‘Very fond,’ said Cara, with composure; ‘and the boys are kind. They come often in the morning to see me. I am not sure which of them I like best. Edward has just come home. He is the one that is going to India; and Oswald writes poetry and is very clever. I go out with Mrs. Meredith in the afternoon—you must not think I am not very fond of her, Aunt Cherry—but then she is fond of so many people. You should see her afternoons. She is at home always at five, and the number of people who come! and she looks at them all alike, and listens to them as if she thought of no one else. Yes, I am very fond of her; but I like people to belong to me, not to everybody—like you, Aunt Cherry; you are mine, mine!’ the girl cried, with the flattery of exclusive appropriation which is so sweet to all, and especially to those who are beyond the first fascinations of life.
‘Yes, my darling,’ said Miss Cherry, with tears in her soft eyes; ‘me, and everything I have and everything I am, to do whatever you please with.’ She had a right to be more lavish than any lover in her self-offering; for no love could have been so ready to give up will and wish, which are the last things any human creature likes to sacrifice, for the sake of the beloved. Miss Cherry would have allowed herself to be cut into little pieces at any moment, for the sake of the child.
But these were not the kind of confidences she expected. She made an effort to bring Cara back to the other ground, and to elicit from her some tender confession. Romantic old Cherry was disappointed not to have seen some trace of this confidence, irrepressible, eager to unbosom itself, but she was not hopeless of it still.
‘I saw you go in,’ she said. ‘I watched you from the window, Cara. Was that one of the Merediths that was with you?—Very nice-looking, rather dark. Which was that? You seemed to be great friends.’
‘This afternoon! Were you at the window? How stupid I was not to see you! I will never come near the house again without looking up at the windows. It was Oswald, Aunt Cherry; he is always the one who has time to go out with us. Do you think a man ought to have so much time? Yes, he is nice-looking, I think; he is like a poet; and he is the one who chiefly stands by me, and comes to see me in the morning. He never seems to have anything particular to do,’ Cara added, with a slight air of vexation, which raised Miss Cherry’s hopes.
‘But if he writes?’ she said, with a little awe.
‘Ah, he does that at night; he sits up writing, and all day long he seems just to do what he likes. They laugh at him for it, but he never minds. Mrs. Meredith sometimes says—— Ah!’ cried Cara, stopping short, and drawing a long sighing breath. A sort of muffled hollow sound went through the house—the shutting of the great hall-door, which seemed to vibrate upwards from floor to floor.
‘What is it, Cara?’ said Miss Cherry, whose nerves were weak, and who jumped at any noise, even when she knew really what it was.
‘It is papa going out,’ said Cara, with a little sigh; and then ensued a momentary silence, which showed that this mighty event was of importance to her and inspired her imagination. ‘But I do not mind to-night,’ she added, with soft sudden laughter, putting her hands together with an infantile movement of pleasure, ‘when I have you!’
They sat and talked the whole evening through, with that fertility of communication which exists between people who have very little to tell, and yet are in perfect confidence with each other. What did they say? not much of any consequence. Miss Cherry told Cara all the news of the Hill, and Cara confided to Miss Cherry without meaning, or being aware of it, a hundred small details of her life, chiefly repetitions of what she had already said, yet throwing fresh light upon those simple monotonous dull days, which were so interesting to the elder lady. But not all Miss Cherry’s delicate leadings up to the point could win any confidential statement from the girl of the character her aunt had expected to hear. She was all confidence, and told everything without keeping back a thought; but there was nothing of this description to tell; and Miss Cherry was at last obliged to acknowledge it to herself with great disappointment. ‘There has been no explanation yet,’ she said to herself. She was not the first who has been disappointed by finding that a supposed romance had no existence. They sat quite late, till Miss Cherry, used to early hours, began to droop and get weary; but even after this feeling had crept over her eyes, and betrayed her into a yawn or two, she sat still, heroically waiting for her brother’s return.