CHAPTER XV.
THE STORM.
When Florence’s letter to Mrs. Blunden had been written and dispatched, she felt calmer, and was able to go through her daily duties with an appearance of cheerfulness. No one guessed the soreness at her heart when the boys spoke of their absent guardian, or Mrs. Wilson lamented his erratic habits, concluding with: “It’s such a pity he doesn’t marry, isn’t it? So fond of children as he is, and so generous and gentle with all women, he would make an excellent husband, wouldn’t he?”
“Perhaps Mr. Aylwinne is already engaged,” Florence suggested, with her head bent over her work.
Mrs. Wilson meditated.
“Well, it may be so, my dear, for I remember when he first came to England that he used to ride out sometimes with a Major Dawson and his daughters. Pretty young creatures they were! Too young then for anything of the kind, but they must be growing quite fine women now.”
After hearing such remarks as these, Florence would grow eager for her aunt’s reply; and she certainly had some cause for her impatience in the length of time she had to wait before it arrived. Mrs. Blunden was in Paris, and apologized for her silence by saying that she had been greatly worried by the loss of her jewel box and the subsequent arrest of the thief.
“I could not settle down to anything,” she said, “until this matter was over, for between my dread of an innocent person being falsely accused and unwillingness to let the guilty one escape unpunished, my mind has been greatly excited. I’m very angry with you, Florence; it’s my duty to be so, for though I freely forgive you for the wicked falsehoods you wrote to me about your poor uncle’s legacy, I cannot pardon the folly that has made you penniless and a dependent. As to coming to me, it is what you ought to have done directly upon the decease of my poor, foolish brother. But as I am in dear and uncomfortable lodgings, and fully resolved to leave this nasty, frivolous city as soon as the weather permits of the journey, why, don’t come. You are in good hands, and can stay quietly at Orwell Court until I join you there. You don’t seem to be aware that I know Mr. Aylwinne. I met him in Italy when I was on my way to Nice, and fairly harassed to death with the extortions of the innkeepers. I had provided myself with a tariff of the charges made at a respectable London hotel, and I was as firmly resolved to abide by this as the horrid, chattering Italians were to cheat me. After I had explained myself to Mr. Aylwinne, I had no more trouble, as he paid the bills for me. They could not take the same advantage of a resolute man as they had been attempting with an unprotected female. How did you make Mr. Aylwinne’s acquaintance? I found that he knew your father, but he so evidently avoided speaking of him that I was obliged to conclude he had lost money through some of my brother’s mad speculations. Is it so? And to what amount? And why do you thank me for sending you a hundred pounds while your father was ill at Brompton? I did not send it. No one had the grace to write and acquaint me with his illness. I shall come to England as soon as I can; so au revoir,” etc.
There was nothing for it, then, but to await Mrs. Blunden’s arrival. Ardently Florence hoped that it might take place before Mr. Aylwinne came back, and already she had mentally written that note of thanks which would tell him that she had quitted his roof. She would not think of the real sorrow it would cost her to do this, nor of the blank her life would be when the loving faces of her young pupils no longer met hers, and she could nevermore linger stealthily in the corner where stood their guardian’s favorite chair, and draw her fingers with tender touch over the books he had last read, or the paper knife he used, or sit in the twilight dreamily fancying that his earnest eyes were following her movements, as she had so often detected them in doing when he thought himself unobserved.
Meanwhile time fleeted on. The spring was merging into summer, and she was often glad to forget herself in long walks to the many lovely spots in the neighborhood. In these her pupils were generally her companions, and they had been urging her for some time to indulge them with a trip to an isolated hill some three or four miles distant, celebrated for the beauty of the views to be obtained from its summit.
Mrs. Wilson made many objections on the score of the length of the walk, the fatigue they would undergo in climbing so steep an eminence, and the danger of rain, or of encountering tramps or gypsies. But the eager Walter overruled them all; and on a brilliantly sunny morning the trio started, accompanied by a lad in Mr. Aylwinne’s service, who was a favorite with both the boys, and who carried a good-sized basket of edibles.
Avoiding the dusty highroad, they permitted Tom, to whom every part of the country was familiar, to guide them across fields, through copses, and over strips of moorland until they reached the foot of Insley Hill. Here the ground was so thickly covered with bluebells and orchids that it was not until huge bunches had been gathered that the delighted boys could be prevailed upon to commence the ascent. It proved more difficult than Florence had anticipated, for there was no actual path to be found, and it was one continued and steep climb, till, hot and breathless, they threw themselves on the dry moss beneath the fir trees that crowned the flat top of the hill.
But the glorious prospects amply repaid their toil; and the sweet odor emitted by the resinous trees, the freshness of the air, and the soft murmur of the breeze that soughed through the treetops, were all delicious. Their luncheon, washed down as it was by the water from a spring in the hillside, was discussed with a relish; and then Tom was sent back to Orwell Court with the empty basket, to carry Mrs. Wilson the tidings of their safe arrival at their destination, and a renewal of their promise to be home before evening set in.
When they had rambled round the top of the hill, and Florence had sketched one of the prettiest points of view, a favorite book was brought out, and the boys seated themselves at her feet to listen while she read aloud.
They had perched themselves on a part of the hill that jutted out, commanding an uninterrupted prospect of the highroad, which wound round the foot immediately beneath them; and it was at first an amusement to Fred to note how small the few figures looked which had passed along it.
By and by the little fellows’ heads drooped heavily on Florence’s knee; but, absorbed in the book, she noticed nothing unusual, till Walter said in her ear:
“Donna, there’s a storm coming up; I can feel it on the air.”
“So can I,” added Fred plaintively. “My poor head is aching so badly I don’t know what to do.”
Florence looked anxiously around. She knew that Walter, with boyish enthusiasm, liked to watch the warring elements, but she had heard Fred pathetically describe his sufferings during the tempests he had witnessed in India. The child’s nervous temperament, always delicate, was severely affected by the change in the weather; and when she tried to arouse him that they might seek a shelter ere the storm overtook them, he sank on the ground, moaning with the acute pain in his temples.
There was not a cottage near, and for a few minutes she knelt beside her helpless charge in great perplexity.
“Let me run to the Court and ask Mrs. Wilson to send the pony chaise for you and Fred,” suggested his braver brother.
Florence glanced at the threatening sky above them.
“My dear boy, it is such a distance to let you go alone.”
“Nonsense, Donna! I don’t mind it a bit. It’s no use to stay here, for it will be hours before Fred is better.”
This seemed too feasible to be denied.
“I’ll run all the way,” Walter added eagerly. “And old John will soon rattle the chaise here, with plenty of cloaks and umbrellas.”
Reluctantly Florence consented to let him go. But no sooner had she given a faint consent than, delighted to prove his courage by the undertaking, Walter bounded down the hill. He stopped a moment at the foot to wave his cap, then vaulted over the stile, and she saw him run swiftly toward the field path by which they came, just as a deafening clap of thunder was followed by a few large drops of rain.
Afraid to take refuge beneath the trees at the summit, and incapable of effecting Fred’s removal to the foot, Florence laid him beneath the projecting bank which had formed their seat, and tried to revive him by bathing his forehead with the cool water from the spring. But ere long all her efforts had to be centered in sheltering him from a pelting shower that came down fast and furiously. By wrapping her own mantle around the child she succeeded in keeping him tolerably safe; but her own dress of some thin material was soon drenched, and she began to reckon the moments since Walter’s departure, and long impatiently for the appearance of the chaise.
As she stood up to gaze along the silent highway, a gentleman, riding in the opposite direction, came in sight, and his eye was caught by her figure. It was something so entirely out of the common way to see a lady in this solitary spot, especially with a storm raging around her, that he checked his steed and looked again. This minuter survey of the graceful form on the heights ended in his dismounting, securing his reins to a sapling, and commencing the ascent of the hill.
Florence neither saw nor heard his approach. She had been too much absorbed in her own chilly condition and the plaints of Fred; and, returning to the boy, she was kneeling by his side, trying to soothe the terrors which made him cry and tremble every time the hoarse muttering of the thunder was audible.
The first thing that made her aware that they were no longer alone was the snapping of some branches beneath a heavy foot. The next moment the bushes were parted, and Mr. Aylwinne appeared.
Too much astonished to speak, she rose and stood before him like a beautiful statue of silence—her parted lips, her varying color, alone betraying the pleasure she could not help feeling at his coming.
But when he drew nearer and began to ask with solicitude the reason he found her here, she remembered herself, and, withdrawing the hand he had taken, gave a curt explanation.
He bent compassionately over Fred, and then eyed her more steadfastly than before.
“But your dress is wet, your shoulders quite unprotected! How long do you say Walter has started? You must let me put my coat around you.”
But this Florence would not permit, and made light of the fears he expressed.
“I shall catch a cold, perhaps, but it is unavoidable; or, rather, I have nothing to blame for it but my own folly in not watching the weather more carefully.”
Mr. Aylwinne’s uneasiness on her account was not appeased by this careless speech; and Florence, whom it alternately vexed and flattered, was thankful when the pony carriage came in sight.
Wrapping Fred in the coat she had refused, Mr. Aylwinne raised the boy in his arms to carry him down the hill, and Florence prepared to follow; but after taking two or three steps he looked back, and warned her not to attempt it.
“The rain has made the dry, short moss as slippery as glass,” he said. “And it will be impossible for you to keep your feet without assistance. Pray stay where you are until I can return.”
She obeyed so far as to stand still until he had passed out of sight, but her pride revolting against the idea of accepting his aid, or of leaning on his arm, she resolved to essay the descent without it.
Mr. Aylwinne had in no wise exaggerated the difficulty. Florence’s thin boots, with their flat soles, afforded no resistance to the glassy earth. She was fain to snatch desperately at the trees to save herself from being thrown down; and at last, in one long glissade, she was impelled forward until she was on the very brink of a sand pit, and only saved from being hurried into it by the projecting roots of an old ash tree, which she succeeded in grasping.
Frightened at the danger so narrowly escaped, and conscious that she must have wandered from the direct route, she tried to return to the spot where Mr. Aylwinne had left her. With difficulty she raised herself to her feet, for the fury of the lightning, and the beating of the rain in her face, dizzied her. Catching at the tufts of heather and the brushwood for support, she had nearly succeeded in returning to the path, when a flash, more vivid than any of the previous ones, lit up the murky air. A venerable tree, struck by the electric fluid, wavered and fell so immediately in the direction she was pursuing, that, shrieking and cowering down, she hid her face. Those mighty branches threatened to crush her beneath them, but she had no power to avert her doom. She knew that a fearful death was at hand, but time and strength to escape seemed alike to have left her. With a mighty crash the old tree measured its length upon the earth, that trembled beneath the shock; but Florence felt herself snatched from her dangerous position, and knew that she was safe and in the arms of Mr. Aylwinne.