Chapter Four.The Professor....I have heard a grave divine say that God has two dwellings—one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.—Izaak Walton.“Del, my love,” said Mrs Hunt, “I feel one of my worst headaches coming on. Will you go this afternoon to see Mrs Winn, instead of me?” Delia stood under the medlar tree on the lawn, ready to go out, with a bunch of roses in her hand, and her violin-case. She looked at her mother inquiringly, for Mrs Hunt had not just then any appearance of discomfort. She was sitting in an easy canvas chair, a broad-brimmed hat upon her head, and a newspaper in her hands; her slippered feet rested on a little wooden stool, and on a table by her side were a cup of tea, a nicely buttered roll, and a few very ripe strawberries.“Hadn’t you better wait,” said Delia, after a moment’s pause, “until you can go yourself? Mrs Winn would much rather see you. Besides—it is my music afternoon.”Mrs Hunt was looking up and down the columns of the paper while her daughter spoke: she did not answer at once, and when she did, it was scarcely an answer so much as a continuation of her own train of thoughts.“She has had a tickling cough for so many nights. She can hardly sleep for it, and I promised her a pot of my own black currant jelly.”“It’s a great deal out of my way,” said Delia.“If you go,” continued Mrs Hunt, without raising her eyes, “you will find the row of little pots on the top shelf of the storeroom cupboard.”Delia bit her lip.“If I go,” she said, “I must shorten my music-lesson.”Mrs Hunt said nothing, but looked as amiable as ever. A frown gathered on Delia’s forehead: she stood irresolute for a minute, and then, with a sudden effort, turned and went quickly into the house. Mrs Hunt stirred her tea, tasted a strawberry, and leant back in her chair with a gentle sigh of comfort. In a few minutes Delia reappeared hurriedly.“There isnoblack currant jelly in the storeroom,” she said, with an air of exasperation.Mrs Hunt looked up in mild surprise.“How strange!” she said. “Could I have moved those pots? Ah, now I remember! I had a dream that all the jam was mouldy, and so I moved it into that cupboard in the kitchen. That was why cook left. She didn’t like me to use that cupboard for the jam.”“And, meanwhile, where is it?” said Delia.“Such a wicked mother to give you so much trouble!” murmured Mrs Hunt, with a sweet smile. “But, Del, my love, you must try not to look so morose for trifles—it givessuchan ugly turn to the features. You’ll find the jelly in that nice corner cupboard in the kitchen. Here’s the key”—feeling in her pocket—“no; it is not here—where did I leave my keys? Oh, you’ll find them in the pocket of my black serge dress—and if they’re not there, they are sure to be in the pocket of my gardening apron. My kind love to Mrs Winn. Tell her to take it constantly in the night. And don’t hurry, love, it’ssowarm; you look heated already.”In spite of this last advice, it was almost at a run that Delia, having at last found the keys and the jam, set forth on her errand. Perhaps, if she were very quick, she need not lose much time with the Professor, after all, but she felt ruffled and rather cross at the delay. It was not an unusual frame of mind, for she was not naturally of a patient temper, and did not bear very well the little daily frets and jars of her life. She chafed inwardly as she went quickly on her way, that her music, which seemed to her the most important thing in the world, should be sacrificed to anything so uninteresting and dull as Mrs Winn’s black currant jam. It was all the more trying this afternoon, because, since Anna Forrest’s arrival, she had purposely kept away from the Professor, and had not seen him for a whole fortnight. A mixed feeling of jealousy and pride had made her determined that Anna should have every opportunity of making Mr Goodwin’s acquaintance without any interference from herself. It was only just and right that his grandchild should have the first place in his affections, the place which hitherto had been her own. Well, now she must take the second place, and if Anna made the Professor happier, it would not matter. At any rate, no one should know, however keenly she felt it.Mrs Winn, who was a widow, lived in an old-fashioned, red brick house facing the High Street; it had a respectable, dignified appearance, suggesting solid comfort, like the person of its owner. Mrs Winn, however, was a lady not anxious for her own well-being only, but most charitably disposed towards others who were not so prosperous as herself. She was the Vicar’s right hand in all the various methods for helping the poor of his parish: clothing clubs, Dorcas meetings, coal clubs, lending library, were all indebted to Mrs Winn for substantial aid, both in the form of money and personal help.She was looked up to as a power in Dornton, and her house was much frequented by all those interested in parish matters, so that she was seldom to be found alone. Perhaps, also, the fact that the delightful bow-window of her usual up-stairs sitting-room looked straight across to Appleby’s, the post-office and stationer, increased its attractions. “It makes it so lively,” Mrs Winn was wont to observe. “I seldom pass a day, even if I don’t go out, without seeing Mr Field, or Mr Hurst, or some of the country clergy, going in and out of Appleby’s. I never feel dull.”To-day, to her great relief, Delia found Mrs Winn quite alone. She was sitting at a table drawn up into the bow-window, busily engaged in covering books with whitey-brown paper. On her right was a pile of gaily bound volumes, blue, red, and purple, which were quickly reduced to a pale brown, unattractive appearance in her practised hands, and placed in a pile on her left. Delia thought Mrs Winn looked whitey-brown as well as the books, for there was no decided colour about her: her eyes were pale, as well as the narrow line of hair which showed beneath the border of her white cap; and her dresses were always of a doubtful shade, between brown and grey.She welcomed Delia kindly, but with the repressed air of severity which she always reserved for her.“How like your dear mother!” she exclaimed, on receiving the pot of jelly.—“Yes; my cough is a little better, tell her, but I thought I would keep indoors to-day—and, you see, I’ve all these books to get through, so it’s just as well. Mr Field got them in London for the library the other day.”“What a pity they must be covered,” said Delia, glancing from one pile to the other; “the children would like the bright colours so much better.”“A nice state they would be in, in a week,” said Mrs Winn, stolidly, as she folded, and snipped, and turned a book about in her large, capable hands. “Besides, it’s better to teach the children not to care for pretty things.”“Is it?” said Delia. “I should have thought that was just what they ought to learn.”“The love of pretty things,” said Mrs Winn, sternly, “is like the love of money, the root of all evil; and has led quite as many people astray.—All these books have to be labelled and numbered,” she added, after a pause. “You might do some, Delia, if you’re not in a hurry.”“Oh, but I am,” said Delia, glancing at the clock. “I am going to Mr Goodwin for a lesson, and I am late already.”Mrs Winn had, however, some information to give about Mr Goodwin. Julia Gibbins, who had just looked in, had met him on the way to give a lesson at Pynes.“So,” she added, “he can’t possibly be home for another half-hour at least, you know; and you may just as well spend the time in doing something useful.”With a little sigh of disappointment, Delia took off her gloves and seated herself opposite to Mrs Winn. Everything seemed against her to-day.“And how,” said that lady, having supplied her with scissors and paper, “do you get on with Anna Forrest? You’re with Mr Goodwin so much, I suppose you know her quite well by this time.”“Indeed, I don’t,” said Delia. “I haven’t even seen her yet; have you?”“I’ve seen her twice,” said Mrs Winn. “She’s pretty enough, though not to be compared to her mother; more like the Forrests, and has her father’s pleasant manners. Iflookswere the only things to consider, she would do very well.”“What’s the matter with her?” asked Delia, bluntly, for Mrs Winn spoke as though she knew much more than she expressed.“Why, I’ve every reason to suppose,” she began deliberately—then breaking off—“Take care, Delia,” she exclaimed; “you’re cutting that cover too narrow. Let me show you. You must leave a good bit to tuck under, don’t you see, or it will be off again directly.”Delia had never in her life been so anxious for Mrs Winn to finish a sentence, but she tried to control her impatience, and bent her attention to the brown paper cover.“It only shows,” continued Mrs Winn, when her instructions were ended, “that I was right in what I said the other day about Mr Bernard Forrest’s marriage. That sort of thing never answers. That child has evidently been brought up without a strict regard for truth.”“What has she done?” asked Delia.“Not, of course,” said Mrs Winn, “that poor Prissy could have had anything to do with that.”The book Delia held slipped from her impatient fingers, and fell to the ground flat on its face.“MydearDelia,” said Mrs Winn, picking it up, and smoothing the leaves, with a shocked look, “the books get worn out quite soon enough, without being tossed about like that.”“I’m very sorry,” said Delia, humbly.—“But do tell me what it is you mean about Anna Forrest.”“It’s nothing at all pleasant,” said Mrs Winn, “but as you’re likely to see something of her, you ought to know that I’ve every reason to believe that she’s not quite straightforward. Now, with all your faults, Delia—and you’ve plenty of them—I never found you untruthful.”She fixed her large, round eyes on her companion for a moment, but as Delia made no remark, resumed—“On the evening of your last working party but one, Julia Gibbins and I saw Mr Oswald of Leas Farm driving Anna Forrest from the station. Of course, we didn’t know her then. But Julia felt sure it was Anna, and it turned out she was right. Curiously enough, we met Mrs Forrest and the child in Appleby’s shortly after, and Mrs Forrest said how unlucky it had been that there was a confusion about the day of her niece’s arrival, and no one to meet her at the station; but, fortunately, she said, Anna was sensible enough to take a fly, so that was all right. Now, you see, my dear Delia, shedidn’ttake a fly,” added Mrs Winn, solemnly, “so she must have deceived her aunt.”Mrs Winn’s most important stories had so often turned out to be founded on mistakes, that Delia was not much impressed by this one, nor disposed to think worse of Anna because of it.“Oh, I daresay there’s a mistake somewhere,” she said, lightly, rising and picking up her flowers and her violin-case. “I must go now, Mrs Winn; the Professor will be back by the time I get there—good-bye.”She hurried out of the room before Mrs Winn could begin another sentence; for long experience had taught her that the subject would not be exhausted for a long while, and that a sudden departure was the only way of escape.A quarter of an hour’s quick walk brought her to Number 4 Back Row, and looking in at the sitting-room window, as her custom was, she saw that the Professor had indeed arrived before her.His dwelling was a contrast in every way to that of Mrs Winn. For one thing, instead of standing boldly out before the world of Dornton High Street, it was smuggled away, with a row of little houses like itself, in a narrow sort of passage, enclosed between two wide streets. This passage ended in a blank wall, and was, besides, too narrow for any but foot-passengers to pass up it, so that it would have been hard to find a quieter or more retired spot. The little, old houses in it were only one storey high, and very solidly built, with thick walls, and the windows in deep recesses; before each a strip of garden, and a gravel walk stretched down to a small gate. Back Row was the very oldest part of Dornton, and though the houses were small, they had always been lived in by respectable people, and preserved a certain air of gentility.Without waiting to knock, Delia hurried in at the door of Number 4, which led straight into the sitting-room. The Professor was leaning back in his easy-chair, his boots white with dust, and an expression of fatigue and dejection over his whole person.“Oh, Professor,” was her first remark, as she threw down her violin-case, “youdolook tired! Have you had your tea?”“I believe, my dear,” he replied, rather faintly, “Mrs Cooper has not come in yet.”Mrs Cooper was a charwoman, who came in at uncertain intervals to cook the Professor’s meals and clean his rooms: as he was not exacting, the claims of her other employers were always satisfied first, and if she were at all busier than usual, he often got scanty attention.Without waiting to hear more, Delia made her way to the little kitchen, and set about her preparations in a very business-like manner. She was evidently well acquainted with the resources of the household, for she bustled about, opening cupboards, and setting tea-things on a tray, as though she were quite at home. In a wonderfully short time she had prepared a tempting meal, and carried it into the sitting-room, so that, when the Professor came back from changing his boots, he found everything quite ready. His little round table, cleared of the litter of manuscripts and music-books, was drawn up to the open window, and covered with a white cloth. On it there was some steaming coffee, eggs, and bread and butter, a bunch of roses in the middle, and his arm-chair placed before it invitingly.He sank into it with a sigh of comfort and relief.“How very good your coffee smells, Delia!” he said; “quite different from Mrs Cooper’s.”“I daresay, if the truth were known,” said Delia, carefully pouring it out, “that you had no dinner to speak of before you walked up to Pynes and back again.”“I had a sandwich,” answered Mr Goodwin, meekly, for Delia was bending a searching and severe look upon him.“Then Mrs Cooper didn’t come!” she exclaimed. “Really we ought to look out for some one else: I believe she does it on purpose.”“Now I beg of you, Delia,” said the Professor, leaning forward earnestly, “not to send Mrs Cooper away. She’s a very poor woman, and would miss the money. She told me only the last time she was here that the doctor had ordered cod-liver oil for the twins, and she couldn’t afford to give it them.”“Oh, the twins!” said Delia, with a little scorn.“Well, my dear, shehastwins; she brought them here once in a perambulator.”“But that’s no reason at all she should not attend properly to you,” said Delia.Mr Goodwin put down his cup of coffee, which he had begun to drink with great relish, and looked thoroughly cast down.Delia laughed a little.“Well, I won’t, then,” she said. “Mrs Cooper shall stay, and neglect her duties, and spoil your food as long as you like.”“Thank you, my dear,” said the Professor, brightening up again, “she really does extremely well, though, of course, she doesn’t”—glancing at the table—“make things look so nice as you do.”Delia blamed herself for staying away so long, when she saw with what contented relish her old friend applied himself to the simple fare she had prepared; it made her thoroughly ashamed to think that he should have suffered neglect through her small feelings of jealousy and pride. He should not be left for a whole fortnight again to Mrs Cooper’s tender mercies.“We are to have a lesson to-night, I hope,” said Mr Goodwin presently; “it must be a long time since we had one, Delia, isn’t it?”“A whole fortnight,” she answered, “but”—glancing wistfully at her violin-case—“you’ve had such hard work to-day, I know, if you’ve been to Pynes; perhaps it would be better to put it off.”But Mr Goodwin would not hear of this: it would refresh him; it would put the other lessons out of his head; they would try over the last sonata he had given Delia to practise.“Did you make anything of it?” he asked. “It is rather difficult.”Delia’s face, which until now had been full of smiles and happiness, clouded over mournfully.“Oh, Professor,” she cried, “I’m in despair about my practising. If I could get some more clear time to it, I know I could get on. But it’s always the same; the days get frittered up into tiny bits with things which don’t seem to matter, and I feel I don’t make any way; just as I am getting a hard passage right, I have to break off.”This was evidently not a new complaint to Mr Goodwin.“Well, well, my dear,” he said, kindly, “we will try it over together, and see how we get on; I daresay it is better than you think.”Delia quickly collected the tea-things and carried them into the kitchen, to prevent any chance of Mrs Cooper clattering and banging about the room during the lesson; then she took out her violin, put her music on the stand, and began to play, without more ado; the Professor leaning back in his chair meanwhile, with closed eyes, and ears on the alert to detect faults or passages wrongly rendered. As he sat there, perfectly still, a calm expression came into his face, which made him for the time look much younger than was usually the case. He was not a very old man, but past troubles had left their traces in deep lines and wrinkles, and his hair was quite white; only his eyes preserved that look of eternal youth which is sometimes granted to those whose thoughts have always been unselfish, kindly, and generous. Delia played on, halting a little over difficult passages, and as she played, the Professor’s face changed with the music, showing sometimes an agony of anxiety during an intricate bit, and relaxing into a calm smile when she got to smooth water again.Once, as though urged by some sudden impulse, he rose and began to stride up and down the room; but when she saw this, Delia dropped her bow, and said in a warning voice, “Now, Professor!” when he at once resumed his seat, and waited patiently until she had finished.“It won’t do, Delia,” he said; “you’ve got the idea, but you can’t carry it out.”“Oh, I know,” she replied, mournfully. “I know how bad it is, and the worst of it is, that I can hear how it ought to be all the time.”“No,” he said, quickly, “that’s not the worst of it; that’s the best of it. If you were satisfied with it as it is, you would be a hopeless pupil. But you’ve something of the true artist in you, Delia. The true artist, you know, is never satisfied.”“I believe, though,” said Delia, “that if I could shut myself up alone somewhere for a time with my violin, and no one to disturb me, I should be able to do something. I might not be satisfied, but oh, how happy I should be! As it is—”“As it is, you must do as greater souls have done before you,” put in the Professor—“win your way towards your ideal through troubles and hindrances.”“I don’t get far, though,” said Delia, mournfully.“Do you think you would get far by shutting yourself away from the common duties of your life?” said Mr Goodwin, in a kind voice. “It’s a very poor sort of talent that wants petting and coaxing like that. Those great souls in the past who have taught us most, have done it while reaching painfully up to their vision through much that thwarted and baffled them. Their lives teach us as well as their art, and believe me, Delia, when the artist’s life fails in duty and devotion, his art fails too in some way.”“It is so hard to remember that all those dusty, little, everyday things matter,” said Delia.“But if you think of what they stand for, they do matter very much. Call them self-discipline, and patience, and they are very important, above all, to an artist. I have heard people say,” continued Mr Goodwin, reflectively, “that certain failings of temper and self-control are to be excused in artists, because their natures are sensitive. Now, that seems to me the very reason that they should be better than other people—more open to good influences. And I believe, when this has not been so, it has been owing rather to a smallness of character than to their artistic temperament.”Delia smiled.“I don’t know,” she said, “if I have anything of an artist in me, but I have a small character, for I am always losing my temper—except when I am with you, Professor. If I talked to you every day, and had plenty of time to practise, I should have the good temper of an angel.”“But not of a human being. That must come, not from outward things being pleasant, but from inward things being right. Believe an old man, my dear, who has had some trials and disappointments in his life, the best sort of happiness is his—“Whose high endeavours are an inward lightWhich makes the path before him always bright.“Those endeavours may not bring fame or success, but they do bring light to shine on all those everyday things you call dusty, and turn them to gold.”Delia stood by her music-stand, her eyes fixed with a far-away gaze on the window, and a rebellious little frown on her brow.“But I shouldloveto be famous,” she suddenly exclaimed, reaching up her arms and clasping her hands behind her head. “Professor, I shouldloveit! Fancy being able to play so as to speak to thousands of people, and make them hear what you say; to make them glad one moment and sorry the next; to have it in your power to move a whole crowd, as some musicians have! It must be a splendid life. Shouldn’tyoulike it?”Mr Goodwin’s glance rested on his enthusiastic pupil with a little amusement.“It’s rather late in the day for me to consider the question, isn’t it?” he said.“Didn’t you ever want to go away from Dornton and play to people who understand what you mean,” asked Delia, impatiently. “Instead of playing the organ in Saint Mary’s and teaching me, you might be a famous musician in London, with crowds of people flocking to hear you.”“Perhaps,” said the Professor, quietly; “who knows?”“Then,” she continued, dropping her arms and turning to him with sudden determination, “then, oh, Professor, whydidn’tyou go?”The question had been in her mind a very long time: now it was out, and she was almost frightened by her own rashness. Mr Goodwin, however, seemed neither surprised nor annoyed.“Well, Delia,” he answered, with a gentle shake of the head, “I suppose two things have kept me in Dornton—two very strong things—poverty and pride. I had my chance once, but it came in a shape I couldn’t bring myself to accept. ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,’ you know, and if one neglects it—”He broke off and bent over his violin, which he had taken up from the ground.“Of course,” said Delia, looking at him with great affection, “I’m glad you didn’t go, for my own sake. You and music make Dornton bearable.”“You always speak so disdainfully of poor Dornton,” said Mr Goodwin, drawing his bow softly across his violin. “Now, I’ve known it longer than you, and really, when I look back, I’ve been very happy. Dornton has given me the best any place has to give—people to love and care for. After Prissy’s marriage, there were some lonely days, to be sure. I could not feel very happy about that, for she seemed to be taken out of my life altogether, and there came sadder days still when she died. You were only a little toddling child then, Delia, and yet it seemed a short while before we began to be friends; and”—holding out his hand to her—“we’ve been friends ever since, haven’t we? So, you see, I ought not to be ungrateful to Dornton.”“And now,” added Delia, with an effort, “there is Anna, your grandchild; perhaps you will make her famous, though you wouldn’t be famous yourself.”Mr Goodwin shook his head.“Anna will never be famous in that way,” he said. “She has a sweet, affectionate manner, but there’s nothing that reminds me of her mother at all, or of our family. It’s quite an effort to realise that she is Prissy’s child. It’s a very curious feeling.”“Have you seen her often?” asked Delia.“Only twice. I don’t at all suppose, as matters stand, that I shall ever see much of her. I am so busy, you see, and she tells me her aunt has all sorts of plans for her—lessons, and so on.”“But,” said Delia, rather indignantly, “sheoughtto come and see you often.”“I shall not complain if she doesn’t, and I shall not be surprised. There was a matter, years ago, in which I differed from Mrs Forrest, and I have never been to Waverley since: we are quite friendly when we meet, but there can never be really cordial relations between us.”“If I were Anna,” began Delia, impetuously—“But you arenotAnna,” interrupted Mr Goodwin, with a smile; “you are Delia Hunt, and you are made of different materials. If I am not mistaken, Anna is affectionate and yielding, and will be influenced by those she is with. And then she’s very young, you see; she could not oppose her aunt and uncle, and I’m sure I do not wish it. I shall not interfere with her life at Waverley: the Forrests are kind people, and I feel sure she will be very happy there. She will do very well without me.”He turned towards his pupil and added, rather wistfully, “I should likeyouto be friends with her, though, Delia; it would be a comfort to me.”“Indeed, I will try my best, Professor,” she exclaimed, earnestly. Her jealousy of Anna seemed very small and mean, and she felt anxious to atone for it.“That’s well,” said Mr Goodwin, with a contented air. “I know you will do what you promise; and now it’s my turn to play the sonata, and yours to listen.”As the first plaintive notes of the violin filled the little room, Delia threw herself into the window-seat, leaned back her head, and gave herself up to enjoyment.The Professor’s playing meant many things to her. It meant a journey into another country where all good and noble things were possible; where vexations and petty cares could not enter, nor anything that thwarted and baffled. It meant a sure refuge for a while from the small details of her life in Dornton, which she sometimes found so wearisome. The warning tones of the church clock checked her flight through these happy regions, and brought her down to earth just as the Professor’s last note died away.“Oh, how late it is?” she exclaimed, as she started up and put on her hat. “Good-bye, Professor. Oh, if I could only make it speak like that!”“Patience, patience,” he said, with his kind smile; “we all hear and see better things than we can express, you know, but that will come to us all some day.”
...I have heard a grave divine say that God has two dwellings—one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.—Izaak Walton.
...I have heard a grave divine say that God has two dwellings—one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.—Izaak Walton.
“Del, my love,” said Mrs Hunt, “I feel one of my worst headaches coming on. Will you go this afternoon to see Mrs Winn, instead of me?” Delia stood under the medlar tree on the lawn, ready to go out, with a bunch of roses in her hand, and her violin-case. She looked at her mother inquiringly, for Mrs Hunt had not just then any appearance of discomfort. She was sitting in an easy canvas chair, a broad-brimmed hat upon her head, and a newspaper in her hands; her slippered feet rested on a little wooden stool, and on a table by her side were a cup of tea, a nicely buttered roll, and a few very ripe strawberries.
“Hadn’t you better wait,” said Delia, after a moment’s pause, “until you can go yourself? Mrs Winn would much rather see you. Besides—it is my music afternoon.”
Mrs Hunt was looking up and down the columns of the paper while her daughter spoke: she did not answer at once, and when she did, it was scarcely an answer so much as a continuation of her own train of thoughts.
“She has had a tickling cough for so many nights. She can hardly sleep for it, and I promised her a pot of my own black currant jelly.”
“It’s a great deal out of my way,” said Delia.
“If you go,” continued Mrs Hunt, without raising her eyes, “you will find the row of little pots on the top shelf of the storeroom cupboard.”
Delia bit her lip.
“If I go,” she said, “I must shorten my music-lesson.”
Mrs Hunt said nothing, but looked as amiable as ever. A frown gathered on Delia’s forehead: she stood irresolute for a minute, and then, with a sudden effort, turned and went quickly into the house. Mrs Hunt stirred her tea, tasted a strawberry, and leant back in her chair with a gentle sigh of comfort. In a few minutes Delia reappeared hurriedly.
“There isnoblack currant jelly in the storeroom,” she said, with an air of exasperation.
Mrs Hunt looked up in mild surprise.
“How strange!” she said. “Could I have moved those pots? Ah, now I remember! I had a dream that all the jam was mouldy, and so I moved it into that cupboard in the kitchen. That was why cook left. She didn’t like me to use that cupboard for the jam.”
“And, meanwhile, where is it?” said Delia.
“Such a wicked mother to give you so much trouble!” murmured Mrs Hunt, with a sweet smile. “But, Del, my love, you must try not to look so morose for trifles—it givessuchan ugly turn to the features. You’ll find the jelly in that nice corner cupboard in the kitchen. Here’s the key”—feeling in her pocket—“no; it is not here—where did I leave my keys? Oh, you’ll find them in the pocket of my black serge dress—and if they’re not there, they are sure to be in the pocket of my gardening apron. My kind love to Mrs Winn. Tell her to take it constantly in the night. And don’t hurry, love, it’ssowarm; you look heated already.”
In spite of this last advice, it was almost at a run that Delia, having at last found the keys and the jam, set forth on her errand. Perhaps, if she were very quick, she need not lose much time with the Professor, after all, but she felt ruffled and rather cross at the delay. It was not an unusual frame of mind, for she was not naturally of a patient temper, and did not bear very well the little daily frets and jars of her life. She chafed inwardly as she went quickly on her way, that her music, which seemed to her the most important thing in the world, should be sacrificed to anything so uninteresting and dull as Mrs Winn’s black currant jam. It was all the more trying this afternoon, because, since Anna Forrest’s arrival, she had purposely kept away from the Professor, and had not seen him for a whole fortnight. A mixed feeling of jealousy and pride had made her determined that Anna should have every opportunity of making Mr Goodwin’s acquaintance without any interference from herself. It was only just and right that his grandchild should have the first place in his affections, the place which hitherto had been her own. Well, now she must take the second place, and if Anna made the Professor happier, it would not matter. At any rate, no one should know, however keenly she felt it.
Mrs Winn, who was a widow, lived in an old-fashioned, red brick house facing the High Street; it had a respectable, dignified appearance, suggesting solid comfort, like the person of its owner. Mrs Winn, however, was a lady not anxious for her own well-being only, but most charitably disposed towards others who were not so prosperous as herself. She was the Vicar’s right hand in all the various methods for helping the poor of his parish: clothing clubs, Dorcas meetings, coal clubs, lending library, were all indebted to Mrs Winn for substantial aid, both in the form of money and personal help.
She was looked up to as a power in Dornton, and her house was much frequented by all those interested in parish matters, so that she was seldom to be found alone. Perhaps, also, the fact that the delightful bow-window of her usual up-stairs sitting-room looked straight across to Appleby’s, the post-office and stationer, increased its attractions. “It makes it so lively,” Mrs Winn was wont to observe. “I seldom pass a day, even if I don’t go out, without seeing Mr Field, or Mr Hurst, or some of the country clergy, going in and out of Appleby’s. I never feel dull.”
To-day, to her great relief, Delia found Mrs Winn quite alone. She was sitting at a table drawn up into the bow-window, busily engaged in covering books with whitey-brown paper. On her right was a pile of gaily bound volumes, blue, red, and purple, which were quickly reduced to a pale brown, unattractive appearance in her practised hands, and placed in a pile on her left. Delia thought Mrs Winn looked whitey-brown as well as the books, for there was no decided colour about her: her eyes were pale, as well as the narrow line of hair which showed beneath the border of her white cap; and her dresses were always of a doubtful shade, between brown and grey.
She welcomed Delia kindly, but with the repressed air of severity which she always reserved for her.
“How like your dear mother!” she exclaimed, on receiving the pot of jelly.—“Yes; my cough is a little better, tell her, but I thought I would keep indoors to-day—and, you see, I’ve all these books to get through, so it’s just as well. Mr Field got them in London for the library the other day.”
“What a pity they must be covered,” said Delia, glancing from one pile to the other; “the children would like the bright colours so much better.”
“A nice state they would be in, in a week,” said Mrs Winn, stolidly, as she folded, and snipped, and turned a book about in her large, capable hands. “Besides, it’s better to teach the children not to care for pretty things.”
“Is it?” said Delia. “I should have thought that was just what they ought to learn.”
“The love of pretty things,” said Mrs Winn, sternly, “is like the love of money, the root of all evil; and has led quite as many people astray.—All these books have to be labelled and numbered,” she added, after a pause. “You might do some, Delia, if you’re not in a hurry.”
“Oh, but I am,” said Delia, glancing at the clock. “I am going to Mr Goodwin for a lesson, and I am late already.”
Mrs Winn had, however, some information to give about Mr Goodwin. Julia Gibbins, who had just looked in, had met him on the way to give a lesson at Pynes.
“So,” she added, “he can’t possibly be home for another half-hour at least, you know; and you may just as well spend the time in doing something useful.”
With a little sigh of disappointment, Delia took off her gloves and seated herself opposite to Mrs Winn. Everything seemed against her to-day.
“And how,” said that lady, having supplied her with scissors and paper, “do you get on with Anna Forrest? You’re with Mr Goodwin so much, I suppose you know her quite well by this time.”
“Indeed, I don’t,” said Delia. “I haven’t even seen her yet; have you?”
“I’ve seen her twice,” said Mrs Winn. “She’s pretty enough, though not to be compared to her mother; more like the Forrests, and has her father’s pleasant manners. Iflookswere the only things to consider, she would do very well.”
“What’s the matter with her?” asked Delia, bluntly, for Mrs Winn spoke as though she knew much more than she expressed.
“Why, I’ve every reason to suppose,” she began deliberately—then breaking off—“Take care, Delia,” she exclaimed; “you’re cutting that cover too narrow. Let me show you. You must leave a good bit to tuck under, don’t you see, or it will be off again directly.”
Delia had never in her life been so anxious for Mrs Winn to finish a sentence, but she tried to control her impatience, and bent her attention to the brown paper cover.
“It only shows,” continued Mrs Winn, when her instructions were ended, “that I was right in what I said the other day about Mr Bernard Forrest’s marriage. That sort of thing never answers. That child has evidently been brought up without a strict regard for truth.”
“What has she done?” asked Delia.
“Not, of course,” said Mrs Winn, “that poor Prissy could have had anything to do with that.”
The book Delia held slipped from her impatient fingers, and fell to the ground flat on its face.
“MydearDelia,” said Mrs Winn, picking it up, and smoothing the leaves, with a shocked look, “the books get worn out quite soon enough, without being tossed about like that.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Delia, humbly.—“But do tell me what it is you mean about Anna Forrest.”
“It’s nothing at all pleasant,” said Mrs Winn, “but as you’re likely to see something of her, you ought to know that I’ve every reason to believe that she’s not quite straightforward. Now, with all your faults, Delia—and you’ve plenty of them—I never found you untruthful.”
She fixed her large, round eyes on her companion for a moment, but as Delia made no remark, resumed—
“On the evening of your last working party but one, Julia Gibbins and I saw Mr Oswald of Leas Farm driving Anna Forrest from the station. Of course, we didn’t know her then. But Julia felt sure it was Anna, and it turned out she was right. Curiously enough, we met Mrs Forrest and the child in Appleby’s shortly after, and Mrs Forrest said how unlucky it had been that there was a confusion about the day of her niece’s arrival, and no one to meet her at the station; but, fortunately, she said, Anna was sensible enough to take a fly, so that was all right. Now, you see, my dear Delia, shedidn’ttake a fly,” added Mrs Winn, solemnly, “so she must have deceived her aunt.”
Mrs Winn’s most important stories had so often turned out to be founded on mistakes, that Delia was not much impressed by this one, nor disposed to think worse of Anna because of it.
“Oh, I daresay there’s a mistake somewhere,” she said, lightly, rising and picking up her flowers and her violin-case. “I must go now, Mrs Winn; the Professor will be back by the time I get there—good-bye.”
She hurried out of the room before Mrs Winn could begin another sentence; for long experience had taught her that the subject would not be exhausted for a long while, and that a sudden departure was the only way of escape.
A quarter of an hour’s quick walk brought her to Number 4 Back Row, and looking in at the sitting-room window, as her custom was, she saw that the Professor had indeed arrived before her.
His dwelling was a contrast in every way to that of Mrs Winn. For one thing, instead of standing boldly out before the world of Dornton High Street, it was smuggled away, with a row of little houses like itself, in a narrow sort of passage, enclosed between two wide streets. This passage ended in a blank wall, and was, besides, too narrow for any but foot-passengers to pass up it, so that it would have been hard to find a quieter or more retired spot. The little, old houses in it were only one storey high, and very solidly built, with thick walls, and the windows in deep recesses; before each a strip of garden, and a gravel walk stretched down to a small gate. Back Row was the very oldest part of Dornton, and though the houses were small, they had always been lived in by respectable people, and preserved a certain air of gentility.
Without waiting to knock, Delia hurried in at the door of Number 4, which led straight into the sitting-room. The Professor was leaning back in his easy-chair, his boots white with dust, and an expression of fatigue and dejection over his whole person.
“Oh, Professor,” was her first remark, as she threw down her violin-case, “youdolook tired! Have you had your tea?”
“I believe, my dear,” he replied, rather faintly, “Mrs Cooper has not come in yet.”
Mrs Cooper was a charwoman, who came in at uncertain intervals to cook the Professor’s meals and clean his rooms: as he was not exacting, the claims of her other employers were always satisfied first, and if she were at all busier than usual, he often got scanty attention.
Without waiting to hear more, Delia made her way to the little kitchen, and set about her preparations in a very business-like manner. She was evidently well acquainted with the resources of the household, for she bustled about, opening cupboards, and setting tea-things on a tray, as though she were quite at home. In a wonderfully short time she had prepared a tempting meal, and carried it into the sitting-room, so that, when the Professor came back from changing his boots, he found everything quite ready. His little round table, cleared of the litter of manuscripts and music-books, was drawn up to the open window, and covered with a white cloth. On it there was some steaming coffee, eggs, and bread and butter, a bunch of roses in the middle, and his arm-chair placed before it invitingly.
He sank into it with a sigh of comfort and relief.
“How very good your coffee smells, Delia!” he said; “quite different from Mrs Cooper’s.”
“I daresay, if the truth were known,” said Delia, carefully pouring it out, “that you had no dinner to speak of before you walked up to Pynes and back again.”
“I had a sandwich,” answered Mr Goodwin, meekly, for Delia was bending a searching and severe look upon him.
“Then Mrs Cooper didn’t come!” she exclaimed. “Really we ought to look out for some one else: I believe she does it on purpose.”
“Now I beg of you, Delia,” said the Professor, leaning forward earnestly, “not to send Mrs Cooper away. She’s a very poor woman, and would miss the money. She told me only the last time she was here that the doctor had ordered cod-liver oil for the twins, and she couldn’t afford to give it them.”
“Oh, the twins!” said Delia, with a little scorn.
“Well, my dear, shehastwins; she brought them here once in a perambulator.”
“But that’s no reason at all she should not attend properly to you,” said Delia.
Mr Goodwin put down his cup of coffee, which he had begun to drink with great relish, and looked thoroughly cast down.
Delia laughed a little.
“Well, I won’t, then,” she said. “Mrs Cooper shall stay, and neglect her duties, and spoil your food as long as you like.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said the Professor, brightening up again, “she really does extremely well, though, of course, she doesn’t”—glancing at the table—“make things look so nice as you do.”
Delia blamed herself for staying away so long, when she saw with what contented relish her old friend applied himself to the simple fare she had prepared; it made her thoroughly ashamed to think that he should have suffered neglect through her small feelings of jealousy and pride. He should not be left for a whole fortnight again to Mrs Cooper’s tender mercies.
“We are to have a lesson to-night, I hope,” said Mr Goodwin presently; “it must be a long time since we had one, Delia, isn’t it?”
“A whole fortnight,” she answered, “but”—glancing wistfully at her violin-case—“you’ve had such hard work to-day, I know, if you’ve been to Pynes; perhaps it would be better to put it off.”
But Mr Goodwin would not hear of this: it would refresh him; it would put the other lessons out of his head; they would try over the last sonata he had given Delia to practise.
“Did you make anything of it?” he asked. “It is rather difficult.”
Delia’s face, which until now had been full of smiles and happiness, clouded over mournfully.
“Oh, Professor,” she cried, “I’m in despair about my practising. If I could get some more clear time to it, I know I could get on. But it’s always the same; the days get frittered up into tiny bits with things which don’t seem to matter, and I feel I don’t make any way; just as I am getting a hard passage right, I have to break off.”
This was evidently not a new complaint to Mr Goodwin.
“Well, well, my dear,” he said, kindly, “we will try it over together, and see how we get on; I daresay it is better than you think.”
Delia quickly collected the tea-things and carried them into the kitchen, to prevent any chance of Mrs Cooper clattering and banging about the room during the lesson; then she took out her violin, put her music on the stand, and began to play, without more ado; the Professor leaning back in his chair meanwhile, with closed eyes, and ears on the alert to detect faults or passages wrongly rendered. As he sat there, perfectly still, a calm expression came into his face, which made him for the time look much younger than was usually the case. He was not a very old man, but past troubles had left their traces in deep lines and wrinkles, and his hair was quite white; only his eyes preserved that look of eternal youth which is sometimes granted to those whose thoughts have always been unselfish, kindly, and generous. Delia played on, halting a little over difficult passages, and as she played, the Professor’s face changed with the music, showing sometimes an agony of anxiety during an intricate bit, and relaxing into a calm smile when she got to smooth water again.
Once, as though urged by some sudden impulse, he rose and began to stride up and down the room; but when she saw this, Delia dropped her bow, and said in a warning voice, “Now, Professor!” when he at once resumed his seat, and waited patiently until she had finished.
“It won’t do, Delia,” he said; “you’ve got the idea, but you can’t carry it out.”
“Oh, I know,” she replied, mournfully. “I know how bad it is, and the worst of it is, that I can hear how it ought to be all the time.”
“No,” he said, quickly, “that’s not the worst of it; that’s the best of it. If you were satisfied with it as it is, you would be a hopeless pupil. But you’ve something of the true artist in you, Delia. The true artist, you know, is never satisfied.”
“I believe, though,” said Delia, “that if I could shut myself up alone somewhere for a time with my violin, and no one to disturb me, I should be able to do something. I might not be satisfied, but oh, how happy I should be! As it is—”
“As it is, you must do as greater souls have done before you,” put in the Professor—“win your way towards your ideal through troubles and hindrances.”
“I don’t get far, though,” said Delia, mournfully.
“Do you think you would get far by shutting yourself away from the common duties of your life?” said Mr Goodwin, in a kind voice. “It’s a very poor sort of talent that wants petting and coaxing like that. Those great souls in the past who have taught us most, have done it while reaching painfully up to their vision through much that thwarted and baffled them. Their lives teach us as well as their art, and believe me, Delia, when the artist’s life fails in duty and devotion, his art fails too in some way.”
“It is so hard to remember that all those dusty, little, everyday things matter,” said Delia.
“But if you think of what they stand for, they do matter very much. Call them self-discipline, and patience, and they are very important, above all, to an artist. I have heard people say,” continued Mr Goodwin, reflectively, “that certain failings of temper and self-control are to be excused in artists, because their natures are sensitive. Now, that seems to me the very reason that they should be better than other people—more open to good influences. And I believe, when this has not been so, it has been owing rather to a smallness of character than to their artistic temperament.”
Delia smiled.
“I don’t know,” she said, “if I have anything of an artist in me, but I have a small character, for I am always losing my temper—except when I am with you, Professor. If I talked to you every day, and had plenty of time to practise, I should have the good temper of an angel.”
“But not of a human being. That must come, not from outward things being pleasant, but from inward things being right. Believe an old man, my dear, who has had some trials and disappointments in his life, the best sort of happiness is his—
“Whose high endeavours are an inward lightWhich makes the path before him always bright.
“Whose high endeavours are an inward lightWhich makes the path before him always bright.
“Those endeavours may not bring fame or success, but they do bring light to shine on all those everyday things you call dusty, and turn them to gold.”
Delia stood by her music-stand, her eyes fixed with a far-away gaze on the window, and a rebellious little frown on her brow.
“But I shouldloveto be famous,” she suddenly exclaimed, reaching up her arms and clasping her hands behind her head. “Professor, I shouldloveit! Fancy being able to play so as to speak to thousands of people, and make them hear what you say; to make them glad one moment and sorry the next; to have it in your power to move a whole crowd, as some musicians have! It must be a splendid life. Shouldn’tyoulike it?”
Mr Goodwin’s glance rested on his enthusiastic pupil with a little amusement.
“It’s rather late in the day for me to consider the question, isn’t it?” he said.
“Didn’t you ever want to go away from Dornton and play to people who understand what you mean,” asked Delia, impatiently. “Instead of playing the organ in Saint Mary’s and teaching me, you might be a famous musician in London, with crowds of people flocking to hear you.”
“Perhaps,” said the Professor, quietly; “who knows?”
“Then,” she continued, dropping her arms and turning to him with sudden determination, “then, oh, Professor, whydidn’tyou go?”
The question had been in her mind a very long time: now it was out, and she was almost frightened by her own rashness. Mr Goodwin, however, seemed neither surprised nor annoyed.
“Well, Delia,” he answered, with a gentle shake of the head, “I suppose two things have kept me in Dornton—two very strong things—poverty and pride. I had my chance once, but it came in a shape I couldn’t bring myself to accept. ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,’ you know, and if one neglects it—”
He broke off and bent over his violin, which he had taken up from the ground.
“Of course,” said Delia, looking at him with great affection, “I’m glad you didn’t go, for my own sake. You and music make Dornton bearable.”
“You always speak so disdainfully of poor Dornton,” said Mr Goodwin, drawing his bow softly across his violin. “Now, I’ve known it longer than you, and really, when I look back, I’ve been very happy. Dornton has given me the best any place has to give—people to love and care for. After Prissy’s marriage, there were some lonely days, to be sure. I could not feel very happy about that, for she seemed to be taken out of my life altogether, and there came sadder days still when she died. You were only a little toddling child then, Delia, and yet it seemed a short while before we began to be friends; and”—holding out his hand to her—“we’ve been friends ever since, haven’t we? So, you see, I ought not to be ungrateful to Dornton.”
“And now,” added Delia, with an effort, “there is Anna, your grandchild; perhaps you will make her famous, though you wouldn’t be famous yourself.”
Mr Goodwin shook his head.
“Anna will never be famous in that way,” he said. “She has a sweet, affectionate manner, but there’s nothing that reminds me of her mother at all, or of our family. It’s quite an effort to realise that she is Prissy’s child. It’s a very curious feeling.”
“Have you seen her often?” asked Delia.
“Only twice. I don’t at all suppose, as matters stand, that I shall ever see much of her. I am so busy, you see, and she tells me her aunt has all sorts of plans for her—lessons, and so on.”
“But,” said Delia, rather indignantly, “sheoughtto come and see you often.”
“I shall not complain if she doesn’t, and I shall not be surprised. There was a matter, years ago, in which I differed from Mrs Forrest, and I have never been to Waverley since: we are quite friendly when we meet, but there can never be really cordial relations between us.”
“If I were Anna,” began Delia, impetuously—
“But you arenotAnna,” interrupted Mr Goodwin, with a smile; “you are Delia Hunt, and you are made of different materials. If I am not mistaken, Anna is affectionate and yielding, and will be influenced by those she is with. And then she’s very young, you see; she could not oppose her aunt and uncle, and I’m sure I do not wish it. I shall not interfere with her life at Waverley: the Forrests are kind people, and I feel sure she will be very happy there. She will do very well without me.”
He turned towards his pupil and added, rather wistfully, “I should likeyouto be friends with her, though, Delia; it would be a comfort to me.”
“Indeed, I will try my best, Professor,” she exclaimed, earnestly. Her jealousy of Anna seemed very small and mean, and she felt anxious to atone for it.
“That’s well,” said Mr Goodwin, with a contented air. “I know you will do what you promise; and now it’s my turn to play the sonata, and yours to listen.”
As the first plaintive notes of the violin filled the little room, Delia threw herself into the window-seat, leaned back her head, and gave herself up to enjoyment.
The Professor’s playing meant many things to her. It meant a journey into another country where all good and noble things were possible; where vexations and petty cares could not enter, nor anything that thwarted and baffled. It meant a sure refuge for a while from the small details of her life in Dornton, which she sometimes found so wearisome. The warning tones of the church clock checked her flight through these happy regions, and brought her down to earth just as the Professor’s last note died away.
“Oh, how late it is?” she exclaimed, as she started up and put on her hat. “Good-bye, Professor. Oh, if I could only make it speak like that!”
“Patience, patience,” he said, with his kind smile; “we all hear and see better things than we can express, you know, but that will come to us all some day.”
Chapter Five.Anna makes friends.Sweet language will multiply friends; and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings.—Ecclesiasticus.Delia kept her promise in mind through all the various duties and occupations of the next few days, and wondered how she should carry it out. She began, apart from the wish to please the Professor, to have a great desire to know Anna for her own sake. Would they be friends? and what sort of girl was she? Mr Goodwin had told her so very little. Affectionate, sweet-tempered, yielding. She might be all that without being very interesting. Still she hoped they might be able to like each other; for although the Hunts had a wide acquaintance, Delia had few friends of her own age, nor any one with whom she felt in entire sympathy, except the Professor. Delia was not popular in Dornton, and people regretted that such a “sweet” woman as Mrs Hunt should have a daughter who was often so blunt in her manners, and so indisposed to make herself pleasant. Her life, therefore, though full of busy matters, was rather lonely, and she would have made it still more so, if possible, by shutting herself up with her violin and her books. The bustling sociabilities of her home, however, prevented this, and she was constantly obliged, with inward revolt, to leave the things she loved for some social occasion, or to pick up the dropped stitches of Mrs Hunt’s household affairs.There were endless little matters from morning till night for Delia to attend to, and it was only by getting up very early that she found any time at all for her studies and her music. In winter this was hard work, and progress with her violin almost impossible for stiff, cold fingers; but no one at her home took Delia’s music seriously: it was an accomplishment, a harmless amusement, but by no means to be allowed to take time from more important affairs. It did not matter whether she practised or not, but it did matter that she should be ready to make calls with her mother, or to carry soup to someone in Mrs Hunt’s district who had been overlooked. She would have given up her music altogether if her courage had not been revived from time to time by Mr Goodwin, and her ambition rekindled by hearing him play; as it was, she always came back to it with fresh heart and hope after seeing him.For nearly a week after her last visit, Delia awoke every morning with a determination to walk over to Waverley, and each day passed without her having done so. At last, however, chance arranged her meeting with Anna. Coming into the drawing-room one afternoon in search of her mother, she found, not Mrs Hunt, but a tall girl of fourteen, with light yellow hair, sitting in the window, with a patient expression, as though she had been waiting there some time. Delia advanced uncertainly: she knew who it was; there was only one stranger likely to appear just now. It must be Anna Forrest. But it was so odd to find her there, just when she had been thinking of her so much, that for a moment she hardly knew what to say.The girl, however, was quite at her ease.“I am Anna Forrest,” she said; “Mrs Hunt asked me to come in—she went to find you. You are Delia, are you not?”She had a bright, frank manner, with an entire absence of shyness, which attracted Delia immediately. She found, on inquiry, that Mrs Hunt had met Anna in the town with her aunt, and had asked her to come in. Mrs Forrest had driven home, and Anna was to walk back after tea.“And have you been waiting long?” asked Delia.“It must have been an hour, I think,” said Anna, “because I heard the church clock. But it hasn’t seemed long,” she added, hastily; “I’ve been looking out at the pigeons in the garden.”Delia felt no doubt whatever that Mrs Hunt had been called off in some other direction, and had completely forgotten her guest. However, here was Anna at last.“Come up-stairs and take off your hat in my room,” she said.Delia’s room was at the top of the house—a garret with a window looking across the red-tiled roofs of the town to the distant meadows, through which glistened the crooked silver line of the river Dorn. She was fond of standing at this window in her few idle moments, with her arms crossed on the high ledge, and her gaze directed far-away: to it were confided all the hopes, and wishes, and dreams, which were, as a rule, carefully locked up in her own breast, and of which only one person in Dornton even guessed the existence.Anna glanced curiously round as she entered. The room had rather a bare look, after the bright prettiness of Waverley, though it contained all Delia’s most cherished possessions—a shelf of books, a battered old brown desk, her music-stand, and her violin.“Oh,” she exclaimed, as her eye fell on the last, “can you play the violin? Will you play to me?”Delia hesitated: she was not fond of playing to people who did not care for music, though she was often obliged to do so; but Anna pressed her so earnestly that she did not like to be ungracious, and, taking up her violin, played a short German air, which she thought might please her visitor.Anna meanwhile paid more attention to her new acquaintance than to her performance, and looked at her with great interest. There was something about Delia’s short, compact figure; her firm chin; the crisp, wavy hair which rose from her broad, low forehead like a sort of halo, which gave an impression of strength and reliability not unmingled with self-will. This last quality, however, was not so marked while she was playing. Her face then was at its best, and its usual somewhat defiant air softened into a wistfulness which was almost beauty. Before the tune was finished, Anna was quite ready to rush into a close friendship, if Delia would respond to it, but of this she felt rather in doubt.“How beautifully you play!” she exclaimed, as Delia dropped her bow, and shut up her music-book.A very little smile curled Delia’s lips.“That shows one thing,” she answered, “you don’t know much about music, or you would not call my playing beautiful.”“Well, it sounds so to me,” said Anna, a little abashed by this directness of speech, “but I certainly don’t know much about music; Aunt Sarah says I need not go on with it while I am here.”“I play very badly,” said Delia; “if you wish to hear beautiful playing, you must listen to your grandfather.”“Must I?” said Anna, vaguely. “I thought,” she added, “that he played the organ in Dornton church.”“So he does,” said Delia, “but he plays the violin too. And he gives lessons. He taught me.”She looked searchingly at her companion, whose fair face reddened a little.“I owe everything to him,” continued Delia; “without what he has done for me my life would be dark. He brought light into it when he taught me to play and to love music.”“Did he?” said Anna, wonderingly.She began to feel that she did not understand Delia; she was speaking a strange language, which evidently meant something to her, for her eyes sparkled, and her brown cheek glowed with excitement.“We ought to be proud in Dornton,” Delia went on, “to have your grandfather living here, but we’re not worthy of him. His genius would place him in a high position among people who could understand him. Here it’s just taken for granted.”Anna grew more puzzled and surprised still. Delia’s tone upset the idea she began to have that her grandfather was a person to be pitied. This was a different way of speaking of him, and it was impossible to get used to it all at once. At Waverley he was hardly mentioned at all, and she had come to avoid doing so also, from a feeling that her aunt disliked it. She could not suddenly bring herself to look upon him as a genius, and be proud of him, though she had every wish to please Delia.“What a pity,” she said, hesitatingly, “that he is so poor, and has to live in such a very little house, if he is so clever!”“Poor?” exclaimed Delia, indignantly; then, checking herself, she added, quietly, “It depends on what you call poor. What the Professor possesses is worth all the silver and gold and big houses in the world. And that’s just what the Dornton people don’t understand. Why, the rich ones actuallypatronisehim, and think he is fortunate in giving their children music-lessons.”Delia began to look so wrathful as she went on, that Anna longed to change the subject to one which might be more soothing. She could not at all understand why her companion was so angry. It was certainly a pity that Mr Goodwin was obliged to give lessons, but if he must, it was surely a good thing that people were willing to employ him. While she was pondering this in silence, she was relieved by a welcome proposal from Delia that they should go down-stairs, and have tea in the garden. “Afterwards,” she added, “I will show you the way to Waverley over the fields.”In the garden it was pleasant and peaceful enough. Tea was ready, under the shade of the medlar tree. The pigeons whirled and fluttered about over the red roofs all around, settling sometimes on the lawn for a few moments, bowing and cooing to each other. Mrs Hunt, meanwhile, chatted on in a comfortable way, hardly settling longer on one spot in her talk than the pigeons; from the affairs of her district to the affairs of the nation, from an anecdote about the rector to a receipt for scones, she rambled gently on; but at last coming to a favourite topic, she made a longer rest. Anna was glad of it, for it dealt with people of whom she had been wishing to hear—her mother and her grandfather. Mrs Hunt had much to tell of the former, whom she had known from the time when she had been a girl of Anna’s age until her marriage with Mr Bernard Forrest. She became quite enthusiastic as one recollection after the other followed.“A sweeter face and a sweeter character than Prissy Goodwin’s could not be imagined,” she said. “We were all sorry when she left Dornton, and every one felt for Mr Goodwin. Poor man, he’s aged a great deal during the last few years. I remember him as upright as a dart, and always in such good spirits!”“I have a portrait of my mother,” said Anna, “a miniature, painted just after her marriage. It’s very pretty indeed.”“It should be, if it’s a good likeness,” said Mrs Hunt. “There’s never been such a pretty girl in Dornton since your mother went away. I should like to see that portrait. When you come over again, which I hope will be soon, you must bring it with you, and then we will have some more talk about your dear mother.”Anna readily promised, and as she walked up the High Street by Delia’s side, her mind was full of all that she had heard that afternoon. It had interested and pleased her very much, but somehow it was difficult to connect Mr Goodwin and his dusty, little house with the picture formed in her mind of her beautiful mother. If only she were alive now!“I suppose you were a baby when my mother married,” she said, suddenly turning to her companion.“I was two years old,” replied Delia, smiling, “but though I can’t remember your mother, I can remember your grandfather when I was quite a little girl. He was always so good to me. Long before he began to teach me to play, I used to toddle by his side to church, and wait there while he practised on the organ. I think it was that which made me first love music.”“It seems so odd,” said Anna, hesitatingly, “that I should be his grandchild, and yet that he should be almost a stranger to me; while you—”“But,” put in Delia, quickly, for she thought that Anna was naturally feeling jealous, “you won’t be strangers long now; you will come over often, and soon you will feel as though you’d known him always. To tell you the truth,” she added, lightly, “I felt dreadfully jealous of you when I first heard you were coming.”Jealous! How strange that sounded to Anna; she glanced quickly at her companion, and saw that she was evidently in earnest.“I don’t know, I’m sure, about coming to Dornton often,” she said, “because, you see, Aunt Sarah is so tremendously busy, and she likes to do certain things on certain days; but, of course, I shall come as often as I can. I do hope,” she added, earnestly, “I shall be able to see you sometimes, and that you will often come over to Waverley.”Delia was silent.“You see,” continued Anna, “I like being at Waverley very much, and they’re very kind indeed; but itisa little lonely, and if you don’t mind, I should besoglad to have you for a friend.”She turned to her companion with a bright blush, and an appealing look that was almost humble. Delia was touched. She had begun to think Anna rather cold and indifferent in the way she had talked about coming to Dornton; but, after all, it was unreasonable to expect her to feel warm affection for a grandfather who was almost a stranger. When she knew him she would not be able to help loving him, and, meanwhile, she herself must not forget that she had promised the Professor to be Anna’s friend; no doubt she had said truly that, she was lonely at Waverley. She met Anna’s advances cordially, therefore, and by the time they had turned off the high-road into the fields, the two girls were chatting gaily, and quite at their ease with each other. Everything in this field-walk was new and delightful to Anna, and her pleasure increased by feeling that she had made a friend of her own age. The commonest wild-flowers on her path were wonderful to her unaccustomed eyes. Delia must tell their names. She must stop to pick some. They were prettier even than Aunt Sarah’s flowers at Waverley. What were those growing in the hedge? She ran about admiring and exclaiming until, near the end of the last field, the outbuildings of Leas Farm came in sight, which stood in a lane dividing the farmer’s property from Mr Forrest’s.“There’s Mr Oswald,” said Delia, suddenly.Anna looked up. Across the field towards them, mounted on a stout, grey cob, came the farmer at a slow jog-trot. So much had happened since her arrival at Waverley, that she had now almost forgotten the events of that first evening, and all idea of telling her aunt of her acquaintance with Mr Oswald had passed from her mind. As he stopped to greet the girls, however, and make a few leisurely remarks about the weather, it all came freshly to her memory.“Not been over to see my cows yet, missie,” he said, checking his pony again, after he had started, and leaning back in his saddle. “My Daisy’s been looking for you every day. You’d be more welcome than ever, now I know who ’twas I had the pleasure of driving the other day—for your mother’s sake, as well as your own.”Delia turned an inquiring glance on her companion, as they continued their way. Would she say anything? Recollecting Mrs Winn’s story, she rather hoped she would. But Anna, her gay spirits quite checked, walked soberly on in perfect silence. It made her uncomfortable to remember that she had never undeceived Aunt Sarah about that fly. What a stupid little mistake it had been! Nothing wrong in what she had done at all, if she had only been quite open about it. What would Delia think of it, she wondered. She glanced sideways at her. What a very firm, decided mouth and chin she had: she looked as though she were never afraid of anything, and always quite sure to do right. Perhaps, if she knew of this, she would look as scornful and angry as she had that afternoon, in speaking of the Dornton people. That would be dreadful. Anna could not risk that. She wanted Delia to like and admire her very much, and on no account to think badly of her. So she checked the faint impulse she had had towards the confession of her foolishness, and was almost relieved when they reached the point where Delia was to turn back to Dornton. They parted affectionately, with many hopes and promises as to their meeting again soon, and Anna stood at the white gate watching her new friend until she was out of sight.Then she looked round her. She was in quite a strange land, for although she had now been some weeks at Waverley, she had not yet explored the fields between the village and Dornton. On her right, a little way down the grassy lane, stood Mr Oswald’s house, a solid, square building, of old, red brick, pleasantly surrounded by barns, cattle-sheds, and outbuildings, all of a substantial, prosperous appearance. It crossed Anna’s mind that she should very much like to see the farmer’s cows, as he had proposed, but she had not the courage to present herself at the house and ask for Daisy. She must content herself by looking in at the farmyard gate as she passed it. A little farther on, Delia had pointed out another gate, on the other side of the lane, which led straight into the Vicarage field, and towards this she now made her way.She was unusually thoughtful as she sauntered slowly down the lane, for her visit to Dornton had brought back thoughts of her mother and grandfather, which had lately been kept in the background. She had to-day heard them spoken of with affection and admiration, instead of being passed over in silence. Waverley was very pleasant. Aunt Sarah was kind, and her Uncle John indulgent, but about her relations in Dornton there was scarcely a word spoken. It was strange. She remembered Delia’s sparkling eyes as she talked of Mr Goodwin. That was stranger still. In the two visits Anna had paid to him, she had not discovered much to admire, and she had not been pleased with the appearance of Number 4 Back Row. It had seemed to her then that people called him “poor Mr Goodwin” with reason: he was poor, evidently, or he would not live all alone in such a very little house, with no servants, and work so hard, and get so tired and dusty as he had looked on that first evening she had seen him. Yet, perhaps, when she knew him as well as Delia did, she should be able to feel proud of him; and, at any rate, he stood in need of love and attention.She felt drawn to the Hunts and the Dornton people, who had known and loved her mother, and she resolved to make more efforts to go there frequently, and to risk displeasing Aunt Sarah and upsetting her arrangements. It would be very disagreeable, for she knew well that neither Mr Goodwin nor Dornton were favourite subjects at Waverley; and when things were going smoothly and pleasantly, it was so much nicer to leave them alone. However, she would try, and just then arriving at the farmyard gate, she dismissed those tiresome thoughts, and leaned over to look with great interest at the creatures within. As she did so, a little girl came out of the farmhouse and came slowly down the lane towards her. She was about twelve years old, very childish-looking for her age, and dressed in a fresh, yellow cotton frock, nearly covered by a big, white pinafore. Her little, round head was bare, and her black hair closely cropped like a boy’s. She came on with very careful steps, her whole attention fixed on a plate she held firmly with both hands, which had a mug on it full of something she was evidently afraid to spill. Her eyes were so closely bent on this, that until she was near Anna she did not see her; and then, with a start, she came suddenly to a stand-still, not forgetting to preserve the balance of the mug and plate. It was a very nice, open, little face she raised towards Anna, with a childish and innocent expression, peppered thickly with freckles like a bird’s egg, especially over the blunt, round nose.“Did you come from the Vicarage?” she inquired, gravely.“I’m staying there,” replied Anna, “but I came over the fields just now from Dornton.”“Those are puppa’s fields,” said the child, “and this is puppa’s farm.”“You are Daisy Oswald, I suppose?” said Anna. “Your father asked me to come and see your cows.” The little girl nodded.“I know what your name is,” she said. “You’re Miss Anna Forrest. Puppa fetched you over from the station. You came quick. Puppa was driving Strawberry Molly that day. No one can do it as quick as her.” Then, with a critical glance, “I can ride her. Can you ride?”“No, indeed, I can’t,” replied Anna. “But won’t you show me your cows?”“Why, it isn’t milking-time!” said Daisy, lifting her brows with a little surprise; “they’re all out in the field.” She considered Anna thoughtfully for a moment, and then added, jerking her head towards the next gate, “Won’t you come and sit on that gate? I often sit on that gate. Most every evening.”The invitation was made with so much friendliness that Anna could not refuse it.“I can’t stay long,” she said, “but I don’t mind a little while.”Arrived at the gate, Daisy pushed mug and plate into Anna’s hands.“Hold ’em a minute,” she said, as she climbed nimbly up and disposed herself comfortably on the top bar. “Now”—smoothing her pinafore tightly over her knees—“give ’em to me, and come up and sit alongside, and we’ll have ’em together. That’ll be fine.”Anna was by no means so active and neat in her movements as her companion, for she was not used to climbing gates; but after some struggles, watched by Daisy with a chuckle of amusement, she succeeded in placing herself at her side. In this position they sat facing the Vicarage garden at the end of the field. It looked quite near, and Anna hoped that Aunt Sarah might not happen to come this way just at present.“How nice it is to sit on a gate!” she said; “I never climbed a gate before.”Daisy stared.“Never climbed a gate before!” she repeated; “why ever not?”“Well, you see, I’ve always lived in a town,” said Anna, “where you don’t need to climb gates.”Daisy nodded.“I know,” she said, “like Dornton. Now there’s two lots of bread and butter, one for me and one for you, and we must take turns to drink. You first.”“But I’ve had tea, thank you,” said Anna. “I won’t take any of yours.”Daisy looked a little cast down at this refusal, but soon set to work heartily on her simple meal alone, stopping in the intervals of her bites and sups to ask and answer questions.“Was the town you lived innicerthan Dornton?” she asked.“It was not a bit like it,” replied Anna. “Much, much larger. And always full of carts, and carriages, and people.”“My!” exclaimed Daisy. “Any shops?”“Lots and lots. And at night, when they were all lighted up, and the lamps in the streets too, it was as light as day.”“That must have been fine,” said Daisy, “I like shops. Were you sorry to come away?”Anna shook her head.“Do you like being at Waverley?” pursued the inquiring Daisy, tilting up the mug sothat her brown eyes came just above the rim; “there’s no one to play with there, but I s’pose you don’t mind. I haven’t any brothers and sisters either. There’s only me. But then there’s all the animals. Do you like animals?”“I think I should very much,” answered Anna, “but you can’t have many animals in London.”“Well,” said Daisy, who had now finished the last crumb of bread and the last drop of milk, “if you like, I’ll show you my very own calf!”“I’m afraid it’s getting late,” said Anna, hesitatingly.“’Twon’t take you not five minutes altogether,” said Daisy, scrambling hastily down from the gate. “Come along.”Anna followed her back to the farmyard, where she pushed open the door of a shed, and beckoned her companion in. All was dim and shadowy, and there was a smell of new milk and hay. At first Anna could see nothing, but soon she made out, penned into a corner, a little, brown calf, with a white star on its forehead; it turned its dewy, dark eyes reproachfully upon them as they entered.“You can stroke its nose,” said its owner, patronisingly.“Shall you call it Daisy?” asked Anna, reaching over the hurdles to pat the soft, velvety muzzle.“Mother says we mustn’t have no more Daisies,” said its mistress, shaking her little, round head gravely. “You see puppa called all the cows Daisy, after me, for ever so long. There was Old Daisy, and Young Daisy, and Red Daisy, and White Daisy, and Big Daisy, and Little Daisy, and a whole lot more. So this one is to be called something different. Mother say Stars would be best.”As she spoke, a distant clock began to tell out the hour. Anna counted the strokes with anxiety. Actually seven! The dinner hour at Waverley, and whatever haste she made, she must be terribly late.“Ah, I must go,” she said, “I ought not to have stayed so long. Good-bye. Thank you.”“Come over again,” said Daisy, calling after her as she ran to the gate. “Come at milking-time, and I’ll show you all the lot.”Anna nodded and smiled, and ran off as fast as she could. This was her first transgression at the Vicarage. What would Aunt Sarah say?
Sweet language will multiply friends; and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings.—Ecclesiasticus.
Sweet language will multiply friends; and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings.—Ecclesiasticus.
Delia kept her promise in mind through all the various duties and occupations of the next few days, and wondered how she should carry it out. She began, apart from the wish to please the Professor, to have a great desire to know Anna for her own sake. Would they be friends? and what sort of girl was she? Mr Goodwin had told her so very little. Affectionate, sweet-tempered, yielding. She might be all that without being very interesting. Still she hoped they might be able to like each other; for although the Hunts had a wide acquaintance, Delia had few friends of her own age, nor any one with whom she felt in entire sympathy, except the Professor. Delia was not popular in Dornton, and people regretted that such a “sweet” woman as Mrs Hunt should have a daughter who was often so blunt in her manners, and so indisposed to make herself pleasant. Her life, therefore, though full of busy matters, was rather lonely, and she would have made it still more so, if possible, by shutting herself up with her violin and her books. The bustling sociabilities of her home, however, prevented this, and she was constantly obliged, with inward revolt, to leave the things she loved for some social occasion, or to pick up the dropped stitches of Mrs Hunt’s household affairs.
There were endless little matters from morning till night for Delia to attend to, and it was only by getting up very early that she found any time at all for her studies and her music. In winter this was hard work, and progress with her violin almost impossible for stiff, cold fingers; but no one at her home took Delia’s music seriously: it was an accomplishment, a harmless amusement, but by no means to be allowed to take time from more important affairs. It did not matter whether she practised or not, but it did matter that she should be ready to make calls with her mother, or to carry soup to someone in Mrs Hunt’s district who had been overlooked. She would have given up her music altogether if her courage had not been revived from time to time by Mr Goodwin, and her ambition rekindled by hearing him play; as it was, she always came back to it with fresh heart and hope after seeing him.
For nearly a week after her last visit, Delia awoke every morning with a determination to walk over to Waverley, and each day passed without her having done so. At last, however, chance arranged her meeting with Anna. Coming into the drawing-room one afternoon in search of her mother, she found, not Mrs Hunt, but a tall girl of fourteen, with light yellow hair, sitting in the window, with a patient expression, as though she had been waiting there some time. Delia advanced uncertainly: she knew who it was; there was only one stranger likely to appear just now. It must be Anna Forrest. But it was so odd to find her there, just when she had been thinking of her so much, that for a moment she hardly knew what to say.
The girl, however, was quite at her ease.
“I am Anna Forrest,” she said; “Mrs Hunt asked me to come in—she went to find you. You are Delia, are you not?”
She had a bright, frank manner, with an entire absence of shyness, which attracted Delia immediately. She found, on inquiry, that Mrs Hunt had met Anna in the town with her aunt, and had asked her to come in. Mrs Forrest had driven home, and Anna was to walk back after tea.
“And have you been waiting long?” asked Delia.
“It must have been an hour, I think,” said Anna, “because I heard the church clock. But it hasn’t seemed long,” she added, hastily; “I’ve been looking out at the pigeons in the garden.”
Delia felt no doubt whatever that Mrs Hunt had been called off in some other direction, and had completely forgotten her guest. However, here was Anna at last.
“Come up-stairs and take off your hat in my room,” she said.
Delia’s room was at the top of the house—a garret with a window looking across the red-tiled roofs of the town to the distant meadows, through which glistened the crooked silver line of the river Dorn. She was fond of standing at this window in her few idle moments, with her arms crossed on the high ledge, and her gaze directed far-away: to it were confided all the hopes, and wishes, and dreams, which were, as a rule, carefully locked up in her own breast, and of which only one person in Dornton even guessed the existence.
Anna glanced curiously round as she entered. The room had rather a bare look, after the bright prettiness of Waverley, though it contained all Delia’s most cherished possessions—a shelf of books, a battered old brown desk, her music-stand, and her violin.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, as her eye fell on the last, “can you play the violin? Will you play to me?”
Delia hesitated: she was not fond of playing to people who did not care for music, though she was often obliged to do so; but Anna pressed her so earnestly that she did not like to be ungracious, and, taking up her violin, played a short German air, which she thought might please her visitor.
Anna meanwhile paid more attention to her new acquaintance than to her performance, and looked at her with great interest. There was something about Delia’s short, compact figure; her firm chin; the crisp, wavy hair which rose from her broad, low forehead like a sort of halo, which gave an impression of strength and reliability not unmingled with self-will. This last quality, however, was not so marked while she was playing. Her face then was at its best, and its usual somewhat defiant air softened into a wistfulness which was almost beauty. Before the tune was finished, Anna was quite ready to rush into a close friendship, if Delia would respond to it, but of this she felt rather in doubt.
“How beautifully you play!” she exclaimed, as Delia dropped her bow, and shut up her music-book.
A very little smile curled Delia’s lips.
“That shows one thing,” she answered, “you don’t know much about music, or you would not call my playing beautiful.”
“Well, it sounds so to me,” said Anna, a little abashed by this directness of speech, “but I certainly don’t know much about music; Aunt Sarah says I need not go on with it while I am here.”
“I play very badly,” said Delia; “if you wish to hear beautiful playing, you must listen to your grandfather.”
“Must I?” said Anna, vaguely. “I thought,” she added, “that he played the organ in Dornton church.”
“So he does,” said Delia, “but he plays the violin too. And he gives lessons. He taught me.”
She looked searchingly at her companion, whose fair face reddened a little.
“I owe everything to him,” continued Delia; “without what he has done for me my life would be dark. He brought light into it when he taught me to play and to love music.”
“Did he?” said Anna, wonderingly.
She began to feel that she did not understand Delia; she was speaking a strange language, which evidently meant something to her, for her eyes sparkled, and her brown cheek glowed with excitement.
“We ought to be proud in Dornton,” Delia went on, “to have your grandfather living here, but we’re not worthy of him. His genius would place him in a high position among people who could understand him. Here it’s just taken for granted.”
Anna grew more puzzled and surprised still. Delia’s tone upset the idea she began to have that her grandfather was a person to be pitied. This was a different way of speaking of him, and it was impossible to get used to it all at once. At Waverley he was hardly mentioned at all, and she had come to avoid doing so also, from a feeling that her aunt disliked it. She could not suddenly bring herself to look upon him as a genius, and be proud of him, though she had every wish to please Delia.
“What a pity,” she said, hesitatingly, “that he is so poor, and has to live in such a very little house, if he is so clever!”
“Poor?” exclaimed Delia, indignantly; then, checking herself, she added, quietly, “It depends on what you call poor. What the Professor possesses is worth all the silver and gold and big houses in the world. And that’s just what the Dornton people don’t understand. Why, the rich ones actuallypatronisehim, and think he is fortunate in giving their children music-lessons.”
Delia began to look so wrathful as she went on, that Anna longed to change the subject to one which might be more soothing. She could not at all understand why her companion was so angry. It was certainly a pity that Mr Goodwin was obliged to give lessons, but if he must, it was surely a good thing that people were willing to employ him. While she was pondering this in silence, she was relieved by a welcome proposal from Delia that they should go down-stairs, and have tea in the garden. “Afterwards,” she added, “I will show you the way to Waverley over the fields.”
In the garden it was pleasant and peaceful enough. Tea was ready, under the shade of the medlar tree. The pigeons whirled and fluttered about over the red roofs all around, settling sometimes on the lawn for a few moments, bowing and cooing to each other. Mrs Hunt, meanwhile, chatted on in a comfortable way, hardly settling longer on one spot in her talk than the pigeons; from the affairs of her district to the affairs of the nation, from an anecdote about the rector to a receipt for scones, she rambled gently on; but at last coming to a favourite topic, she made a longer rest. Anna was glad of it, for it dealt with people of whom she had been wishing to hear—her mother and her grandfather. Mrs Hunt had much to tell of the former, whom she had known from the time when she had been a girl of Anna’s age until her marriage with Mr Bernard Forrest. She became quite enthusiastic as one recollection after the other followed.
“A sweeter face and a sweeter character than Prissy Goodwin’s could not be imagined,” she said. “We were all sorry when she left Dornton, and every one felt for Mr Goodwin. Poor man, he’s aged a great deal during the last few years. I remember him as upright as a dart, and always in such good spirits!”
“I have a portrait of my mother,” said Anna, “a miniature, painted just after her marriage. It’s very pretty indeed.”
“It should be, if it’s a good likeness,” said Mrs Hunt. “There’s never been such a pretty girl in Dornton since your mother went away. I should like to see that portrait. When you come over again, which I hope will be soon, you must bring it with you, and then we will have some more talk about your dear mother.”
Anna readily promised, and as she walked up the High Street by Delia’s side, her mind was full of all that she had heard that afternoon. It had interested and pleased her very much, but somehow it was difficult to connect Mr Goodwin and his dusty, little house with the picture formed in her mind of her beautiful mother. If only she were alive now!
“I suppose you were a baby when my mother married,” she said, suddenly turning to her companion.
“I was two years old,” replied Delia, smiling, “but though I can’t remember your mother, I can remember your grandfather when I was quite a little girl. He was always so good to me. Long before he began to teach me to play, I used to toddle by his side to church, and wait there while he practised on the organ. I think it was that which made me first love music.”
“It seems so odd,” said Anna, hesitatingly, “that I should be his grandchild, and yet that he should be almost a stranger to me; while you—”
“But,” put in Delia, quickly, for she thought that Anna was naturally feeling jealous, “you won’t be strangers long now; you will come over often, and soon you will feel as though you’d known him always. To tell you the truth,” she added, lightly, “I felt dreadfully jealous of you when I first heard you were coming.”
Jealous! How strange that sounded to Anna; she glanced quickly at her companion, and saw that she was evidently in earnest.
“I don’t know, I’m sure, about coming to Dornton often,” she said, “because, you see, Aunt Sarah is so tremendously busy, and she likes to do certain things on certain days; but, of course, I shall come as often as I can. I do hope,” she added, earnestly, “I shall be able to see you sometimes, and that you will often come over to Waverley.”
Delia was silent.
“You see,” continued Anna, “I like being at Waverley very much, and they’re very kind indeed; but itisa little lonely, and if you don’t mind, I should besoglad to have you for a friend.”
She turned to her companion with a bright blush, and an appealing look that was almost humble. Delia was touched. She had begun to think Anna rather cold and indifferent in the way she had talked about coming to Dornton; but, after all, it was unreasonable to expect her to feel warm affection for a grandfather who was almost a stranger. When she knew him she would not be able to help loving him, and, meanwhile, she herself must not forget that she had promised the Professor to be Anna’s friend; no doubt she had said truly that, she was lonely at Waverley. She met Anna’s advances cordially, therefore, and by the time they had turned off the high-road into the fields, the two girls were chatting gaily, and quite at their ease with each other. Everything in this field-walk was new and delightful to Anna, and her pleasure increased by feeling that she had made a friend of her own age. The commonest wild-flowers on her path were wonderful to her unaccustomed eyes. Delia must tell their names. She must stop to pick some. They were prettier even than Aunt Sarah’s flowers at Waverley. What were those growing in the hedge? She ran about admiring and exclaiming until, near the end of the last field, the outbuildings of Leas Farm came in sight, which stood in a lane dividing the farmer’s property from Mr Forrest’s.
“There’s Mr Oswald,” said Delia, suddenly.
Anna looked up. Across the field towards them, mounted on a stout, grey cob, came the farmer at a slow jog-trot. So much had happened since her arrival at Waverley, that she had now almost forgotten the events of that first evening, and all idea of telling her aunt of her acquaintance with Mr Oswald had passed from her mind. As he stopped to greet the girls, however, and make a few leisurely remarks about the weather, it all came freshly to her memory.
“Not been over to see my cows yet, missie,” he said, checking his pony again, after he had started, and leaning back in his saddle. “My Daisy’s been looking for you every day. You’d be more welcome than ever, now I know who ’twas I had the pleasure of driving the other day—for your mother’s sake, as well as your own.”
Delia turned an inquiring glance on her companion, as they continued their way. Would she say anything? Recollecting Mrs Winn’s story, she rather hoped she would. But Anna, her gay spirits quite checked, walked soberly on in perfect silence. It made her uncomfortable to remember that she had never undeceived Aunt Sarah about that fly. What a stupid little mistake it had been! Nothing wrong in what she had done at all, if she had only been quite open about it. What would Delia think of it, she wondered. She glanced sideways at her. What a very firm, decided mouth and chin she had: she looked as though she were never afraid of anything, and always quite sure to do right. Perhaps, if she knew of this, she would look as scornful and angry as she had that afternoon, in speaking of the Dornton people. That would be dreadful. Anna could not risk that. She wanted Delia to like and admire her very much, and on no account to think badly of her. So she checked the faint impulse she had had towards the confession of her foolishness, and was almost relieved when they reached the point where Delia was to turn back to Dornton. They parted affectionately, with many hopes and promises as to their meeting again soon, and Anna stood at the white gate watching her new friend until she was out of sight.
Then she looked round her. She was in quite a strange land, for although she had now been some weeks at Waverley, she had not yet explored the fields between the village and Dornton. On her right, a little way down the grassy lane, stood Mr Oswald’s house, a solid, square building, of old, red brick, pleasantly surrounded by barns, cattle-sheds, and outbuildings, all of a substantial, prosperous appearance. It crossed Anna’s mind that she should very much like to see the farmer’s cows, as he had proposed, but she had not the courage to present herself at the house and ask for Daisy. She must content herself by looking in at the farmyard gate as she passed it. A little farther on, Delia had pointed out another gate, on the other side of the lane, which led straight into the Vicarage field, and towards this she now made her way.
She was unusually thoughtful as she sauntered slowly down the lane, for her visit to Dornton had brought back thoughts of her mother and grandfather, which had lately been kept in the background. She had to-day heard them spoken of with affection and admiration, instead of being passed over in silence. Waverley was very pleasant. Aunt Sarah was kind, and her Uncle John indulgent, but about her relations in Dornton there was scarcely a word spoken. It was strange. She remembered Delia’s sparkling eyes as she talked of Mr Goodwin. That was stranger still. In the two visits Anna had paid to him, she had not discovered much to admire, and she had not been pleased with the appearance of Number 4 Back Row. It had seemed to her then that people called him “poor Mr Goodwin” with reason: he was poor, evidently, or he would not live all alone in such a very little house, with no servants, and work so hard, and get so tired and dusty as he had looked on that first evening she had seen him. Yet, perhaps, when she knew him as well as Delia did, she should be able to feel proud of him; and, at any rate, he stood in need of love and attention.
She felt drawn to the Hunts and the Dornton people, who had known and loved her mother, and she resolved to make more efforts to go there frequently, and to risk displeasing Aunt Sarah and upsetting her arrangements. It would be very disagreeable, for she knew well that neither Mr Goodwin nor Dornton were favourite subjects at Waverley; and when things were going smoothly and pleasantly, it was so much nicer to leave them alone. However, she would try, and just then arriving at the farmyard gate, she dismissed those tiresome thoughts, and leaned over to look with great interest at the creatures within. As she did so, a little girl came out of the farmhouse and came slowly down the lane towards her. She was about twelve years old, very childish-looking for her age, and dressed in a fresh, yellow cotton frock, nearly covered by a big, white pinafore. Her little, round head was bare, and her black hair closely cropped like a boy’s. She came on with very careful steps, her whole attention fixed on a plate she held firmly with both hands, which had a mug on it full of something she was evidently afraid to spill. Her eyes were so closely bent on this, that until she was near Anna she did not see her; and then, with a start, she came suddenly to a stand-still, not forgetting to preserve the balance of the mug and plate. It was a very nice, open, little face she raised towards Anna, with a childish and innocent expression, peppered thickly with freckles like a bird’s egg, especially over the blunt, round nose.
“Did you come from the Vicarage?” she inquired, gravely.
“I’m staying there,” replied Anna, “but I came over the fields just now from Dornton.”
“Those are puppa’s fields,” said the child, “and this is puppa’s farm.”
“You are Daisy Oswald, I suppose?” said Anna. “Your father asked me to come and see your cows.” The little girl nodded.
“I know what your name is,” she said. “You’re Miss Anna Forrest. Puppa fetched you over from the station. You came quick. Puppa was driving Strawberry Molly that day. No one can do it as quick as her.” Then, with a critical glance, “I can ride her. Can you ride?”
“No, indeed, I can’t,” replied Anna. “But won’t you show me your cows?”
“Why, it isn’t milking-time!” said Daisy, lifting her brows with a little surprise; “they’re all out in the field.” She considered Anna thoughtfully for a moment, and then added, jerking her head towards the next gate, “Won’t you come and sit on that gate? I often sit on that gate. Most every evening.”
The invitation was made with so much friendliness that Anna could not refuse it.
“I can’t stay long,” she said, “but I don’t mind a little while.”
Arrived at the gate, Daisy pushed mug and plate into Anna’s hands.
“Hold ’em a minute,” she said, as she climbed nimbly up and disposed herself comfortably on the top bar. “Now”—smoothing her pinafore tightly over her knees—“give ’em to me, and come up and sit alongside, and we’ll have ’em together. That’ll be fine.”
Anna was by no means so active and neat in her movements as her companion, for she was not used to climbing gates; but after some struggles, watched by Daisy with a chuckle of amusement, she succeeded in placing herself at her side. In this position they sat facing the Vicarage garden at the end of the field. It looked quite near, and Anna hoped that Aunt Sarah might not happen to come this way just at present.
“How nice it is to sit on a gate!” she said; “I never climbed a gate before.”
Daisy stared.
“Never climbed a gate before!” she repeated; “why ever not?”
“Well, you see, I’ve always lived in a town,” said Anna, “where you don’t need to climb gates.”
Daisy nodded.
“I know,” she said, “like Dornton. Now there’s two lots of bread and butter, one for me and one for you, and we must take turns to drink. You first.”
“But I’ve had tea, thank you,” said Anna. “I won’t take any of yours.”
Daisy looked a little cast down at this refusal, but soon set to work heartily on her simple meal alone, stopping in the intervals of her bites and sups to ask and answer questions.
“Was the town you lived innicerthan Dornton?” she asked.
“It was not a bit like it,” replied Anna. “Much, much larger. And always full of carts, and carriages, and people.”
“My!” exclaimed Daisy. “Any shops?”
“Lots and lots. And at night, when they were all lighted up, and the lamps in the streets too, it was as light as day.”
“That must have been fine,” said Daisy, “I like shops. Were you sorry to come away?”
Anna shook her head.
“Do you like being at Waverley?” pursued the inquiring Daisy, tilting up the mug sothat her brown eyes came just above the rim; “there’s no one to play with there, but I s’pose you don’t mind. I haven’t any brothers and sisters either. There’s only me. But then there’s all the animals. Do you like animals?”
“I think I should very much,” answered Anna, “but you can’t have many animals in London.”
“Well,” said Daisy, who had now finished the last crumb of bread and the last drop of milk, “if you like, I’ll show you my very own calf!”
“I’m afraid it’s getting late,” said Anna, hesitatingly.
“’Twon’t take you not five minutes altogether,” said Daisy, scrambling hastily down from the gate. “Come along.”
Anna followed her back to the farmyard, where she pushed open the door of a shed, and beckoned her companion in. All was dim and shadowy, and there was a smell of new milk and hay. At first Anna could see nothing, but soon she made out, penned into a corner, a little, brown calf, with a white star on its forehead; it turned its dewy, dark eyes reproachfully upon them as they entered.
“You can stroke its nose,” said its owner, patronisingly.
“Shall you call it Daisy?” asked Anna, reaching over the hurdles to pat the soft, velvety muzzle.
“Mother says we mustn’t have no more Daisies,” said its mistress, shaking her little, round head gravely. “You see puppa called all the cows Daisy, after me, for ever so long. There was Old Daisy, and Young Daisy, and Red Daisy, and White Daisy, and Big Daisy, and Little Daisy, and a whole lot more. So this one is to be called something different. Mother say Stars would be best.”
As she spoke, a distant clock began to tell out the hour. Anna counted the strokes with anxiety. Actually seven! The dinner hour at Waverley, and whatever haste she made, she must be terribly late.
“Ah, I must go,” she said, “I ought not to have stayed so long. Good-bye. Thank you.”
“Come over again,” said Daisy, calling after her as she ran to the gate. “Come at milking-time, and I’ll show you all the lot.”
Anna nodded and smiled, and ran off as fast as she could. This was her first transgression at the Vicarage. What would Aunt Sarah say?