Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/403

. 4, 1862.] always apologised to him, and he couldn’t bear being spoken to; and, besides, he never could get past her voluminous skirts in the doorway—so would I go and send her out, before he went up-stairs?

I ran off on the errand, greatly relieved, dispatched Jane to another part of the house, and myself tidied the things on Uncle John’s particular table. He came up as I was thus busied, and smilingly said, he must not keep me from my visitor. Instead of being angry with me this morning, he appeared to be in a singularly good humour, and I thought I had a favourable opportunity for consulting him as to whether it would be proper for me to go out riding with Mr. Charlton in the afternoon. Mr. Charlton had said something about wishing me to show him the country.

“Improper.” Uncle John was very near storming at the word. “Why was I to think things were improper. No, of course it was right, he would take care it was right. I was to make myself agreeable to my guest, and leave him to regulate the proprieties.” I heard him muttering to himself as he moved away: “Improper, I wonder who has put that crotchet into the girl’s head!”

Well, we had the ride, and another still more pleasant on Saturday afternoon. I speedily recovered from my shyness, and made great friends with my companion. My uncle being so much of an invalid, we were unavoidably thrown on one another’s society, and he seemed somewhat to be amused by my honestly avowed ignorance of things and people, and glad to enlighten it. He conversed with me, he read with me, he drew me out, encouraged me, gave me manifold useful hints, and all in a brotherly sort of way, that set me indescribably at my ease. So we came to the Sunday, the day before that on which he was to return to London.

In the morning he and I went to the village church. Mr. Carmichael read the prayers. Mr. Charlton did not hesitate to draw back the red curtain which enveloped our pew, thus revealing to view a bevy of very pretty girls in the opposite seat. There, handsomest and foremost of all, was Rose Carmichael, her complexion like roses and lilies, her splendid dark eyes half asleep under their drooping lashes. She was a very beautiful girl, and wear what she would, she invariably appeared well-dressed.

That morning—how well I remember it—she had on a little white tulle bonnet, with pink roses in the cap, and her wavy brown hair, which the wind had disordered, was arranged in the most picturesque confusion about her face and neck, one long, silky curl falling down the front of her muslin mantle, and perpetually getting into her way, and requiring to be tossed aside by a plump white hand, the palm of which had a glow of shell-pink.

She sang. I had never heard her sing so loud or so well before. She did not look up at our pew, but she chose a seat directly fronting it, and sat there looking a perfect picture, her chin resting on her hand, and her eyes upraised to the pulpit, with the soft, earnest expression of a Madonna.

I saw Mr. Charlton watching her, and I felt proud and pleased,—he was admiring my friend!

After service Rose Carmichael waited for me in the porch. A child was ill in the village, and she wanted me to ask Mrs. Butterworth to send him some arrowroot.

It was the first time in her life Rose had ever so waited for me, or preferred such a request; but she did it so lovingly with respect to me, so thoughtfully with respect to the sick child, that she was irresistible. Mr. Charlton’s face showed that he shared my admiration, and I was just beginning to reflect shyly that it might be proper to introduce the one to the other, when Rose herself took the initiative, and addressed to him some trifling remark about the weather, which opened the way to conversation. Presently, we reached the rectory gate, but Rose passed it, saying she should be glad of a little fresh air, after her long morning in school and church, and that she would accompany us part of the way home. And she did so, the longer part, and the remainder of our walk was taken up in talking of her. Mr. Charlton asked many questions about her family, and admired her openly, and for the first time I had a jealous misgiving.

When we came home, and joined my uncle at luncheon we avoided the topic. I never liked to mention Rose Carmichael at the Towers, and Mr. Charlton had forgotten her by this time, perhaps.

In the afternoon, the sky was threatening, and my uncle would not hear of my going to church a second time, so, at the last moment, Mr. Charlton started alone. There was a terrific thunderstorm later in the day, vivid flashes of lightning and heavy clouds clashing overhead. I grew uneasy as the time past, and watched anxiously from my window. Mr. Charlton did not make his appearance till nearly dinner-time, and then I hastened down to meet him. But he quite smiled to think I had been apprehensive on his account; he had been sitting most comfortably in the Rectory for the last hour and a half. The storm had been at its height at the close of the service, and Miss Carmichael had very kindly invited him to take shelter.

“It was so odd,” he said, but he had found out that the rector was brother to that old Carmichael of Caius, who used to “coach” him years ago. And as he was going to Cambridge shortly, he had volunteered to take a parcel for his old friend; he was to call for it on his way to the station to-morrow morning. I suppose he did so. He started from the Towers a full hour before the train-time, and I ran up to the garret-window, and watched the dog-cart which conveyed him, driving down the avenue till the turn by the lodge-gates hid it from view, and then went back to the drawing-room with a very heavy heart, and spent all the morning in making an elaborate cover for the copy of the “Idylls of the King,” which he had left behind him, with my name written in the title-page.

How long and lonely seemed the weeks that followed. My happiest times, now-a-days, were those evening hours when my uncle and I, sitting together, often spoke of our late visitor, and invariably hunted the papers to see if his name was