Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 701», sayfa 2

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS

CHAPTER XXVI. – PREPARATION

Great was my relief the next day when, on Lilian and I returning from a ramble in our beloved woods, we heard Robert Wentworth talking to Mrs Tipper in the parlour. But at first sight of him, I shrank back. How altered he looked, how terribly altered since we had last met! The kind little lady's hurried explanation as we entered the room, that illness had kept him away, gave me another blow, and he saw that it did.

'Only a sort of cold,' he cheerfully explained, extending his hand towards me with a smile. 'How do you do, Mary?'

My own hand shook; but he kept it long enough in his own to steady it, giving me a reassuring look before releasing it.

But Lilian could not get over the shock which the first sight of him had given her, involuntarily exclaiming: 'But I fear you have been ill – very ill; and it has made you quite' – She paused, not liking to go on; but he lightly replied: 'Gray, do you mean? My dear Lilian, the gray season had set in long ago, only you saw me too frequently to notice it.'

Mrs Tipper laid her hand for a moment on his shoulder as she passed him on her way out of the room to prepare some special dainty to tempt him at tea-time; and I noticed that she was looking much graver than usual.

'And how have you been going on with your work during my absence?' he asked; 'not carelessly, I hope? I am in the humour to be very exacting and critical to-night; so you must not expect me to treat sins of omission or commission with my usual amiability.'

'Amiability, indeed!' ejaculated Lilian. 'The idea of your setting up for being amiable! I do not consider you at all considerate and good-natured to failure, sir.'

He smiled. 'I certainly have not much sympathy with failure; it would not be orthodox, you know. But get out your work, and let me find a safe outlet for my savage propensity.'

He saw that it did me good to be taken to task in the old fashion; and was quite as unsparing as I could desire, when he came upon any error. Whatever it cost him, Robert Wentworth succeeded in setting my heart as well as theirs at rest before he took his departure that night. If Mrs Tipper saw something of the truth, she shewed her consideration for me by carefully avoiding to give any expression to her thoughts. Lilian evidently guessed nothing. She openly expressed her surprise and regret at the alteration which she perceived in him.

'I really felt quite shocked for the first few moments,' she said. 'Even serious illness does not seem quite to account for such an alteration as there is in him. He looks as though he had suddenly grown old. Do not you think so, auntie? – Don't you, Mary?'

Mrs Tipper was silent, leaving me to reply, though I knew that she was watching me somewhat closely the while. It required all the nerve and self-command I could muster to make something like a suitable reply; but I did make it; and Lilian at anyrate remained in ignorance of the true state of the case, although her ignorance occasioned me almost as much pain as her knowledge of it would have done, so very closely did she sometimes approach to the truth, in her speculations as to the possible and probable cause of the change which had taken place in Robert Wentworth.

I was becoming restless and anxious from more causes than one. The time of Philip's expected arrival was drawing near, and my news remained still untold. Whilst I was ashamed of my reticence with two such friends, the difficulty of approaching the subject seemed rather to increase than diminish. My uneasiness was becoming apparent too; even Lilian and Mrs Tipper were beginning to notice a difference in me, which they could not account for.

The dear little lady once ventured a few words to me to the effect that no good man could be the worse for loving a woman, though she could not return his love; fancying, I believe, that possibly I was uneasy upon Robert Wentworth's account. I could only kiss the hand laid so lovingly upon mine.

It so happened that just at this juncture Mrs Tipper required sundry little housekeeping errands done in town; and partly to be alone a few hours, partly to do a little shopping for myself, I volunteered to go for her.

'Are you sure you would prefer going, dear Mary?' said Mrs Tipper anxiously; 'the days are so hot, and the things could be sent down, if we write, you know.'

I murmured something about wanting to replenish my wardrobe a little, and she easily acquiesced: 'To tell the truth, my dear, I should prefer your choosing the patty-pans,' she candidly allowed, when she found I really wished to go. 'Becky and I will think over all we require, and make a list,' she added, trotting off in high-feather to compare notes with Becky in the kitchen. If we were proud of our 'drawing-room,' Mrs Tipper was quite as proud of her kitchen. 'There is a place for everything and everything in its place, my dear, clean and ready to hand.' Becky in the evening, seated in state, surrounded by her brilliantly burnished tins, was a sight to behold. Nothing would have delighted her mistress and herself more than a sudden invasion of company as a test of their resources. Lilian and I were sometimes taxed beyond our powers, in our endeavours to shew our appreciation of the little dainty cakes, patties, &c. set before us. Indeed we had more than once consulted together upon the advisability of suggesting a party of children from the village to relieve us.

Lilian looked, I thought, a little surprised at not being invited to accompany me on my expedition to town. But if she was surprised, she was not offended; sensitive as she was, there was as little self-love in Lilian as it is possible for any human being to have. Hers was not fine-weather friendship. She was content to stand quietly aside until I should need her, without any complaints about being neglected, or what not, which half-hearted people are so apt to make at a fancied slight. She knew that I loved her, and I knew that she loved me, and we could trust each other, without the repeated assurance of it, which some people seem to require.

She was only a shade or two more tender and loving in bidding me good-bye, when I set forth in the morning, anxious to make me feel that my return would be eagerly looked for; and whispering a little jest about the necessity for bringing back a good appetite. 'Auntie and Becky will be sure to be busily engaged in preparing treats all day, you know; so you must come home hungry, whatever you do. And do not forget your promise to buy a pretty bonnet, Mary, and leave off that old dowdy thing; it makes you look as though nobody loved you, which is not fair to your sister Lilian. And oh, Mary, I had almost forgotten; if you bring any of this back, I shall say you don't care for me in real earnest;' pressing a little roll of paper into my hand.

I knew that she was genuinely disappointed when I proved to her that I had as much as five-and-twenty pounds in hand; and so I was obliged to promise to take from her store for my next need. 'Or else one may just as well not be a sister,' she said, with a discontented little shake of the head.

How cheering it was – how precious the knowledge that I was cared for in this way! And there was dear old Mrs Tipper too! I thought I knew why she was desirous just at that season to make me feel that my presence was so much required at the cottage.

'I wanted to ask you to cut out the little pinafores for Mercy Green's child, Mary; but they must wait till to-morrow, I suppose. And there's the curtains for my bed, dear; nobody would fit them to please me but you;' and so forth, and so forth, until the last moment, when Lilian accompanied me as far as the stile.

As I walked across the fields in that lovely August morning, while the bright sun was my thoughts attuned themselves to the summer sights and sounds, and I shook off the morbid doubts and fears which had so beset me of late. I resolved to be no longer so weak and unfriendly as to keep the truth from Mrs Tipper and Lilian. It really was unfriendly not to tell them what I knew they would both be glad to hear! That very evening my secret should be told, and I would at once begin brushing up for Philip, making up my mind to overcome my shyness for finery, and render myself as attractive as possible within the compass of – five-and-twenty pounds. It appeared to me a very large sum to spend at once upon finery, and I could only hope the end would justify the means. As it chanced, I really knew very little about Philip's taste in such matters. The selection of the modest outfit which was purchased for me nine years ago, I had been only too glad to leave to my dear mother's judgment, and we had been neither of us inclined to trouble Philip with chiffon talk.

 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,
 

But I told myself that I really must make a beginning now, as I stood in the milliner's show-room, somewhat dolefully contrasting my appearance with that of the elegant-looking beings around me; wondering whether Philip would wish me to look like them, and in that case, whether it would be possible to make me do so.

I had been striving so earnestly and anxiously to make myself worthy to be his companion, and it had seemed of so little consequence what I looked like during his absence, beyond being attired with the dainty neatness befitting a gentlewoman, that I now appeared quite behind the times. I suddenly began to realise that I had carried my disregard of pretty things too far; and was seized with a desire to try what extraneous aid could do for me.

I anxiously studied my face and figure in the large glass, and then those of the obliging shopwoman, who displayed an endless assortment of pretty things for my selection. She was about my own age, and possessed no greater natural advantages than I myself could boast of; and yet how very different was the general effect of her appearance; how dowdy I looked beside her. Yes; Lilian was quite right; 'dowdy' was the proper word for me, from head to foot.

A little shyly and consciously, I ventured out of my shell, and appealed to the shopwoman for assistance, taking her so far into my confidence as to confess a desire to be modernised and made more attractive.

She displayed more interest in the matter than I had ventured to hope for; and we gravely discussed my capability of improvement. But I found that the complications would be so many, and the changes in the way of adaptation of hair, figure, &c. so endless, that I presently began to grow very impatient; and when she said something about the possibility of the present fashion only lasting another two months, I gave it up in despair. If I were quite sure it would serve for the rest of my life, I would go through it all; but for the fashion of an hour; no! I would be content with a simply made dress or two, and depend upon my own taste for the finishing touches. Some of my mother's old point, and a crimson bow or two for the pretty gray dress, and amber with the black silk, and such like, I trusted might please Philip's artistic taste as well as though I were in the latest fashion. And I pleased myself with the remembrance that he used to admire my method of dressing my hair in large coils round a comb; saying that it suited my head and Spanish style of face. 'Spanish! Yes; that certainly was the word,' I told myself, dwelling pleasantly upon the one only compliment I could recollect having received from Philip.

I tried to satisfy myself this way; nevertheless I was a little out of spirits at finding myself so different from other women whom I met as I walked through the park on my way to the railway station, and whom I scanned with curious critical eyes, trying to understand the intricacies of their toilets, and failing to obtain anything more than a general impression that the tout ensemble was very effective. The home dress might be compassed; but how if it turned out that Philip wished his wife to look picturesque and attractive out of doors – not in Mrs Trafford's style, but in Lilian's more refined way of being in the mode? I would take Lilian into my confidence at once, and she would help me. That very night I had determined to make the truth known to her and to Mrs Tipper; and after it was once known, the dress question could be entered upon.