‘No one could who knew her.’
‘Of course not. I’ll tell you what I mean to do. I will write to Mary when we go in, and tell her that I know she really cares for me enough to be glad that her nonsense has done no mischief, and, though I was so foolish and wrong as to fly into a passion, of course I know it is only her way, and I do not believe one word of it.’
Somehow, as she looked with those radiant eyes full of perfect trust, I could not help longing not to have heard Peter Robson’s last night’s complaint; but family feeling towards outsiders overcomes many a misgiving, and my wrath against the malignity of the Lesters was quite as strong as if I had been devoid of all doubts whether Griff wore to all other eyes the same halo of pure glory with which Ellen invested him.
Such doubts were very transient. Dear old Griff was too delightful, too bright and too brave, too ardent and too affectionate, not to dispel all clouds by the sunshine he carried about with him. If rest and reliance came with Clarence, zest and animation came with Griffith. He managed to take the initiative by declining to remain any longer with the Robsons, saying they had been spoilt by such a model lodger as Clarence, who would let Gooch feed him on bread and milk and boiled mutton, and put on his clean pinafore if she chose to insist; whereas her indignation, when Griff found fault with the folding of his white ties, amounted to ‘Et tu Brute,’ and he really feared she would have had a fit when he ordered devilled kidneys for breakfast. He was sure her determination to tuck him up every night and put out his candle was shortening her life; and he had made arrangements to share the chambers of a friend who had gone through school and college with him. There was no objection to the friend, who had stayed at Chantry House and was an agreeable, lively, young man, well reported of, satisfactorily connected, fairly industrious, and in good society, so that Griff was likely to be much less exposed to temptation of the lower kinds than when left to his own devices, or only with Clarence, who had neither time nor disposition to share his amusements.
There was a scene with my father, but in private; and all that came to general knowledge was that Griff felt himself injured by any implication that he was given to violent or excessive dissipation, such as could wreck Ellen’s happiness or his own character.
He declared with all his heart that immediate marriage would be the best thing for both, and pleaded earnestly for it; but my father could not have arranged for it even if the Fordyces would have consented, and there were matters of business, as well as other reasons, which made it inexpedient for them to revoke their decision that the wedding should not take place before Ellen was of age and Griffith called to the bar.
So we took our young ladies home, loaded with presents for their beloved school children, of whom Emily said she dreamt, as the time for seeing them again drew near. After all the London enjoyment, it was pretty to see the girls’ delight in the fresh country sights and sounds in full summer glory, and how Ellen proved to have been hungering after all her dear ones at home. When we left her at her own door, our last sight of her was in her father’s arms, little Anne clinging to her dress, mother and grandfather as close to her as could be—a perfect tableau of a joyous welcome.
CHAPTER XXIX.
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE.
‘Unless he give me all in change
I forfeit all things by him;
The risk is terrible and strange.’Mrs. Browning.
You will be weary of my lengthiness; and perhaps I am lingering too long over the earlier portion of my narrative. Something is due to the disproportion assumed in our memories by the first twenty years of existence—something, perhaps, to reluctance to passing from comparative sunshine to shadow. There was still a period of brightness, but it was so uneventful that I have no excuse for dwelling on it further than to say that Henderson, our excellent curate, had already made a great difference in the parish, and it was beginning to be looked on as almost equal to Hillside. The children were devoted to Emily, who was the source of all the amenities of their poor little lives. The needlework of the school was my mother’s pride; and our church and its services, though you would shudder at them now, were then thought presumptuously superior ‘for a country parish.’ They were a real delight and blessing to us, as well as to many more of the flock, who still, in their old age, remember and revere Parson Henderson as a sort of apostle.