LADY WILLIAM, on this eventful afternoon, had gone out with Mab on one of her rambles. The air was full of spring, the buds bursting on every tree, the cottage gardens all blooming with those common flowers which can be got anywhere, which are the inheritance of the poorest, and are more beautiful, spontaneous, and abundant than any other: the early primroses, daffodils and Lent lilies, the rich dark wallflowers that fill the air with sweetness. Mab had a little basket with her, in which to bring home any wild thing that pleased her in the woods and slopes of Denham Hill, on the other side of the water. It was a long walk, but neither mother nor daughter was afraid of a long walk. They came back, breathing of every sweet-wildness of the spring, just as Mrs. Swinford, disappointed and angry, was leaving a card, with a message, at the cottage door; but the carriage had disappeared along the road long before they reached their own end of Watcham. It had been a lovely afternoon, warm, yet fresh with the dewy moisture of the April breezes, that germinating weather, and sparkle of showers and waters which is not damp. Several showers had fallen upon them in their ramble, but done no harm; they had taken shelter, after a laughing run against the wind and the bright falling veil of rain, under the trees, or in a cottage when one was near, and shaken the rain-drops off their dresses, and carried the freshness of the outside atmosphere, as if they had been nymphs of the air, into the little wayside houses. It would have been hard to say whether mother or daughter was youngest in these runs and shelterings. Lady William was almost more swift of foot than Mab, who more easily got out of breath, and was built on heavier lines; and though the girl’s colour was higher, the delicate flush on the other’s cheek spoke of almost finer health and brightness in its fluctuations and changes. They were both equally interested about the plants and roots which Mab grubbed up from under the trees, but hers was the delight of superior knowledge, as she discovered a rare something here and there, a flower peculiar to one place or another. Mab was altogether absorbed in her botany and her researches, flushed with her digging, eager about her new treasures. But her mother was more free for the delights of the sweet air and sensations of the spring, the freedom of the woods, and sometimes would burst out singing, and sometimes fling bits of moss at her child, as she held the basket.
‘Isn’t that beautiful, Mab?’
‘Yes, mother,’ Mab would say, digging, her head bent over the mossy soil, nothing free of her but the ear which took in the sound of the poetry in a kind of subdued pleasure which mingled with her humbler sensations.
‘You are a little grub,’ said Lady William; ‘you are never so happy as when you are probing among the roots and the dead leaves.’
‘And you are of the kind of the birds, mother, and I like to hear you up among the branches,’ said Mab. I do not mean to say that Lady William was a musician, or that you could hear the bits of songs she sang, which had been Mab’s lullaby as a baby, and amusement through all her childhood—a few yards from where she stood. They were nothing but the spontaneous utterances of her fresh spirit, like breathing, or the trilling of the birds, to which Mab compared them. Mab did not herself require utterances, givings forth, of that kind. She worked away and was silent, wholly given to what she was about. But she admired the trill and movement of the lighter spirit, and thought her mother the most delightful human creature that had ever been upon this earth.
The basket was tolerably heavy when they came back, and Mab was still a little flushed with her hard work. The sky was very sweet and subdued in colour, a great band of softened gold binding the growing grayness of the afternoon, approaching night—and opening, as it were, a glimpse into the heavens, a broad shining pathway, reflected fully in the river, between the awakening greens and browns of the spring country and the soft clouds above. It was still light, but evening was in the air, and among the folds of the clouds a few mild stars were already visible. The cows were coming lowing home; the children were leaving off their games; and people coming up from the river, who found a little chill in the air after the sun had gone down. The mother and daughter met everybody on their progress home. The doctor, another botanist, who sniffed at Mab’s basket, and affected contempt at her brag of the peculiar coltsfoot she had found, which grew nowhere but on Denham Hill. ‘Common, common,’ he said, ‘you’ll find it everywhere,’ as one connoisseur says to another, upon most new acquisitions; but that was because he had never had such luck himself, Mab felt convinced. And they met the tall curate, Mr. Osborne, stalking off to a meeting, who stopped to ask whether Lady William would not help in a temperance tea party of his, where the ladies and gentlemen were to amuse the villagers, and make them forget that there was such a thing on earth, or rather, in Watcham, as the ‘Why Not?’ or the ‘Blue Boar.’ Mr. Osborne wore his Inverness cape, as usual, and a quantity of books and pamphlets under it; but there was something a little different from his ordinary aspect in his looks. After he had passed he made a step back again, and called Lady William, with a hesitating voice.
‘Do you see—young Plowden often?’ he said, in the most awkward way.
‘Jim!’ she said, surprised, ‘my nephew?’
‘Don’t be vexed; I think he goes to—— places which he had better avoid,’ said the curate. Lady William looked at him, but there was nothing further to be learned from his cloudy face.
‘That is very possible,’ she said. ‘Do you mean—— there?’ for she had heard something of the ‘Blue Boar,’ which was now beginning to light up, and looked cheerful enough across the village green. The curate gave a little stamp of impatience as he saw some one else approaching, and said quickly:
‘I can’t say any more,’ and stalked away, leaving, as such monitors so often do, a prick of pain behind him, but nothing that could do any good. It was the General who was coming, and he walked a few steps with the ladies, congratulating them on their walk.
‘For I should not wonder if it rained to-morrow,’ he said. And then he told them of Mrs. Swinford’s visit, and how she had gone from door to door. ‘You see you have missed something; you have not had that honour.’
‘I am glad that we went for our long walk,’ Lady William said. And then, finally, they met Mr. Swinford, who came up joyfully, with his hat in his hand, and his head uncovered from the moment he saw them.
‘Ah, I have found you at last,’ said Leo; ‘I have waited for you in the cottage, sitting inside by the invitation of Miss Patty, who is very kind to me, and observing the proceedings of my mother.’
‘I hear she has been paying visits.’
‘To everybody, which is not, perhaps, the way to make the visit prized; but she does not like the English climate, and she is used, you know, to do as she likes,’ he said, with a smile.
‘Surely, in such matters as that she has a very good right.’
‘Yes, to be sure,’ he said doubtfully, and then laughed. ‘She came to see you, too—and I lay there, like a spider in a web, wondering if she would also come in to wait for you; but Miss Patty was not so kind to my mother as to me. I heard her answer unhesitatingly, “Not at home!” with a voice like that of a groom of the chambers. She has great capabilities, Patty.’
‘And did you not go out, to say——’
‘What should I have said? I was waiting, feeling that you would probably snub me for my pains, and why should I interfere with my mother? She left a card with a message pencilled on it, which I had the honourable feeling not to read. It got upon my nerves to be in the same room with it, and if I had not come out to meet you I should have yielded to the temptation.’
‘That would have been as bad as opening a letter,’ said Mab, who had as yet taken no part.
‘Would it, do you think? It was open; there would have been no seal broken; but, at all events, I resisted temptation, so you must praise me and not censure, Miss Mab.’
‘And how did you know,’ said Mab, while her mother pondered, ‘that we were coming this way!’
‘Give me the basket and I will tell you. What is in it? Worms? But also clay and earth. Have you not mud enough already in Watcham, that you must bring in more from the woods?’
‘Give me my basket again,’ said Mab indignantly; ‘there’s a clump of wood anemones, beauties, and the famous coltsfoot that only grows at Denham. I have hunted for it for years, and I only found it to-day. Give it me back.’
‘I am not worthy to carry such treasures,’ said Leo, ‘but the contact will do me good.’
‘All the same you haven’t answered,’ said Mab. ‘Who told you we were coming this way?’
‘If you must know, it was the accomplished Patty again. She offered me tea, which I declined, and she offered me also my mother’s card, which in my high sense of honour I declined too, and then she said, “My lydy was a-going to Denham Hill, and you’ll meet ’em sure, if you go that way.” Patty is my friend, Miss Mab; she has a higher opinion of me than you have.’
‘We must hurry home now, Mab; we have been too long away,’ said Lady William, with a serious face. ‘It does not do for a woman of my age to go out on your long grubbings. Come, Leo, give me the basket, and let us run home.’
‘I can run too,’ he said. ‘Are you really sorry, is that what you mean, that you missed my mother?’
‘I cannot quite say that honestly. No, I am not sorry I missed your mother. Perhaps she and I have been too long apart to bridge over the difference now. How I used to admire your mother, Leo! How beautiful she was!’
‘Was she, indeed?’ he said, with a sort of polite attention, but surprised. Perhaps it is curious at any time for a man to realise that his mother may have been beautiful and admired. ‘I should not have thought,’ he said, ‘with submission, that her features, for instance—— ’
‘Women don’t think of features,’ said Lady William, with a little impatience. ‘It was she, not her features, that was beautiful. She had so much charm—when she pleased. It must always be added, that when she did not please—but we are not going to discuss your mother. She is a wonderful creature to be imprisoned here.’
‘You are not imprisoned here,’ he said, almost angrily, who are still more wonderful: ‘and you forget that my mother is old, and has had her day.’
‘The day will not be over as long as she lives; and as for me, I am not imprisoned; I dwell among my own people.’
‘How curious,’ he said, ‘pardon me, that the people here should be your own people! I say nothing against them, don’t fear it; they are very good people, but not——’
‘Thanks,’ she said, with a half laugh, ‘it was I who used to be the black sheep. Mrs. Plowden is not sure that she approves of me now; and if——’
‘If what?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lady William, with the slightest tinge of angry colour in her face.
‘That is just like mother,’ said Mab; ‘she gives you a word as if she were going to say something of importance, and then she tells you it is nothing. I have known her to do it a hundred times.’
‘There is nothing like the criticism of one’s children,’ said Lady William, with a laugh. ‘You, with your mother, Leo, and Mab with hers, you are two iconoclasts. Now, the humble people, like my good Emmy, are very different; they do not criticise. And then you despise them as common, you two—— Ah! here we are at our own door.’ She turned and held out her hand to Leo, who looked at her surprised.
‘Are you not going to ask me in?’ he said, holding part of the basket, for which Mab, too, had held out her hands.
They all stood looking at each other in front of the cottage door.
‘It is late,’ said Lady William, with some hesitation—‘yes, if you wish it: but don’t you think it would be better to get back to the Hall before it is dark?’
‘No,’ said Leo, ‘why should I hurry back to the Hall? Of course I wish it; and you never told me before that I was not to come.’
‘I do not say so now, but——’
‘But what?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lady William, with a faint smile.
‘I told you that was her way,’ cried Mab, triumphant. ‘“Nothing,” and one is sure that she means heaps of things more than she ever says.’
He followed her into the little drawing-room, where there was still a little bright fire, though it was no longer cold. Mrs. Swinford’s card was lying upon a small table conspicuously, though there was not light enough to read its pencilled message. Lady William hesitated a little, not sitting down, giving her visitor no excuse for doing so. He followed her movements with a disturbed aspect, standing within the door, watching her figure against the light. Mab, who had seized the basket when he put it down, had gone off to put her treasures in safety. ‘I perceive,’ he said at last, ‘that I have done something wrong. What have I done wrong? Am I troubling you coming in when you did not want me? Then tell me so, dear lady, and send me away.’
‘Leo,’ said Lady William, ‘you should not have remained here while your mother was at the door; I do not like it; it puts me in a very uncomfortable position. Why didn’t you go and tell her we were out, Mab and I?’
‘I am your devoted servant, dear lady,’ said Leo, ‘but I am not your groom of the chambers, and Patty is. How could I have taken her duties out of her hands?’
‘That is all very well for a laugh,’ she said, ‘but it vexes me very much; it is very uncomfortable; why should you have been in my drawing-room while your mother was sent away from the door?’
‘You mean I ought not to have come in to wait.’
‘That for one thing, certainly; but being in, you should certainly not have allowed——’
‘What?’ said the young man.
Lady William did not say ‘Nothing’ again, but she stood at the window looking out with her back turned to him, and as strong an expression of discomfort and vexation in her attitude and eloquent silence as if she had used many words.
‘I see,’ he said, ‘I have been very indiscreet; I have vexed you though I did not mean it. I don’t make any excuse for myself, except that I thought at first you were coming back immediately. Forgive me: and I will go away, and never at any time will I do it any more.’
She gave a little laugh, turning round. ‘No, I don’t think you will do it again; but, unfortunately, that does not alter the fact that you have done it, and made me very uncomfortable. Are you going away? Then good night; you will have a pleasant walk up to the Hall.’
‘Not nearly so pleasant as if it had been an hour later,’ he said.
‘Oh, that is merely an idea. You will really like it better. Mab ought to be here to thank you for carrying her basket. Good night, Leo,’ Lady William said. She stepped out into the narrow passage after him to see him away; and, at the moment, in the open doorway Mab appeared with a cry of surprise.
‘Oh, are you going so soon? Are you not going to stop for tea?’
‘I am sent away,’ he said.
‘By mother?’
‘Yes. To make sure of amendment another time,’ he said ruefully, and went away with so much the air of a schoolboy under punishment, that Mab came in open-mouthed to her mother.
‘Oh! what have you been doing to Mr. Leo? Oh! why have you sent him away?’
Lady William made no answer, but rang the bell, as it very seldom was rung in this small house; an unusual occurrence, which brought Patty in with a rush, still rubbing a candlestick she held in her hand.
‘Patty, did you ask Mr. Swinford to come in and wait till Miss Mab and I came back?’
‘Yes, my lydy,’ said Patty, with sharp eyes that gleamed in the light.
‘And you did not ask Mrs. Swinford, when she called, to come in and wait?’
‘Oh, no, my lydy,’ cried Patty, aggrieved.
‘Why?’ said her mistress solemnly.
‘Oh, my lydy!’ said Patty, thunderstruck.
‘Yes, why?’ I want to know, why should Mr. Swinford wait for me and not Mrs. Swinford? I do not wish anybody to be asked to wait for me when I am out. If you were ever to do it again, I don’t know what I might be obliged to say.’
‘Oh, my lydy,’ said Patty, ‘I thought as Mr. Swinford was a young gentleman as perhaps made it a little cheerful for Miss Mab—— and I thought as the old lady wasn’t a pleasure for nobody; and I thought—— ’
‘If that is true of old ladies, why should you stay with me, Patty, who am an old lady, too, and not a pleasure to anybody——’
‘Oh, my lydy!’ said Patty, bursting into a torrent of tears.
‘Go, you little goose, and think no more of it; but ask nobody to wait for me. Now remember! you are here to do what you are told, but never to think. Thinking is the destruction of little maids. Ask Anne if she ever ventured to think when she was a girl like you.’
‘Yes, my lydy,’ said Patty, drying her eyes.