“Eh, good people. Saying nothing bad of me, I hope? Anyhow, I leave my character in the hands of my friend Urquhart. He rates me soundly to my face, which is the best proof of his not speaking ill of me behind my back.”
“So that is Doctor Urquhart's idea of friendship! bitter outside, and sweet at the core. What does he make of love, pray? All sweet and no bitter?”
“Or all bitter and no sweet.”
These speeches came from the two other sisters, the latter from the eldest; their flippancy needed no reply, and I gave none. The second sister was silent: which, I thought, shewed better taste, under the circumstances.
For a few minutes longer we sauntered on, leaving the wood and passing into the sunshine, which felt soft and warm as spring. Then there happened,—I have been slow in coming to it, one of those accidents,—trivial to all but me, which, whenever occurring, seem to dash the peaceful present out of my grasp, and, throw me back years—years, to the time when I had neither present nor future, but dragged on life, I scarcely know how, with every faculty tightly bound up in an inexorable, intolerable past.
She was carrying her prayer-book, or Bible I think it was, though English people oftener carry to church prayer-books than Bibles, and seem to reverence them quite as much, or more. I had noticed it, as being not one of those velvet things with gilt crosses that ladies delight in, but plain-bound, with slightly soiled edges, as if with continual use. Passing through a gate, she dropped it: I stooped to pick it up, and there, on the fly-leaf, I saw written:—
“Theodora Johnston.”—“Johnston.”
Let me consider what followed, for my memory is not clear.
I believe, I walked with her to her own door, that there was a gathering and talking, which ended in Treherne's entering with the ladies, promising to overtake me before I reached the camp. That the gate closed upon them, and I heard their lively voices inside the garden wall while I walked rapidly down the road and back into the fir-wood. That gaining its shadow and shelter I sat down on a felled tree, to collect myself.
Johnson her name is not, but Johnston. Spelt precisely the same as I remember noticing on his handkerchief, Johnston, without the final e.