Mrs. Burchell sprang up at the intimation, and rushed forward with open arms. She had put on a black merino dress instead of her usual silk, and a black shawl, to mark her sense of the calamity—and swallowed up poor slim Miss Cherry in the entanglements of that embrace, with solemn fervour. Cherry had not much sense of humour, and she was too good to pass any judgment upon the sudden warmth of affection thus exhibited; but it was a little confusing and suffocating to find herself without any warning engulfed in Mrs. Burchell’s old merino and the folds of her shawl.
‘Oh, my dear, dear Cherry, if I could but tell you how I feel for you! How little did we think when we last met——’
‘You are very kind,’ said Miss Cherry, drawing herself forth somewhat limp and crushed from this embrace. ‘I am sure you are very kind.’ Her lips quivered and the tears came to her eyes; but she was not so overwhelmed as her consoler, who had begun to sob. ‘It is my poor brother I think of,’ said Miss Cherry. ‘It is little to us in comparison with, what it is to him. I think of him most; more than of poor Annie, who is safe out of all trouble.’
‘We must hope so, at least,’ said the Rector, shaking his head; and his wife stopped sobbing, and interchanged a glance with him, which was full of meaning.
‘Poor Mrs. James! It was so sudden. I fear there was no time for preparation—no time even for thought?’
‘Men soon get the better of these things,’ said Miss Charity, ‘and the more they feel it at the time the more easily they are cured. Cherry there will think of her longer than her husband will. I don’t mean to say your grief’s so great, my dear, but it will last.’
‘Oh, aunt, you do James injustice! He thought of nothing but Annie. The light of his eyes is gone, and the comfort of his house, and all he cares for in life.’
Here poor Miss Cherry, moved by her own eloquence, began to cry, picturing to herself this dismal future. Nothing at Sunninghill was changed: the room was as full of primroses as the woods were; great baskets of them mingled with blue violets filled every corner; the sunshine came in unclouded; the whole place was bright. It struck the tender-hearted woman with sudden compunction: ‘We are not touched,’ she said; ‘we have everything just the same as ever, as bright; but my poor James, in that house by himself; and the child! Oh, Aunt Charity, when I think of him, I feel as if my heart would break.’
Miss Charity took up her work and began to knit furiously. ‘He will get over it,’ she said, ‘in time. It will be dreadful work at first; but he will get over it. He has plenty of friends, both men and women. Don’t upset me with your talk; he will get over it—men always do.’
‘And let us hope it will lead him to think more seriously,’ said Mrs. Burchell. ‘Oh, I am sure if you thought my dear husband could be of any use—we all know he has not been what we may call serious, and oh, dear Miss Beresford, would not this affliction be a cheap price to pay for it, if it brought him to a better state of mind?’