_RUSHBROOK_
"About the windings of the maze to hear
The soft wind blowing. Over meadowy holms
And alders, garden aisles."
--TENNYSON.
Arnold Wayne wrote his letter to Mr. Lennard, but the rector had already
made arrangements to go to Switzerland. Mrs. Lennard, however, had
decided not to accompany him; she had made up her mind to spend a couple
of months with a maiden lady living at Rushbrook, and it was her wish
that Elsie Kilner should be with her there. So it came to pass that
Jamie and the three people who were linked together through his little
person all came to sojourn within a stone's-throw of each other. Miss
Ryan and Mrs. Lennard had been school-fellows and bosom friends, and the
friendship had lasted through all the chances and changes of life.
Willow Farm and its broad acres belonged to Miss Ryan, and was managed
for her by her nephew Francis. She lived in an old-fashioned house, long
and low, with quaint dormer-windows set in a peaked roof of red tiles.
The house stood in the middle of a garden filled to overflowing with
country flowers, and the warm, sweet perfume of the crowded beds made
Elsie feel that she had come close to the very heart of summer. The sun
was ripening the black, juicy berries on the loaded cherry-trees; bees
kept up a ceaseless hum; large roses pressed close together in masses of
bloom.
"What a little world of sweets!" said Elsie, smelling a bunch of crimson
carnations.
She was standing on the door-step after breakfast, wearing her pretty
grey gown, and a creamy muslin kerchief knotted at the throat. Her face,
under the golden straw-hat, was so richly, yet delicately, coloured that
it wore the aspect of a flower.
A slim, tall man, of eight or nine and twenty, stood looking at that
face in the morning light; he had just given her the carnations. "I am
glad you like the old place here," he said. "It isn't as romantic, of
course, as Wayne's Court, but it is comfortable. You know Wayne? He is a
very good fellow."
"I met him in town," Elsie answered.
"Ah, yes! he knows your friends the Lennards. What a wanderer he has
been! But now, they tell me, he seems inclined to settle down at last."
"That is a good thing," said Elsie, raising the carnations to her face.
"He'll marry, I suppose," Francis Ryan went on. "The Danforths are
trying to make up the match with Mrs. Verdon. Do you know her? A fair
woman, with sky-blue eyes. She has come to The Cedars again, close to
the Court; so that looks as if she meant business."
This was the news that Elsie heard on her first day at Willow Farm. It
gave her a strong desire for solitude, and she was glad when Francis
said that he must go and look after one of the horses. She waited until
he had disappeared, and then went down a long gravelled walk, between
crowded borders, to a little white gate. Lifting the latch, she walked
across a green meadow, and found herself close to the brink of a river.
Rushbrook was a place of many waters, a land of green and silver,
beautiful with the peace that belongs to a pastoral country. She soon
found a cosy nook on an old tree-trunk in the shade, and sat down to
think. It was a good spot for a reverie. You could listen to the whisper
of the water among the sedges, and look off, across the river, to the
low-lying meadows beyond--a scene which was fascinating in its intense
quietness. It rests the eye and brain to gaze at those cool green
levels, broidered with silvery rivulets, and watch the water stealing
among rushes and tall rustling reeds.
[Illustration: "IT WAS A GOOD SPOT FOR A REVERIE."]
It was a lovely morning--soft, hazy, exquisite, as mornings in August
often are. Looking back across the meadow, Elsie saw a row of
copper-beeches standing in an even line against the deep, dreamy blue of
the sky. Away to the left was a mass of foliage hiding the red peaked
roof of Willow Farm.
She had not expected to be very happy when she came to Rushbrook. Deep
down in her heart was a fear which she kept carefully covered over; she
was ashamed of its very existence, and strove to hide it from her own
sight. It was Mrs. Verdon--always Mrs. Verdon--who was to have
everything worth having.
Of course, it was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Wayne
should fall in love with Mrs. Verdon. The match would be approved by
everybody, and Elsie's judgment just then was not clear enough to see
that the matches approved by everybody are precisely those which seldom
take place.
It was jealousy--ugly, plain, unconquerable jealousy--which was
tormenting Elsie now. It is a dreadful moment when a woman looks deep
into her innermost self and catches the gleam of a fierce fire burning
there.
She looked out again at the shining water, and drew in deep breaths of
pure air. The freshness of the streams was in the atmosphere; all around
was the intense greenness of water-fed grass.
What a sweet old earth it was, after all! Green pastures and still
waters were to be found by all who let the angels guide them. It is our
own fault always if we enter the barren and dry land where no water is.
The old trunk on which she sat was close to the edge of the water.
Overhead the spreading boughs of an elm protected her from the sun; a
little bird, hidden among the leaves, gave out a clear note now and
then. Elsie, feeling a sense of comfort stealing into her heart
unawares, began to listen to the bird. The bunch of carnations lay upon
her knee.
A rustling in the grasses near made her start. Arnold Wayne was coming
down the slope of the bank to the spot where she was sitting.
"What a charming nook you have discovered!" he said, his brown face
lighting up with pleasure at the sight of her. "I have been to Willow
Farm to seek you."
"How did you know that I was here?" Elsie asked as she gave him her
hand.
"Mrs. Lennard was standing at a window upstairs when you went out. She
watched you cross the field and go down to the river. I heard that you
arrived last night."
"Yes," said Elsie, a contented look coming into her brown eyes. "It is
delicious to get away from London, delicious to tread on cool grass
instead of hot paving-stones."
"And you are going to stay in Rushbrook a long time. Mrs. Lennard has
been telling me all her plans. The rector is coming here on his return
from Switzerland, and then you will all pay the long-promised visit to
the Court."
"We shall see," Elsie returned, with a little air of gravity. "The
present is so lovely that I don't care to look into the future, Mr.
Wayne. I am charmed with the river. I like to smell the damp, fresh
scent of the sedges."
"I'm glad it does you good," he answered, rather absently. "You have
some fine carnations there," he added, lightly touching the flowers on
her lap.
"Yes; Mr. Ryan gathered them after breakfast."
She spoke the words without thinking about them at all, and she was not
looking at Arnold when she uttered them. If his face changed, she did
not see it.
"So he is beginning to give her flowers already," Arnold thought.
Meanwhile Elsie was wondering whether he had yet seen Mrs. Verdon. The
two widows had travelled down to Rushbrook on Monday, and this was
Wednesday.
"Jamie must be delighted to be here," she said after a little pause.
"He is quite radiant," Arnold replied. "What lungs the boy has! I could
hear him shouting as I walked up the lane to The Cedars yesterday
afternoon."
"So he has called on her already," Elsie thought.
"Mrs. Verdon is afraid of the river," he went on. "The young rascal
wants to make straight for the water; he has brought a regular fleet
with him. They will have to keep a sharp watch."
"He is a dear little man," Elsie said warmly. "If your friend had lived
he would have been proud of his nephew."
"I hope he'll grow up as good as dear old Harold," rejoined Arnold in a
graver tone. "And I hope, too, that he won't miss Harold's influence
over his life. He's in a fair way to be spoilt, you see."
"Mrs. Verdon really wants to do her best for him," said Elsie, with
perfect sincerity. "And nurse is a very sensible woman."
"But it takes a man to manage a strong boy. A woman can't do it alone."
"He will help her to manage him," Elsie thought. "It is right, I know.
This is what Meta would have wished. I am beginning to hate myself."
Aloud she said pleasantly, "I shall call at The Cedars to-morrow, and
say that I will take care of Jamie sometimes."
"I came to ask you all to dine at the Court on Saturday," said Arnold,
after another brief silence. "Mrs. Lennard will come, and so will Ryan;
but Miss Ryan declined. I want you to get acquainted with my old place,
Miss Kilner; there are one or two pictures which you will like, I
think."
"Thank you," Elsie answered frankly. "I am very fond of pictures."
"You were looking at a picture when I saw you first," Arnold Wayne
remarked, gazing at her with remembering eyes. "You were quite absorbed
in it, and saw nothing else. And you only came out of your dream when
the rector shouted a greeting to me."
Elsie smiled, and there was something dreamy in the smile. She had
changed her attitude as she sat on the old trunk, and had laid the
carnations on the bark by her side.
"I remember the picture," she said in a musing tone. "Two nuns were
waiting outside a convent door. One of these days I think I shall be a
nun."
"No, you won't," he answered in a masterful voice. "Will you walk a
little way along the bank? There's a picturesque island farther on, a
wonderful place for wild-flowers."
She rose. And the bunch of carnations was left forgotten on the trunk of
the tree.