Chapter Five.
Anna makes friends.
Sweet language will multiply friends; and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings.—Ecclesiasticus.
Delia kept her promise in mind through all the various duties and occupations of the next few days, and wondered how she should carry it out. She began, apart from the wish to please the Professor, to have a great desire to know Anna for her own sake. Would they be friends? and what sort of girl was she? Mr Goodwin had told her so very little. Affectionate, sweet-tempered, yielding. She might be all that without being very interesting. Still she hoped they might be able to like each other; for although the Hunts had a wide acquaintance, Delia had few friends of her own age, nor any one with whom she felt in entire sympathy, except the Professor. Delia was not popular in Dornton, and people regretted that such a “sweet” woman as Mrs Hunt should have a daughter who was often so blunt in her manners, and so indisposed to make herself pleasant. Her life, therefore, though full of busy matters, was rather lonely, and she would have made it still more so, if possible, by shutting herself up with her violin and her books. The bustling sociabilities of her home, however, prevented this, and she was constantly obliged, with inward revolt, to leave the things she loved for some social occasion, or to pick up the dropped stitches of Mrs Hunt’s household affairs.
There were endless little matters from morning till night for Delia to attend to, and it was only by getting up very early that she found any time at all for her studies and her music. In winter this was hard work, and progress with her violin almost impossible for stiff, cold fingers; but no one at her home took Delia’s music seriously: it was an accomplishment, a harmless amusement, but by no means to be allowed to take time from more important affairs. It did not matter whether she practised or not, but it did matter that she should be ready to make calls with her mother, or to carry soup to someone in Mrs Hunt’s district who had been overlooked. She would have given up her music altogether if her courage had not been revived from time to time by Mr Goodwin, and her ambition rekindled by hearing him play; as it was, she always came back to it with fresh heart and hope after seeing him.
For nearly a week after her last visit, Delia awoke every morning with a determination to walk over to Waverley, and each day passed without her having done so. At last, however, chance arranged her meeting with Anna. Coming into the drawing-room one afternoon in search of her mother, she found, not Mrs Hunt, but a tall girl of fourteen, with light yellow hair, sitting in the window, with a patient expression, as though she had been waiting there some time. Delia advanced uncertainly: she knew who it was; there was only one stranger likely to appear just now. It must be Anna Forrest. But it was so odd to find her there, just when she had been thinking of her so much, that for a moment she hardly knew what to say.
The girl, however, was quite at her ease.
“I am Anna Forrest,” she said; “Mrs Hunt asked me to come in—she went to find you. You are Delia, are you not?”
She had a bright, frank manner, with an entire absence of shyness, which attracted Delia immediately. She found, on inquiry, that Mrs Hunt had met Anna in the town with her aunt, and had asked her to come in. Mrs Forrest had driven home, and Anna was to walk back after tea.
“And have you been waiting long?” asked Delia.
“It must have been an hour, I think,” said Anna, “because I heard the church clock. But it hasn’t seemed long,” she added, hastily; “I’ve been looking out at the pigeons in the garden.”
Delia felt no doubt whatever that Mrs Hunt had been called off in some other direction, and had completely forgotten her guest. However, here was Anna at last.
“Come up-stairs and take off your hat in my room,” she said.
Delia’s room was at the top of the house—a garret with a window looking across the red-tiled roofs of the town to the distant meadows, through which glistened the crooked silver line of the river Dorn. She was fond of standing at this window in her few idle moments, with her arms crossed on the high ledge, and her gaze directed far-away: to it were confided all the hopes, and wishes, and dreams, which were, as a rule, carefully locked up in her own breast, and of which only one person in Dornton even guessed the existence.
Anna glanced curiously round as she entered. The room had rather a bare look, after the bright prettiness of Waverley, though it contained all Delia’s most cherished possessions—a shelf of books, a battered old brown desk, her music-stand, and her violin.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, as her eye fell on the last, “can you play the violin? Will you play to me?”
Delia hesitated: she was not fond of playing to people who did not care for music, though she was often obliged to do so; but Anna pressed her so earnestly that she did not like to be ungracious, and, taking up her violin, played a short German air, which she thought might please her visitor.
Anna meanwhile paid more attention to her new acquaintance than to her performance, and looked at her with great interest. There was something about Delia’s short, compact figure; her firm chin; the crisp, wavy hair which rose from her broad, low forehead like a sort of halo, which gave an impression of strength and reliability not unmingled with self-will. This last quality, however, was not so marked while she was playing. Her face then was at its best, and its usual somewhat defiant air softened into a wistfulness which was almost beauty. Before the tune was finished, Anna was quite ready to rush into a close friendship, if Delia would respond to it, but of this she felt rather in doubt.
“How beautifully you play!” she exclaimed, as Delia dropped her bow, and shut up her music-book.
A very little smile curled Delia’s lips.
“That shows one thing,” she answered, “you don’t know much about music, or you would not call my playing beautiful.”
“Well, it sounds so to me,” said Anna, a little abashed by this directness of speech, “but I certainly don’t know much about music; Aunt Sarah says I need not go on with it while I am here.”
“I play very badly,” said Delia; “if you wish to hear beautiful playing, you must listen to your grandfather.”
“Must I?” said Anna, vaguely. “I thought,” she added, “that he played the organ in Dornton church.”
“So he does,” said Delia, “but he plays the violin too. And he gives lessons. He taught me.”
She looked searchingly at her companion, whose fair face reddened a little.
“I owe everything to him,” continued Delia; “without what he has done for me my life would be dark. He brought light into it when he taught me to play and to love music.”
“Did he?” said Anna, wonderingly.
She began to feel that she did not understand Delia; she was speaking a strange language, which evidently meant something to her, for her eyes sparkled, and her brown cheek glowed with excitement.
“We ought to be proud in Dornton,” Delia went on, “to have your grandfather living here, but we’re not worthy of him. His genius would place him in a high position among people who could understand him. Here it’s just taken for granted.”
Anna grew more puzzled and surprised still. Delia’s tone upset the idea she began to have that her grandfather was a person to be pitied. This was a different way of speaking of him, and it was impossible to get used to it all at once. At Waverley he was hardly mentioned at all, and she had come to avoid doing so also, from a feeling that her aunt disliked it. She could not suddenly bring herself to look upon him as a genius, and be proud of him, though she had every wish to please Delia.
“What a pity,” she said, hesitatingly, “that he is so poor, and has to live in such a very little house, if he is so clever!”
“Poor?” exclaimed Delia, indignantly; then, checking herself, she added, quietly, “It depends on what you call poor. What the Professor possesses is worth all the silver and gold and big houses in the world. And that’s just what the Dornton people don’t understand. Why, the rich ones actually patronise him, and think he is fortunate in giving their children music-lessons.”
Delia began to look so wrathful as she went on, that Anna longed to change the subject to one which might be more soothing. She could not at all understand why her companion was so angry. It was certainly a pity that Mr Goodwin was obliged to give lessons, but if he must, it was surely a good thing that people were willing to employ him. While she was pondering this in silence, she was relieved by a welcome proposal from Delia that they should go down-stairs, and have tea in the garden. “Afterwards,” she added, “I will show you the way to Waverley over the fields.”
In the garden it was pleasant and peaceful enough. Tea was ready, under the shade of the medlar tree. The pigeons whirled and fluttered about over the red roofs all around, settling sometimes on the lawn for a few moments, bowing and cooing to each other. Mrs Hunt, meanwhile, chatted on in a comfortable way, hardly settling longer on one spot in her talk than the pigeons; from the affairs of her district to the affairs of the nation, from an anecdote about the rector to a receipt for scones, she rambled gently on; but at last coming to a favourite topic, she made a longer rest. Anna was glad of it, for it dealt with people of whom she had been wishing to hear—her mother and her grandfather. Mrs Hunt had much to tell of the former, whom she had known from the time when she had been a girl of Anna’s age until her marriage with Mr Bernard Forrest. She became quite enthusiastic as one recollection after the other followed.
“A sweeter face and a sweeter character than Prissy Goodwin’s could not be imagined,” she said. “We were all sorry when she left Dornton, and every one felt for Mr Goodwin. Poor man, he’s aged a great deal during the last few years. I remember him as upright as a dart, and always in such good spirits!”
“I have a portrait of my mother,” said Anna, “a miniature, painted just after her marriage. It’s very pretty indeed.”
“It should be, if it’s a good likeness,” said Mrs Hunt. “There’s never been such a pretty girl in Dornton since your mother went away. I should like to see that portrait. When you come over again, which I hope will be soon, you must bring it with you, and then we will have some more talk about your dear mother.”
Anna readily promised, and as she walked up the High Street by Delia’s side, her mind was full of all that she had heard that afternoon. It had interested and pleased her very much, but somehow it was difficult to connect Mr Goodwin and his dusty, little house with the picture formed in her mind of her beautiful mother. If only she were alive now!
“I suppose you were a baby when my mother married,” she said, suddenly turning to her companion.
“I was two years old,” replied Delia, smiling, “but though I can’t remember your mother, I can remember your grandfather when I was quite a little girl. He was always so good to me. Long before he began to teach me to play, I used to toddle by his side to church, and wait there while he practised on the organ. I think it was that which made me first love music.”
“It seems so odd,” said Anna, hesitatingly, “that I should be his grandchild, and yet that he should be almost a stranger to me; while you—”
“But,” put in Delia, quickly, for she thought that Anna was naturally feeling jealous, “you won’t be strangers long now; you will come over often, and soon you will feel as though you’d known him always. To tell you the truth,” she added, lightly, “I felt dreadfully jealous of you when I first heard you were coming.”
Jealous! How strange that sounded to Anna; she glanced quickly at her companion, and saw that she was evidently in earnest.
“I don’t know, I’m sure, about coming to Dornton often,” she said, “because, you see, Aunt Sarah is so tremendously busy, and she likes to do certain things on certain days; but, of course, I shall come as often as I can. I do hope,” she added, earnestly, “I shall be able to see you sometimes, and that you will often come over to Waverley.”
Delia was silent.
“You see,” continued Anna, “I like being at Waverley very much, and they’re very kind indeed; but it is a little lonely, and if you don’t mind, I should be so glad to have you for a friend.”
She turned to her companion with a bright blush, and an appealing look that was almost humble. Delia was touched. She had begun to think Anna rather cold and indifferent in the way she had talked about coming to Dornton; but, after all, it was unreasonable to expect her to feel warm affection for a grandfather who was almost a stranger. When she knew him she would not be able to help loving him, and, meanwhile, she herself must not forget that she had promised the Professor to be Anna’s friend; no doubt she had said truly that, she was lonely at Waverley. She met Anna’s advances cordially, therefore, and by the time they had turned off the high-road into the fields, the two girls were chatting gaily, and quite at their ease with each other. Everything in this field-walk was new and delightful to Anna, and her pleasure increased by feeling that she had made a friend of her own age. The commonest wild-flowers on her path were wonderful to her unaccustomed eyes. Delia must tell their names. She must stop to pick some. They were prettier even than Aunt Sarah’s flowers at Waverley. What were those growing in the hedge? She ran about admiring and exclaiming until, near the end of the last field, the outbuildings of Leas Farm came in sight, which stood in a lane dividing the farmer’s property from Mr Forrest’s.
“There’s Mr Oswald,” said Delia, suddenly.
Anna looked up. Across the field towards them, mounted on a stout, grey cob, came the farmer at a slow jog-trot. So much had happened since her arrival at Waverley, that she had now almost forgotten the events of that first evening, and all idea of telling her aunt of her acquaintance with Mr Oswald had passed from her mind. As he stopped to greet the girls, however, and make a few leisurely remarks about the weather, it all came freshly to her memory.
“Not been over to see my cows yet, missie,” he said, checking his pony again, after he had started, and leaning back in his saddle. “My Daisy’s been looking for you every day. You’d be more welcome than ever, now I know who ’twas I had the pleasure of driving the other day—for your mother’s sake, as well as your own.”
Delia turned an inquiring glance on her companion, as they continued their way. Would she say anything? Recollecting Mrs Winn’s story, she rather hoped she would. But Anna, her gay spirits quite checked, walked soberly on in perfect silence. It made her uncomfortable to remember that she had never undeceived Aunt Sarah about that fly. What a stupid little mistake it had been! Nothing wrong in what she had done at all, if she had only been quite open about it. What would Delia think of it, she wondered. She glanced sideways at her. What a very firm, decided mouth and chin she had: she looked as though she were never afraid of anything, and always quite sure to do right. Perhaps, if she knew of this, she would look as scornful and angry as she had that afternoon, in speaking of the Dornton people. That would be dreadful. Anna could not risk that. She wanted Delia to like and admire her very much, and on no account to think badly of her. So she checked the faint impulse she had had towards the confession of her foolishness, and was almost relieved when they reached the point where Delia was to turn back to Dornton. They parted affectionately, with many hopes and promises as to their meeting again soon, and Anna stood at the white gate watching her new friend until she was out of sight.
Then she looked round her. She was in quite a strange land, for although she had now been some weeks at Waverley, she had not yet explored the fields between the village and Dornton. On her right, a little way down the grassy lane, stood Mr Oswald’s house, a solid, square building, of old, red brick, pleasantly surrounded by barns, cattle-sheds, and outbuildings, all of a substantial, prosperous appearance. It crossed Anna’s mind that she should very much like to see the farmer’s cows, as he had proposed, but she had not the courage to present herself at the house and ask for Daisy. She must content herself by looking in at the farmyard gate as she passed it. A little farther on, Delia had pointed out another gate, on the other side of the lane, which led straight into the Vicarage field, and towards this she now made her way.
She was unusually thoughtful as she sauntered slowly down the lane, for her visit to Dornton had brought back thoughts of her mother and grandfather, which had lately been kept in the background. She had to-day heard them spoken of with affection and admiration, instead of being passed over in silence. Waverley was very pleasant. Aunt Sarah was kind, and her Uncle John indulgent, but about her relations in Dornton there was scarcely a word spoken. It was strange. She remembered Delia’s sparkling eyes as she talked of Mr Goodwin. That was stranger still. In the two visits Anna had paid to him, she had not discovered much to admire, and she had not been pleased with the appearance of Number 4 Back Row. It had seemed to her then that people called him “poor Mr Goodwin” with reason: he was poor, evidently, or he would not live all alone in such a very little house, with no servants, and work so hard, and get so tired and dusty as he had looked on that first evening she had seen him. Yet, perhaps, when she knew him as well as Delia did, she should be able to feel proud of him; and, at any rate, he stood in need of love and attention.
She felt drawn to the Hunts and the Dornton people, who had known and loved her mother, and she resolved to make more efforts to go there frequently, and to risk displeasing Aunt Sarah and upsetting her arrangements. It would be very disagreeable, for she knew well that neither Mr Goodwin nor Dornton were favourite subjects at Waverley; and when things were going smoothly and pleasantly, it was so much nicer to leave them alone. However, she would try, and just then arriving at the farmyard gate, she dismissed those tiresome thoughts, and leaned over to look with great interest at the creatures within. As she did so, a little girl came out of the farmhouse and came slowly down the lane towards her. She was about twelve years old, very childish-looking for her age, and dressed in a fresh, yellow cotton frock, nearly covered by a big, white pinafore. Her little, round head was bare, and her black hair closely cropped like a boy’s. She came on with very careful steps, her whole attention fixed on a plate she held firmly with both hands, which had a mug on it full of something she was evidently afraid to spill. Her eyes were so closely bent on this, that until she was near Anna she did not see her; and then, with a start, she came suddenly to a stand-still, not forgetting to preserve the balance of the mug and plate. It was a very nice, open, little face she raised towards Anna, with a childish and innocent expression, peppered thickly with freckles like a bird’s egg, especially over the blunt, round nose.
“Did you come from the Vicarage?” she inquired, gravely.
“I’m staying there,” replied Anna, “but I came over the fields just now from Dornton.”
“Those are puppa’s fields,” said the child, “and this is puppa’s farm.”
“You are Daisy Oswald, I suppose?” said Anna. “Your father asked me to come and see your cows.” The little girl nodded.
“I know what your name is,” she said. “You’re Miss Anna Forrest. Puppa fetched you over from the station. You came quick. Puppa was driving Strawberry Molly that day. No one can do it as quick as her.” Then, with a critical glance, “I can ride her. Can you ride?”
“No, indeed, I can’t,” replied Anna. “But won’t you show me your cows?”
“Why, it isn’t milking-time!” said Daisy, lifting her brows with a little surprise; “they’re all out in the field.” She considered Anna thoughtfully for a moment, and then added, jerking her head towards the next gate, “Won’t you come and sit on that gate? I often sit on that gate. Most every evening.”
The invitation was made with so much friendliness that Anna could not refuse it.
“I can’t stay long,” she said, “but I don’t mind a little while.”
Arrived at the gate, Daisy pushed mug and plate into Anna’s hands.
“Hold ’em a minute,” she said, as she climbed nimbly up and disposed herself comfortably on the top bar. “Now”—smoothing her pinafore tightly over her knees—“give ’em to me, and come up and sit alongside, and we’ll have ’em together. That’ll be fine.”
Anna was by no means so active and neat in her movements as her companion, for she was not used to climbing gates; but after some struggles, watched by Daisy with a chuckle of amusement, she succeeded in placing herself at her side. In this position they sat facing the Vicarage garden at the end of the field. It looked quite near, and Anna hoped that Aunt Sarah might not happen to come this way just at present.
“How nice it is to sit on a gate!” she said; “I never climbed a gate before.”
Daisy stared.
“Never climbed a gate before!” she repeated; “why ever not?”
“Well, you see, I’ve always lived in a town,” said Anna, “where you don’t need to climb gates.”
Daisy nodded.
“I know,” she said, “like Dornton. Now there’s two lots of bread and butter, one for me and one for you, and we must take turns to drink. You first.”
“But I’ve had tea, thank you,” said Anna. “I won’t take any of yours.”
Daisy looked a little cast down at this refusal, but soon set to work heartily on her simple meal alone, stopping in the intervals of her bites and sups to ask and answer questions.
“Was the town you lived in nicer than Dornton?” she asked.
“It was not a bit like it,” replied Anna. “Much, much larger. And always full of carts, and carriages, and people.”
“My!” exclaimed Daisy. “Any shops?”
“Lots and lots. And at night, when they were all lighted up, and the lamps in the streets too, it was as light as day.”
“That must have been fine,” said Daisy, “I like shops. Were you sorry to come away?”
Anna shook her head.
“Do you like being at Waverley?” pursued the inquiring Daisy, tilting up the mug so
that her brown eyes came just above the rim; “there’s no one to play with there, but I s’pose you don’t mind. I haven’t any brothers and sisters either. There’s only me. But then there’s all the animals. Do you like animals?”
“I think I should very much,” answered Anna, “but you can’t have many animals in London.”
“Well,” said Daisy, who had now finished the last crumb of bread and the last drop of milk, “if you like, I’ll show you my very own calf!”
“I’m afraid it’s getting late,” said Anna, hesitatingly.
“’Twon’t take you not five minutes altogether,” said Daisy, scrambling hastily down from the gate. “Come along.”
Anna followed her back to the farmyard, where she pushed open the door of a shed, and beckoned her companion in. All was dim and shadowy, and there was a smell of new milk and hay. At first Anna could see nothing, but soon she made out, penned into a corner, a little, brown calf, with a white star on its forehead; it turned its dewy, dark eyes reproachfully upon them as they entered.
“You can stroke its nose,” said its owner, patronisingly.
“Shall you call it Daisy?” asked Anna, reaching over the hurdles to pat the soft, velvety muzzle.
“Mother says we mustn’t have no more Daisies,” said its mistress, shaking her little, round head gravely. “You see puppa called all the cows Daisy, after me, for ever so long. There was Old Daisy, and Young Daisy, and Red Daisy, and White Daisy, and Big Daisy, and Little Daisy, and a whole lot more. So this one is to be called something different. Mother say Stars would be best.”
As she spoke, a distant clock began to tell out the hour. Anna counted the strokes with anxiety. Actually seven! The dinner hour at Waverley, and whatever haste she made, she must be terribly late.
“Ah, I must go,” she said, “I ought not to have stayed so long. Good-bye. Thank you.”
“Come over again,” said Daisy, calling after her as she ran to the gate. “Come at milking-time, and I’ll show you all the lot.”
Anna nodded and smiled, and ran off as fast as she could. This was her first transgression at the Vicarage. What would Aunt Sarah say?