Mrs. Murray was left alone with her grandchild, and she was glad. Though
she was old, she was full of that patient strength which shows itself
without any ostentation whenever the emergency which requires it arises.
She was not sorry for herself, nor did she think much of her own age, or
of what was due to her. She had long got over that phase of life in
which a woman has leisure to think of herself. And there was no panic of
alarm about her, such as might have come to the inexperienced. She knew
her work, and all about it, and did not overwhelm herself with
unnecessary excitements. She laid her child down in the grass, in the
shade, laying her head upon a folded shawl. Jeanie had come out of her
faint, but she lay in a state of exhaustion, with her eyes closed,
unable to move or speak. The grandmother knew it was impossible to take
her home in such a state of prostration. She seated herself so as to
screen her charge from passers by, and resumed her knitting--a picture
of calm and thoughtful composure--serious, yet with no trace of mystery
or panic about her. What had happened to Jeanie was connected with their
own affairs. It was a thing which nobody but themselves had anything to
do with. She sat and watched the young sufferer with all that grave
power of self-restraint which it is always so impressive to witness,
asking neither help nor pity, knitting on steadily, with sometimes a
tender glance from her deep eyes at the young fair creature lying at her
side, and sometimes a keen look round to guard against intrusion. The
work went on through all, and those thoughts which nobody knew of, which
no one suspected. What was she thinking about? She had a breadth of
sixty years to go back upon, and memories to recall with which nothing
here had any connection. Or could it be possible that there might be a
certain connection between her thoughts and this unknown place?
Sometimes she paused in her work, and dropped her hands, and turned her
face towards the house, which was invisible from where she sat, and fell
into a deeper musing. “Would I do it over again if it were to do?” she
said half aloud to herself, with an instinctive impulse to break the
intense stillness; and then, making no answer to her own question, sat
with her head dropped on her hand, gazing into the shadowy distance.
What was it she had done? It was something which touched her
conscience--touched her heart; but she had not repented of it as a
positive wrong, and could yet, it was clear, bring forth a hundred
arguments to justify herself to herself. She paused, and leant her head
upon her hand, and fixed her eyes on the distance, in which, unseen, lay
the home of the Ardens. Her thoughts had strayed away from Jeanie. She
mused, and she sighed a sigh which was very deep and long drawn, as if
it came from the depths of her being. “The ways of ill-doers are hard,”
she murmured to herself; and then, after a pause, “Would I do it again?”
It was not remorse that was in her face; it was not even penitence; it
was pain subdued, and a great doubt which it was very hard to solve. But
there was no clue to her musing, either in her look or her tones. She
took up her knitting with another sigh, when she had apparently
exhausted, or been exhausted by that thought, and changed the shawl
under Jeanie’s head, making her more comfortable, and looked at her with
the tenderest pity. “Poor bairn!” she said to herself; “Poor bairn!” and
then, after a long pause, “That she should be the first to pay the
price!” The words were said but half aloud, a murmur that fell into the
sound of the wind in the trees and the insects all about. Then she went
to work again, knitting in the deepest quiet--a silence so intense that
she looked like a weird woman knitting a web of fate.
It was a curious picture. The girl with her bonnet laid aside, and her
hair a little loosened from its smoothness, lying stretched out in the
deep cool grass which rose all round her, and shaded by a great bough of
hawthorn, laden with the blossom which was still so sweet. The white
petals lay all about upon the grass, lying motionless like Jeanie, who
was herself like a great white flower, half buried in the soft and
fragrant verdure; while the old mother sat by doing her work, watching
with every sense, ear and eye on the alert to catch any questionable
sound. The girl fell asleep in her weakness; the old woman sat
motionless in her strength and patience; and the trees waved softly over
them, and the summer blue filled up all the interstices of the leafage.
This was the scene upon which Arthur Arden came back as he returned from
the house with aid and promises of aid. He had been interested before,
and now, when he perceived that Clare was not to be seen, his interest
grew more manifest. He came up hurriedly, half running, for he was not
without natural sympathy and feeling. “Is she better?” he asked. “Miss
Arden’s maid is coming, and the carriage to take her home; and, in the
meantime, here is something.” And he hastily produced a bottle of
smelling-salts and some eau-de-cologne.
“She is better,” said Mrs. Murray, stiffly. “I thank ye, sir, for all
your trouble; but there’s no need--no need! She is resting, poor lamb,
after her attack. It’s how she does always. But I would fain be sure
that she would never see you again. Dinna think I’m uncivil, Mr. Arden;
for I know you are Mr. Arden by your looks. You are like one that
brought great pain and trouble to our house a year or two since. I would
be glad to think that she would never see ye more.”
“But that is a little hard,” said Arthur Arden. “To ask me to go away
and make a martyr of myself, without even telling me why. I must say I
think that harsh. I would do a great deal for so pretty a creature,” he
added, carelessly drawing near the pretty figure, and stooping over her.
Mrs. Murray half rose with a quick sense of the difference in his tone.
“My poor bairn is subject to a sore infirmity,” she said, “and for that
she should be the more pitied of all Christian folk. A gentleman like
you will neither look at her nor speak to her but as you ought. I am
asking nothing of you. It’s my part to keep my own safe. All I pray is
that if you should meet her in the road you would pass on the other
side, or turn away your face. That’s little to do. I can take care of my
own.”
“My good woman, you are not very complimentary,” said Arthur; and then
he went and gazed down once more upon the sleeping figure in the grass.
His gaze was not that of a pure-minded or sympathetic spectator. He
looked at her with a half smile, noting her beauty and childish grace.
“She is very young, I suppose?” he said. “Poor little thing! What did
the man who was like me do to frighten her so? And I wonder who he was?
The resemblance must be very great.”
“He brought grief and trouble to our house,” said Mrs. Murray, who had
risen, and stood screening her child with a jealous mother’s instinct.
“Sir, I am much obliged to you. But, oh! if you would be kinder still,
and go on your way! We are complaining of nothing, neither my bairn nor
me.”
“Your ‘bairn,’ as you call her, is mighty pretty,” said Arthur Arden.
“Look here, buy her a ribbon or something with this, as some amends for
having frightened her. What, you won’t have it? Nonsense! I shall
probably never see her again. You need not be afraid of me.”
“I am no afraid of any man,” said Mrs. Murray; “if you would leave us
free in this spot, where we’re harming nobody. Good day to you, sir.
Give your siller to the next poor body. It’s no wanted by me.”
“As proud as Lucifer, by Jove!” said Arthur Arden, and he put back his
half-sovereign in his pocket, perhaps not unwillingly, for he had not
many of them; and then he stood still for a minute longer, during which
time the old woman resumed her knitting, and went on steadily, having
dropped him, as it were, though she still watched him keenly from under
her eyelids. He waited for some other opportunity of speech, but at
length, half amazed half annoyed, swore “by Jove!” once more, and turned
on his heel with little courtesy. Then he began to bethink himself of
Clare, who had gone down the avenue, and whom he had missed. He was a
man used to please himself, used to turn aside after every butterfly
that crossed his path, and it was so long since he had engaged in the
warm pursuit of anything that he had forgot the amount of perseverance
and steadiness necessary for it. He had been almost, nay quite glad,
when he saw that Clare was gone, and felt himself free for the moment to
find out something about the pretty creature who lay in the grass like a
Sleeping Beauty; but now that the careful guardian of the sleeping
beauty had sent him away, his mind returned to its original pursuit.
Would Clare be angry; would she consider his desertion as a sign of
indifference, an offence against herself? He chafed at the self-denial
thus made necessary, and yet he was as anxious to secure Clare’s good
opinion as any man could be, and not entirely on interested motives. She
was very dignified and Juno-like and stately. She would condemn him and
all his ways did she know them. She would be intolerant of his life, and
his friends, and his habits; and yet Clare attracted him personally as
well as pecuniarily. He would be another man if he could succeed in
persuading her to love him. It would make him rich, it would give him an
established position in the world--and it would make him happy. Yes,
there could not be any doubt on that subject, it would make him happy;
and yet he was ready to be led astray all the same by any butterfly hunt
that crossed his path.
As he hastened down the avenue, he met a little procession which was
coming up, and which consisted of an invalid chair, drawn by a man, who
paused every ten minutes to speak or be spoken to by the patient within,
and followed by an elderly maid, who walked with a disapproving air
under a huge umbrella. Arthur Arden was sufficiently acquainted with
the population of Arden to know at once who this was, and the voice
which immediately addressed him was one which compelled his attention.
“Mr. Arden, Mr. Arden,” said the voice, “do stop and look at this
beautiful chair; a present from Edgar. I was saying to my brother just
the other day---- Ten minutes in the open air--only ten minutes now and
then, if there was any way of doing it! And to think of dear Edgar
recollecting. And the handsomest---- Now, is not he a dear fellow? All
padded and cushioned, and as easy as a bed---- And the very best temper
in the world, Mr. Arden, and always thinking of others. You will think
me an old fool, but I do so love that boy.”
“He is very lucky, I am sure, to inspire so warm a feeling,” said
Arthur, with mock respect.
“Lucky indeed! he deserves it, and a thousand times more. Of course I
would not speak of such a thing as loving a gentleman,” said Miss
Somers, with a soft blush stealing over her pretty faded old face, “if
it was not that I was so old and helpless. And dear Edgar is so nice and
so kind. Fancy his coming to see me the very first day he was at home: a
young man you know, that might have been supposed---- and, then this
beautiful chair. I was saying to my brother just the other day---- but
then some men are so different from others, and never take the trouble
even to give you an answer. To be sure, there are many things that put a
gentleman out and try his temper that we ladies have not got to bear;
but then, on the other hand---- And, as I was saying, it arrived all at
once, two days ago, in a big packing-case--the biggest packing case, you
know. My brother said, ‘It is for you, Lucy;’ and ‘Oh, good gracious, is
it for me? and what is it, and who could have sent it? and how good of
them to think of me;’ and then, when one is in the midst of one’s little
flutter, you know, he tells you you are a little fool, and how you do
run on!”
“That was unkind,” said Arthur, when she paused to take breath; “but
will you tell me, please, have you seen Miss Arden? I left her going
down the avenue.”
“Oh, Clare! she’s in the village by this time, walking so quick. I
wonder if it is good to walk so quick, especially in the sun. When I was
a young girl like Clare---- And then they say it brings illnesses----
She was in such a hurry; not a bit like Clare to walk so fast; and it
makes you look heated, and all that. Mr. Arden, you will make me so
happy if you will only look. It can draw out, and I can lie all my
length when I get tired. The Queen herself, if she were an invalid--but
I’m so glad she is not an invalid, poor dear lady; with all those
horrible death warrants to sign, and everything--Don’t you think there
should be somebody to do the death warrants when there is a lady for the
Queen--I mean, you know, when there is a Queen? But if I were the Queen
I could not have anything better. Isn’t he a dear fellow! And the
springs so good, and everything so light and nice and so pretty. You
have not half seen yet how nice----”
“There is somebody a little in advance who will appreciate it a great
deal better than I can,” said Arthur. “I must overtake Miss Arden.
Yes--there; just a little further on.”
“Now, I wonder what he can mean by somebody a little in advance,” said
Miss Somers, as Arthur went hastily on. “Can it be Edgar, I wonder--the
dear fellow! or the Rector? or whom, I wonder? Mercy, please, if you
don’t mind the trouble, do you see anybody coming? Not that I mind who I
meet. I am sure I should like to show dear Edgar’s present everywhere. I
wonder if it is Lady Augusta? I am sure, Mercy, you know I have always
thought well of Lady Augusta----”
“I don’t see nobody, mum,” said Mercy, cutting her mistress
remorselessly short, “but them Scotch folks as lives in the village, and
ain’t no company for the quality; set them up, them and their pride!
John, Miss Somers wants to go a little quicker past them tramps and
folks; for they ain’t no better, a poking into our parish,” muttered
Mercy, under her breath.
“Oh, no, John; please, John--I want so much to see them,” remonstrated
Miss Somers. Fortunately, John wanted to see them too, and after a
struggle with Mercy, who ruled her mistress with a rod of iron, the
procession paused opposite to where Mrs. Murray sat. Mercy herself could
not be more unwilling for any colloquy. The old Scotchwoman kept on her
knitting, with her eyes steadily fixed upon it, as long as that was
possible. She only moved when the invalid’s eager voice had called her
over and over again, “Oh, please, come and speak to me. I am Dr. Somers’
sister, and a great invalid, and I have heard so much about you; and
just yesterday I was saying to my brother---- Oh, please, do put down
your knitting for a moment and come to me. I am so helpless, I cannot
put my foot to the ground.”
Mrs. Murray rose slowly at this appeal, and came and stood by the
invalid’s chair.