The next morning, after breakfast, I asked Mrs. Middleton what were her plans for the day. She told me she had got a note from Henry after I had gone to bed the evening before, to ask her when and where she wished to see him; that she had sent him word to come to her before two o'clock, but that she thought I had better not be present at their first interview. I instantly proposed to her to go to Alice as soon as I could be sure that Henry had left his house, and prepare her for the visit which I knew my aunt intended to make to her in the afternoon, or else to bring her back with me to Brookstreet. I felt I had better meet Henry again in her presence than alone. Mrs. Middleton agreed to all this; and I went to my room to wait there for his arrival, which was to be the signal for my departure. In about an hour's time I heard a knock at the house-door, and having ascertained that Henry was with his sister, I got into the carriage, and drove off to—Street.
I remember that accidentally I had in my hands a card of address which my maid had just given me for some shop in Regent-street, with a long list, in small print, at its back, of the various articles to be procured there, and that I read it over and over again, with that nervous attention which we give to anything that will fix our eyes, and the mechanical part of our thoughts, when we are in a state of restless impatience. The carriage stopped at No. 3, in—Street, and I told the servant to inquire if Mrs. Lovell was at home. The door was opened by a man who had been Henry's servant since he went first to Oxford, and who, on seeing me, came up to the carriage, and told me that Mrs. Lovell was in the square; but that if I would walk in, and wait a few minutes, he would go and tell her that I was come.
I followed him up the narrow carpeted stairs; he opened the door of the back drawing-room, and left me there. For a moment I sat down on the nearest chair to subdue the quick beating of my heart. I then looked about me, and examined Alice's room. It was furnished just as most rooms in London are furnished, where no particular care has been taken to superintend their arrangement. There were blue striped sofas and chairs, a large table and a little table, blue and muslin curtains, and that was all. Everything was in the nicest order possible. On the small table which was placed near the window, with a chair before it, were laid, one upon the other, the same Bible and Prayer Book which I had seen in the closet at Bridman; in a bookcase between the chimney and the window were ranged the same books which had stood there on the wooden shelf; on the round table were a few flowers in a glass, and a basket containing some hemming. There was no fire in the chimney, and the room felt rather cold.
After a few minutes had elapsed, the door opened and Alice came in. As she came up to me, her perfect calmness gave me at once that self-possession which I had vainly struggled for before-hand. As I kissed her, and sat down by her side, it felt to me like entering a church on a hot and dusty summer's day; like leaving behind me the glare and the noise of the busy world without; like plunging into those
"Arched retreats, where passion's thirst is calmed,
And care's unthankful gloom." *
[* Lyra Apostolica.]
She was simply dressed in a brown silk gown. As she took off her straw bonnet, and laid it, and a handful of daisies by it, on the table, she turned to me with one of those grave smiles which were peculiar to her, and said—
"I have longed to see you again, I am so glad you are come. It seemed to me as if the trees would never get their leaves in London; but they are growing at last, and you are come. But you are looking pale. You are not ill, I hope?"
"No; only very tired, Alice. I am unused to London, and the noise stuns and bewilders me. You look just as you did a year ago at Bridman."
A slight colour rose in her cheek at the name of Bridman. "I was a child then, though an old one, and now—"