“Idylls,” and feasting on the associations they conjured up.
The autumn was gliding away; the leaves were floating down from the copper beeches which skirted the flower garden, and my hopes were falling earthwards, too, one by one, withering and dying.
I had no mother or sister to whom to confide my grief, and I nursed it unwholesomely and miserably. My uncle was ill at the time, and Butterworth was too taken up in attending on him to observe me narrowly. I had nothing to amuse me—nothing pleasant to think about, and I was dissatisfied with myself. Had not Hedworth Charlton said I was leading a spoilt, useless life, letting my wide opportunities lie fallow? Perhaps if I had been better and wiser, I might have gained a higher place in his regard!
I used to sit pondering how I could improve myself—what great and good things I could do to benefit my fellow creatures. I was on a wrong track altogether; I wanted to do everything myself, not to win Grace and Help. The beautiful new schools would shortly be finished and opened; wouldn’t that be a great work? And Uncle John had made vague promises of building some almshouses afterwards. I must keep him up to the mark; but meanwhile—meanwhile I was so idle and dreary.
Morning after morning I used to see the woman at the lodge turn out her little tribe to run riot in the lane and fields, to idle, trifle, squabble. The village-school was closed—it was too far to send them to Hemsley, and there was no one to teach them or keep them out of mischief. Well, I used to sit all those long mornings in dreary laziness, and if a thought suggested itself to me how I might have gathered the children together, and instructed them for an hour or two, I thrust it aside; it wasn’t worth while; the school would be re-opened presently, and (the true reason) it would be too much trouble.
An infirm old woman lived in the cottage in the lane; she was a wretched object, bedridden with rheumatism; poor, friendless, helpless. I put her down as the first candidate for my projected hospital, and shut my ears to suggestions that a timely visit, a few verses of Scripture read in an audible voice, gifts of flannel, coal and other cottage comforts, or even a word of sympathy, or a morsel of pudding from my own luncheon-table would have been acceptable kindnesses. The door stood temptingly open whenever I passed, but I never entered, only I renewed to myself that promise about the almshouses: and the old woman died before they were built!
Why delay the end? It cannot come to anyone else with the like shock and bitterness it brought to me.
One Sunday morning, immediately after the close of the Session, I was startled by finding Hedworth Charlton in the rectory pew. When, through the opening of the crimson curtains, I first discovered him, he was looking over the same hymn-book as Rose Carmichael. The remainder of the service seemed to me as a trance.
I hurried blindly out of church. Some one was waiting for me in the porch; a firm hand grasped mine, and whispered words of greeting. Oh! what a happy tone it was, especially at the conclusion!
“And congratulate me, Amyce. Dear Rose has consented to be my wife; that is why I am here to-day.”
What I answered I know not; my brain was on fire—my eyes scorched with agony. The frosty autumn breeze blew keenly against my face; there was a clear unclouded sky over-head, and sunshine and the sharp shadows of gravestones lay before me on the grass.
“Are you obliged to go home immediately, Amyce? Cannot you spare one moment for good-wishes to Rose? See, she is waiting over yonder.”
I looked up. Rose Carmichael was standing by the rectory-gate, playfully tapping the privet hedge with her parasol. She seemed waiting, but also she seemed watching us. Something in her expression—in those stealthy glances under her long eyelashes—nerved me to self-control, and I went forward and held out my hand:
“God bless you, Rose; and grant you all the happiness you deserve.”
Was there sarcasm in my low accent? Perhaps there was.
Rapidly her liquid eyes sought mine, then the colour mounted to her forehead, and she looked down. I know not if for a moment she felt humiliated; she could not fail to have had a suspicion of my secret, and she had always professed herself to be my friend. So—but what are women-friends in this narrow-hearted world!
“You are not looking well, Amyce,” Hedworth Charlton observed; “you have lost your colour, and grown thin. I fear you have been over-done during Sir John’s illness. Couldn’t I help you in any way while I am here? Do not hesitate to tell me if I can; you know I am always your friend, and shall be doubly so by-and-by, I hope—” His smiling eyes were resting on Rose.
His friend! I started away ungraciously and hurried home. His friend!—the friend of Rose Carmichael’s husband—never! never!
When I reached the Towers I knew the news had travelled before me. Quickly as I gained my own room old Butterworth was there before me, crying and sobbing, trampling on some imaginary foe, circling me with loving arms and caresses. I had meant to be proud and self-restrained, and bear it all in silence, but grief and tears are infectious, and at the sight of her distress, I flung myself on to that sympathising breast just as I used to do in days of yore.
“Poor child!” Butterworth kept repeating, “poor child! poor child! and it’s all our faults. Master’s and mine, who threw you together! Oh, dear! poor fellow! he’s crying in his room like a babby, and he says it’s retribution. Amyce Dillon’s son is revenging his mother,—honey, ye’ll bear it bravely and not taunt the old man; he could not bear to see you miserable, and he’d blame himself all his life, if ye fretted and moaned.
“That nasty, mean hussy Rose, with her low, palavering ways! Didn’t I warn ye about her