Opportunities Part 16

It was a trembling question with Matilda, could she go to play croquet the next day? She could not go in her work dress; and she feared to change her dress and so draw attention, lest her aunt should put a stop to her going out at all. She debated the matter a good deal, and finally concluded to make an open affair of it and ask leave.

"To go to Mrs. Laval's," said Mrs. Candy, meditating.

"Who is going to play croquet, besides you?" inquired Clarissa.

"I do not think anybody is to be there besides me," said Matilda.

"Well," said Mrs. Candy, "I suppose you had better go, with my compliments and thanks to Mrs. Laval. Put on your white dress, Matilda, and I will tie a ribband round your waist."

The white dress and the black ribband were duly put on, and Matilda set out, very happy indeed, only sorry that Maria was left behind. She got a glad welcome from Norton, who was at the iron gate watching for her.

And when she came to the door of the house, Matilda was fain to stand still and look, everything was so beautiful. It was very different from last winter, when the snow covered all the world. Now the gra.s.s was soft and green, cut short and rolled smooth, and the sunlight made it seem almost golden. The rose-bushes were heavy and sweet with great cabbage roses and delicate white roses, and gay yellow roses made an elegant variety. Overhead, the golden cl.u.s.ters of a laburnum tree dropped as if to meet them. Then there were pinks, and violets, and daisies; and locust trees a little way off, standing between the house and the sun, made the air sweet with their blossoms. Every breath was charged with some delicious perfume or other. The house stood hospitably and gaily open in summer dress; the farm country lay rich in the sun towards the west; and the mountains beyond, having lost all their white coating of snow long ago, were clothed in a kind of drapery of purple mist.

"What's the matter?" said Norton.

"It's so beautiful!" said Matilda.

"Oh, is that all! Come in. Mamma wants to see you."

In the house, over floors marble and matted, through rooms green with the light that came through the blinds, cool in shadow, but from which the world without looked like a glittering fairyland, so they went pa.s.sing from one to another, till they found the mistress of the house.

She was not in the house, but in a deep wicker chair on the shady side of the verandah.

"Here she is!" the lady exclaimed as she saw them, throwing aside the book which had been in her hands, and drawing Matilda into her arms instead. "My dear child--so you've come. Norton and I are very glad.

How do you do? You are thin."

"Am I?" said Matilda.

"I am afraid you are. What are you going to do? play croquet? it's too warm yet. Sit down here and have some strawberries first. Norton, you get her some strawberries."

She put Matilda affectionately into a chair and took off her hat.

"And how do you like croquet?"

"Oh, very much! But I do not know how to play yet," said Matilda.

"Norton will teach you."

"Yes, ma'am," Matilda said, with a happy look.

"I think Norton is making a little sister of you," Mrs. Laval said tenderly, drawing her hand down Matilda's cheek. "Do you know, Norton once had a little sister as old as you?"

The lady's tone had changed. Matilda only looked, she dared not speak in answer to this.

"I think he wants to make a sister of you," Mrs. Laval repeated wistfully, her hand dropping to Matilda's hand and taking hold of that.

"How would you like to be Norton's sister?"

"Oh, I should like it very much!" Matilda answered, half eagerly, but her answer touched with a soberness that belonged to the little sister and daughter that Norton and Mrs. Laval had lost. There was a delicate, sensitive manner about both her face and her voice as she spoke, perfectly intelligible to the eyes that were watching her; and the response to it was startling, for Mrs. Laval suddenly took the child in her arms, upon her lap, though Matilda never knew how she got there, and clasping her close, half smothered her with kisses, some of which Matilda felt were wetted with tears. It was a pa.s.sion of remembered tenderness and unsatisfied longing. Matilda was astonished and pa.s.sive under caresses she could not return, so close was the clasp of the arms that held her, so earnest the pressure of the lips that seemed to devour every part of her face by turns. In the midst of this, Norton came with the strawberries, and he too stood still and offered no interruption. But when a pause in Mrs. Laval's ecstasy gave him a chance, he said low,--

"Mrs. Beechy, mamma, and Miss Beechys, are there."

Mrs. Laval was quiet a moment, hiding her face in Matilda's neck; then she put her gently down, rose up, and met some ladies who were coming round the corner of the verandah, with a tone and bearing so cool, and careless, and light, that Matilda asked her ears if it was possible.

The guests were carried off into the house; Matilda and Norton were left alone.

It was Matilda's turn then. She set down the plate of strawberries Norton had given her, and hid her face in her hands.

Norton bore this for a minute, and no more. Then one of his hands came upon one of Matilda's, and the other upon the other, very gently but decidedly suggesting that they should come down.

"Pink!" said he, "this may do for mamma and you, but it is very poor entertainment for me. Come! leave that, and eat your strawberries, and let us go on the lawn. The sun will do now."

Matilda felt that this was reasonable, and she put by her own gratification. Nevertheless her eyes and eyelashes were all glittering when she lifted them up.

"What has mamma done to you?" said Norton, wondering. "Here, Pink, do you like strawberries?"

"If you please, Norton," said Matilda, "couldn't I have them another time? I don't want them now."

"Then they may wait till we have done playing," said Norton; "and then I'll have some too. Now come."

The great trees cast a flickering shadow on the gra.s.s before the house.

Norton planted his hoops and distributed colours, and presently Matilda's sober thoughts were driven as many ways as the b.a.l.l.s; and _they_ went very widely indeed.

"You must take _aim_, Matilda?" Norton cried.

"At what?"

"Why, you must learn at what; that's the game. You must fight; just as I fight you. You ought to touch my ball now, if you can. I don't believe you can. You might try."

Matilda tried, and hit it. The game went on prosperously. The sun got lower, and the sunbeams came more scattering, and the breeze just stirred over the lawn, not enough to bend the little short blades of gra.s.s. Mrs. Laval's visitors went away, and she came out on the verandah to look at the children; they were too much engaged to look at her. At last the hard-fought battle came to an end. Norton brought out another plate of strawberries for himself along with Matilda's, and the two sat down on the bank under the locust trees to eat them. The sun was near going down beyond the mountains by this time, and his setting rays changed the purple mist into a bath of golden haze.

"How nice and cold these are," said Matilda.

"They have been in the ice. That makes things cold," observed Norton.

"And being warm one's self makes them seem colder," said Matilda.

"Why, are you warm, Pink?"

"Yes, indeed. I have had to fight you so hard, you know."

"You did very well," said Norton, in a satisfied tone.

"Norton, how pretty it all is to-night."

Norton ate strawberries.

"Very different from Lilac Lane," said Matilda, looking at the china plate in her hand, on which the painting was very fine and delicate.

"Rather different," said Norton.

"Norton,--I was thinking of what you said yesterday; how odd it is that some people should be rich and others poor."