‘What a ridiculous young man! And now he will be home ever so long before us, and will make capital out of his punctuality with my father.’
‘Could you imagine him capable of such meanness?’
‘He is a brother,’ answered Celia, ‘and in that capacity capable of anything. Come along, pray, Mr. Gerard. We must scamper home awfully fast.’
‘Won’t you take my arm?’ asked Gerard.
‘Walk arm in arm over the moor! That would be too ridiculous,’ exclaimed Celia, tripping on lightly over hillock and hollow. ‘Do make haste, Mr. Gerard, or we shall be lost in the darkness.’
George Gerard thought it would be rather nice to be benighted on the moor with Celia, or at any rate to go astray for an hour or so and lengthen their ramble. Happily, however, the lights of the village, glimmering in the valley below, were a safe guide to their footsteps, and Celia knew the pathway that descended the moor as well as she knew her father’s garden. The only peril was the risk of getting into some boggy patch of the common at the bottom of the moor, and even here Celia’s knowledge availed to keep them out of mischief. They arrived at the Vicarage breathless, with glowing cheeks, just in time to make a hurried toilet for dinner.
Oh, how much too short that winter evening, though one of the longest in the year, seemed to George Gerard! And yet its pleasures were of the simplest. Three of Celia’s particular friends—the one eligible youth of Hazlehurst and his two sisters—dropped in to spend the evening, and the Vicarage drawing-room resounded with youthful voices and youthful laughter. Celia and the two young ladies played and sang; and though neither playing nor singing was above the average young lady power, the voices were tuneful and fresh, and the fingers were equal to doing justice to a German waltz. The eligible young man was capable of joining in a glee, and George Gerard consented to try the bass part, and proved himself the possessor of a fine bass voice and a correct ear, so they asked each other, ‘Who would o’er the downs so free?’ and they requested every one to ‘See our oars with feathered spray,’ and they made valorous attempts at Bishop’s famous ‘Stay, pr’ythee, stay,’ in which they did not break down more than fifteen times, and they altogether enjoyed themselves immensely, while the Vicar read John Bull and the Guardian from end to end, and good Mrs. Clare nodded comfortably over a crochet comforter, giving her ivory hook a vague dig into the woolly mass every now and then with an idea that she was working diligently.
Edward sat aloof reading Browning’s “Paracelsus,” and hardly understanding a word he read. His mind was full of perplexity and darkest thoughts were brooding there.
Thus the evening ran its course, till the appearance of a tray of sandwiches and a tankard of claret negus warned the revellers that it was time to disperse. The church clock chimed the half-hour after eleven as George Gerard went up to his room.
‘And to-morrow night I shall be alone in my Cibber Street parlour,’ he said to himself, ‘and I may never see Celia Clare again. Better so, perhaps. What should a piece of pretty frivolity like that have to do in so hard a life as mine?’