“Was she well enough to see him?” Frederick asked, with a momentary thrill of alarm, feeling his heart begin to beat.
“Oh, quite well enough. They don’t last long, these bad turns. You will find her a bit shaken, sir, and she didn’t ought to be excited or put out, but she’s better,” said the maid. Better! the scold, the termagant, the beautiful fury; but still Frederick’s heart beat at the thought of seeing her again.
She was lying on a sofa close to the open window, looking very pale and languid, just as she had been on that delicious evening which he had last spent in her company, looking as if nothing but gentle words could ever come out of those lovely lips. The woman whom she had called Aunty, and whom she had been abusing, sat by her holding a white hand, which looked as if it had been modelled in ivory. Was that the hand? One of poor aunty’s cheeks was red as fire, as if she had been struck on it, and she had evidently been crying. But she was full of solicitude for her charge, placing the cushions behind her comfortably, and whispering and soothing her. Frederick asked himself if he had been in a dream. Amanda held out her other hand to him with gentle languor, and smiled at him an angelic smile.
“Is it really you, Mr. Frederick Eastwood?” she said. “We have been wondering over your card. I could not think what could keep you here. Are you staying at the Court? But Sir Geoffrey is not at home——”
“No! I had business in this part of the country, and thought I would avail myself of your father’s invitation—that is for an hour or two. I must return to town to-night,” he answered, proud of his own fortitude, but feeling, oh, such a melting and dissolving of all his resolutions.
“That is a very short visit; but I hope papa may be able to persuade you to stay longer,” said Amanda. “You do not mind my receiving you on the sofa? I have been ill. Oh, you must not be too sorry for me,” she added, laughing, “it was my own fault,—entirely my own fault. I allowed myself to get into a passion. I am sure you never did such a thing. Mr. Eastwood, is it not shocking? I got angry at poor Aunty, here. Yes, I deserve to be whipped, I know I do,—and I always am punished, though not more than I deserve. They told me you were in the garden. I am so much ashamed of myself,—did you know, Mr. Eastwood, what a naughty, naughty girl I was?”
“I heard—something,” said Frederick, feeling all his armour of proof, all his moral courage drop from him. This fair creature, pale with agitation and exhaustion, smiling softly from her pillow,—caressing the hand of her homely attendant,—confessing her fault, this a termagant, a scold, a fury! The thing was ridiculous. Let him disbelieve his ears, his eyes, all his senses, rather than give up his faith in her.
“I don’t know how to look you in the face,” said Amanda, putting up her disengaged hand to hide herself. “Oh, I know I have been so very naughty. Please forgive me. It makes me so ill always. I am not let off. I get my punishment, but not more than I deserve——”
“Don’t speak of punishment!” said Frederick. He was ready to pledge his honour that no word which was not good and gentle could have come from those lips. Miss ’Manda sighed softly and shook her head.
“I have not a good temper. I never had. Unless it is born with you, you can never get it by trying,—and then when I am agitated it makes me ill. Nobody must ever cross me, you know, Mr. Eastwood, or some day or other I shall die——. It is dreadful to think you may die any day without having a moment’s time to prepare.” She rounded off this doleful anticipation with a gentle sigh. She lay back upon her pillows with her colour beginning to come back, but with a delightful gravity on her face. She throw an inkstand at any one? it was totally impossible,—though, indeed, there was a black mark on the carpet which a maid was mopping up, and a stain of ink on the front of Aunty’s dress; but this must have been accidental. Frederick looked at her and forgot his knowledge of the world, and threw away his independent judgment and the evidence of his senses. It must have been a mistake. He had all but seen it with his own eyes, but he felt it could not be true. If it had been true, would the assailed woman, she with the stain on her dress, be sitting by Amanda’s side, still holding her hand, and soothing her? It must have been an accident. Nothing more easy than to push over an inkstand from a table. It was the simplest accident. He suggested it to himself first, and then he believed it strenuously. He drew his chair close by the sofa, and asked what he could do to amuse her. Could he read to her?—what could he do?