Susan herself was not unlike her posy; sweet and delicate, and full of a certain pastoral grace. Her light and airy figure suited well with a fair mild countenance, breaking into blushes and smiles when she spoke, and set off by bright ringlets of golden hair, parted on her white forehead, and hanging in long curls on her finely-rounded cheeks. Always neat but never fine, gentle, cheerful, and modest, it would be difficult to find a prettier specimen of an English farmer’s daughter than Susan Howe. But just now the little damsel wore a look of care not usual to her fair and tranquil features; she seemed, as she was, full of trouble.
“Poor William!” so ran her thoughts, “my father would not even listen to his last letter because it poisoned him with musk. I wonder that William can like that disagreeable smell! and he expects him to come down on the top of the coach, instead of which, he says that he means to purchase a—a—(even in her thoughts poor Susan could not master the word, and was obliged to have recourse to the musk-scented billet) britschka—ay, that’s it!—or a droschky; I wonder what sort of things they are—and that he only visits us en passant in a tour, for which, town being so empty, and business slack, his employer has given him leave, and in which he is to be accompanied by his friend Monsieur Victor—Victor—I can’t make out his other name—an eminent perfumer who lives next door. To think of bringing a Frenchman here, remembering how my father hates the whole nation! Oh dear, dear! And yet I know William. I know why he went, and I do believe, in spite of a little finery and foolishness, and of all the britschkas, and droschkies, and Victors, into the bargain, that he’ll be glad to get home again. No place like home! Even in these silly notes that feeling is always at the bottom. Did not I hear a carriage before me? Yes!—no!—I can’t tell. One takes every thing for the sound of wheels when one is expecting a dear friend!—And if we can but get him to look, as he used to look, and to be what he used to be, he won’t leave us again for all the fine shops in Regent Street, or all the britschkas and droschkies in Christendom. My father is getting old now, and William ought to stay at home,” thought the affectionate sister; “and I firmly believe that what he ought to do, he will do. Besides which—surely there is a carriage now.” Just as Susan arrived at this point of her cogitations, that sound which had haunted her imagination all the afternoon, the sound of wheels rapidly advancing, became more and more audible, and was suddenly succeeded by a tremendous crash, mixed with men’s voices—one of them her brother’s—venting in two languages (for Monsieur Victor, whatever might be his proficiency in English, had recourse in this emergency to his native tongue) the different ejaculations of anger and astonishment which are pretty sure to accompany an overset: and on turning a corner of the lane, Susan caught her first sight of the britschka or droschky, whichever it might be, that had so much puzzled her simple apprehension, in the shape of a heavy-looking open carriage garnished with head and apron, lying prostrate against a gate-post, of which the wheels had fallen foul. Her brother was fully occupied in disengaging the horses from the traces, in reprimanding his companion for his bad driving, which he declared had occasioned the accident, and in directing him to go for assistance to a cottage half a mile back on the road to Wantage, whilst he himself intimated his intention of proceeding for more help to the Farm; and the obedient Frenchman—who, notwithstanding the derangement which his coëffure might naturally be expected to have experienced in his tumble, looked, Susan thought, as if his hair were put in paper every night and pomatumed every morning, and as if his whole dapper person were saturated with his own finest essences, a sort of travelling perfumer’s shop, a peripatetic pouncet-box—walked off in the direction indicated, with an air of habitual submission, which showed pretty plainly that, whether as proprietor of the unlucky britschka, or from his own force of character, William was considered as the principal director of the present expedition.
Having sent his comrade off, William Howe, leaving his steeds quietly browsing by the wayside, bent his steps towards home. Susan advanced rapidly to meet him; and in a few seconds the brother and sister were in each other’s arms; and, after most affectionate greetings, they sat down by mutual consent upon a piece of felled timber which lay upon the bank—the lane on one side being bounded by an old coppice—and began to ask each other the thousand questions so interesting to the children of one house who have been long parted.
Seldom surely has the rough and rugged bark of an unhewed elm had the honour of supporting so perfect an exquisite. Jem Hathaway, the exciseman, had in nothing exaggerated the magnificence of our young Londoner. From shoes which looked as if they had come from Paris in the ambassador’s bag, to the curled head and the whiskered and mustachio’d countenance, (for the hat which should have been the crown of the finery was wanting—probably in consequence of the recent overturn,) from top to toe he looked fit for a ball at Almack’s, or a fete at Bridgewater House; and, oh! how unsuited to the old-fashioned homestead at Rutherford West! His lower appointments, hose and trousers, were of the finest woven silk; his coat was claret colour, of the latest cut; his waistcoat—talk of the great peacock, he would have seemed dingy and dusky beside such a splendour of colour!—his waistcoat literally dazzled poor Susan’s eyes; and his rings, and chains, and studs, and brooches, seemed to the wondering girl almost sufficient to stock a jeweller’s shop.
In spite of all this nonsense, it was clear to her from every look and word that she was not mistaken in believing William unchanged in mind and disposition, and that there was a warm and a kind heart beating under the finery. Moreover, she felt that if the unseemly magnificence could once be thrown aside, the whiskers and mustachios cleared away, and his fine manly person reinstated in the rustic costume in which she had been accustomed to see him, her brother would then appear greatly improved in face and figure, taller, more vigorous, and with an expression of intelligence and frankness delightful to behold. But how to get quit of the finery, and the Frenchman, and the britschka? Or how reconcile her father to iniquities so far surpassing even the smell of musk?
William, on his part, regarded his sister with unqualified admiration. He had left a laughing blooming girl, he found a delicate and lovely young woman, all the more lovely for the tears that mingled with her smiles, true tokens of a most pure affection.
“And you really are glad to see me, Susy? And my father is well? And here is the old place, looking just as it used to do; house, and ricks, and barnyard, not quite in sight, but one feels that one shall see them at the next turning—the great coppice right opposite, looking thicker and greener than ever! how often we have gone nutting in that coppice!—the tall holly at the gate, with the woodbine climbing up, and twisting its sweet garlands round the very topmost spray like a coronet;—many a time and often have I climbed the holly to twine the flaunting wreath round your straw-bonnet, Miss Susy! And here, on the other side of the hedge, is the very field where Hector and Harebell ran their famous course, and gave their hare fifty turns before they killed her, without ever letting her get out of the stubble. Those were pleasant days, Susan, after all!”
“Happy days, dear William!”
“And we shall go nutting again, shall we not?”
“Surely, dear brother! Only”—— And