"She is sure to like you," said Lawrence. "And I will come over often and see you; we will ride together, if you like. And if you would like to have any masters or lessons in anything——"
"I think I should like to learn reading," Phillis remarked meditatively. "Mr. Abraham Dyson used to say"—she held up her finger, and imitated the manner and fidgety dogmatism of an old man—"'Reading breeds a restless curiosity, and engenders an irreverent spirit of carping criticism. Any jackanapes who can read thinks himself qualified to judge the affairs of the nation. Reading, indeed!' But I think I should like, after all, to do what everybody else can do."
CHAPTER XIV.
"You bear a gentle mind, and heavenly blessings
Follow such creatures."
Half a mile or so above Teddington Lock—where you are quite above the low tides, which leave the mud-banks in long stretches and spoil the beauty of the splendid river; where the stream flows on evenly between its banks, only sometimes swifter and stronger, sometimes slower and more sluggish; where you may lie and listen a whole summer's day to the murmurous wash of the current among the lilies and the reeds,—there stands a house, noticeable among other houses by reason of its warm red brick, its many gables, and its wealth of creepers. Its gardens and lawns slope gently down to the river's edge; the willows hang over it, letting their long leaves, like maidens' fingers, lie lightly on the cool surface of the water; there is a boat-house, where a boat used to lie, but it is empty now—ivy covers it over, dark ivy that contrasts with the lighter greens of the sweet May foliage; the lilacs and laburnums are exulting in the transient glory of foliage and flower; the wisteria hangs its purple clusters like grapes upon the wall; there are greenhouses and vineries; there are flower-beds bright with the glories of modern gardening; and there are old-fashioned round plots of ground innocent of bedding-out, where flourish the good old-fashioned flowers, stocks, pansies, boy's-love, sweet-william, and the rest, which used to be cultivated for their perfume and colour long before bedding-out was thought of; an old brick wall runs down to the river's edge as a boundary on either side, thick and warm, with peaches, plums, and apricots trained in formal lines, and crowned with wall-flowers and long grasses, like the walls of some old castle. Behind are rooms which open upon the lawn; round the windows clamber the roses waiting for the suns of June; and if you step into the house from the garden, you will enter a dainty drawing-room, light and sunny, adorned with all manner of feminine things, and you will find, besides, boudoirs, studies, all sorts of pretty rooms into which the occupants of the house may retire, the time they feel disposed to taste the joys of solitude.
The house of a lady. Does any one ever consider what thousands of these dainty homes exist in England? All about the country they stand—houses where women live away their innocent and restful lives, lapped from birth to death in an atmosphere of peace and warmth. Such luxury as they desire is theirs, for they are wealthy enough to purchase all they wish. Chiefly they love the luxury of Art, and fill their portfolios with water-colours. But their passions even for Art are apt to be languid, and they mostly desire to continue in the warm air, perfumed like the wind that cometh from the sweet south, which they have created round themselves. The echoes of the outer world fall upon their ears like the breaking of the rough sea upon a shore so far off that the wild dragging of the shingle, with its long-drawn cry, sounds like a distant song. These ladies know nothing of the fiercer joys of life, and nothing of its pains. The miseries of the world they understand not, save that they have been made picturesque in novels. They have no ambition, and take no part in any battles. They have not spent their strength in action, and therefore feel no weariness. Society is understood to mean a few dinners, with an occasional visit to the wilder dissipations of town; and their most loved entertainments are those gatherings known as garden parties. Duty means following up in a steady but purposeless way some line of study which will never be mastered. Good works mean subscription to societies. Many a kind lady thinks in her heart of hearts that the annual guinea to a missionary society will be of far more avail to her future welfare than a life of purity and innocence. The Christian virtues naturally find their home in such a house. They grow of their own accord, like the daisies, the buttercups, and the field convolvulus: Love, Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance, all the things against which there is no law—which of them is not to be seen abundantly blossoming and luxuriant in the cottages and homes of these English ladies?
In this house by the river lived Mrs. L'Estrange. Her name was Agatha, and everybody who knew her called her Agatha L'Estrange. When a woman is always called by her Christian name, it is a sign that she is loved and lovable. If a man, on the other hand, gets to be known, without any reason for the distinction, by his Christian name, it is generally a sure sign that he is sympathetic, but blind to his own interests. She was a widow, and childless. She had been a widow so long, her husband had been so much older than herself, her married life had been so short, and the current of her life so little disturbed by it, that she had almost forgotten that she was once a wife. She had an ample income; she lived in the way that she loved; she gathered her friends about her; she sometimes, but at rare intervals, revisited society; mostly she preferred her quiet life in the country. Girls came from London to stay with her, and wondered how Agatha managed to exist. When the season was over, leaving its regrets and its fatigues, with the usual share of hollowness and Dead-Sea fruit they came again, and envied her tranquil home.
She was first cousin to Lawrence Colquhoun, whom she still, from force of habit, regarded as a boy. He was very nearly the same age as herself, and they had been brought up together. There was nothing about his life that she did not know, except one thing—the reason of his abrupt disappearance four years before. She was his confidante: as a boy he told her all his dreams of greatness; as a young man all his dreams of love and pleasure. She knew the soft and generous nature, out of which great men cannot be formed, which was his. She saw the lofty dreams die away; and she hoped for him that he would keep something of the young ideal. He did. Lawrence Colquhoun was a man about town; but he retained his good-nature. It is not usual among the young gentlemen who pursue pleasure as a profession; it is not expected of them, after a few years of idleness, gambling, and the rest, to have any good-nature surviving, or any thought left at all, except for themselves; therefore Lawrence Colquhoun's case was unusual, and popularity proportional. He tired of garrison life; he sold out; he remained about town; the years ran on, and he neither married nor talked of marrying. But he used to go down to his cousin once a week, and talk to her about his idle life. There came a day when he left off coming, or if he came at all, his manner to his cousin was altered. He became gloomy; and one day she heard, in a brief and unsatisfactory letter, that he was going to travel for a lengthened period. The letter came from Scotland, and was as brief as a dinner invitation.
He went; he was away for four years; during that time he never once wrote to her; she heard nothing of him or from him.