Chapter Three.
Waverley.
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide.
Milton.
While this went on at Dornton, Anna was getting nearer and nearer to her new home. At first she was pleased and excited at setting forth on a journey all by herself, and found plenty to occupy her with all she saw from the carriage windows, and with wondering which of the villages and towns she passed so rapidly were like Dornton and Waverley. It was surprising that the old lady sitting opposite to her could look so placid and calm. Perhaps, however, she was not going to a strange place amongst new people, and most likely had taken a great many journeys already in her life. Anna was glad this was not her own ease: it must be very dull, she thought, to be old, and to have got used to everything, and to have almost nothing to look forward to.
As the day wore on, and the hot afternoon sun streamed in at the windows, the old lady, who was her only companion, fell fast asleep, and Anna began to grow rather weary. She took the case with her mother’s picture in it out of her pocket and studied it again attentively. The gentle, sweet face seemed to smile back kindly at her. “If you are half as beautiful and a quarter as good,” her father had said. Was she at all like the picture now? Anna wondered. Surely her hair was rather the same colour. She pulled a piece of it round to the front - it was certainly yellow, but hardly so bright. Well, her grandfather would tell her—she would ask him on the very first opportunity. Her grandfather! It was wonderful to think she should really see him soon, and ask him all sorts of questions about her mother. He lived at Dornton, but that was only two miles from Waverley, and, no doubt, she should often be able to go there. He was an organist.
Her father’s tone, half-pitying, half-disapproving, came back to her with the word. She tried to think of what she knew about organists. It was not much. There was an organist in the church in London to which she had gone every Sunday with Miss Milverton, but he was always concealed behind red curtains, so that she did not even know what he looked like. The organist must certainly be an important person in a church. Anna did not see how the service could get on without him. What a pity that her grandfather did not play the organ in her Uncle John’s church, instead of at Dornton!
She made a great many resolves as she sat there, with her mother’s portrait in her hand: she would be very fond of her grandfather, and, of course, he would be very fond of her; and as he lived all alone, there would be a great many things she could do to make him happier. She pictured herself becoming very soon his chief comforter and companion, and began to wonder how he had done without her so long.
Lost in these thoughts, she hardly noticed that the train had begun to slacken its pace; presently, it stopped at a large station. The old lady roused herself, tied her bonnet strings, and evidently prepared for a move.
“You’re going farther, my dear,” she said kindly. “Dornton is the next station but one. You won’t mind being alone a little while?”
She nodded and smiled from the platform. Anna handed out her numerous parcels and baskets: the train moved on, and she was now quite alone. She might really begin to look out for Dornton, which must be quite near. It seemed a long time coming, however, and she had made a good many false starts, grasping her rugs and umbrella, before there was an unmistakable shout of “Dornton!” She got out and looked up and down the platform, but it was easy to see that Mrs Forrest was not there. Two porters, a newspaper boy, and one or two farmers, were moving about in the small station, but no one in the least like Aunt Sarah. Anna stood irresolute. She had been so certain that Aunt Sarah would be there, that she had not even wondered what she should do in any other case. Mrs Forrest had promised to come herself, and Anna could not remember that she had ever failed to carry out her arrangements at exactly the time named.
“If it had been father, now,” she said to herself in her perplexity, “he would perhaps have forgotten, but Aunt Sarah—”
“Any luggage, miss?” asked the red-faced young porter.
“Oh yes, please,” said Anna; “and I expected some one to meet me—a lady.”
She looked anxiously at him.
“Do ’ee want to go into the town?” he asked, as Anna pointed out her trunks. “There’s a omnibus outside.”
“No; I want to go to Waverley Vicarage,” said Anna, feeling very deserted. “How can I get there?”
She followed the porter as he wheeled the boxes outside the station, where a small omnibus was waiting, and also a high spring-cart, in which sat a well-to-do-looking farmer.
“You ain’t seen no one from Waverley, Mr Oswald?” said the porter. “This ’ere young lady expects some one to meet her.”
The farmer looked thoughtfully at Anna.
“Waverley, eh,” he repeated, “Vicarage?”
“Ah,” said the porter, nodding.
Another long gaze.
“Well, I’m going by the gate myself,” he said at last. “I reckon Molly wouldn’t make much odds of the lot,” glancing at the luggage, “if the young lady would like a lift.”
“Perhaps,” said Anna, hesitatingly, “I’d better have a cab, as Mrs Forrest is not here.”
“I could order you a fly at the Blue Boar,” said the porter. “’Twouldn’t be ready, not for a half-hour or so. Mr Oswald ’d get yer over a deal quicker.”
No cabs! What a strange place, and how unlike London! Anna glanced uncertainly at the high cart, the tall strawberry horse stamping impatiently, and the good-natured, brown face of the farmer. It would be an odd way of arriving at Waverley, and she was not at all sure that Aunt Sarah would approve of it; but what was she to do? It was very kind of the farmer; would he expect to be paid?
“Better come along, missie,” said Mr Oswald, as these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind. “You’ll be over in a brace of shakes.—Hoist them things in at the back, Jim.”
Almost before she knew it, Anna had taken the broad hand held out to help her, had mounted the high step, and was seated by the farmer’s side.
“Any port in a storm, eh?” he said, good-naturedly, as he put the rug over her knees.—“All right at the back, Jim?”
A shake of the reins, and Molly dashed forward with a bound that almost threw Anna off her seat, and whirled the cart out of the station-yard at what seemed to her a fearful pace.
“She’ll quiet down directly,” said Mr Oswald; “she’s fretted a bit standing at the station. Don’t ye be nervous, missie; there’s not a morsel of harm in her.”
Nevertheless, Anna felt obliged to grasp the side of the cart tightly as Molly turned into the principal street of Dornton, which was wide, and, fortunately, nearly empty. What a quiet, dull-looking street it was, after the noisy rattle of London, and how low and small the shops and houses looked! If only Molly would go a little slower!
“Yonder’s the church,” said Mr Oswald, pointing up a steep side-street with his whip; “and yonder’s the river,” waving it in the opposite direction.
Anna turned her head quickly, and caught a hurried glimpse of a grey tower on one side, and a thin white streak in the distant, low-lying meadows on the other.
“And here’s the new bank,” continued Mr Oswald, with some pride, as they passed a tall, red brick building which seemed to stare the other houses out of countenance; “and the house inside the double white gates is Dr Hunt’s.”
“I suppose you know Dornton very well?” Anna said as he paused.
“Been here, man and boy, a matter of forty years—leastways, in the neighbourhood,” replied the farmer.
“Then you know where Mr Goodwin lives, I suppose?” said Anna.
“Which of ’em?” said the farmer. “There’s Mr Goodwin, the baker; and Mr Goodwin, the organist at Saint Mary’s.”
“Oh, the organist,” said Anna.
“To be sure I do. He lives in Number 4 Back Row. You can’t see it from here; it’s an ancient part of Dornton, in between High Street and Market Street. He’s been here a sight of years—every one knows Mr Goodwin—he’s as well known as the parish church is.”
Anna felt pleased to hear that. It convinced her that her grandfather must be an important person, although Back Row did not sound a very important place.
“How fast your horse goes,” she said, by way of continuing the conversation, for, after her long silence in the train, it was quite pleasant to talk to somebody.
“Ah, steps out, doesn’t she?” said the farmer, with a gratified chuckle. “You won’t beat her for pace this side of the county. She was bred at Leas Farm, and she’s a credit to it.”
They were now clear of the town, and had turned off the dusty high-road into a lane, with high hedges on either side.
“Oh, how pretty!” cried Anna.
She could see over these hedges, across the straggling wreaths of dog-roses and clematis, to the meadows on either hand, where the tall grass, sprinkled with silvery ox-eyed daisies, stood ready for hay. Beyond these again came the deep brown of some ploughed land, and now and then bits of upland pasture, with cows and sheep feeding. The river Dorn, which Mr Oswald had pointed out from the town, wound its zigzag course along the valley, which they were now leaving behind them. As they mounted a steep hill, Molly had considerably slackened her speed, so that Anna could look about at her ease and observe all this.
“What a beautiful place this is!” she exclaimed with delight.
“Well enough,” said the farmer; “nice open country. Yonder pasture, where the cows are, belongs to me; if you’re stopping at Waverley, missie, I can show you a goodish lot of cows at Leas Farm.”
“Oh, I should love to see them!” said Anna.
“My little daughter ’ll be proud to show ’em yer; she’s just twelve years old, Daisy is. Now, you wouldn’t guess what I gave her as a birthday present?”
“No,” said Anna; “I can’t guess at all.”
“’Twas as pretty a calf as you ever saw, with a white star on its forehead. Nothing would do after that but I must buy her a collar for it. ‘Puppa,’ she says, ‘when you go into Dornton, you must get me a collar and a bell, like there is in my picture-book.’ My word!” said the farmer, slapping his knee, “how all the beasts carried on when they first heard that bell in the farmyard! You never saw such antics! It was like as if they were clean mad!”
He threw back his head and gave a jolly laugh at the bare recollection; it was so hearty and full of enjoyment, that Anna felt obliged to laugh a little too.
“Here you are, my lass,” he said, touching Molly lightly with the whip as they reached the top of the hill. “All level ground now between here and Waverley.—Now, what are you shying at?” as Molly swerved away from a stile in the hedge.
It was at an old man who was climbing slowly over it into the steep lane. He wore shabby, black clothes: his shoulders were bent, and his grey hair rather long; in his hand he carried a violin-case.
“That’s the Mr Goodwin you were asking after, missie,” said the farmer, touching his hat with his whip, as they passed quickly by. “Looks tired, poor old gentleman; hot day for a long walk.”
Anna started and looked eagerly back, but Molly’s long stride had already placed a good distance between herself and the figure which was descending the hill. That her grandfather! Was it possible? He looked so poor, so dusty, so old, such a contrast to the merry June evening, as he tramped wearily down the flowery lane, a
little bent to one side by the weight of his violin-case. Not an important or remarkable person, such as she had pictured to herself, but a tired old man, of whom the farmer spoke in a tone of pity. Her father had done so too, she remembered. Did every one pity her grandfather? There was all the more need, certainly, that she should help and cheer him, yet Anna felt vaguely disappointed, she hardly knew why.
These thoughts chased away her smiles completely, and such a grave expression took their place that the farmer noticed the change.
“Tired, missie, eh?” he inquired. “Well, we’re there now, so to speak. Yonder’s the spire of Waverley church, and the Vicarage is close against it—steady then, lass,” as Molly objected to turning in at a white gate.
“It’s a terrible business is travelling by rail,” he continued, “to take the spirit out of you; I’d sooner myself ride on horseback for a whole day, than sit in a train half a one.”
A long, narrow road, with iron railings on either side, dividing it from broad meadows, brought them to another gate, which the farmer got down to open, and then led Molly up to the porch of the Vicarage.
A boy running out from the stable-yard close by stood at the horse’s head while Mr Oswald carefully helped Anna down from her high seat, took out her trunks from the back of the cart, and rang the bell. Again the question of payment troubled her, but he did not leave her long to consider it.
“Well, you’re landed now, missie,” he said with his good-natured smile, as he took the reins and turned the impatient Molly towards the gate; “so I’ll say good-day to you, and my respects to Mr and Mrs Forrest.”
Molly seemed to Anna to make but one bound from the door to the gate, and to carry the cart and the farmer out of sight, while she was still murmuring her thanks.
She turned to the maid-servant, who had opened the door and was gazing at her and her boxes with some surprise.
“Yes, miss,” she said, in answer to Anna’s inquiry; “Mrs Forrest is at home; she’s in the garden, if you’ll please to come this way; we didn’t expect you till to-morrow.”
Through the door opposite, Anna could see a lawn, a tea-table under a large tree, a gentleman in a wicker chair, and a lady, in a broad-brimmed hat, sauntering about with a watering-pot in her hand. When she saw Anna following the maid, the lady dropped her watering-pot, and stood rooted to the ground in an attitude of intense surprise.
“Why, Anna!” she exclaimed.
“Didn’t you expect me, Aunt Sarah?” said Anna. “Father said you would meet me to-day.”
“Now,” said Mrs Forrest, turning round to her husband in the wicker chair, “isn’t that exactly like your brother Bernard?”
“Well, in the meantime, here is Anna, safe and sound,” he replied; “so there’s no harm done.—Come and sit down in the shade, my dear; you’ve had a hot journey.”
“Where’s your luggage?” continued Mrs Forrest, as she kissed her niece. “Did you walk up from the station, and leave it there?”
“Oh no, aunt; I didn’t know the way,” said Anna.
She began to feel afraid she had done quite the wrong thing in coming with Mr Oswald.
“Oh, you had to take a fly,” said Mrs Forrest. “It’s a most provoking thing altogether.”
“It doesn’t really matter much, my dear, does it?” said Mr Forrest, as he placed a chair for his niece. “She’s managed to get here without any accident, although you did not meet her.—Suppose you give us some tea.”
“I took the trouble to make a note of the train and day,” continued Mrs Forrest, “and I repeated them twice to Bernard, so that there should be no mistake.”
“Well, you couldn’t have done more,” said Mr Forrest, soothingly. “Bernard always was a forgetful fellow, you know.”
“Such a very unsuitable thing for the child to arrive quite alone at the station, and no one to meet her there! And I had made all my arrangements for to-morrow so carefully.”
As Anna drank her tea, she listened to all this, and intended every moment to mention that Mr Oswald had driven her from the station, but she was held back by a mixture of shyness and fear of what her aunt would say; perhaps she had done something very silly, and what Mrs Forrest would call unsuitable! At any rate, it was easier just now to leave her under the impression that she had taken a fly; but, of course, directly she got a chance, she would tell her all about it. For some time, however, Mrs Forrest continued to lament that her arrangements had not been properly carried out, and when the conversation did change, Anna had a great many questions to answer about her father and his intended journey. Then a message was brought out to her uncle, over which he and Mrs Forrest bent in grave consultation. She had now leisure to look about her. How pretty it all was! The long, low front of the Vicarage stood facing her, with the smooth green lawn between them, and up the supports of the veranda there were masses of climbing plants in full bloom. The old part of the house had a very deep, red-tiled roof, with little windows poking out of it here and there, and the wing which the present Vicar had built stood at right angles to it. Anna thought her father was right in not admiring the new bit as much as the old, but, nevertheless, with the evening light resting on it, it all looked very pretty and peaceful just now.
“And how do you like the look of Waverley, Anna?” asked Mrs Forrest.
Anna could answer with great sincerity that she thought it was a lovely place, and she said it so heartily that her aunt was evidently pleased. She kissed her.
“I hope you will be happy whilst you are with us, my dear,” she said, “and that Waverley may always be full of pleasant recollections to you.”
Anna was wakened next morning from a very sound sleep by a little tapping noise at her window, which she heard for some time in a sort of half-dream, without being quite roused by it; it was so persistent, however, that at last she felt she must open her eyes to find out what it was. Where was she? For the first few minutes she looked round the room in puzzled surprise, and could not make out at all. It was so quiet, and clear, and bright, with sunbeams dancing about on the walls, so different altogether from the dingy, grey colour of a morning in London. Soon, however, she remembered she was in the country at Waverley; and her mother’s picture on the toilet-table brought back to her mind all that had passed yesterday—her journey, her drive with the farmer, her grandfather in the lane.
There were two things she must certainly do to-day, she told herself, as she watched the quivering shadows on the wall. First, she must ask her aunt to let her go at once and see her grandfather; and then she must tell her all about her arrival at the station yesterday, and how kindly Farmer Oswald had come to her help. It was strange that, now she had actually got to Waverley, and was only two miles away from her grandfather, that she did not feel nearly so eager to talk to him as she had while she was on her journey. However, she need not think about that now. Here she was at Waverley, where it was all sunny and delightful; she should not see smoky London, or have any more walks in the Park with her governess, for a long while, perhaps never again. She meant to enjoy herself, and be very happy, and nothing disagreeable or tiresome could happen in this beautiful place.
There was the little tapping noise again! What could it be? Anna jumped out of bed, went softly to the window, and drew up the blind. Her bedroom was over the veranda, up which some cluster-roses had climbed, flung themselves in masses on the roof, and reached out some of their branches as far as the window-sill. One bold little bunch had pressed itself close up against the pane, and the tight pink buds clattered against it whenever they were stirred by the breeze. The tapping noise was fully accounted for, but Anna could not turn away, it was all so beautiful and so new to her.
She pushed up the window, and leaned out. What a lovely smell! There was a long bed of mignonette and heliotrope just below, but, besides the fragrance from this, the air was full of all the sweet scents which belong to an early summer morning in the country. What nice, curious noises, too, all mixed up together! The bees buzzing in the flowers beneath, the little winds rustling in the leaves, the cheerful chirps and scraps of song from the birds, the crow of a distant cock, the deep, low cooing of the pigeons in the stable-yard near. Anna longed to be out-of-doors, among these pleasant sights and sounds; she suddenly turned away, and began to dress herself quickly. The stable clock struck seven just as she was ready, and she ran down-stairs into the garden with a delightful sense of freedom. The sunshine was splendid; this was indeed different from walking in a London park; how happy she should be in this beautiful place! On exploring a little, she found that the garden was not nearly so large as it looked, for the end of it was hidden by a great walnut tree which stood on the lawn. Behind this came a square piece of kitchen garden, divided from the fields by a sunk fence, with a little wooden foot-bridge across it.
Anna danced along by the side of the border, where the flowers stood in blooming luxuriance and the most perfect order. Aunt Sarah was justly proud of her garden, and at present it was in brilliant perfection. Anna knew hardly any of their names, and indeed, except the roses, they were strange to her; she had not thought there could be so many kinds, and all so beautiful. Reaching the kitchen garden, however, she found some old friends—a long row of sweet-peas, fluttering on their stems, like many-coloured butterflies poised for flight; these were familiar, for she had seen them in greengrocers’ shops in London, tied up in tight, close bunches. How different they looked at Waverley! The colours were twice as bright.
“I like these best of all,” she said aloud, and as she spoke, a step sounded on the gravel, and there was Aunt Sarah, in her garden hat, with a basket, and scissors in her hand.
“You admire my sweet-peas, Anna,” she said, kissing her. “I came out to gather some. I find it is so much better to get my flowers before the sun is too hot. Now, you can help me.”
They walked slowly along the hedge of sweet-peas together, picking them as they went.
“What a beautiful garden yours is, Aunt Sarah,” cried Anna.
Mrs Forrest looked pleased.
“There are many larger ones about here,” she said, “but I certainly think my flowers do me credit. I attend to them a great deal myself, but, of course, I cannot give them as much time as I should like. Now you are come, we shall be busier than ever, because we must give some time every day to your studies.”
“Miss Milverton said she would write to you about the lessons I have been doing, aunt,” said Anna.
“I have arranged,” continued Aunt Sarah, “to read with you for an hour every morning; it is difficult to squeeze it in, but I have managed it. And then I am hoping that you will join in some lessons with the Palmers—girls of your own age, who live near. If their governess will allow you to learn French and German with them, it would be a good plan, and would give you companions besides.—By the way, Anna, Miss Milverton says in her letter that you don’t make any progress in your music. How is that?”
“I don’t care very much for music,” said Anna. “I would much rather not go on with it, unless you want me to.”
She thought that her aunt looked rather relieved, as she remarked that it was useless for people who were not musical to waste their time in learning to play, and that she should not make a point of music-lessons at present.
“Now I must cut some roses,” added Mrs Forrest, as she put the glowing bunches of sweet-peas into her basket. “Come this way.”
Anna followed to a little nursery of standard rose-trees near the foot-bridge.
“What are those chimneys I can just see straight over the fields?” she asked her aunt.
“Leas Farm,” she replied. “It belongs to Mr Oswald, a very respectable farmer, who owns a good deal of land round here. We have our milk and butter from him. Your uncle used to keep his own cows, but he found them a trouble, and Mrs Oswald is an excellent dairy woman.”
Here was an opportunity for Anna’s explanation. The words were on her lips, when they were interrupted by the loud sound of a bell from the house.
“The breakfast bell!” said Mrs Forrest, abruptly turning away from her roses, and beginning to hasten towards the house, without pausing a moment. “I hope you will always be particular in one point, my dear Anna, and that is punctuality. More hangs upon it than most people recognise: the comfort of a household certainly does. If you are late for one thing, you are late for the next, and so on, until the whole day is thrown into disorder. I am obliged to map my day carefully out to get through my business, and I expect others to do the same. I speak seriously, because your father is one of the most unpunctual men I ever knew; and if you have inherited his failing, you cannot begin to struggle against it too soon.”
Anna had not been many days at the Vicarage before she found that punctuality was Aunt Sarah’s idol, and that nothing offended her more than want of respect to it from others. Certainly everything went like clockwork at Waverley, and though Anna fancied that Mr Forrest inwardly rebelled a little, he was outwardly quite submissive. All Aunt Sarah’s arrangements and plans were so neatly fitted into each other that the least transgression in one upset the next, and the effect of this was that she had no odds and ends of leisure to spare. Anna even found it difficult to put all the questions she had in her mind.
“Not now, my dear, I am engaged,” was the frequent reply. She managed to learn, however, that a visit to her grandfather had already been planned for that week, and that Mrs Forrest intended to leave her at his house at Dornton and fetch her again after driving farther on to make a call.
With this she was obliged to be satisfied, and it was quite strange how, after a few days, the new surroundings and rules and pleasures of Waverley seemed to make much that had filled her mind on her arrival fade and grow less important. She still wished to see her grandfather again; but the idea of being his chief comforter and support now seemed impossible, and rather foolish, and she would not have hinted it to Aunt Sarah on any account. Neither did it seem necessary, as the days went on, to mention her drive with Mr Oswald and the accident of passing her grandfather in the lane.