GOING HOME.
And now it had come to an end--all the novelty, the splendour, and the
excitement of this first visit--and Agnes and Marian were about to go
home. They were very much pleased, and yet a little disappointed--glad
and eager to return to their mother, yet feeling it would have been
something of a compliment to be asked to remain.
Rachel, who was a great deal more vehement and demonstrative than either
of them, threw herself into their arms with violent tears. “I have been
so happy since ever I knew you,” said Rachel--“so happy, I scarcely
thought it right when I was not with Louis--and I think I could almost
like to be your servant, and go home with you. I could do anything for
you.”
“Hush!” said Agnes.
“No; it is quite true,” cried poor Rachel--“_quite_ true. I should like
to be your servant, and live with your mother. Oh! I ought to say,” she
continued, raising herself with a little start and thrill of terror,
“that if we were in a different position, and could meet people like
equals, I should be so glad--so very glad to be friends.”
“But how odd Rachel would think it to live in Bellevue,” said Marian,
coming to the rescue with a little happy ridicule, which did better than
gravity, “and to see no one, even in the street, but the milkman and the
greengrocer’s boy! for Rachel only thinks of the Willows and
Winterbourne; she does not know in the least how things look in
Bellevue.”
Rachel was beguiled into a laugh--a very unusual indulgence. “When you
say that, I think it is a very little cottage like one of the cottages
in the village; but you know that is all wrong. Oh, when do you think
you will go to Winterbourne?”
“We will write and tell you,” said Agnes, “all about it, and how many
are going; for I do not suppose Charlie will come, after all; and you
will write to us--how often? Every other day?”
Rachel turned very red, then very pale, and looked at them with
considerable dismay. “Write!” she said, with a falter in her voice;
“I--I never thought of that--I never wrote to any one; I daresay I
should do it very badly. Oh no; I shall be sure to find out whenever you
come to the Old Wood Lodge.”
“But we shall hear nothing of you,” said Agnes. “Why should you not
write to us? I am sure you do to your brother at home.”
“I do _not_,” said Rachel, once more drawing herself up, and with
flashing eyes. “No one can write letters to us, who have no name.”
She was not to be moved from this point; she repeated the same words
again and again, though with a very wistful and yielding look in her
face. All for Louis! Her companions were obliged to give up the
question, after all.
So there was another weeping, sobbing, vehement embrace, and
Rachel disappeared without a word into the big bare room down
stairs--disappeared to fall again, without a struggle, into her former
forlorn life--to yield on her own account, and to struggle with fierce
haughtiness for the credit of Louis--leaving the two sisters very
thoughtful and compassionate, and full of a sudden eager generous
impulse to run away with and take her home.
“Home--to mamma! It would be like heaven to Rachel,” said Agnes, in a
little enthusiasm, with tears in her eyes.
“Ay, but it would not be like the Willows,” said the most practical
Marian; and they both looked out with a smile and a sigh upon the
beautiful sunshiny lawn, the river in an ecstasy of light and
brightness, the little island with all its ruffled willow-leaves, and
bethought themselves, finding some amusement in the contrast, of Laurel
House, and Myrtle Cottage, and the close secluded walls of Bellevue.
Mrs Atheling had sent the Fly for her daughters--the old Islingtonian
fly, with the old white horse, and the coachman with his shiny hat. This
vehicle, which had once been a chariot of the gods, looked somewhat
shabby as it stood in the broad sunshine before the door of the Willows,
accustomed to the fairy coach of Mrs Edgerley. They laughed to
themselves very quietly when they caught their first glimpse of it, yet
in a momentary weakness were half ashamed; for even Agnes’s honest
determination to let everybody know their true “rank in life” was not
troubled by any fear lest this respectable vehicle should be taken for
their own carriage _now_.
“Going, my love?” cried Mrs Edgerley; “the fatal hour--has it really
come so soon?--You leave us all _desolée_, of course; how _shall_ we
exist to-day? And it was so good of you to come. Remember! we shall be
dying till we have a new tale from the author of _Hope Hazlewood_. I
long to see it. I know it will be charming, or it could not be
yours.--And, my love, you look quite lovely--such roses! I think you
quite the most exquisite little creature in the world. Remember me to
your excellent mamma. Is your carriage waiting? Ah, I am miserable to
part with you. Farewell--that dreadful word--farewell!”
Again that light perfumy touch waved over one blushing cheek and then
another. Mrs Edgerley continued to wave her hand and make them pretty
signals till they reached the door, whither they hastened as quickly and
as quietly as possible, not desiring any escort; but few were the
privileged people in Mrs Edgerley’s morning-room, and no one cared to do
the girls so much honour. Outside the house their friend the gardener
waited with two bouquets, so rare and beautiful that the timid
recipients of the same, making him their humble thanks, scarcely knew
how to express sufficient gratitude. Some one was arriving as they
departed--some one who, making the discovery of their presence, stalked
towards them, almost stumbling over Agnes, who happened to be nearest to
him. “Going away?” said a dismayed voice at a considerable altitude. Mr
Endicott’s thin head positively vibrated with mortification; he
stretched it towards Marian, who stood before him smiling over her
flowers, and fixed a look of solemn reproach upon her. “I am aware that
beauty and youth flee often from the presence of one who looks upon life
with a studious eye. This disappointment is not without its object. You
are going away?”
“Yes,” said Marian, laughing, but with a little charitable compassion
for her own particular victim, “and you are just arriving? It is very
odd--you should have come yesterday.”
“Permit me,” said Mr Endicott moodily;--“no; I am satisfied. This
experience is well--I am glad to know it. To us, Miss Atheling,” said
the solemn Yankee, as he gave his valuable assistance to Agnes--“to us
this play and sport of fortune is but the proper training. Our business
is not to enjoy; we bear these disappointments for the world.”
He put them into their humble carriage, and bowed at them solemnly. Poor
Mr Endicott! He did not blush, but grew green as he stood looking after
the slow equipage ere he turned to the disenchanted Willows. Though he
was about to visit people of distinction, the American young gentleman,
being in love, did not care to enter upon this new scene of observation
and note-making at this moment; so he turned into the road, and walked
on in the white cloud of dust raised by the wheels of the fly. The dust
itself had a sentiment in it, and belonged to Marian; and Mr Endicott
began the painful manufacture of a sonnet, expressing this “experience,”
on the very spot.
“But _you_ ought not to laugh at him, Marian, even though other people
do,” said Agnes, with superior virtue.
“Why not?” said the saucy beauty; “I laughed at Sir Langham--and I am
sure _he_ deserved it,” she added in an under-tone.
“Marian,” said Agnes, “I think--you have named him yourself, or I should
not have done it--we had better not say anything about Sir Langham to
mamma.”
“I do not care at all who names him,” said Marian, pouting; but she made
no answer to the serious proposition: so it became tacitly agreed
between them that nothing was to be said of the superb runaway lover
when they got home.