"I declare," said Aunt Sophia to herself, "it is quite ridiculous as
well as shocking. Here I seem to be set up as the head of a sort of
wedding bureau, for everybody seized with the silly complaint."
"Oh, aunt, dear, it isn't a silly complaint--it's a very bad one,"
sobbed Naomi, who had sought the old lady in her bedroom.
"Oh, stuff and nonsense, child!"
"But it is, aunt; it's dreadful--worse than anything. You never knew
how bad it was."
"No, child," said Aunt Sophia softly--"so people say;" and she laid her
hand tenderly upon the head of the sobbing girl.
"It--it's bad enough when--when you think--he loves you--and you--you--
you--you are waiting--for him to speak; but--when--wh--wh--when he
doesn't speak at all, and--and you find out--he--he loves some one
else--it--it breaks your heart," sobbed poor Naomi. "I shall never be
happy again."
"Hush, hush, my darling. Not so bad as that, I hope. And pray, who is
is that you love, and who loves some one else?"
"Nobody!" cried Naomi, lifting her face and speaking passionately, and
with all the child-like anger of a susceptible girl with no very great
depth of feeling. "I hate him--I detest him--I'll never speak to him
again. He's a wicked, base, bad man, and--and--I wish he was dead."
"Softly, softly. Why, what a baby love is this! Come, come, Naomi; we
can't all pick the bright fruit we see upon the tree; and, my child,
those who do, often wish, as I daresay Eve did, that they had left it
untouched."
"I--I don't know what you mean, aunt dear, but it's very, very cruel. I
did think him so nice and good and handsome."
"Poor child!" said Aunt Sophia, smiling as the girl rested her head upon
her arm, which was upon the old lady's knee. "And who is this wicked
man? Is it Doctor Scales?"
"Oh, what nonsense, aunt! He has always treated me as if I were a
child, and--and that's what I am. To think that I should have made
myself so miserable about such a wretch!"
It was a curious mingling of the very young girl and the passionate
budding woman, and Aunt Sophia read her very truly as she said softly:
"Ah, well, child, time will cure all this. But who has troubled the
poor little baby heart?"
"Yes, aunt, that's right; that's what it is; but it will never be a baby
heart again for such a man as Mr Prayle."
"And so Mr Prayle has been playing fast and loose with you, has he,
dear?"
"No, aunt," said the girl sadly. "It was all my silliness. He never
said a word to me; and I am glad now," she cried, firing up. "He's a
bad, wicked man."
"Indeed, my dear," thought Aunt Sophia, as she recalled Saxby's words.
"I--I--I went into the study this morning, for I did not like it. I was
hurt and annoyed, aunt, dear. Ought I to tell you all this?"
"Think for yourself, my dear. You have been with me these fifteen
years, ever since your poor mother died. I am a cross old woman, I
know, full of whims and caprices; but I thought I had tried to fill a
mother's place to you."
"Oh, auntie, auntie!" sobbed the girl, clinging lightly to her, and
drawing herself more and more up, till she could rest her head upon the
old lady's shoulder, "don't think me ungrateful. I do--I do love you
very dearly."
"Enough to make you feel that there should be no want of confidence
between us?"
"O yes, aunt, dear; and I'll never think of keeping anything back from
you again. I'll tell you everything now, and then I'm sure you'll say
we ought to go away from here."
"Well, well--we'll see."
"I thought I was very fond of Mr Prayle, aunt dear; and then I grew
sure that I was, when I saw how he was always being shut up in the study
with Kate, and it--it--"
"Speak out, my dear," said Aunt Sophia gravely.
"It made me feel so miserable."
Aunt Sophia's face puckered, and she bowed her head.
"Then I said that it was wicked and degrading to think what I did, and I
drove such thoughts away, and tried to believe that it was all Cousin
James's affairs; and then I saw something else; but I would not believe
it was true till this morning."
"Well, Naomi, my child, and what was it?"
"Why, aunt--Oh, I don't like to confess--it was so shameless and
unmaidenly; but I thought I loved him so very much. I--I--don't like to
confess."
"Not to me, my dear?"
"Yes, yes; I will, aunt dear--I will," cried the girl, whose cheeks were
now aflame. "It's about a fortnight ago that one evening, when we were
all sitting in the drawing-room with the windows open, and it was so
beautiful and soft and warm, Mr Prayle got up and came across and
talked to me for a few minutes. It was only about that sketch I was
making, and he did not say much, but he said it in such a way that it
set my heart beating; and when he left the room, I fancied it meant
something. So I got up, feeling terribly guilty, and went out of the
window on to the lawn and then down to the rose garden, and picked two
or three buds. Then I went round to the grass path where Mr Prayle
walks up and down so much with his book."
"Because you thought he would be there, my dear?"
"Yes, aunt! It was very wrong--but I did."
"And you thought he had gone out there to read his book in the dark,
eh?"
"No, aunt dear; I thought he would be there waiting to see if I would go
to him."
"And you were going?"
"Yes, aunt dear."
"Was he there?"
"Yes, aunt."
"Waiting for you?"
"O no, aunt dear; for as I went softly over the grass, I stopped short
all at once, and turned giddy, and felt as if everything was at an end."
"Why, Naomi?"
"He was going by me in the darkness with his arm round some one else's
waist!"
Aunt Sophia's face had never looked so old before, for every wrinkle was
deeply marked, and her eyes seemed sunk and strange in their fixed
intensity as she waited to hear more; but Naomi remained silent, as if
afraid to speak.
"Well, child, and who was it with Mr Prayle?"
Naomi hesitated for a few moments, and then said in a passionate burst:
"I did not believe it till this morning, aunt. I thought then that it
was Kate; but it seemed so impossible--so terrible--that I dare not
think it was she. But when I went quickly into the study this morning,
Mr Prayle was just raising her hand to his lips. O aunt, how can
people be so wicked! I shall go and be a nun!" Aunt Sophia looked
still older, for a time, as she tenderly caressed and fondled the
sobbing girl. Then a more serene aspect came over her face, and she
said softly: "There, there; you have learned a severe lesson--that Mr
Prayle does not care for you; and as to being a nun--no, no, my darling:
there is plenty of good work to be done in the world. Don't shirk it by
shutting yourself up. Come, you have been almost a child so far; now,
be a woman. Show your pride. There are other and better men than
Arthur Prayle; and as to what you saw--it may have been a mistake.
Let's wait and see."
"Yes, aunt."
"And you'll be brave, and think no more of him?"
"Never again, aunt dear. There!"
"That's my brave little woman.--Now, bathe your eyes, and stop here till
the redness has gone off. I'm going down to write." She kissed Naomi
tenderly, and left her, making her way to the drawing-room, where she
wrote several letters, one being to Mr Saxby to ask him to come down
again for a day or two, as she wanted to ask his advice about an
investment.
Volume 2, Chapter XI.