Heriot's Choice Part 6

Olive, who was a year older than Polly, and who was quite a head taller, had just gained the thin ungainly age, when to the eyes of anxious guardians the extremities appear in the light of afflictive dispensations; and premature old age is symbolised by the rounded and stooping shoulders, and sunken chest; the age of trodden-down heels and ragged finger-ends, when the glory of the woman, as St. Paul calls it, instead of being coiled into smooth knots, or swept round in faultless plaits, of coroneted beauty, presents a vista of frayed ends and mult.i.tudinous hair-pins. Olive's loosely-dropping hair and dark cloudy face gave Mildred a shock; the girl was plain too, though the irregular features beamed at times with a look of intelligence. Christine, who was two years younger, and much better-looking, in spite of a rough, yellowish mane, had an odd, original face, a pert nose, argumentative chin, and restless dark eyes, which already looked critically at persons and things. 'Contradiction Chriss,' as the boys called her, was certainly a character in her way.

'Are you tired, aunt? Will you come in?' asked Olive, in a low voice, turning a dull sort of red as she spoke. 'Cardie thinks you are, and supper is ready, and----'

'I am very tired, dear, and so is Polly,' answered Mildred, cheerfully, as she followed Olive across the dimly-lighted hall, with its old-fashioned fireplace and settles; its tables piled up with coats and hats, which had found their way to the harmonium too.

They went up the low, broad staircase Mildred remembered so well, with its carved bal.u.s.trades and pretty red and white drugget, and the great blue China jars in the window recesses.

The study door stood open, and Mildred had a glimpse of the high-backed chair, and table littered over with papers, before she began ascending again, and came out into the low-ceiled pa.s.sage, with deep-set lattice windows looking on the court and churchyard.

'Chrissy and I sleep here,' explained Olive, panting slightly from nervousness, as Mildred looked inquiringly at her. 'We thought--at least Cardie thought--this little room next to us would do for Miss Ellison.'

Polly peeped in delightedly. It was small, but cosy, with a curiously-shaped bedstead--the head having a resemblance to a Latin cross, with three pegs covered with white dimity. The room was neatly arranged--a decided contrast to the one they had just pa.s.sed; and there was even an effort at decoration, for the black bars of the grate were entwined with sprays of honesty--the shining, pearly leaves grouped also in a tall red jar, on the mantelpiece.

'That is a pretty idea. Was it yours, Olive?'

Olive nodded. 'Father thought you would like your old room, aunt--the one he and mother always called yours.'

The tears came again in Mildred's eyes. Somehow it seemed but yesterday since Betha welcomed her so warmly, and showed her the room she was always to call hers. There was the tiny dressing-room, with its distant view, and the quaint old-fashioned room, with an oaken beam running across the low ceiling, and its wide bay-window.

There was the same heartsease paper that Mildred remembered seven years ago, the same flowery chintz, the curious old quilt, a hundred years old, covered with twining carnations. The very fringe that edged the beam spoke to her of a brother's thoughtfulness, while the same hand had designed the motto which from henceforth was to be Mildred's own--'_Laborare est orare_.'

'The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places,' whispered Mildred as she drew near the window, and stood there spell-bound by the scene, which, though well-remembered, seemed to come before her with new beauty.

Underneath her lay the vicarage garden, with its terrace walk and small, trim lawn; and down below, half hidden by a steep wooded bank, flowed the Eden, its pebbly beach lying dry under the low garden wall, but farther on plashing with silvery gleams through the thick foliage.

To the right was the footbridge leading to the meadows, and beyond that the water-mill and the weir; and as far as eye could reach, green uplands and sweeps of pasturage, belted here and there with trees, and closing in the distance soft ranges of fells, ridge beyond ridge, fading now into gray indistinctness, but glorious to look upon when the sun shone down upon their 'paradise of purple and the golden slopes atween them,' or the storm clouds, lowering over them, tinged them with darker violet.

'A place to live in and die in,' thought Mildred, solemnly, as the last thing that night she stood looking out into the moonlight.

The hills were invisible now, but gleams of watery brightness shone between the trees, and the garden lay flooded in the silver light. A light wind stirred the foliage with a soft soughing movement, and some animal straying to the river to drink trod crisply on the dry pebbles.

'A place where one should think good thoughts and live out one's best life,' continued Mildred, dreamily. A sigh, almost a groan, from beneath her open window seemed to answer her unspoken thought; and then a dark figure moved quietly away. It was Richard!

CHAPTER IV

MILDRED'S NEW HOME

'Half drowned in sleepy peace it lay, As satiate with the boundless play Of sunshine on its green array.

And clear-cut hills of gloomy blue, To keep it safe, rose up behind, As with a charmed ring to bind The gra.s.sy sea, where clouds might find A place to bring their shadows to.'--Jean Ingelow.

'Aunt Milly, I have wakened to find myself in Paradise,' were the first words that greeted Mildred's drowsy senses the next morning; and she opened her eyes to find the sun streaming in through the great uncurtained window, and Polly in her white dressing-gown, curled up on the low chair, gazing out in rapturous contemplation.

'It must be very early,' observed Mildred, wearily. She was fatigued with her journey and the long vigil she had kept the preceding night, and felt a little discontented with the girl's birdlike activity.

'One ought not to be tired in Paradise,' returned Polly, reprovingly.

'Do people have aches and pains and sore hearts here, I wonder--in the valley of the Eden, as he called it--and yet Mr. Lambert looks sad enough, and so does Richard. Do you like Richard, Aunt Milly?'

'Very much,' returned Mildred, with signs of returning animation in her voice.

'Well, he is not bad--for an icicle,' was Polly's quaint retort; 'but I like Roy best; he is tiresome, of course--all boys are--but oh, those girls, Aunt Milly!'

'Well, what of them?' asked Mildred, in an amused voice. 'I am sure you could not judge of them last night, poor things; they were too shy.'

'They were dreadful. Oh, Aunt Milly, don't let us talk of them!'

'I am sure Olive is clever, Polly; her face is full of intelligence.

Christine is a mere child.'

Polly shrugged her shoulders. She did not care to argue on such an uninteresting question. The little lady's dainty taste was offended by the somewhat uncouth appearance of the sisters. She changed the subject deftly.

'How the birds are singing! I think the starlings are building their nests under the roof, they are flying in and out and chirping so busily.

How still it is on the fells! There is an old gray horse feeding by the bridge, and some red and white cattle coming over the side of the hill.

This is better than your old Clapham pictures, Aunt Milly.'

Mildred smiled; she thought so too.

'Roy says the river is a good way below, and that it is rather a dangerous place to climb. He thinks nothing of it--but then he is a boy!

How blue the hills are this morning! They look quite near. But Roy says they are miles away. That long violet one is called the Nine Standards, and over there are Hartley Fells. We were out on the terrace last night, and he told me their names. Roy is very fond of talk, I think; but Richard stood near us all the time, and never said a word, except to scold Roy for chattering so much.'

'Richard was afraid the sound of your voices would disturb my brother.'

'That is the worst of it, as Roy says, Richard is always in the right. I don't think Roy is unfeeling, but he forgets sometimes; he told me so himself. We had quite a long talk when the others went in.'

'You and he seem already very good friends.'

'Yes, he is a tolerably nice boy,' returned Polly, condescendingly; 'and we shall get on very well together, I dare say. Now I will leave you in peace, Aunt Milly, to finish dressing; for I mean to make acquaintance with that big green hill before breakfast.'

Mildred was not sorry to be left in peace. It was still early. So, while Polly wetted her feet in the gra.s.s, Mildred went softly downstairs to refresh her eyes and memory with a quiet look at the old rooms in their morning freshness.

The door of her brother's study stood open, and she ventured in, almost holding her breath, lest her step should reach his ear in the adjoining room.

There was the chair where he always sat, with his gray head against the light, the one narrow old-fashioned window framing only a small portion of the magnificent prospect. There were the overflowing waste-paper baskets, as usual, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over their contents on the carpet--the table a hopeless chaos of doc.u.ments, pamphlets, and books of reference.

There were some attempts at arrangement in the well-filled bookcases that occupied two sides of the small room, but the old corner behind the mother's chair and work-table still held the debris of the renowned Tower of Babel, and a family tendency to draw out the lower books without removing the upper ones had resulted in numerous overthrows, so that even Mr. Lambert objected to add to the dusty confusion.

Books and papers were everywhere; they littered even the couch--that couch where Betha had lain for so many months, only tired, before they discovered what ailed her--the couch where her husband had laid the little light figure morning after morning, till she had grown too ill to be moved even that short distance.

Looking round, Mildred could understand the growing helplessness of the man who had lost his right band and helpmeet; the answer and ready sympathy that never failed him were wanting now; the comely, bright presence had gone from his sight; the tones that had always vibrated so sweetly in his ear were silent for ever. With his lonely broodings there must ever mix a bitter regret, and the dull, perpetual anguish of a yearning never to be satisfied. Earth is full of these desolations, which come alike on the evil and the good--mysteries of suffering never to be understood here, but which, to such natures as Arnold Lambert's, are but as the Refiner's furnace, purging the dross of earthly pa.s.sion and centring them on things above.

Instinctively Mildred comprehended this, as her eye fell on the open pages of the Bible--the Bible that had been her husband's wedding gift to Betha, and in which she had striven to read with failing eyes the very day before her death.

Mildred touched it reverently and turned away.

She lingered for a moment in the dining-room, where a buxom North countrywoman was laying the table for breakfast. Everything here was unchanged.