CHAPTER IV.
"With your leave, Sir, an' there were no more men living upon the face of the earth, I should not fancy him, by St. George." EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR.
October had come, and a fair season and a fine harvest, had enabled Fleda to ease her mind by sending a good remittance to Dr. Gregory. The family were still living upon her and Hugh's energies. Mr. Rossitur talked of coming home, that was all.
It sometimes happened that a pause in the urgency of business permitted Hugh to take a day's holiday. One of these falling soon after the frosts had opened the burrs of the chestnut- trees, and the shells of the hickories, Fleda seized upon it for a nutting frolic. They took Philetus, and went up to the fine group of trees on the mountain, the most difficult to reach, and the best worth reaching of all their nut wood. The sport was very fine; and after spoiling the trees, Philetus was left to "shuck" and bring home a load of the fruit, while Fleda and Hugh took their way slowly down the mountain. She stopped him, as usual, on the old look-out place. The leaves were just then in their richest colouring, and the October sky, in its strong vitality, seemed to fill all inanimate nature with the breath of life. If ever, then on that day, to the fancy, "the little hills rejoiced on every side." The woods stood thick with honours, and earth lay smiling under the tokens of the summer's harvest, and the promise for the coming year; and the wind came in gusts over the lower country and up the hill-side, with a hearty good-will that blew away all vapours, physical and mental, from its path, bidding everything follow its example and be up and doing. Fleda drew a long breath or two that seemed to recognise its freshening power.
"How long it seems," she said "how very long since I was here with Mr. Carleton; just nine years ago. How changed everything is! I was a little child then. It seems such an age ago!"
"It is very odd he didn't come to see us," said Hugh.
"He did don't you know? the very next day after we heard he was here when, most unluckily, I was up at aunt Miriam's."
"I should think he might have come again, considering what friends you used to be."
"I dare say he would, if he had not left Montepoole so soon. But, dear Hugh, I was a mere child how could he remember me much?"
"You remember him," said Hugh.
"Ah, but I have good reason. Besides, I never forget anything.
I would have given a great deal to see him if I had it."
"I wish the Evelyns had staid longer," said Hugh. "I think you have wanted something to brighten you up. They did you a great deal of good last year. I am afraid all this taking care of Philetus and Earl Douglass is too much for you."
Fleda gave him a very bright smile, half affection, half fun.
"Don't you admire my management?" said she. "Because I do. Philetus is firmly persuaded that he is an invaluable assistant to me in the mystery of gardening; and the origin of Earl Douglass's new ideas is so enveloped in mist, that he does not himself know where they come from. It was rich to hear him the other day descanting to Lucas upon the evil effects of earthing up corn, and the advantages of curing hay in cocks, as to both which matters Lucas is a thorough unbeliever, and Earl was a year ago."
"But that doesn't hinder your looking pale and thin, and a great deal soberer than I like to see you," said Hugh. "You want a change, I know. I don't know how you are to get it. I wish they would send for you to New York again."
"I don't know that I should want to go, if they did," said Fleda. "They don't raise my spirits, Hugh. I am amused sometimes I can't help that but such excessive gaiety rather makes me shrink within myself; I am, too, out of tone with it. I never feel more absolutely quiet than sometimes when I am laughing at Constance Evelyn's mad sallies and sometimes I cannot laugh at them. I do not know what they must think of me; it is what they can have no means of understanding."
"I wish you didn't understand it, either, Fleda."
"But you shouldn't say that. I am happier than they are, now, Hugh now that you are better with all their means of happiness. They know nothing of our quiet enjoyments; they must live in a whirl, or they would think they are not living at all; and I do not believe that all New York can give them the real pleasure that I have in such a day as this. They would see almost nothing in all this beauty that my eyes 'drink in,' as Cowper says; and they would be certain to quarrel with the wind, that to me is like the shake of an old friend's hand. Delicious!" said Fleda, as the wind rewarded this eulogium with a very hearty shake indeed.
"I believe you would make friends with everything, Fleda, said
Hugh, laughing.
"The wind is always that to me," said Fleda; "not always in such a cheerful mood as to-day, though. It talks to me often of a thousand old-time things, and sighs over them with me, a most sympathizing friend! but to-day he invites me to a waltz Come!"
And pulling Hugh after her, away she went down the rocky path, with a step too light to care for the stones; the little feet capering down the mountain with a disdain of the ground that made Hugh smile to see her; and eyes dancing for company, till they reached the lower woodland.
"A most spirited waltz!" said Hugh.
"And a most slack partner. Why didn't you keep me company?"
"I never was made for waltzing," said Hugh, shaking his head.
"Not to the tune of the north wind? That has done me good,
Hugh."
"So I should judge, by your cheeks."
"Poverty need not always make people poor," said Fleda, talking breath and his arm together. "You and I are rich, Hugh."
"And our riches cannot take to themselves wings and fly away," said Hugh.
"No, but besides those riches, there are the pleasures of the eye and the mind, that one may enjoy everywhere everywhere in the country at least unless poverty bear one down very hard; and they are some of the purest and most satisfying of any. Oh, the blessing of a good education! how it makes one independent of circumstances!"
"And circumstances are education, too," said Hugh, smiling. "I dare say we should not appreciate our mountains and woods so well, if we had had our old plenty of everything else."
"I always loved them," said Fleda. "But what good company they have been to us for years past, Hugh! to me especially; I have more reason to love them."
They walked on quietly and soberly to the brow of the table- land, where they parted; Hugh being obliged to go home, and Fleda wishing to pay a visit to her aunt Miriam.
She turned off alone to take the way to the high road, and went softly on, no longer, certainly, in the momentary spirits with which she had shaken hands with the wind, and skipped down the mountain; but feeling, and thankful that she felt, a cheerful patience to tread the dusty highway of life.
The old lady had been rather ailing, and from one or two expressions she had let fall, Fleda could not help thinking that she looked upon her ailments with a much more serious eye than anybody else thought was called for. It did not, however, appear to-day. She was not worse, and Fleda's slight anxious feeling could find nothing to justify it, if it were not the very calm and quietly happy face and manner of the old lady; and that, if it had something to alarm, did much more to soothe. Fleda had sat with her a long time, patience and cheerfulness all the while unconsciously growing in her company; when, catching up her bonnet with a sudden haste very unlike her usual collectedness of manner, Fleda kissed her aunt and was rushing away.
"But stop! where are you going, Fleda?"
"Home, aunt Miriam; I must, don't keep me."
"But what are you going that way for? you can't go home that way?"
"Yes, I can."
"How?"
"I can cross the blackberry hill behind the barn, and then over the east hill, and then there's nothing but the water- cress meadow."
"I sha'n't let you go that way alone; sit down and tell me what you mean what is this desperate hurry?"
But, with equal precipitation, Fleda had cast her bonnet out of sight behind the table, and the next moment turned, with the utmost possible quietness, to shake hands with Mr. Olmney. Aunt Miriam had presence of mind enough to make no remark, and receive the young gentleman with her usual dignity and kindness.
He stayed some time, but Fleda's hurry seemed to have forsaken her. She had seized upon an interminable long gray stocking her aunt was knitting, and sat in the corner working at it most diligently, without raising her eyes unless spoken to.
"Do you give yourself no rest, at home or abroad, Miss Fleda?" said the gentleman.
"Put that stocking down, Fleda," said her aunt; "it is in no hurry."
"I like to do it, aunt Miriam."
But she felt, with warming cheeks, that she did not like to do it with two people sitting still and looking at her. The gentleman presently rose.
"Don't go till we have had tea, Mr. Olmney," said Mrs.
Plumfield.
"Thank you, Ma'am; I cannot stay, I believe, unless Miss Fleda will let me take care of her down the hill by and by."
"Thank you, Mr. Olmney," said Fleda, "but I am not going home before night, unless they send for me."
"I am afraid," said he, looking at her, "that the agricultural turn has proved an overmatch for your energies."
"The farm don't complain of me, does it?" said Fleda, looking up at him with a comic, grave expression of countenance.
"No," said he, laughing, "certainly not; but, if you will forgive me for saying so, I think you complain of it, tacitly and that will raise a good many complaints in other quarters, if you do not take care of yourself."
He shook hands and left them; and Mrs. Plumfield sat silently looking at Fleda, who, on her part, looked at nothing but the gray stocking.
"What is all this, Fleda?"
"What is what, aunt Miriam?" said Fleda, picking up a stitch with desperate diligence.
"Why did you want to run away from Mr. Olmney?"
"I didn't wish to be delayed, I wanted to get home."
"Then, why wouldn't you let him go home with you?"
"I liked better to go alone, aunt Miriam."
"Don't you like him, Fleda?"
"Certainly, aunt Miriam; very much."
"I think he likes you Fleda," said her aunt, smiling.
"I am very sorry for it," said Fleda, with great gravity.
Mrs. Plumfield looked at her for a few minutes in silence, and then said
"Fleda, love, come over here and sit by me, and tell me what you mean. Why are you sorry? It has given me a great deal of pleasure to think of it."
But Fleda did not budge from her seat or her stocking, and seemed tongue-tied. Mrs. Plumfield pressed for an answer.
"Because, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, with the prettiest red cheeks in the world, but speaking very clearly and steadily, "my liking only goes to a point which, I am afraid, will not satisfy either him or you."
"But why? it will go further."
"No, Ma'am."
"Why not? why do you say so?"
"Because I must, if you ask me."
"But what can be more excellent and estimable, Fleda? who could be more worth liking? I should have thought he would just please you. He is one of the most lovely young men I have ever seen."
"Dear aunt Miriam," said Fleda, looking up beseechingly, "why should we talk about it?"
"Because I want to understand you, Fleda, and to be sure that you understand yourself."
"I do," said Fleda, quietly, and with a quivering lip.
"What is there that you dislike about Mr. Olmney?"
"Nothing in the world, aunt Miriam."
"Then, what is the reason you cannot like him enough?"
"Because, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, speaking in desperation, "there isn't enough of him. He is very good and excellent in every way, nobody feels that more than I do; I don't want to say a word against him, but I do not think he has a very strong mind, and he isn't cultivated enough."
"But you cannot have everything, Fleda."
"No, Ma'am, I don't expect it."
"I am afraid you have set up too high a standard for yourself," said Mrs. Plumfield, looking rather troubled.
"I don't think that is possible, aunt Miriam."
"But I am afraid it will prevent your ever liking anybody."
"It will not prevent my liking the friends I have already; it may prevent my leaving them for somebody else," said Fleda, with a gravity that was touching in its expression.
"But Mr. Olmney is sensible, and well educated."
"Yes, but his tastes are not. He could not at all enter into a great many things that give me the most pleasure. I do not think he quite understands above half of what I say to him."
"Are you sure? I know he admires you, Fleda."
"Ah, but that is only half enough, you see, aunt Miriam, unless I could admire him too."
Mrs. Plumfield looked at her in some difficulty; Mr. Olmney was not the only one, clearly, whose powers of comprehension were not equal to the subject.
"Fleda," said her aunt, inquiringly, "is there anybody else that has put Mr. Olmney out of your head?"
"Nobody in the world!" exclaimed Fleda, with a frank look and tone of astonishment at the question, and cheeks colouring as promptly. "How could you ask? but he never was in my head, aunt Miriam."
"Mr. Thorn?" said Mrs. Plumfield.
"Mr. Thorn!" said Fleda, indignantly. "Don't you know me better than that, aunt Miriam? But you do not know him."
"I believe I know you, dear Fleda; but I heard he had paid you a great deal of attention last year; and you would not have been the first unsuspecting nature that has been mistaken."
Fleda was silent, flushed, and disturbed; and Mrs. Plumfield was silent and meditating; when Hugh came in. He came to fetch Fleda home. Dr. Gregory had arrived. In haste again, Fleda sought her bonnet, and exchanging a more than usually wistful and affectionate kiss and embrace with her aunt, set off with Hugh down the hill.
Hugh had a great deal to say to her all the way home, of which Fleda's ears alone took the benefit, for her understanding received none of it; and when she at last came into the breakfast-room where the doctor was sitting, the fact of his being there was the only one which had entered her mind.
"Here she is, I declare!" said the doctor, holding her back to look at her after the first greetings had passed. "I'll be hanged if you aint handsome. Now, what's the use of pinking your cheeks any more at that, as if you didn't know it before? eh?"
"I will always do my best to deserve your good opinion, Sir," said Fleda, laughing.
"Well, sit down now," said he, shaking his head, "and pour me out a cup of tea your mother can't make it right."
And sipping his tea for some time, the old doctor sat listening to Mrs. Rossitur, and eating bread and butter, saying little, but casting a very frequent glance at the figure opposite him, behind the tea-board.
"I am afraid," said he, after a while, "that your care for my good opinion wont outlast an occasion. Is that the way you look for every day?"
The colour came with the smile; but the old doctor looked at her in a way that made the tears come too. He turned his eyes to Mrs. Rossitur for an explanation.
"She is well," said Mrs. Rossitur, fondly "she has been very well except her old headaches now and then; I think she has grown rather thin, lately."
"Thin!" said the old doctor "etherealized to a mere abstract of herself; only that is a very bad figure, for an abstract should have all the bone and muscle of the subject; and I should say you had little left but pure spirit. You are the best proof I ever saw of the principle of the homeopaths I see now, that though a little corn may fatten a man, a great deal may be the death of him."
"But I have tried it both ways, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, laughing. "I ought to be a happy medium between plethora and starvation. I am pretty substantial, what there is of me."
"Substantial!" said the doctor; "you look as substantial a personage as your old friend, the 'faire Una' just about. Well, prepare yourself, gentle Saxon, to ride home with me the day after to-morrow. I'll try a little humanizing regimen with you."
"I don't think that is possible, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, gently.
"We'll talk about the possibility afterwards at present, all you have to do is to get ready. If you raise difficulties, you will find me a very Hercules to clear them away I'm substantial enough, I can tell you so it's just as well to spare yourself and me the trouble."
"There are no difficulties," Mrs. Rossitur and Hugh said, both at once.
"I knew there weren't. Put a pair or two of clean stockings in your trunk that's all you want Mrs. Pritchard and I will find the rest. There's the people in Fourteenth street want you the first of November, and I want you all the time till then, and longer too. Stop I've got a missive of some sort here for you."
He foisted out of his breast-pocket a little package of notes one from Mrs. Evelyn, and one from Florence, begging Fleda to come to them at the time the doctor had named; the third from Constance: