‘Oh, deceiving!’ said Cherry; ‘that is not the question; but Cara is with her papa in the evenings? That must be a comfort to him, and to her too, poor child.’
Nurse gave a little cough. ‘Master—mostly—spends the evening out,’ she said.
Miss Cherry did not ask any more; her suspicions were all confirmed and her anxieties increased; for though there was no question of deceiving in Nurse’s sense of the word, and though that good woman’s homilies no doubt fell quite harmless upon Cara, yet the visits of a couple of young men to a girl ‘almost every morning’ conveyed an idea of danger which made Miss Cherry’s hair stand on end. What the poor child had been plunged into the moment she left that safe feminine nest at the Hill, all flowery and sweet, where some kind guardian was always at hand! Launched into the world—never words could be more true. Miss Cherry sat in the haunted room, where poor Cara felt her mother’s eyes upon her, so full of pondering that she had no leisure to be affected by that memory. The poor woman, who was dead and safe, died away out of all thoughts when the affairs of the living came uppermost—the living who were so far from being safe, whose life lay before them, liable to be coloured through and through by the events of any solitary moment. This could scarcely be said of James Beresford perhaps, whose life was three-parts over; but what penalties might not Cara have to pay for the pleasure of the moment!—the gay visitors who ‘brightened her up’ might leave darkness behind when their more active life carried them away to other scenes and occupations, and the companionship which made this opening of her existence cheerful might throw all the rest into shadow. So Miss Cherry, whose life knew nothing more than this, who had no varied experiences to show how one affection pushed out another, and on what lines of natural progress the course of life was drawn, thought to herself as she waited by the side of the fire, slowly sipping her cup of tea, for Cara’s return. She thought no more of her brother and Mrs. Meredith—people who were old enough to manage their own concerns. Cara occupied all her thoughts. She was herself, though she was old, more on Cara’s level of life than on that which was occupied by the kind neighbour for whom she had been so anxious when she came. After a while she heard voices outside, and going to the window, saw a little group at the house next door, the centre of which was Mrs. Meredith herself, smiling graciously upon someone who had arrived too early for her usual reception, and who was going disappointed away, when stopped by her arrival. Behind Mrs. Meredith was Cara, looking up to a handsome, dark-haired young man, who smiled upon her in a way which gave even to old Miss Cherry’s heart a sympathetic thrill. Surely he looked sincere, she said to herself; and what girl could resist such a look? For a moment Cherry forgot her terror and her precautions. Why should not Cara be the one happy girl whose happy love was to be blessed and sanctioned by everybody from the very beginning? Why should it not be so? Cherry asked herself. There was money enough in the family to make it possible to indulge this only child of their hearts in whatever she might please to want—a husband if she liked, or any other toy. It was not, however, with such light-minded expressions that Cherry treated so solemn a subject. If he loved her, and if she loved him, why should there be any difficulty? Cherry herself was ready to give up everything to ‘secure’ her darling’s ‘happiness.’ These were the words to use:—‘To secure Cara’s happiness!’ Then there need be no question of danger or trouble of any kind. The young couple would be married quite young, as it was for everybody’s happiness (people said) to be, and there need be no further anxiety, no further pain, on Cara’s account. They did not see her at the window, but stood talking, close together, the girl looking up, the young man looking down, until the door was opened, and they all disappeared. Cherry went back to her seat at the fireside and cried a little for pleasure at the thought of this happiness which was to come. To think of your child having precisely the blessedness, the good-fortune, which has not fallen to you, and which would have made your more happy than anything else,—could there be compensation more sweet? She cried for pleasure as she had cried before for anxiety, and sat with the firelight sparkling in that moisture which filled her eyes, and calculated how it could be done. Mrs. Meredith would allow her son something—as much at least as his school and university allowance, if not more; and though Aunt Charity was careful of her money, she could be liberal, too, on occasion. I am not sure even that it did not flash across Miss Cherry’s mind that one day the Hill and all its wealth would be her own; but she repulsed the thought with poignant compunction: unless, indeed, it might be that the Hill should go at once to Cara, and thus make her marriage, as of a queen-regnant able to endow her husband plentifully, the most wise and seemly thing in the world, even though she was so young. After all her troubles and terrors, Miss Cherry had a moment of exquisite pleasure as she sat by the fire and arranged it all. She forgot that the room was haunted, she forgot her sister-in-law’s strange death, her brother’s long misery, and now the consolation which he had found, and which all his friends disapproved of, and she herself had come here to put a stop to. What were all these things in comparison with Cara happy, Cara blessed in that best and sweetest lot which had never come to herself? What matter, if it came to her dearest child?
She had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for her dearest child was a long time coming, and but for her delightful dreams Miss Cherry might have felt somewhat dull and deserted in the still house. If she could but look through the partition and see into the drawing-room next door!—just a peep, to see her Cara with that charming young man beside her, bending over her. They were like a pair in a novel, Miss Cherry felt, or in a poem, which was better still—she, with those great blue eyes, which were Cara’s chief feature; he, dark and splendid, with a glow of manly colour. How nice that he should be so handsome! For indeed sometimes, girls are quite pleased and happy with those who are not handsome, so that this was something pardessus le marché, an exceptional advantage. Someone began to play the piano after a while, and the sound came through the wall. Was it perhaps he? Cara could not play so well as that. If it was he, then he must be accomplished too, as well as handsome. What a happy, happy girl! Though Miss Cherry was a little tired of waiting before Cara came in, she had not at all flagged in her enthusiasm, and when the girl flew to her, all flushed and excited with pleasure at the sight of her, it was all she could do to restrain her congratulations and blessings. ‘For I must not say a word till she gives me her confidence,’ she said to herself.
‘Nurse told me as she let me in that you were here. Oh, Aunt Cherry, how glad I am! When did you come? Why did you not send for me? Here I have been waiting nearly an hour at Mrs. Meredith’s, and you here!’
‘My darling, you were happier there——’
‘Happier than with you? I was happier than when I am alone; but if I had known you were here! And, oh! Aunt Cherry, there is only time to get ready for dinner! We can’t talk just now; how provoking it is! Tell me about Aunt Charity and home; but we must not keep dinner waiting.’
‘No, dear. How pleased I am,’ said Miss Cherry, kissing her child with tender fondness, ‘to see you so considerate and careful of your papa’s comfort?’
‘Yes,’ said Cara, doubtfully. ‘Papa, of course—but it is more for cook and John; they don’t like to have dinner kept waiting. Papa is often a little late himself, but of course no one could say anything to him.’
This explanation was made as they went upstairs arm-in-arm, the girl clinging to her aunt with pretty fondness, embracing Miss Cherry’s arm with both her hands. Cara was paler than she had been at the Hill. Her eyes looked bigger and bluer than ever, her transparent complexion more delicate and changeable. She was prettier than Miss Cherry had ever seen her, but ‘did not look strong,’ her anxious aunt thought. Was it the excitement of her position, the absorbing influence which had taken hold of her? How kind Cherry longed to take the child in her arms to beg for her confidence! ‘But I must not say a word till she tells me,’ she said to herself, with a sigh.