CHAPTER IX.REINETTE AT HOME.
When Phil envied Mr. Beresford his opportunity for being alone with Reinette and listening to her conversation, he made a mistake, for during the first of the drive from the cemetery to Hetherton Place, she scarcely spoke to him, but sat with closed eyes and locked hands, leaning back in a corner of the carriage, as motionless as if she had been asleep. Once, however, when they were crossing the river, she looked out and asked:
“Isn’t this the Chicopee?” and on being told it was, she said to Pierre, in French:
“This is the river, Pierre, where papa used to gather the pond lilies when he was a boy. It empties into the Connecticut as the Seine does into the sea. You know you looked it out on the map for me.”
Pierre nodded, and Reinette, although she now kept her eyes open, did not speak again until they reached thelong hill which wound up to the house Then, as she saw to her left a lovely little sheet of water sparkling in the sunlight, she started up, exclaiming:
“That must be Lake Petit, where father used to keep his boat, the Waif.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Beresford, surprised at her knowledge of the neighborhood. “Your grandmother, Mrs. Hetherton, called it Lake Petit, I believe, but to most of the people here it is the Mill Pond.”
Reinette shrugged her shoulders, and asked:
“Isn’t it on papa’s land?”
“Yes, it belongs to the Hetherton estate,” was the reply, and she continued, in a decisive tone:
“Then it is never any more to be Mill Pond. It is Lake Petit forever.”
They were half way up the hill by this time, and as one after another views of the surrounding country greeted Reinette’s wondering gaze, her delight knew no bounds, and, forgetting for a moment the load of pain at her heart, she gave vent to her delight in true girlish fashion, uttering little screams of surprise and gladness, and occasionally seizing Pierre by the shoulder and shaking him to make him see what she was seeing, and appreciate it, too.
“It’s better than Switzerland, better than France—better than anything! I like America,” she cried, but Pierre shook his head, and gave a sigh for “La Belle France,” the best country in the world, where he wished he had staid, he said, adhering to his opinion in spite of all his mistress could say.
Mr. Beresford could not understand them, but he knew that some altercation was going on between them, and was astonished to see the different expressions which passed in an instant over Reinette’s face, and how beautiful she grew as the bright color came and went, and she sparkled, and flashed, and laughed, and frowned, and shook up the stupid Pierre all in the same breath.They were driving up to the house by this time, and the moment the carriage stopped she sprang to the ground and began to look about her, gesticulating rapidly, and talking now in French and now in English, now to Mr. Beresford and now to Pierre, who was almost as excited as she was. The chateau, as she called it, was so much larger than she supposed, and the grounds more pretentious, and “Oh, the flowers!” she cried, darting in among them like a little humming-bird, and filling her hands with the sweet summer pinks, which she pressed to her lips and kissed as if they had been living things and sharers of her joy.
“The flowers are the same everywhere, and I love them so much, and the world is so bright just like a picture, up here where it is so high; so near Heaven, and I am so happy,” she exclaimed, as she hopped about; then suddenly as a cloud passes over the sun on an April day, a shadow came over her face and great tears rolled down her cheeks as, turning to Mr. Beresford, she said, “What must you think of me to be so gay, and he dead over in the grave-yard? But it is one part of me; there are two natures in me you see, and I can’t help it, though all the time I’m missing him so much, and there’s a pain in my heart and a lump in my throat till it feels as if it would burst. And still I must love the brightness even though it’s all dark where he lies alone. Oh, father, if you, too were here!”
She was sobbing bitterly, and Pierre was crying too, even while he tried to comfort her. Suddenly at something he said her sobbing ceased, and dashing the tears from her eyes she smiled brightly at Mr. Beresford and said:
“Forgive me, do, for troubling you with an exhibition of my grief. I forgot myself. Father told me not to cry before people, and I will not again. Come, let us go into the chateau; it looks so cool and inviting with the doors and windows open and the muslin curtains blowing inand out, and the scent of clover and new hay everywhere. The world is very beautiful, and I mean to be happy.”
During this scene in the grounds Mrs. Jerry, the housekeeper, had been inspecting the little lady from behind the kitchen blinds, and now, as the party entered the wide hall, she came forward to meet her in her neat calico dress and clean linen collar, with her hair combed smoothly back from her frank, open brow. She knew she was there on trial, subject to Miss Reinette’s fancy, and as she liked the place, and was desirous of keeping it, she naturally felt some anxiety with regard to the impression she should make upon the girl. She was not long kept in suspense, for something in her face attracted Reinette at once, and without the least hauteur in her manner she went forward with outstretched hands, and said:
“Mrs. Jerry, I am so glad you are here, I know I shall like you, and you must like me in all my moods, for I am not always alike. There are two of me, one good and one bad—though I mean to shut the bad one out of doors in this my new home. And now, please, take these flowers and put them in water for me. I don’t wish any one to show me over the house.”
Turning now to Mr. Beresford she said,
“I’d rather find my way alone and guess which is my room and which was meant for him,”—here her lip began to quiver, but she kept up bravely and went on: “You will come and see me to-morrow, and I shall ask you so many things. Father said I was to trust you and go to you for everything. By and by, though, I shall take care of myself. And now, good-by till to-morrow afternoon.”
She gave him her hand, and he had no alternative but to go, although he would so gladly have lingered longer, so deeply interested was he already in this strange girl with the two natures, one proud, cold, scornful, and passionate; the other gentle, and soft, and sweet as the flowers she loved so dearly. He might have been moreinterested still had he seen her standing in the door with the great tears drooping from her long eyelashes as she watched him going down the hill and felt that now, indeed, she was alone in her desolation with her new life all before her.
“I like him because he was father’s friend, and because he seems a gentleman,” she thought; and then as she rememberedthose other peoplewho had claimed her for their own, and who were not like Mr. Beresford, she shuddered and felt her other self mastering her again.
Just then Mrs. Jerry appeared, asking if she could do anything for her, and if she would not like to go to her room.
“No, no—go away!” Reinette answered, almost angrily; “I want nothing but to be let alone. I can find my way. I must work it out myself.”
So Mrs. Jerry went back to the kitchen, and Pierre, who knew the first approaches of his mistress’ moods, sat down upon the grass quietly waiting the progress of events.
Reinette’s face was very white, and as was usual when she was trying to repress her feelings, her hands were locked together as she stood looking about her at the trees under which her father had played when a boy, and the honeysuckle which grew over the trellis-work and which must have blossomed for him, and more than all at his initials cut by himself on the door-post. Then with a little smothered cry she turned suddenly, and ran up stairs to the room which she had heard described so often, and which at a glance she knew was hers.