Gregory at this point approached and spoke to her by name. She lifted her face, her eyes full of helpless tears. She reddened faintly on recognizing him. She handed the boy a diminutive toy-fiddle from the bag. Pacified, he retired at a little distance and, while his mamma and the gentleman entered into conversation, scraped seriously, the tassel on the tip of his cap bobbing with his funny little airs de tête.
"How good of you, how good of you—how comforting to me!" she said, her forlorn face softly brightening; "I was getting so tired of taking care of myself! I have never travelled alone, and—and I am so timid—"
How different seemed the old house to Emmie returning! She settled down in it with the sense of passionate contentment. I can imagine in a dove restored to the cote after escaping the fowler's snare and the rage of wintry storms. How shut it was against the cold! how safe from arrogant men demanding money! Life in it now seemed to her one round of luxurious pleasures: one could sleep undisturbed, tea and buttered bread came as regularly as the desire for them; flowers bloomed at every season on mantel-shelf and table; the grate glowed as if to glow were no more than a grate's nature. There was undeniably the domestic tyrant still; but what a mild one by comparison! Aunt Lucretia might be peremptory and critical and contradictory: to Emmie in these days she personated a benevolent Providence. It is possible that the lady's disposition had softened towards her niece: her superior daughters were removed, and the little widow with her manifold experiences was unquestionably a person more interesting to have about than the moping girl of yore.
The two ladies, sitting together with their wools, in undertones talked over Emmie's married miseries. She was as ready with her confidences as Aunt Lucretia with her listening ear. There seemed no end to what she had to tell or the number of times she might relate the same incident and be heard out with tolerance. She was glad of some one to whom to unburden her heart of its accumulated grievance; she could not but be a little glad, too, now it was well over, that so much that was unusual had happened to her, since it lent her this importance. Aunt Lucretia gave a great deal of good advice—said what she would have done in like case; Emmie accepted it with as much humble gratitude as if it had still been of service. She concurred with all her heart in her aunt's unqualified condemnation of her first lapse from the respectable path—her elopement; she declared with perfect sincerity that she was puzzled to explain how it all happened—certainly before a week had been over the folly of it had stared her in the face.
The young widow, when she had taken her aunt through scenes of rage and jealousy that made that matron's nostrils open as a war-horse's, and had shown up the petty tyrannies and meannesses of a bad-tempered, vindictive, vain man, afflicted with a set of morbidly tense nerves, would sometimes inconsistently betray a sort of pride in the fact that she had been adored by this erratic being, whose ill-treatment of her came partly from that fact; also a certain pride in the assurance she had had on every side, of his being a great artist who might have risen to fortune had he been blessed with a different constitution. A prince had once, in token of his appreciation, bestowed on him a jewelled order; Emmie wished she had not been forced to sell it when he was ill. She herself could not judge of his playing—she could not abide the sound of a violin—but the star might be accounted a proof of his ability.
"You were too meek, my dear," said Lucretia, conclusively, after a tale of oppression; "I should have taken a stand."
"Dear aunt," said Emmie, pensively considering her relative's size and the cast of her features, "I think you would. He would have been afraid of you. If I displeased him, he said I was rebellious because I felt myself bolstered up by the admiration of whoever in the inn had happened to give me a passing glance, and he would torment me until I swore I loved him with every thought of my life. Sometimes, when he had made me cry, he would cry, too—I hate that in a man, aunt!—and go on tormenting me until I said I forgave him—"
"Ah, I should have taught him a lesson!"
"Yes, aunt, you would. But I swore whatever he pleased. If I was sulky, he was as likely as not to sit up all night, wailing on his violin when I wanted to sleep. He always took remote chambers at inns, for the privilege of playing at night, if he pleased. If I complained, he said that if I had liked the music it would have soothed me to sleep, and if I did not like it, it was well I should be kept awake. He was very sore on the point of my not being in love with his music."
"I should like to see a man play the fiddle in my bedroom!" said Aunt Lucretia, with a face of danger.