Thus thinking, she threw herself into an easy-chair by her friend's bedside, and remained watching her attentively through the night.
However much of a quack the doctor might be, his opinion respecting Mrs. Lupton's recovery proved to be correct. In the course of a few weeks she might have been seen, as formerly, for hours together, with slow steps, and a deep-seated expression of melancholy, pacing the gardens and woods of Kiddal, regardless almost of times and seasons. Though now perfectly recovered, her recent illness formed a very plausible pretext on which to found reasons for hastening her again away from her home; for that she was an unwelcome tenant there will readily be believed from the facts already related.
One day, after a private consultation with the squire, Dr. Rowel suddenly discovered that it would prove materially beneficial to the health of the lady of Kiddal were she to exchange for some time the dull monotonous life of the gloomy old hall, for the more gay and spirit-stirring society of some busy city. He therefore impressed upon her, as a condition absolutely indispensable to a perfectly restored tone of the mind, the necessity under which she lay of residing for a while in or about the metropolis. Mrs. Lupton soon mentioned the subject again to her friend Miss Shirley.
“It has been proposed to me,” said she, “to leave this place, and reside a while in London. I know the reason well—I feel it in my heart bitterly. I have been here too long, Mary. My picture on the wall is quite enough—he does not want me; but it is of no use to complain: I shall be as happy there as I am here, or here as I should be there. The time that I spend here seems to me only like one long thought of the hour, whether it come soon or late, when all that I endure shall be at an end. The only thing I love here, Mary, is that sweet little churchyard,—it looks so peaceful! When I am away, my only wish is that of returning, though why I should wish to return appears strange. But I cannot help it,—I know not how it is; but while I am alive, Mary, it seems as though I must haunt what ought to be my place, whether I will or not. Welcome or unwelcome, loved or hated, I feel that I am still a wife.”
Her unresisting spirit accordingly gave way to the proposed arrangement without a murmur, and, with the exception of one or two brief visits which she made during the summer season to her unhappy home, she remained, for the time of which I have spoken, living apart, as though formally separated from her husband, during a lengthened period of some years. Under these circumstances, her friend Miss Shirley continued almost constantly with her, diverting her mind as much as possible from the subject which poisoned the happiness of her whole life, and supporting her in sorrow, when to divert reflection was no longer possible.
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr. Longstaff rides over to Snitterton Lodge to obtain Colin a situation.—Miss Maria Sowersoft and Mr. Samuel Palethorpe,—his future mistress and master,—described.
AT the distance of some five or six miles from Bramleigh, and to the south-west of that village, lies an extensive tract of bare, treeless country, which some years ago was almost wholly uninclosed—if we except a small farm, the property of the Church—together with some few scattered patches, selected on account of their situation, and inclosed with low stone walls, in order to entitle them to the denomination of fields. Owing to the abundance of gorse, or whins, with which the uncultivated parts of this district were overgrown, it had obtained the characteristic name of “Whin-moor;” while, in order to cover the barrenness of the place, and to exalt it somewhat in the eyes of strangers, the old farm itself, to which I have alluded, was dignified with the title of Snitterton Lodge, the seat of Miss Maria Sower-soft, its present tenant.