Their real parting took place the day before he left and it was in the park, where he met her returning from an errand of mercy to some old goody in the village, her basket swinging in her hand, and a furred cloak about her that made her bloom most exquisitely soft and fair. He commended her kind heart, which indeed was no more than justice, and did not mention that he had seen her from his window and had hastened down by the short cut through the garden for a last word. This would have made her too confident.
“We are to part to-morrow, Emily,” says he with a certain solemnity, “and since I cannot repeat it in public, let me hope my words will not be forgotten, for all your future must now depend on your conduct. You are not seventeen, and prosperity and security may yet be yours if you are discreet and govern your impulses. There is the whole secret. Impulse has been and will be your ruin unless controlled.”
It must certainly appear that this young man as he walked discoursing beside her was a finished prig, the born preacher of an immoral morality. Nature was a force he dreaded and despised, and he had carefully pruned and grafted it in his own case so that no rebellious shoots and tendrils should trouble his peace. In spite of all his wise saws and modern instances, it was in this girl to burst into a tropic luxuriance of blossom that must wreathe her with crowns undreamed of in his arid philosophy, and make the world itself marvel. Had she pruned and trimmed and clipped as she tried her best to do for his sake, that strange and brilliant future had never been.
She promised, however, passionately, and with a warmth he thought excessive, adding:
“And may I write to you, Greville, and will you despise my poor letters, and will you still interest yourself for my good and write to tell me so?”
“You may certainly write to me if the need arises, my dear Emily, for your attention to all I say convinces me you have good qualities. Naturally I cannot write to you. This would be to treat Sir Harry in a way I neither can nor will, and might have unpleasant consequences. Let me know if anything should occur to part you from him, and when that day comes I believe you may find he will make a provision for you that shall mark his esteem for your conduct.”
Provision was not in her view; the fact that Greville was passing out of her life, possibly for ever, drowned that and all else. She caught his hand, and looked at him with quivering lips.
“Oh, how shall I thank you for your divine goodness to a poor girl like me? Oh, Greville, Greville, don’t forget me! But you won’t for all you’re such a great gentleman and makes Sir Harry and all the rest look like Sussex boors. And your knowledge—What is there you don’t know? Things I never even heard tell of and can’t never hope for. Oh, if I never see you again—and Heaven forbid it, for you must come in February—I’ll remember you till my dying day, and say ‘Greville didn’t despise the poor Emily. He knew she had a heart to feel his words that he honoured her with—and to love him! To love him!’ ”
She was sobbing now hysterically. He looked around with swift caution and drew her into the shade of a copse of evergreens uncommanded by the windows of the house, for this emotion must not be seen. Here he exhorted her to compose herself, and in vain.
It was inevitable, since she could not, that he should put his arms about the lovely mourner. Her cheek rested against his, their lips met, the basket lay forgotten at their feet.