"I thought last night it would be quite easy to be good here," she said to herself, "but it doesn't seem so now." She stood and gazed out at the river disconsolately. It seemed to her that the others, who were not nearly as anxious to help as she was, were taking all her opportunities, and she was left, to seem idle and unkind—and really she meant so differently.
Poor Esther! Once more, while full of big aims, she was overlooking the little chances.
"Well," she said at last in a very proud tone, "if no one wants me I will go for a walk by myself. I shan't be in any one's way then!" She knew quite well she was in no one's way, but she was very aggrieved and full of self-pity.
She was just crossing the hall to put on her hat, when Miss Charlotte entered it. Then was her chance, and she knew it; but the old sullen temper had the upper hand, and forbade her to speak. By this time she had let herself feel as hurt as though Miss Charlotte had known what was in her mind and purposely ignored her.
She passed on, put on her hat, and went out. She would not go to the garden because she did not want to see the others happily at their work; so, when Miss Charlotte turned in to the kitchen, she slipped out at the front door and walked away quickly up the road towards the station. She would not go past the cottages, she wanted to avoid every one; for that reason she avoided that part of the moor behind the house, where Penelope would probably be, if she were not in the house or garden. A little way up the road, on the right-hand side, a bridge crossed the river. Esther went over it and found herself on the moor beyond, but she turned away from it lest she should be seen, and clambered down to the river's edge, where boughs and bushes shut her off from view. It was lonely there, and she wandered on and on, through sun and shadow, under low-hanging branches, by tiny beaches of clean river-sand, and all the way she went the river ran beside her singing a low, cheery song as it rippled over its uneven bed.
It could not be long before such loveliness must have a soothing effect on any troubled spirit. By degrees Esther's mood changed, her sense of wrong grew less, and presently she began to wish she had acted differently. If she only had, she might now have been busy and happy too. She began to feel ashamed of herself. How foolish she had been. She would go back again and see if she could not be more sensible, and she rose from her seat and turned her face homewards.
The house seemed deserted when at last she reached it. She went into the hall, looked in the dining-room and drawing-room, saw no one, and strolled out to the garden.
"Where can they all be?" she wondered, "and what can they be doing?"
From the kitchen came a great clatter of crockery. Anna was washing dishes, and by the noise one could gather that Anna's temper was not of the smoothest.
As Esther stepped out she saw Miss Charlotte coming towards her from the group of outbuildings, carrying a basket of eggs. She was looking grave and worried, and for a moment Esther felt she could not speak to her then; she must wait until she found her again in such a mood as last night's. But a second glance told her that Miss Charlotte looked tired, and without giving herself time to think, Esther stepped up to her.