She paused for some demonstration on our part. I saw Miss Matey could not speak, she was trembling so nervously, so I said what I really felt; and after a call of some duration,—all the time of which I have no doubt Miss Pole thought Miss Matey received the news very calmly,—our visitor took her leave. But the effort at self-control Miss Matey had made to conceal her feelings,—a concealment she practised even with me; for she has never alluded to Mr. Holbrook again, although the book he gave her lies with her Bible on the little table by her bedside. She did not think I heard her when she asked the little milliner of Cranford to make her caps something like the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson’s; or that I noticed the reply,—
“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”
“O, I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but rather like Mrs. Jamieson’s.”
This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of head and hands, which I have seen ever since in Miss Matey.
The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr. Holbrook’s death, Miss Matilda was very silent and thoughtful; after prayers, she called Martha back, and then she stood uncertain what to say.
“Martha!” she said at last; “you are young,”—and then she made so long a pause, that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a courtesy, and said: “Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third October, please, ma’am.”
“And perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like, and who likes you. I did say you were not to have followers; but if you meet with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is respectable, I have no objection to his coming to see you once a week. God forbid!” said she, in a low voice, “that I should grieve any young hearts.”
She spoke as if she were providing for some distant contingency, and was rather startled when Martha made her ready, eager answer: “Please, ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a joiner, making three-and-sixpence a day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet, please, ma’am; and if you’ll ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will give him a character for steadiness; and he’ll be glad enough to come to-morrow night, I’ll be bound.”
Though Miss Matey was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.
* * * * *