“I should not fancy that was so very extraordinary either,” said I; “other people do that, I suppose, besides the children at Ennerdale.”
“Yes, everybody is very good to me,” said Flora, with a quiet seriousness; “but then, you know, cousin, I have sometimes to punish the children as well as to praise them. How do you do here? I am sure you know a great deal better how to manage than I do. Do you forgive them when they seem sorry, or do you keep up looking displeased at them? Mamma says I spoil them, because I only look angry for a moment; but you know I never am really angry, I only pretend, because it’s right.”
“Indeed, Flora, I do not know. I never visit the school; I have had so little to do with children,” I answered hastily.
Once more Flora cast an annoyed glance at me. This was more wonderful still than never riding—I began to grow quite a puzzler to Flora.
“Mamma has so many things to do, she seldom gets any time to help me,” continued the girl, rallying a little after a pause. “Do you know, cousin, mamma is a perfect Lady Bountiful; she is always busy about something—and when people tell her of it, she only laughs and says it is no credit to her—for she does it all for pleasure. Don’t you think it is very silly for people to praise ladies like mamma, or to find fault with them either? She is only kind to the village people because she likes to see them pleased and getting on well; and we all like company, cousin Hester, and we know the village people best and longest, and they are our nearest neighbors; and don’t you think it is right to be kind to them? But the Miss Oldhams, at Stockport House, say we are undermining their independence, and condescending to the poor.”
“I am sure your mamma must be quite right, Flora—but here comes some rain—I think we must go home,” said I.
Flora held up her fresh pretty face to it, and caught the first drops upon her cheeks.
“It is rather too cold,” she said, shaking them off with a pretty graceful motion, and beginning to run like a young fawn. “I like to be caught in a spring shower; but oh, cousin Hester, what shall I do if I get my dress wet, I haven’t another one till they send; and then, I am running and forgetting you. Don’t run—I don’t care for being wet, if I may come down stairs in this frock after all. Oh! there is Mr. Southcote with a mantle for you, and an umbrella, and now I’ll run all the way home.”
She passed him with a laughing exclamation as he came up. She could not guess that this brief walk alone would be irksome to the young husband and wife, not four months married. I suffered him to wrap the mantle around me. I wondered almost to feel with what undiminished care he did it; and then we walked on side by side, in dreary silence, looking at the flying figure before us, with her mantle streaming behind her, and her fair curls escaping from the edge of her bonnet, as she turned round her laughing, glowing, pretty face to call and nod to us as she ran on. We did not speak to each other; we only looked at her, and plodded on slowly, side by side; and again the thought came upon me—and now, with a gush of pity for both of us, which overpowered me so that I could have thrown myself down there on the rainy roadside and cried. What a happy man he would have been had he brought Flora Ennerdale, instead of Hester Southcote, to Cottiswoode, as his bride.
I suppose the sight of her, and her innocence and happiness had moved him, too; for just when he left me, after our silent walk, he leaned over me for a moment, taking off my mantle, and whispering in a tremulous tone—“Dear Hester! I hope you will have pleasure in this good little girl’s society.” As he spoke, I caught his eye; there were tears in it, and a tender anxious look, as if he was very solicitous about me. I had great difficulty at the moment in restraining a great burst of tears. I was shaken almost beyond my own power of control. If I had waited another moment, I think I must have gone to him; clung to him, forgetting everything but one thing, and wept out all the tears in my heart. I fled to save reply. I am sure he heard me sob as I ran up stairs; but he did not know how I was almost overpowered—how a new love and tenderness, almost too much for me, was swelling like a sea in my heart. I fled to my own room, and shut myself in, and sank down upon the floor and cried. Alice had been speaking to him: I read it in his eye—but I—I could say nothing. I could not go, as his wife should have gone, to share with him the delight, and awe, and wonder, of this approaching future. I lay down upon the floor prostrate, with my face buried in my hands. I tried to restrain my sobs, but I could not. Long afterwards, I knew that he was watching, longing without the door, while I went through this moment of agony within—afraid to enter. If he had entered, perhaps—yet, why should I say perhaps? when I know it is quite as likely that my perverse heart would have started up in indignant anger at his intrusion, as that my pride and revenge would have given way before my better feelings; it was best as it was. I see all now; and how every event was related to its neighbor. I see I could not have done without the long probation, and the hard lessons which remained for me still.