“Try marriage,” said Rosamond, laughing.
Caroline shook her head. “Consider at what expense that trial must be made.”
At the first reading of Buckhurst’s letter Caroline had been pleased with it; but on a second perusal, she was dissatisfied with the passage about his parents, nor could she approve of his giving up what he now called his scruples, to obtain a competence for the woman he professed to adore. She knew that he had been leading a dissipated life in town; that he must, therefore, be less fit than he formerly was to make a good husband, and still less likely to make a respectable clergyman. He had some right feeling, but no steady principle, as Caroline observed. She was grateful for the constancy of his attachment, and for the generosity he showed in his whole conduct towards her; nor was she insensible to the urgency with which Rosamond pleaded in his favour: but she was firm in her own judgment; and her refusal, though expressed in the terms that could best soften the pain it must give, was as decided as possible.
Soon after her letter had been sent, she and Rosamond had taken a longer walk one evening than usual, and, eager in conversation, went on so far in this wild unfrequented part of the country, that when they saw the sun setting, they began to fear they should not reach home before it was dark. They wished to find a shorter way than that by which they went, and they looked about in hopes of seeing some labourer (some swinked hedger) returning from his work, or a cottage where they could meet with a guide.—But there was no person or house within sight. At last Caroline, who had climbed upon a high bank in the lane where they were walking, saw a smoke rising between some trees at a little distance; and toward this spot they made their way through another lane, the entrance to which had been stopped up with furze bushes. They soon came within sight of a poor-looking cottage, and saw a young woman walking very slowly with a child in her arms. She was going towards the house, and did not perceive the young ladies till they were close to her. She turned suddenly when they spoke—started—looked frightened and confused; the infant began to cry, and hushing it as well as she could, she answered to their questions with a bewildered look, “I don’t know indeed—I can’t tell—I don’t know any thing, ladies—ask at the cottage, yonder.” Then she quickened her pace, and walked so fast to the house, that they could hardly keep up with her. She pushed open the hatch door, and called “Dorothy! Dorothy, come out.” But no Dorothy answered.—The young woman seemed at a loss what to do; and as she stood hesitating, her face, which had at first appeared pale and emaciated, flushed up to her temples. She looked very handsome, but in ill-health.
“Be pleased, ladies,” said she, with diffidence, and trembling from head to foot, “be pleased to sit down and rest, ladies. One will be in directly who knows the ways—I am a stranger in these parts.”
As soon as she had set the chairs, she was retiring to an inner room, but her child, who was pleased with Caroline’s face as she smiled and nodded at him, stretched out his little hands towards her.
“Oh! let my sister give him a kiss,” said Rosamond. The mother stopped, yet appeared unwilling. The child patted Caroline’s cheek, played with her hair, and laughed aloud. Caroline offered to take the child in her arms, but the mother held him fast, and escaped into the inner room, where they heard her sobbing violently. Caroline and Rosamond looked at one another in silence, and left the cottage by tacit consent, sorry that they had given pain, and feeling that they had no right to intrude further. “We can go home the same way that we came,” said Caroline, “and that is better than to trouble any body.”
“Certainly,” said Rosamond: “yet I should like to know something more about this poor woman if I could, without—If we happened to meet Dorothy, whoever she is.”
At this instant they saw an old woman come from a copse near the cottage, with a bundle of sticks on her back and a tin can in her hand: this was Dorothy. She saved them all the trouble and delicacy of asking questions, for there was not a more communicative creature breathing. She in the first place threw down her faggots, and offered her service to guide the young ladies home; she guessed they belonged to the family that was newly come to settle at the Hills, which she described, though she could not tell the name. She would not be denied the pleasure of showing them the shortest and safest way, and the only way by which they could get home before it was night-fall. So they accepted her kind offer, and she trudged on, talking as she went.
“It is a weary thing, ladies, to live in this lone place, where one does not see a soul to speak to from one month’s end to another—especially to me that has lived afore now in my younger days in Lon’on. But it’s as God pleases! and I wish none had greater troubles in this world than I—You were up at the house, ladies? There within at my little place—ay—then you saw the greatest and the only great trouble I have, or ever had in this life.—Did not you, ladies, see the young woman with the child in her arms?—But may be you did not mind Kate, and she’s nothing now to look at, quite faded and gone, though she’s only one month past nineteen years of age. I am sure I ought to know, for I was at her christening, and nursed her mother. She’s of very good parentage, that is, of a farmer’s family, that has, as well as his neighbours, that lives a great way off, quite on the other side of the country. And not a year, at least not a year and a half ago, I remember Kate Robinson dancing on the green at Squire Burton’s there with the rest of the girls of the village, and without compare the prettiest and freshest, and most blithsome and innocent of them all. Ay, she was innocent then, none ever more so, and she had no care, but all looking kind upon her in this world, and fond parents taking pride in her—and now look at her what she is! Cast off by all, shamed, and forgotten, and broken-hearted, and lost as much as if she was in her grave. And better she was in her grave than as she is.”