreeable wedding tour; and some time after that he supposed himself to see two or three jolly little boys rolling about on the grass, the Melcombes of the future, and with them and their mother he saw himself respected and happy. Sauntering on still, he came past Becky Maddison's cottage, a pleasant abode, thatched, whitewashed, and covered with jasmine, but too close to the mere. "I will talk to that poor old soul again, and see if I can make anything of her. I am sure Craik is mistaken about her."
"She fails fast," said the daughter, when accosted by Valentine; and she took him up-stairs to see her mother. He first made himself welcome by giving her a handsome alms, and then inquired about her health.
The daughter had gone down of her own accord. "I'n bin very bad with mysparms" meaning spasms, she answered in a plaintive voice. Valentine saw a very great change in her, the last sunset's afterglow fell upon her face, it was sunk and hollow, yet she spoke in clear tones, full of complaint, but not feeble. "And I'n almost done wi' this world."
"Mr. Craik comes to see you, I know; he told me to-day that you were ill."
"Parson were always hard on I."
"Because he doesn't believe the ghost story."
"Ay, told me so this blessed marnin'; and who be he? wanted I to own 'twas a lie, and take the blessed sacrament, and make a good end. 'Sir,' says I, 'Mr. Martimer believed it, that's Mr. Melcombe now—and so 'e did, sir.'"
"No, I didn't," said Valentine.
"No?" she exclaimed, in a high piping tone.
"No, I say. I thought you had either invented it—made it up, I mean—or else dreamed it. I do not wish to be hard on you, but I want to remind you how you said you had almost done with this world."
"Why did 'e goo away, and never tell I what 'e thought?" she interrupted.
Valentine took no notice, but went on. "And the parson feels uneasy about you, and so do I. I wish you would try to forget what is written down in the book, and try to remember what you really saw; you must have been quite a young girl then. Well, tell me how you got up very early in the morning, almost before it was light, and tell what you saw, however much it was, or however little; and if you are not quite sure on the whole that you saw anything at all, tell that, and you will have a right to hope that you shall be forgiven."
"I'n can't put it in fine words."
"No, and there is no need."
"Would 'e believe it, if I told it as true as I could?"
"Yes, I would."
"I will, then, as I hope to be saved."
"I mean to stand your friend, whatever you say, and I know how hard it is to own a lie.'
"Ay, that it be, and God knows I'n told a many."
"Well, I ask you, then, as in the sight of God, is this one of them?"
"No, sir. It ain't."
"What! you did see a ghost?"
"Ay, I did."
Valentine concealed his disappointment as well as he could, and went on.
"You told me the orchard of pear-trees and cherry-trees was all in blossom, as white as snow. Now don't you think, as it was so very early, almost at dawn, that what you saw really might have been a young cherry-tree standing all in white, but that you, being frightened, took it for a ghost?"
"The sperit didn't walk in white," she answered; "I never said it was in white."
"Why, my good woman, you said it was in a shroud!"
"Ay, I told the gentleman when he took it down, the ghost were wrapped up in a cloak, a long cloak, and he said that were a shroud."
"But don't you know what a shroud is?" exclaimed Valentine, a good deal surprised. "What is the dress called hereabout, that a man is buried in?"
"His buryin' gown. 'Tis only a sperit, a ghost, that walks in a shroud. I'n told that oft enough, Ishouldknow." She spoke in a querulous tone, as one having reasonable cause for complaint.
"Well," said Valentine, after a pause, "if the shroud was not white, what colour was it?"
"Mid have been black for aught I know, 'twere afore sunrise; but it mid have been a dark blue, and I think 'twas. There were a grete wash up at the house that marnin', and I were coming to help. A sight of cherry-trees grow all about the door, and as I came round the corner there it stood with its hand on the latch, and its eyes very serious."
"What did it look like?"
"It looked like Mr. Cuthbert Martimer, and it stared at I, and then I saw it were Mr. Melcombe."
"Were you near it?"
"Ay, sir."
"Well, what next?"
"I dropped a curtsey."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Valentine, turning cold. "What, curtsey to a ghost, a spirit?"
"Ay, I did, and passed on, and that very instant I turned, and it were gone."
Valentine's voice faltered as he asked the next question. "You were not frightened?"
"No, sir, because I hadn't got in my head yet that 'twere a sperit. When I got in, I said, 'I'n seen him,' 'You fool,' says Mary Carfoil, that was cook then, 'your head,' says she, 'is for ever running on the men folks. He's a thousand mile off,' says she, 'in the Indies, and the family heerd on him a week agoo.' 'I did see him,' says I. 'Goo along about your business,' says she, 'and light the copper. It were Mr. Cuthbert 'e saw, got up by-times to shoot rooks. Lucky enough,' says she, 'that Mr. Melcombe be away.'"
"Why was it lucky?"
"Because they'd both set their eyes on the same face—they had. It's hard to cry shame on the dead, but they had. Andshe'sdead too. Neither on 'em meant any good to her. They had words about her. She'd have nought to say to Mr. Cuthbert then."
Valentine groaned.
"No, nor she wouldn't after I'n seen the ghost, nor till every soul said he was dead and drowned, and the letter come from London town."
"There must have been others beside you," said Valentine, sharply, "other people passing in and out of the laundry door. Why did no one see him but you—see it but you?"
"It were not the laundry door, sir, 'twere the door in the garden wall, close by the grete pear-tree, as it went in at; Madam shut up that door for ever so many years—'e can't mistake it."
"Ah!"
"That's the place, sir."
"And who was fool enough first to call it a ghost?" cried Valentine almost fiercely. "No, no, I mean," he continued faltering—"I don't know what I mean," and he dropped his face into his hands, and groaned. "I always thought it was the yard door."
"No, Sir."
"And so when he disappeared, and was no more seen, you thought you had seen his ghost?"
"Ay, sir, we all knowed it then, sure enough; Madam seemed to know't from the first. When they told her I'n seen Mr. Melcombe, she fell in a grete faint, and wrung her hands, and went in another faint, and cried out he were dead; but the sperit never walked any more, folks said it came for a token to I, 'her did ought to look for death by-times,' said they."
"That's all, is it?"
"Ay, sir, that be all."
"I believe you this time."
"'E may, sir, and God bless 'e."
"The flower out of reach is dedicate to God."
Tamil Proverb.
Some one passing Valentine as he walked home in the gloaming, started, and hurried on. "He came up so still-like," she said, afterwards, "that I e'en took him for a sperit, he being a Melcombe, and they having a way ofwalking."
She did not speak without book, for old Madam Melcombe was already said to haunt the churchyard. Not as a being in human guise, but as a white, widewinged bird, perfectly noiseless in its movements, skimming the grass much as owls do, but having a plaintive voice like that of a little child.
Late in the night again, when all the stars were out sparkling in a moonless sky, and the household should long have been asleep, the same fancy or fear recurred. Two housemaids woke suddenly, and felt as if there was a moaning somewhere outside. They had been sleeping in the heat with their window open, and they looked out and saw a dark shadow moving in the garden, moving away from the house, and seeming to make as if it wrung its hands. After this, still peering out into the starlight, they lost sight of it; but they fancied that they heard it sigh, and then it stood a dark column in their sight, and seemed to fall upon the bed of lilies, and there lie till they were afraid to look any longer, and they shut their window and crept again into their beds.
But the lilies? It might have been true that they saw somewhat, but if a spirit had haunted the dark garden that night, surely no trace of its sojourn would have remained on the bed of lilies; yet in the morning many, very many of their fragrant leaves were crushed and broken, as if in truth some houseless or despairing being had crouched there.
The housemaids told their tale next morning, and it was instantly whispered in the house that the ghost had come again. The maids shook with fear as they went about, even in broad daylight. The gardener alone was incredulous, and made game of the matter.
"Hang the ghost!" said he; but then he came from the eastern counties, and had no reverence for the old family "fetch." "Hang the ghost! why shouldn't that shadow have been the brown pony? Ain't he out at grass, and didn't I find the garden-door ajar this morning? He came in, I'll be bound." Then the gardener shouldered his spade, and finding a number of footmarks all over the place, specially about the bed of lilies, and certainly not those of a pony, he carefully obliterated them, and held his peace. Shaking his head when alone, and muttering, "They're a queer lot, these Melcombes—who'd have expected this now! If the dead ones don't walk, the live ones do. Restless, that's what it is. Restless, too much to eat. I should say, and too little to do. When the missis comes we shall have more sensible doings, and I wish the missis had never left us, that I do."
Mrs. Peter Melcombe, thus welcomed back again in the gardener's mind, was then driving up to the door of Melcombe House, and Valentine was stepping out to receive her.
It was natural that she should feel agitated, and Valentine accosted her so seriously as to increase her emotion. She had been able to recover her usually equable spirits after the loss of her child, it was only on particular occasions that she now gave way to tears. She was by no means of their number who love to make a parade of grief; on the contrary, emotion was painful to her, and she thankfully avoided it when she could.
She retired with Laura, and after a reasonable time recovered herself, taking care to go at once into the room where her darling had slept, and where he had played, that she might not again be overcome.
"I have dreaded this inexpressibly," she said, sobbing, to Laura, who was following her with real sympathy.
"Valentine was very odd," answered Laura; "you would, I am sure, have got over your return quite calmly, if he had been less solemn. Surely, Amelia dear, he is altered."
"He was oppressed, no doubt, at sight of me; he felt for me."
Laura said no more, but several times during that first day she made wondering observations. She looked in vain for the light-hearted companionable young fellow with whom she had become intimate in cousinly fashion, and whom she had fully hoped to consult about a certain affair of her own. She saw an air of oppressive bitterness and absence of mind that discouraged her greatly. "There is no mistaking his expression of countenance," she thought; "he must have been disappointed in love."
"Laura," exclaimed Mrs. Melcombe, when the two ladies, having left the dining-room, were alone together in the old grandmother's favourite parlour, now used as a drawing-room—"Laura, what can this mean? Is he dyspeptic? Is he hypochondriacal? I declare, if Mr. Craik had not been invited to meet us, I hardly see how we could have got through the dinner: he is very odd."
"And surely the conversation was odd too," said Laura. "How they did talk about old Becky Maddison and her death this afternoon! How fervently he expressed his gladness that Mr. Craik had seen her to-day, and had administered the sacrament to her! I suppose you observed Valentine's hesitation when you asked if he believed her story?"
"Yes; I felt for the moment as if I had no patience with him, and I asked because I wanted to bring him to reason. He can hardly wish to own before sensible people that he does believe it; and if he does not, he must know that she was an impostor, poor old creature." Then she repeated, "He is very odd," and Laura said—
"But we know but little of him. It may be his way to have fits of melancholy now and then. How handsome he is!"
Amelia admitted this; adding, "And he looks better without that perpetual smile. He had an illness, I think, two years ago; but he certainly appears to be perfectly well now. It cannot be his health that fails him."
There was the same surprise next morning. Valentine seemed to be making an effort to entertain them, but he frequently lapsed into silence and thought. No jokes, good or bad, were forthcoming. Mrs. Melcombe felt that if she had not received such a warm and pressing invitation to come to visit Melcombe, she must have now supposed herself to be unwelcome. She took out some work, and sat in the room where they had breakfasted, hoping to find an opportunity to converse with him on her own plans and prospects; while Laura, led by her affectionate feelings, put on her hat and sauntered down the garden—to the lily-bed of course, and there she stood some time, thinking of her dear old grandmother. She was not altogether pleased with its appearance, and she stooped to gather out a weed here and there.
Presently Valentine came down the garden. He was lost in thought, and when he saw Laura he started and seemed troubled. "What can you be about, Laura dear?" he said.
He had made up his mind that she had a pecuniary claim on him, and therefore he purposely addressed her with the affection of a relative. He felt that this would make it easier for her to admit this convenient claim.
"What am I about?" answered Laura. "Why, Valentine, I was just picking off some of these leaves, which appear to have been broken. The bed looks almost as if some—some creature had been lying on it."
"Does it?" said Valentine, and he sighed, and stood beside her while she continued her self-imposed task.
"These lilies, you know," she remarked, "have great attractions for us."
"Yes," said Valentine, and sighed again.
"How he shivers!" thought Laura. "You cannot think," she said, rising from her task and looking about her, "how it touches my feelings to come back to the old place."
"You like it then, Laura?"
"Like it! I love it, and everything belonging to it."
"Including me!" exclaimed Valentine, rallying for the moment and laughing.
Laura looked up and laughed too, but without answering. Before there was time for that, she had seen the light of his smile die out, and the gloom settle down again. A sort of amazement seemed to be growing under his eyelids; his thought, whatever it was, had gradually returned upon him, and he was struck by it with a new surprise.
"Valentine!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," he answered steadily and gravely, and then roused himself to add, "Come out from under the shadow of this wall. The garden is all gloomy here in the morning; it makes me shiver. I want to speak to you," he continued, when they had passed through the door in the wall, and were walking on the lawn before the house.
"And I to you," she replied. "It was kind of you to ask us to come here."
"I suppose Mrs. Melcombe has decided to marry again," he began.
"Yes, but she would like to tell you about that herself."
"All right. I consider, Laura dear, that you have much more claim upon me than upon her."
"Do you, Valentine, do you?"
As they walked down into the orchard, Laura shed a few agitated tears; then she sat down on a grassy bank, and while Valentine, leaning against the trunk of a pear-tree, looked down upon her, she said—
"Then I wish you would help me, Valentine. The devotion that I have inspired, if I could only meet it as it deserves—" And then she went on in a tone of apology, "And it is only help that I want, for I have five hundred pounds of my own, if I could but get at it."
"Where is the devotion?" exclaimed Valentine, suddenly rallying. "Let me only catch hold of that devotion, and I'll soon have it down on its knees, and old Craik's large red hands hovering over it and you, while he matches it as the Church directs to a devotion more than worthy of it, as I will the five hundred pounds with another."
"Ah, but you can't," said Laura, laughing also, "because he's inAmerica; and, besides, you don't know all."
"Oh, he's in America, is he?"
"Yes; at least I suppose he's on the high seas by this time, or he will be very shortly, for he's going up to New York."
"Upto New York! Where does he hang out then when he's at home?"
"At Santo Domingo."
"That at least shows his original mind. Not black, of course? Not descended from the woman who 'suddenly married a Quaker?'"
"Oh no, Valentine—an Englishman."
"An Englishman and live at Santo Domingo! Well, I should as soon have expected him to live in the planetary spaces. It would be much more roomy there, and convenient too, though to be sure a planet coming up might butt at him now and then."
"It is rather a large island," said Laura. "But, Valentine——"
"Well."
"He speaks Spanish very well. He is comfortably off."
"His speciality, no doubt, is the sugar-cane. Well, I shall consider him very mean if he doesn't let me have my sugar cheap, in return for my kindness."
"You are sure you are going to be kind then."
"Yes. if he is a good fellow."
"He is a good fellow, and I am not worthy of him, for I behaved shamefully to him. He has written me a very gentlemanly letter, and he said, with perfect straightforwardness, that he did at one time believe himself to have quite got over his attachment to me, but—but he had been a good deal alone, had found time to think, and, in short, it had come on again; and he hoped he was now able to offer me not only a very agreeable home, but a husband more worthy of me. That's a mistake, for I behaved ill to him, and he well, and always well, to me. In short, he begged me to come over to New York in September: he is obliged to be there on business himself at that time. He said, taking the chances, and in the hope of my coming, he would name the very line of steamers I ought to come by; and if I could but agree to it, he would meet me and marry me, and take me back with him."
"Somehow, Laura, I seem to gather that you do not consider him quite your equal."
"No, I suppose, as I am a Melcombe——"
"A Melcombe!" repeated Valentine with bitter scorn. "A Melcombe!" Laura felt the colour rush over her face with astonishment. She knew rather than saw that the little glimpse she had had of his own self was gone again; but before she could decide how to go on, he said, with impatience and irritation, "I beg your pardon; you were going to say——"
"That he is in a fairly good position now," she proceeded, quoting her lover's language; "and he has hopes that the head of the firm, who is a foreigner, will take him into partnership soon. Besides, as his future home is in America (and mine, if I marry him), what signifies his descent?"
"No," murmured Valentine with a sigh. "'The gardener Adam and his wife'(Tennyson)."
"And," proceeded Laura, "nothing can be more perfectly irreproachable than his people are—more excellent, honest, and respectable."
"Whew!" cried Valentine with a bitter laugh, "that is a great deal to say of any family. Well, Laura, if you're sure they won't mind demeaning themselves by an alliance with us——"
"Nonsense, Valentine; I wish you would not be so odd," interruptedLaura.
"I have nothing to say against it."
"Thank you, dear Valentine; and nobody else has a right to say anything, for you are the head of the family. It was very odd that you should have pitched upon that particular line to quote."
"Humph! And as I have something of my own, more than three thousand pounds in fact——"
"And Melcombe," exclaimed Laura.
"Ah, yes, I forgot. But I was going to say that you, being the only other Melcombe, you know, and you and I liking one another, I wish to act a brotherly part by you; and therefore, when you have bought yourself a handsome trousseau and a piano, and everything a lady ought to have, and your passage is paid for, I wish to make up whatever is left of your five hundred pounds to a thousand, that you may not go almost portionless to your husband."
"I am sure, dear Valentine, he does not expect anything of the sort," exclaimed Laura faintly, but with such a glow of pleasure in her face as cheated Valentine for the moment into gladness and cordiality.
"Depend upon it, he will be pleased notwithstanding to find you even a better bargain than he expected." Laura took Valentine's hand when he said this, and laid it against her cheek. "What's his name, Laura?"
"His name is Swan."
Thereupon the whole story came out, told from Laura's point of view, but with moderate fairness.
Valentine was surprised; but when he had seen the letters and discovered that the usually vacillating Laura had quite made up her mind to sail to New York, he determined that his help and sanction should enable her to do so in the most desirable and respectable fashion. Besides, how convenient for him, and how speedy a release from all responsibility about her! Of course he remembered this, and when Laura heard him call her lover "Don Josef," she thought it a delightful and romantic name.
But Mrs. Peter Melcombe was angry when Laura told her that Joseph had written again, and that Valentine knew all and meant to help her. She burst into tears. "Considering all I have suffered," she said, "in consequence of that young man's behaviour, I wonder you have not more feeling than to have anything to say to him. Humanly speaking, he is the cause of all my misfortunes; but for him, I might have been mistress of Melcombe still, and my poor darling, my only delight, might have been well and happy."
Laura made no reply, but she repeated the conversation afterwards to Valentine with hesitating compunction, and a humble hope that he would put a more favourable construction on her conduct than Amelia had done.
"Humanly speaking," repeated Valentine with bitterness, "I suppose, then, she wishes to insinuate that God ordained the child's death, and she had nothing to do with it?"
"She behaved with beautiful submission," urged Laura.
"I dare say! but the child had been given over to her absolute control, and she actually had a warning sent to her, so that she knew that it was running a risk to take him into heat, and hurry, and to unwholesome food. She chose to run the risk. She is a foolish, heartless woman. If she says anything to me, I shall tell her that I think so."
"I feel all the more bitter about it," he muttered to himself, "becauseI have done the same thing."
But Mrs. Melcombe said nothing, she contented herself with having made Laura uncomfortable by her tears, and as the days and weeks of her visit at Melcombe went on she naturally cared less about the matter, for she had her own approaching marriage to think of, and on the whole it was not unpleasant to her to be for ever set free from any duty toward her sister-in-law.
Valentine, though he often amazed Laura by his fits of melancholy, never forgot to be kind and considerate to her; he had long patience with her little affectations, and the elaborate excuses she made about all sorts of unimportant matters. She found herself, for the first time in her life, with a man of whom she could exact attendance, and whom she could keep generally occupied with her affairs. She took delighted advantage of this state of things, insomuch that before she was finally escorted to Liverpool and seen off, people in the neighbourhood, remarking on his being constantly with her, and observing his only too evident depression, thought he must have formed an attachment to her; it was universally reported that young Mr. Melcombe was breaking his heart for that silly Laura; and when, on his return, he seemed no longer to care for society, the thing was considered to be proved.
It was the last week in October when he reached Wigfield, to be present at his sister's wedding. All the woods were in brown and gold, and the still dry October summer was not yet over. John's children were all well again, and little Anastasia came to meet him in the garden, using a small crutch, of which she was extremely proud, "It was such a pretty one, and bound with pink leather!" Her face was still pinched and pale, but the nurse who followed her about gave a very good account of her, it was confidently expected that in two or three months she would walk as well as ever. "A thing to be greatly wished," said the nurse, "for Mr. Mortimer makes himself quite a slave to her, and Mrs. Walker spoils her."
Valentine found all his family either excited or fully occupied, and yet he was soon aware that a certain indefinable change in himself was only the more conspicuous for his fitful attempts to conceal it.
As to whether he was ill, whether unhappy, or whether displeased, they could not agree among themselves, only, as by one consent, they forbore to question him; but while he vainly tried to be his old self, they vainly tried to treat him in the old fashion.
He thought his brother seemed, with almost studied care, to avoid all reference to Melcombe. There was, indeed, little that they could talk about. One would not mention his estate, the other his wife, and as for his book, this having been a great failure, and an expensive one, was also a sore subject. Almost all they said when alone concerned the coming marriage, which pleased them both, and a yachting tour.
"I thought you had settled into a domestic character, St. George?" saidValentine.
"So did I, but Tom Graham, Dorothea's brother, is not going on well, he is tired of a sea life, and has left his uncle, as he says, for awhile. So as the old man longs for Dorothea, I have agreed to take her and the child, and go for a tour of a few months with him to the Mediterranean. It is no risk for the little chap, as his nurse, Mrs. Brand, feels more at home at sea than on shore."
On the morning of the wedding Valentine sauntered down from his sister's house to John Mortimer's garden. Emily had Dorothea with her, and Giles was to give her away. She was agitated, and she made him feel more so than usual; a wedding at which Brandon and Dorothea were to be present would at any time have made him feel in a somewhat ridiculous position, but just then he was roused by the thought of it from those ideas and speculations in the presence of which he ever dwelt, so that, on the whole, though it excited it refreshed him.
He was generally most at ease among the children; he saw some of them, and Swan holding forth to them in his most pragmatical style. Swan was dressed in his best suit, but he had a spade in his hand. Valentine joined them, and threw himself on a seat close by. He meant to take the first opportunity he could find for having a talk with Swan, but while he waited he lost himself again, and appeared to see what went on as if it was a shifting dream that meant nothing; his eyes were upon, the children, and his ears received expostulation and entreaty: at last his name roused him.
"And what Mr. Melcombe will think on you it's clean past my wits to find out. Dressed up so beautiful, all in your velvets and things, and buckles in your shoes, and going to see your pa married, and won't be satisfied unless I'll dig out this here nasty speckled beast of a snake."
"But you're so unfair," exclaimed Bertram. "We told you if you'd let us conjure it, there would be no snake."
"What's it all about?" said Valentine, rousing himself and remarking some little forked sticks held by the boys.
"Why, it's an adder down that hole," cried one.
"And it's a charm we've got for conjuring him," quoth the other. "And we only want Swanny to dig, and then if the charm is only a sham charm, the adder will come out."
"I should have thought he was a sight better wheer he is," said Swan. "But you've been so masterful and obstinate, Master Bertie, since you broke your arm!"
"It's not at all kind of you to disappoint us on father's wedding-day."
"Well, Mr. Melcombe shall judge. If he says, 'Charm it,' charm you shall; for he knows children's feelings as well as grown folks's. There never was anybody that was so like everybody else."
"It's conjuring, I tell you, cousin Val. Did you never see a conjuror pull out yards and yards of shavings from his mouth, and then roll them up till they were as small as a pea, and swallow them? This is conjuring too. We say, 'Underneath this hazelin mote;' that's the forked-stick, you know; and while we say it the adder is obliged to roll himself up tighter and tighter, just like those shavings, till he is quite gone."
"Ican't swallow that!" exclaimed Valentine. "Well, off then."
"But I won't have the stick poked down his hole!" cried Swan, while Hugh shouted down his defiance—
"'Underneath this hazelin moteThere's a braggerty worm with a speckled throat,Now!Nine double hath he.'
"That means he's got nine rings."
"Well, I shall allers say I'm surprised at such nonsense. What do you think he cares for it all?"
"Why, we told you it would make him twist himself up to nothing. Go on,Hughie. It's very useful to be able to get rid of snakes."
"'Now from nine double to eight double,And from eight double to seven double,And from seven double to six double.And from six double to five double,And from five double to four double,And from four double to three double.'
(He's getting very tight now!)
"'And from three double to two double,And from two double to one double,Now!No double hath he,'
"There, now he's gone, doubled up to nothing. Now dig, Swanny, and you'll see he's gone."
"It's only an old Cornish charm," said Valentine. "I often heard it whenI was a boy."
"I call it heathenish!" exclaimed Mr. Swan. "What do folks want with a charm when they've got a spade to chop the beast's head off with?"
"But as he's gone, Swan," observed Valentine, "of course you cannot dig him out; so you need not trouble yourself to dig at all."
"Oh, but that's not fair. We want, in case he's there, to see him."
"No, no," said Swan dogmatically; "I never heard of such a thing as having the same chance twice over. I said if you'd sit on that bench, all on you, I'd dig him out, if he was there. You wouldn't; you thought you'd a charm worth two of that work, and so you've said your charm."
"Well, we'll come and sit upon the bench tomorrow, then, and you'll dig him."
"That'll be as I please. I've no call to make any promises," said Swan, looking wise.
The only observer felt a deep conviction that the children would never see that snake, and slight and ridiculous as the incident was, Swan's last speech sunk deeply into Valentine's heart, and served to increase his dejection. "And yet," he repeated to himself, "I fully hope, when I've given up all, that I shall have my chance—the same chance over again. I hope, please God, to prove that very soon; for now Laura's gone, I'm bound to Melcombe no longer than it takes me to pack up my clothes and the few things I brought with me."
"Fairest fair, best of good.Too high for hope that stood;White star of womanhood shining apartO my liege lady,And O my one lady,And O my loved lady, come down to my heart.
"Reach me life's wine and gold,What is man's best all told,If thou thyself withhold, sweet, from thy throne?O my liege lady,And O my loved lady,And O my heart's lady, come, reign there alone."
Afterwards while Valentine stood in the church, though his eyes and his surface thoughts were occupied with the approaching ceremony, still in devouter and more hopeful fashion than he had found possible of late, he repeated, "Please God, when I have given up all, as my poor father would wish, I shall have my chance over again. I'll work, like my betters, and take not a stick or a clod away from that Melcombe."
The guests were arriving. John Mortimer had been standing at the altar-rails, his three sons with him. Several members of the family grouped themselves right and left of him. This was to be the quietest of weddings. And Miss Christie Grant thought what a pity that was; for a grander man than the bridegroom or handsomer little fellows than his two younger sons it would be hard to find. "He's just majestic," she whispered to Mrs. Henfrey. "Never did I see him look so handsome or so content, and there's hardly anybody to see him. Ay, here they come." Miss Christie seldom saw anything to admire in her own sex. Valentine looked down the aisle; his sister was coming, and John Mortimer's twin-daughters, her only bridesmaids, behind her.
The children behaved very well, though it was said afterwards that a transaction took place at that moment between Bertie and Hugh, in the course of which several large scarlet-runner beans were exchanged for some acorns; also that when John Mortimer moved down the aisle to meet his bride little Anastasia, seizing Mrs. Henfrey's gown to steady herself, thrust out her crutch toward Valentine, that he might have the privilege of again admiring it.
The peculiarity of this wedding, distinguishing it from others where love is, was the measureless contentment of the future step-children. "Nothing new in this family," observed Mrs. Henfrey. "When Emily's mother came here, all her children took to my father directly, and loved him as if he had been their own."
Emily had been married from her brother's house, Valentine's old home, and in the dining-room there was spread a wedding breakfast. The room looked nearly as it had done when Valentine should have appeared to be a bridegroom himself; but he did not know this so well as Dorothea did; yet he felt exceedingly sheepish, and was only consoled by observing that she also was a good deal out of countenance, and scarcely knew whether to blush or to smile when she spoke to him or met his eyes.
So the ceremony of the breakfast well over, and John Mortimer and his wife departed, Valentine was very glad to take leave of his family and walk across the fields with Johnnie. He did this partly to while away the time before his train started, partly to see Swan, who, with Mrs. Swan in gorgeous array, was found walking about the garden, her husband showing her the plants and flowers, and enlarging on their perfections.
"But how can I find time for it, even on this noble occasion, Mr. Melcombe, my wife's just been saying, is a wonder, for that long new conservatory all down the front of the house will take a sight of filling—filled it shall be, and with the best, for if ever there was a lady as deserved the best, it's Mrs. John Mortimer. I'm sorry now I burnt so many of my seedlings."
"Burnt them, Nicholas?"
"Why yes, sir," said Mrs. Swan, "when he used to be sitting up with Mr.Johnnie, he had plenty of time to think, and he did it."
Johnnie being not yet so strong as before his accident, now went into the house to rest, and Swan proceeded to explain matters.
"It seems, sir, that the new mistress said some time ago, that if there was a conservatory along the front of the house, the rooms could be entered from it, and need not be thoroughfares; so Mr. John Mortimer built one, for he prizes every word she ever said. Now he had allers allowed me to sell for my own benefit such of my seedlings as we couldn't use ourselves. And Fergus sent, when the children were ill, and made me a handsome bid for them. But there air things as can't be made fair and square anyhow. The farrier has no right to charge me so high for shoeing my horse that I'm forced to sell him my horse to pay his bill; but he has a right to say he won't shoe him at all. Well, I reckoned as a fair price wouldn't do for me, and an unfair price I was above asking, so I flung the seedlings on my pea-sticks, and made a bon-fire on 'em."
"You did! I think that was waste, Swan. I think it was wrong."
"No, sir, I think not; for, as I said, some things won't pay at any figure. Their soil's better than ours. He meant to bribe me, and so beat me, and bring me down through my own plants. But would it pay a man to insure his brig that was not seaworthy (though he was to get £50,000 if she went down) provided he had to sail in her himself? Better by half break her up in the harbour, and have a dry burial for his corpse when his time was come, and mourners to follow, decent and comfortable. Now it's reason that if I'd known of this here new conservatory, and the new lad I'm to have to help me, I'd have kept them."