IT was about a month after this, in the early autumn, when Lucy Curtis, coming down from the Hall upon one of her courses of visitation in the village, went, as she often did, to Cousin Julia to report herself as she passed, and inquire if there were any special troubles requiring her aid in the little community. Mrs. Rolt was not herself so active as her young cousin; but she heard of everything that was wanted, and was the universal medium of communication between the village and the Hall. The poor people came to her if she did not go to them, and her poor neighbours had unbounded reliance upon her kindness, liking her all the better perhaps that she never made any investigations into their cleanliness or providence, and did not trouble them with visits, but was sorry, indiscriminately, for everybody who was in trouble, and for everybody who was sick had port-wine to bestow and beef-tea. It was not entirely indolence, but rather a just knowledge of herself, combined with a love of keeping at home, which intercepted “parish work” on her part. “I know I should gossip,” she said, with looks of humility, when it was suggested to her that she should visit the poor; and there could be no doubt that she availed herself even of the lessened opportunities presented to her in this particular when the poor visited her. She was lying in wait for Lucy on this particular morning, which happened to be one of the days on which the young lady was expected in the village. Lucy had a great deal of business to do which is not reckoned in the management of an estate. She had the villagers to look after, which probably ought to have been the Rector’s business. But as the Rector did not take naturally to that portion of his work, it was she who did it. She had her little private savings-bank, her small provident societies, her clothing clubs, her parish library, all in her own management, with various additions to the formal educational processes of the place; classes for big girls and boys, and a private little school of cookery, and many small matters, all intended to make the people of Oakley happy; which object, perhaps, they did not succeed in fulfilling, but yet did infinitesimal scraps of good, such as is the utmost most human schemes attain to. One of these undertakings required her presence to-day. It was an October day; the leaves falling, the sky red; and the time was nearly three years from Arthur’s marriage. It was cold enough to make that warm jacket quite expedient which she had hesitated to put on; and as Lucy approached Mrs. Rolt’s house, Mrs. Rolt stationed herself at the window, ready to tap as she passed, and secure ten minutes’—conversation Cousin Julia called it, but gossip would be the proper word to say.
The house of the Rolts was a large substantial building of brick, very much like the Rectory, but not with the same imposing grounds; a house of Queen Anne’s time, with a pediment, and rows of twinkling windows flush with the wall. There was an excellent garden behind, but in front nothing save one large very white doorstep between the door and the street; and the windows of the dining-room, where Mrs. Rolt sat in the morning, were so close upon the road that no one could escape her whom she chose to arrest in this way.
“I am coming,” said Lucy, nodding as she passed; and the neat housemaid, already on the alert, rushed to open the door.
“Missis has been looking for you all the morning,” Sally said. There was evidently something more than ordinary to say.
Nothing could be more warm and cosy than the Rolts’ dining-room. Its warm red curtains filled all the intervals between the windows, not, it is to be feared, as the canons of art would approve, at the present day, but with a comfortable fullness. The room itself was panelled, however, which would have redeemed it, notwithstanding that the old mantelshelf had been tampered with, and was not so high up as it ought to have been. There was a big table in the centre of the room, and two easy-chairs by the fire. The newspaper thrown down in one of them showed that Mr. Rolt himself had but lately left this comfortable room. A big old mahogany sideboard, not handsome, but substantial, stood against the end wall, and a long row of low book-cases opposite the windows. There was not much room to move about because of the big table, upon which there was nothing decorative except a huge basin of China-asters, the last of the garden; but the room was warm, and very handy, Mrs. Rolt thought, when she had anything to do. The good soul never had anything to do; but what did that matter? She liked to have her big basket of odds and ends brought down and placed upon the table, where there was plenty of room; and there she would occupy herself very pleasantly looking out skeins of wool which might make a pair of socks for a poor child, and bits of cloth which would answer for some one’s patchwork. These last were very useful whenever a bundle of children happened to come to Oakley. More dolls than tongue could reckon had been dressed out of Mrs. Rolt’s odds and ends; but they did not do so much good to the poor children who were in want of socks. Mrs. Rolt met Lucy at the door, and kissed her, and brought her in to the big chair.
“How-are-you-and-how-is-your-mamma-and-everybody?” she said in a breath, linking all the words together in her eagerness to get over preliminaries. “Will-you-have-a-cup-of-chocolate-after-your-walk? No? Then-sit-down-and-I-will-tell-you-something,” said Cousin Julia, out of breath.
“I knew you must have something to tell me when I saw your face. What is it? You don’t look as if anything very bad had happened.”
“Oh, it is nothing very bad. I don’t suppose it is of much consequence, and yet it is very funny, you know. Lucy, two ladies have come to live in the little Wren Cottage. Did you ever hear of such a thing? two ladies, one of them tall and handsome. My old Sam has quite lost his heart; and the other not so pretty, and much commoner looking, and both complete strangers, nobody knowing about them, or where they came from, or whom they belong to; and quite young. Did you ever hear anything so strange?”
“Two ladies in the Wren Cottage! Yes, that is news,” said Lucy, with much composure. “I hope they will turn out pleasant neighbours; it will be very agreeable for you.”
“Won’t it? But it is not that, so much that I am thinking of. Who can they be, you know, Lucy? to choose a place like this to settle in, where there is no attraction, no society, no inducement whatever?”
“There is you, and Bertie at the Rectory; that is not bad; and it is very pretty, you know,” said Lucy. “I don’t wonder that anyone should choose Oakley. Where could you find so pretty a place?”
“That is all very well, my dear,” said Mrs. Rolt, who, not having been brought up in Oakley, was less enthusiastic; “but how did they find out that it was a pretty place? No one has ever seen them here before. They could not find it out by instinct, you know, could they? To be sure, Wren Cottage has been advertised in the paper and is let for almost nothing at all. That might tempt them, perhaps, if they are poor.”
“Very likely indeed, I should think; and they must be poor, or else they would never come to Oakley. Is not that what you are thinking? I am glad you are going to have neighbours.”
“Going, Lucy! My love, they are there. Look—look out of the furthest window; don’t you see somebody’s back in the bedroom doing something? Look as plain as possible between the white curtains. Somebody’s back, and I do believe an ear!”
“I could not swear to the ear,” said Lucy, laughing; “but I see there is something; and there is Fanny Blunt at the door, charing; that is good,” she continued, warming into interest. “Fanny Blunt is a good little girl. I am glad she has a place.”
“Listen, Lucy. I told you there were two of them. They don’t look like sisters, but Fanny says they are sisters.”
“Oh, Cousin Julia! you have been asking Fanny—”
“Only her mother, only her mother, dear. Of course, I would not for the world question the girl about her mistresses. You could not think I would be guilty of such a thing, Lucy; but her mother tells me they are two sisters. You would scarcely believe it. The little one is a nice common-looking person; but the other, the one who was at the window, and you saw her ear—”
“But I could not swear to the ear.”
“Don’t laugh, dear. I assure you I am quite serious, and very, very much interested. Their name is Arthur, and one of them is married; at least it is Mrs. Arthur that has taken the cottage. Of course, if the other is her sister, she can scarcely be Arthur too.”
“Mrs. Arthur!” said Lucy, startled.
“Do you know the name, Lucy? Do you know anyone of the name? I should like, I must say, to find out some clue.”
Lucy shook her head. She did not know anyone of the name, which is, of course, a respectable surname borne by many people. It could have nothing to do with anyone she knew.
“I know it only as a Christian name,” said Lucy.
“Ah, as a Christian name—everybody knows it as that,” said Mrs. Rolt. “Poor dear Arthur, I think of him every day, poor fellow.”
“He seems to be happy enough, Cousin Julia; we need not call him poor fellow now.”
“No; but then it is uncomfortable, you know, to be like that, separated from his wife. To be sure, if they did not get on it was better, perhaps; but what a pity, Lucy, they did not get on! There must be great faults, I always say, on the woman’s side.”
“On both sides, I should think,” said Lucy with a sigh.
“On the woman’s side chiefly, my dear; for we know we ought to give in. We may always be quite sure we ought to give in, whatever our husbands may do; and in that case things generally come right; for you know one person cannot quarrel by himself, can he? there must always be two. But that has nothing to do with the poor lady opposite.”
“Is she a poor lady? You seem to know more about her than you said at first.”
“Well, Fanny—or, rather, Fanny’s mother—she comes, you know, about her rent; poor thing, she is always behind with her rent; and she says she is either a widow or her husband is away. He may be a sailor, you know, or in India, or something of that sort; and she does not seem to expect him home. It is a sad position for a young woman. I am not quite sure which of them is Mrs. Arthur though; the little dumpy one is certainly the oldest, but then the tall one looks the most superior.”
“Perhaps it is not always the superior who is the married one,” said Lucy, again tempted to laugh; for such guesses throw gleams of reflection upon the hearers, and lead young women unconsciously to think of themselves.
“No, indeed; I was thirty-five myself before I married, Lucy. It would not become me to speak as if the best people were always the ones that married soonest. There is yourself; but then you are so hard to please. But it stands to reason in this case, don’t you think, that the married one should be the chief? for it is her house, you know, and she is the mistress. Now the tall one, whom you saw at the window, is evidently the principal; therefore she must be Mrs. Arthur. The little fat one seems a good little thing. She looks after everything, and helps to cook the dinner. The other—I wonder if she is a widow?—does very little about the house. I see her reading generally.”
“You speak as if they had been the objects of your observation for years.”
“No, not for years, of course; but when you live opposite to people for a fortnight, you find out a great deal about them. You know you have been away, Lucy. She reads a great deal, and I have seen her out sketching, and sometimes she talks to the poor people; but she looks shy and frightened. Whenever she sees me she hurries away.”
“And you have not called? I wonder you did not call when you take so much interest in her,” said Lucy, taking up her little basket again, and preparing to go.
“Do you think I ought to call?” cried Cousin Julia eagerly. “I have been turning it over and over in my own mind. I wonder if I ought to call, I have been saying to Sam. What would your mamma think, I wonder? You see, they have no introductions, no one to be, as it were, responsible for them; and they might be something very different, they might be not at all nice people for anything we can tell.”
“How unkind of you to imagine evil! Why shouldn’t they be nice people? I am afraid you are beginning to be hardhearted,” said Lucy, laughing. “Mamma will be very much surprised to hear that you have not called, I am sure.”
“Do you really think so? I am dying to call,” cried Mrs. Rolt. “Hard-hearted—me! Oh, Lucy, how can you say so? When you know it is chiefly on your account that your mamma may always be quite certain you will meet no one whom you ought not to meet here.”
“I should like to meet her very much,” said Lucy, offering her pretty cheek for Cousin Julia’s kiss. “I shall come back for some luncheon if you will have me, and then you can tell me all the rest. My people will be waiting now.”
Mrs. Rolt stood at the window and looked after her admiringly as she went away. Such a young creature—to do so much—and to keep the parish together. But then the good woman reflected that she had now said this of Lucy for some years, and counting back, decided that she must be twenty-three—not so very young to be still unmarried, for Sir John Curtis’s daughter, who might marry anybody. “I wonder if there is some one,” said Cousin Julia to herself, making a private review in her own mind of all the gentlemen she knew—which took her thoughts off the new-comer in Wren Cottage, though she might already be seen at the window gazing out with a certain eagerness, and showing more than one ear.
Lucy went on her way with a little tremble of excitement about her, though she laughed at herself for this absurd fancy of hers about Mrs. Arthur. Why should she think of her brother’s wife? She was not aware that Nancy had left Underhayes, or that anything had happened to the family; and it was too foolish to suppose that the unknown sister-in-law who had left her husband and her duty rather than abandon her family would have thrown them aside again aimlessly to come here. Why should she come here? She had shown no symptom of any desire to make herself acquainted with Arthur’s home; but rather had defied and rejected everything that could connect her with it. And now, after all was over between them, why should she come now? Arthur was a quite well-known surname, as Mrs. Rolt said; and she rebuked herself for the fantastic idea with some vehemence. She went about her business, however, with a mind a little discomposed, feeling she knew not how, as if some new chapter had begun; and half expecting the new-comer to rise up in her path, and interfere with her. But Lucy’s business went on as usual without disturbance from any one. She held her usual business levée, receiving the little savings of the poor women, the scrapings of pennies and threepennies they could put aside for the children’s frocks at Christmas, and heard all their stories of boys who were doing well, and boys who were doing ill, and girls that wanted “placing,” and those that were going to learn the dress-making, or away to Oakenden to service. Many a domestic tale she had to hear and sympathise with, and had to make several promises to “speak to” unruly sons and husbands. The village women had a great confidence in “somebody speaking to” those careless fellows, who would go with their wages to the public-house instead of taking them home. “It ain’t that he’s got a bad heart—but oh, Miss Lucy, he do want talking to!” they would say; and Lucy would request that the offending husband might be sent up to the Hall on some little commission, or inveigled in the afternoon into the school-room. “But he’s got that sharp, he won’t go nigh the school-room now as he knows as you’re there, and what’s a-coming,” one of these plaintive wives said shaking her head. “Then you must say I want to speak to him,” said Lucy, “don’t make any pretence of business, but just say I want to see him up at the House. I will give him a little job to do for me if he behaves himself rightly,” said Lucy. She had not, perhaps, so much faith in “talking to” as they had; but it was, at the worst, a flattering delusion, and the men themselves did not dislike the importance of the “talking to” which elevated them for the moment, though it was an undesirable elevation. She had come among them since she was a child. She had waged war with the public-house since it was half a joke to hear her small denunciations, and both women and men had laughed and cried at Miss Lucy. “Lord bless her! she do speak up bold,” they had said; and this early interference had given her a certain power such as the roughest ploughman will allow, holding his breath, to the child, who in baby rectitude and indignation may sometimes lecture a drunken father. She had done a great deal of business in this way before she went back to take luncheon with Cousin Julia, which was not one of the least of her kind offices. You would have supposed Lucy was the most dainty of epicures to see the little feasts Mrs. Rolt made for her on these parish days. Her husband was seldom at home at that hour, and Cousin Julia was ready to feed on nightingale’s tongues, had they been procurable, the young Lady Bountiful who saved her from a solitary meal. And in the afternoon there were the schools to visit, and the little Cottage Hospital, and the cookery, and all that was going on for the good of her village subjects. Bertie, too, had a way of coming to Mrs. Rolt’s on these parish days, and though she was not fond of him, she avowed, as she was of Lucy, yet Bertie was a cousin too, and it was not possible for the gentle soul to forbear from a little feeble essay at matchmaking when she saw these handsome young people together. Bertie was not good enough for Lucy, but Lucy might like him for all that. Things much more unlikely had been known; while it was probable, indeed, that he, only a clergyman, and humble-minded (perhaps) was afraid to venture to open his mind to Sir John’s daughter. Mrs. Rolt felt that it was only doing as she would be done by—or rather as she would have been done by—to allow them to meet when they could. It was the Curtises who were her relations, not my Lady; and she had a little natural opposition in her mind to Lucy’s mother, who was understood to have little admiration for the Rector. “I hope you will not mind, my love, but poor Bertie is coming to lunch,” she said, in deprecating tones on this particular “parish day.”
“Why do you say poor Bertie? I don’t think he considers himself poor,” said Lucy, half annoyed.
“Ah, my dear, he does not get everything he wishes for any more than the rest of us in this world,” Cousin Julia replied; and to such a very natural and likely fact what could anyone say?