And Mrs Laurie’s eye, glistening with mother pride, and quite a different order of sentiment from Miss Annie’s, glanced up involuntarily to Menie’s window. Menie had but time to answer with a shy child’s look of love out of her downcast eyes—for Menie shrank back timidly from the more enthusiastic sympathy with which her grand-aunt waited to overpower her—and disappeared into the quiet of her room, to sit down in a shady corner a little, and wind her maze of thoughts into some good order. The sun was drawing towards the west—it was time to descend to the shady drawing-room of Heathbank, where Randall by-and-by should be received for the first time as Miss Annie Laurie’s guest.
CHAPTER XII.
It is very pleasant here, in the shady drawing-room of Heathbank. Out of doors, these grassy slopes, which Menie Laurie cannot believe to be the heath, are all glowing with sunshine; but within here, the light falls cool and green, the breeze plays through the open window, and golden streaks of sunbeams come in faintly at one end, through the bars of the Venetian blind, upon the pleasant shade, touching it into character and consciousness. It is a long room with a window at either end, a round table in the middle, an open piano in a recess, and pretty bits of feminine-looking furniture straying about in confusion not too studied. The walls are full of gilt frames too, and look bright, though one need not be unnecessarily critical about the scraps of canvass and broad-margined water-colour drawings, which repose quietly within these gilded squares. They are Miss Annie Laurie’s pictures, and Miss Annie Laurie feels herself a connoisseur, and is something proud of them, while it cannot be denied that the frames do excellent service upon the shady drawing-room wall.
Mrs Laurie has found refuge in the corner of a sofa, and, with a very fine picture-book in her hand, escapes from the conversation of Miss Annie, which has been so very much in the style of the picture-book, that Menie’s mother still keeps her flush of abashed annoyance upon her cheek, and Menie herself lingers shyly at the door, half afraid to enter. There is something very formidable to Menie in the enthusiasm and sympathy of her aunt.
“My pretty darling!” said Miss Annie—and Miss Annie lifted her dainty perfumed fingers to tap Menie’s cheeks with playful grace. Menie shrunk back into a corner, blushing and disconcerted, and drooped her head after a shy girlish fashion, quite unable to make any response. “Don’t be afraid, my love,” said the mistress of the house, with a little laugh. “Don’t fear any jesting from me—no, no—I hope I understand better these sensitive youthful feelings—and we shall say nothing on the subject, my dear Menie—not a word—only you must trust me as a friend, you know, and we must wait tea till he comes—ah, till he comes, Menie.”
Poor Menie for the moment could have wished him a thousand miles away; but she only sat down, very suddenly and quietly, on a low seat by the wall, while Miss Annie tripped away to arrange some ornamental matters on the tea-table, where her little china cups already sparkled, and her silver tea-pot shone. Menie took courage to look at her kinswoman’s face as this duty was being performed. Withered and fantastic in its decayed graces, there was yet a something of kindness in the smile. The face had been pretty once in its youthful days—a sad misfortune to it now, for if it were not for this long-departed, dearly remembered beauty, there might have been a natural sunshine in Miss Annie Laurie’s face.
As it was, the wintry light in it played about gaily, and Miss Annie made very undeniable exertions to please her visitors. She told Menie of her own pursuits, as a girl might have done in expectation of a sharer in them; and to Mrs Laurie she gave a sketch of her “society,” the few friends who, Menie thought, made up a very respectable list in point of numbers. Mrs Laurie from her sofa, and Menie on her seat by the wall, looking slightly prim and very quiet in her shy confusion, made brief answers as they could. Their entertainer did not much want their assistance; and by-and-by Menie woke with a great flush to hear the little gate swing open, to discern a lofty figure passing the window, and the sound of a quick step on the gravel path. Randall was at the door.
And Randall, looking very stately, very gracious and deferential, came through the shower of “delighteds” and “most happys” with which Miss Annie saluted him, with a bow of proud grace and much dignity of manner, to Mrs Laurie’s extreme surprise, and Menie’s shy exultation. Another hour passed over very well. The strangers grew familiar with Miss Annie; then by-and-by they strayed out, all of them, into the sweet evening air, so full of charmed distant voices, the hum and breath of far-off life; and Menie found herself, before she was aware, alone, under a sky slowly softening into twilight, in a pretty stretch of sloping turf, where some young birch-trees stood about gracefully, like so many children resting in a game, with Randall Home by her side.
And they had found time for various pieces of talk, quite individual and peculiar to themselves, before Menie lifted her face, with its flush of full unshadowed pleasure, and, glancing up to the other countenance above her, asked, “When is the next book coming, Randall?”
“What next book, May Marion?”