“Come within, Dick,” she cried. “Come within, man; though there’s no one at home but Betsy and me. These are busy days with us, Dick, and this is the first quiet hour we have had since Tom returned from Italy. Of course you have heard the news—all Bath is talking of it, and I shouldn’t wonder if it had gone as far as the Wells! ’Tis great news, to be sure; but it means a deal of extra house-work, and more pastry. The children are all gone to Monsieur Badier’s assembly. The boys are taking part in the minuet, and Polly is to sing for the company between the dances. Mr. Linley and Mr. Long are at Lawyer Stott’s. These settlements are always a trouble, though I will say that Mr. Long is more than liberal in his views. Poor Betsy! What will the house be without her, Dick? You will find her in the music-room. She sings every day now, but not real singing—only for her own pleasure. There she goes. Oh lud! why am I standing talking like this when I should be turning my tartlets in the oven? Sniff, Dick, sniff! You have a fine nose. Do you smell the smell of burning paste, or is it only a bit over-crisp?”
Dick sniffed.
“I wouldn’t be too sure of those tartlets, madam,” said he. “But I don’t believe there is more than a brown sniff coming from the oven.”
“Oh lud! if you can sniff the brown, you may swear that the paste is black; you must make allowance for the distance the smell has to travel. Go upstairs; you’ll be able to track her by the sound.”
The good woman was already at the farther end of the passage to her kitchen before Dick had begun to mount the stairs.
The sound of Betsy’s singing went through the house. The song was one of Dr. Arne’s, which he had always loved. But had he ever loved the voice till now?
This was his thought while he stood outside the door of the music-room waiting for the song to come to an end.
It seemed to him that her singing of that song had the magical power of bringing before his eyes every day in the past that he had spent near her. The day when he first saw her she had sung that very song. It was at one of the entertainments given by his father in Bath, and he had just left Harrow. Every phrase of that song which now came from her lips renewed his boyish impressions of the girl, her beauty and the witchery of her voice. He could see himself standing before her, silent and shy, when she had come later in the day to have supper at his father’s house. He had been silent and shy, but she had been quite self-possessed. It was upon that occasion that Mr. Burke referred to the Linley family as a Nest of Linnets.
Dick remembered how he had wondered why it was that he himself had not said that about the Linleys: why should it be left to Mr. Burke to say it when it was exactly what was in his own mind?
He had loved her then. He recollected how he had struggled hard all the next day to write a poem about her—a song that her father might perhaps set to music to be sung by Betsy herself.