Mrs. Kinloch was surprised at finding that neither Hugh nor Mildred,
nor yet Lucy Ransom, was in the house.
Mildred came home first and was not accompanied by Hugh, as
Mrs. Kinloch had hoped. He had not found her, then,--perhaps he had
not sought for her. Next Lucy returned, coming through the garden
which stretched up the hill. Being questioned, she answered that she
had been to her grandmother's, and had come back the nearest way over
the hill, through the woods.
"What had she gone for after the fatigue of washing-day?"
"Because Squire Clamp, who owned the house her grandmother lived in,
wanted her to take a message."
Mrs. Kinloch began to become interested. "Squire Clamp!" she
exclaimed,--"when did you see him?"
"He called here yesterday evening,--on his way to Mr. Hardwick's, I
guess."
"Why didn't he ask _me_ if you could go? I think he's pretty free
to send my girls about the town on his errands."
"You were out, Ma'am,--in the next house; and after he'd gone I forgot
it."
"You remembered it to-day, it seems."
"Yes'm; after dinner I thought of it and hurried right off; but granny
was sick and foolish, and didn't want to let me come away, so I
couldn't get back as quick as I meant to."
"Well, you can go to the kitchen."
"Yes'm."
"I must keep an eye on that girl," thought Mrs. Kinloch. "She is
easily persuaded, fickle, without strong sense, and with only a very
shallow kind of cunning. She might do mischief. What can Squire Clamp
want? The old hovel her grandmother lives in isn't worth fifty
dollars. Whatever has been going on, I'm glad Hugh is not mixed up in
it."
Just then Hugh rode up, and, tying his horse, came in. He seemed to
have lost something of the gayety of the morning. "I am tired," he
said. "I had to get off and lead the pony down the hill, and it's
steep and stony enough."
"There are pleasant roads enough in the neighborhood," said his
mother, "without your being obliged to take to the woods and clamber
over the mountains."
"I know it," he replied; "but I had been up towards the Allen place,
and I took a notion to come back over the hill."
"Then you passed Lucy's house?"
"Yes. The bridle-path leads down the hill about a mile above this; but
on foot one may keep along the ridge and come down into the valley
through our garden."
"So I suppose; in fact, I believe Lucy has just returned that way."
"Indeed! it's strange I didn't see her."
"It is strange."
Hugh bore the quiet scrutiny well, and his mother came to the
conclusion that the girl had told the truth about her going for the
lawyer.
Presently Mildred came down from her room, and after a few minutes
Mrs. Kinloch went out, casting a fixed and meaning look at her
son. She seemed as impatient for the issue of her scheme, as the child
who, after planting a seed, waits for the green shoot, and twice a day
digs down to see if it has not sprouted.
Mildred, as the reader may suppose, was not likely to be very
agreeable to her companion; the recollections of the day were too
vivid, too delicious.
She could not part with them, but constantly repeated to herself the
words of love, of hope, and enthusiasm, which she had heard. So she
moved or talked as in a dream, mechanically, while her soul still
floated away on the summer-sea of reverie.
Hugh looked at her with real admiration; and, in truth, she deserved
it. A fairer face you would not see in a day's journey; her smooth
skin, not too white, but of a rich creamy tint,--eyes brown and
inclined to be dreamy,--her hair chestnut and wavy,--a figure rather
below the medium size, but with full, graceful lines,--these, joined
with a gentle nature and a certain tremulous sensibility, constituted
a divinity that it was surely no sin to worship. If sin it were, all
the young men in Innisfield had need of immediate forgiveness.
Hugh had some qualms about approaching the goddess. He was sensible of
a wide gulf between himself and her, and he could not but think that
she was aware of it too.
"You have been to Mr. Alford's?"
A momentary pause.
"Did you speak, Hugh?"
He repeated the question. Her eyes brightened a moment as she nodded
in the affirmative; then they grew dim again, like windows seen from
without when the light is withdrawn to an inner room. She seemed as
unconscious as a pictured Madonna.
"A beautiful day for your walk," he ventured again. The same pause,
the same momentary interest as she answered, followed by the same
abstraction.
"I suppose," said he, at length, "that I am having the last of my idle
days here; I expect to be ordered to sea shortly."
"Indeed!" Mildred looked up.
"I shall be very sorry to leave here," he continued.
"Yes, Innisfield _is_ quite pretty this summer. But I supposed
that the pleasures of the seaport and of adventure abroad were more
attractive to you than this monotonous life."
"'Tis rather slow here, but--I--I meant to say that I shall be sorry
to leave you."
"Me? Why, mother can take care of me."
"Certainly she will, but I shall miss you."
"No doubt you'll think of us, when you are away; I'm sure we shall
remember you. We shall never sit down to the table without thinking of
your vacant chair."
It was impossible to misinterpret her kind, simple, sisterly
tones. And Hugh could but feel that they indicated no particle of
tenderness for him. The task of winning her was yet wholly to be done,
and there was no prospect that she would give him the least
encouragement in advance, if she did not utterly refuse him at the
end. He saw that he must not count on an easy victory, but prepare for
it by a slow and gradual approach.
Mildred sat some time leaning out of the window, then opening her
piano, for the first time since her father's death, she sat down and
played a nocturne by Mendelssohn. The music seemed a natural
expression of her feelings,--suited to the heart "steeped in golden
languors," in the "tranced summer calm." The tones rang through the
silent rooms, pervading all the charmed air, so that the ear tingled
in listening,--as the lips find a sharpness with the luscious flavor
of the pine-apple. The sound reached to the kitchen, and brought a
brief pleasure, but a bitterer pang of envy, to Lucy's swelling bosom.
It calmed for a moment the evil spirit in Hugh's troubled heart. And
Mrs. Kinloch in her solitary chamber, though she had always detested
the piano, thought she had never heard such music before. She had
found a new sense, that thrilled her with an exquisite delight. It was
a good omen, she was sure, that Mildred should now, after so long a
time, feel inclined to play. Only a light heart, and one supremely
careless or supremely happy, could touch the keys like that. "Hugh
must be a fortunate boy," she thought; and she could have hugged him
for joy. What thought Hugh, as she rose from her seat at the
instrument like one in a trance and walked towards the hall?
Conflicting emotions struggled for mastery; but, hardly knowing what
he did, he started up and offered her a caress. It was not unusual,
but her nerves had acquired an unwonted sensitiveness; she shuddered,
and rushed from him up the stairs. He could have torn his hair with
rage.
"Am I, then, such a bear," he asked himself, "that she is afraid of
me?"
A light at the end of the hall caught his eye. It was Lucy with
tear-stained cheeks going to bed,--unconscious that the flaring candle
she carried was dripping upon her dress,--unconscious that the one she
both loved and feared was looking at her as she slowly went up the
back-stairs. Truly, how little the inmates of that house knew of the
secrets of each other's hearts! It was strange,--was it not?--that,
after so long intimacy, they could not understand each other better!
How many hearts do _you_ really know?