CHAPTER XII.
FLORENCE’S PUPILS.
Still doubtful and embarrassed, Florence Heriton descended to the breakfast table on the following morning, resolved, by a closer observation of Mr. Aylwinne, to discover whether she had any reasonable grounds for the fancies that troubled her.
But the gentleman was not visible. Early as it was, he had gone to Kirton to fetch his wards; and Mrs. Wilson was so engrossed in the sundry preparations she thought it necessary to make for the comfort of these children that she kept jumping up and down every minute to give fresh orders, or rescind the last ones.
Florence was glad to get away from her endless appeals, and shut herself up in the library with her own thoughts, painful though they were. The prevailing one was always this: If her suppositions were correct, and she indeed beheld in Mr. Aylwinne the Frank Dormer she had once known, it was very certain that he had no desire to court her recognition. All the romance of her nature was wounded and humiliated by this fact. Those hopes her mother’s diary had cherished must now be forgotten, and she was ready to despise herself for having believed that the thoughts of any one could be constant all these years to the girlish, unformed Florence of the priory.
Her own course, she proudly told herself, was plain enough: neither by word nor look must she ever give him reason to suspect that she guessed his secret, and she would be careful to seize the first plausible pretext for throwing up a situation which she heartily regretted having accepted.
As she sat at a desk, trying to fix her attention on the catalogue she was completing, she heard a little bustle in the hall, and Mrs. Wilson’s voice mingling with more youthful tones.
Her pupils had arrived, but she did not go to meet them till Mr. Aylwinne was heard asking where she was.
Then, half reluctant to encounter him, yet inwardly longing to have her doubts resolved, Florence put down her pen and rose. The next moment the door opened, and Mr. Aylwinne entered, leading with him two little boys.
They were delicate-featured, slim children, with a strange look about their large, dark eyes not easy to define. It was as if they had suffered some great shock, which had so deeply impressed itself on their memories as to leave an abiding and unconquerable terror. Their ages were, perhaps, ten and twelve; but though their limbs were well proportioned, they had not the fearless, healthy look of English lads of the same age; and they clung to the arms of their guardian with almost girlish timidity and dependence.
Florence was not so much impressed at first with the appearance of her pupils as their sex; and she kept her place, not a little vexed at her own want of thought in having neglected to make more particular inquiries concerning them.
“Walter—Fred,” said Mr. Aylwinne, “this is the young lady I have been telling you about. Go and shake hands with her.”
But the lads hesitated to leave his side, and Florence promptly said:
“Pardon me, sir—I cannot undertake the education of boys. I supposed that your wards were little girls.”
“Is it of any consequence so long as they are docile and intelligent?” asked Mr. Aylwinne, lifting his eyebrows.
“Certainly it is, sir,” replied Florence, who began to feel annoyed.
He saw this, and apologized gracefully for his own carelessness in not mentioning their sex before. Then, placing a portfolio of colored views before the silent boys, he came to her side.
“Miss Heriton, you may, and doubtless do, think it strange that I should select a female instructor for these poor children. I will tell you why I have done so. Their father was an English officer, whose duties had fixed his residence at a small station not far from Meerut. It was a dull life for a man of active habits; but his wife—a pretty, gentle woman—shared it; and to make it still less irksome, they had kept their children with them instead of sending them to England for their education. You remember the fearful mutiny that broke out at Meerut? Captain Denison was one of the first victims the brutal sepoys pounced upon, and his wretched wife barely saved herself and these two boys by flight.”
Florence began to look with awakening interest on the delicate lads of whom he spoke.
“Yes,” Mr. Aylwinne went on, “she fled; and braving all other dangers, hid in the jungle. But she was tracked there by the insatiate shedders of blood. When she found that they drew near her hiding place, she commanded her children to be still, whatever might happen; and then, with a mother’s devotion, started up and fled to lead her pursuers away ere they discovered that she was not alone.
“She was seen—followed—hacked limb from limb, with these wretched, powerless children looking on—their faculties so chilled with horror that for days, nay, weeks, they were speechless and almost idiotic. But you are faint. Let me give you a chair.”
He waited till Florence had somewhat recovered the sickening sensation his tale had induced, and then went on:
“An aged Hindu woman found these boys, and, moved with compassion, took them to her hut, and hid them there until the first fury of the mutineers was allayed. Then she contrived to pass them from one to another of her acquaintances till, by a fortunate accident, they fell into my hands. I have done my best with them, but they are still sickly, timid children: their dreams visited by visions of the scene they saw in the jungle, their nerves unstrung by trifles at which most boys of their age would laugh. An attempt to harden them by the companionship of other lads in a large school has failed. Miss Heriton”—and now Mr. Aylwinne’s voice was low and faltering—“you are an orphan yourself; you have known what it is to lose the best and dearest of earthly friends. Can you not pity these still more sadly bereft ones?”
Although unable to hear what their guardian was saying, the boys had closed the portfolio, and sat mutely studying the beautiful face of Florence. She saw this, and, deeply moved by Mr. Aylwinne’s recital, forgot everything else. She went toward them with extended hands, and they nestled to her side with confiding smiles. She was so fair, so gentle, that they could not fear her. And Mr. Aylwinne was satisfied.
“Before I leave you to get better acquainted,” he said, “I ought to mention that Mr. Lumley, who has other pupils, will take these boys of mine for so many hours each day.”
“That resolves my office into a sinecure,” Florence thoughtfully observed.
“Not at all!” he retorted. “Are mathematics and Latin all that they will require to fit them for active life? I would have them grow up not only clever but good men; not boors, whose own selfish requirements are all they have been encouraged to consider; but early taught to exercise forbearance and courtesy and those gentle virtues which can only be acquired in feminine society. No, no,” he added, with unconcealed emotion, “my wards shall never be the homeless creatures that I was in my youth. They shall have some one to come to with their childish troubles—some one to fill, however inadequately, the vacant place of their mother.”
“Mrs. Wilson would do this,” Florence suggested, with a natural shrinking from the grave responsibilities he seemed to be imposing on her. “She is a kind, good woman.”
Mr. Aylwinne smiled.
“She is the best and kindest of women. May I beg you to take especial care that she does not throw them into a fever with her generous attentions?”
Florence looked gravely from one to the other of the lads, who returned her glances fearlessly, and only wanted a little encouragement to talk to her freely. Raising her eyes to Mr. Aylwinne’s, she said:
“Am I old enough and experienced enough to take this charge upon me?”
“Is it such a very onerous one?” he asked, a little impatiently.
“If I read all it involves rightly—yes. I must be more—much more than the mere teacher of a certain number of accomplishments to these orphans.”
“Undoubtedly. I hold accomplishments as secondary to other things. I have already told you so.”
Florence made no reply to this for some few minutes. Wearied with the long strain her powers had undergone during the last few years of her father’s life, she had come to Orwell Court expecting to find repose—to have certain daily duties to fulfill which, when done, her time would be her own, her cares ended; but to fulfill Mr. Aylwinne’s wishes involved much more than this.
It was Mr. Aylwinne’s voice that broke the silence.
“You are afraid that I shall demand too much—more than I have a right to expect. Well, perhaps I do. Perhaps I have explained my views more fully to you than I should have done to another. But while I spoke I was thinking of a generous, tender woman, who would have taken these desolate boys to her heart, and forgotten the gravity of the charge in the deepness of her compassion. Miss Heriton, what would your mother have counseled you to do in this case?”
The question was a startling one, and it was with some difficulty that she steadied her voice to answer it.
“She would have bidden me take up the work that presented itself, whether it was what I should have chosen or not. But——Is this my duty?” she was about to add if he had not interrupted her.
“I knew you would come to this decision; it was not in your nature to do otherwise. And—and I am glad, although—although——”
For a moment his eye rested on the face of Florence with an expression of overpowering regret; and he held out his hand as if he would have taken hers. But the emotion was so transitory that before she had scarcely detected it he had conquered himself, and, with a word to his wards, left the room.
Resolutely subduing her wish to run away, too, and think over what he had been saying, Florence devoted herself to Walter and Fred. Won out of their timidity by her gentle cheerfulness, they soon talked with all the frankness of their age; and as she was careful to avoid any painful subjects, their spirits rose more and more.
It was with increasing respect for Mr. Aylwinne’s disposition that she casually learned that these boys had no claim upon him beyond his compassion, for the only relatives their parents possessed had hesitated to burden themselves with two penniless orphans. Only once did Florence find it necessary to turn the current of their thoughts quickly, and that was when Fred, gulping down a great sob, timidly drew his hand over her glossy hair, saying:
“It was just like mamma’s—dear, dear mamma’s!”
Tears glittered in her own eyes as she kissed the boy; but, starting up, she pointed to a grassy eminence visible from the window, and, declaring there was just time to climb it before lunch, bade them fetch their hats. In high glee, they obeyed, and ere their walk was over Walter’s delight in her companionship broke out in a boyish assurance that everything here was jolly, but she was the jolliest of it all.
Leaving them in the courtyard to make friends with the good-tempered old house dog, Florence went into the room where luncheon was generally spread. She could not resist smiling and remembering Mr. Aylwinne’s warning as she saw the profusion of dainties Mrs. Wilson had prepared to tempt the appetites of her young charges. That lady herself, instead of being, as in general, employed in fussily altering the place of this dish and lamenting over the appearance of another, was standing at a window with a very serious visage.
She turned round, however, when Florence demanded whether they had kept her waiting.
“No, my dear; nor would it have been of any consequence if you had. We will always lunch at whatever hour suits you and the dear children best.”
“And Mr. Aylwinne?” asked Florence, with a little surprise at her apparent forgetfulness of his claims to be considered.
“My dear, he’s gone. That’s what troubles me now, for I am sure he can’t be well.”
“Gone!” Florence could not help repeating, in her astonishment at the unexpected announcement.
“Yes, my dear. He came in here and sat down, with his head on his hands, for ever so long; and I asked him twice if he were ill, but he did not seem to hear me; only after a while he got up, and said that he believed Miss Heriton had consented to take charge of his boys, and he thought we should get on a great deal better without him, and so he should go to Scotland for some shooting. And there was just five minutes to say everything, and then he mounted his horse and rode away; and I don’t believe,” she added, with real vexation, “I don’t believe he has been over the house or seen half of what we have done to it!”