Rutledge Part 42

"Only this morning," her mother went on, "she said to me, 'I was so worried, mamma, I couldn't sleep last night, for Mr. Rutledge has trusted to my taste about the decorations, and if he should be disappointed, I should be perfectly miserable.' Did you ever hear of anything so silly?" she continued, with a light caress.

"Never," said Mr. Rutledge, looking admiringly at Josephine's averted conscious face. "Am I so very terrible, then?"

"No," said Josephine with a pretty shyness, "oh no! but then, you know--you see--I should be so sorry to disappoint or displease you. I know you wouldn't say a word, but I should be perfectly miserable if you were not pleased."

"Where are you going, Phil?" asked Grace, as her cousin strode out into the hall.

"Anywhere, Gracie," I heard him say, under his breath. "It doesn't make much difference where."

Poor Phil! There was a sharp pain at his honest heart, I knew. I watched him from the window, as with hasty strides he crossed the lawn, and disappeared into the woods. But Josephine didn't see; Mr. Rutledge was sketching a plan for the decorations, and she was leaning over the paper with fixed attention.

"If those people are coming to lunch," said Ella Wynkar, getting up from a tete-a-tete chat with the captain, "it is time we were dressed to receive them. Come, Josephine, it would never be forgiven, if we should not be ready."

"Yes," exclaimed Mr. Rutledge, starting up and looking at his watch, "I had forgotten about that. They will be here in half an hour. Miss Josephine, did you ever effect your toilet in half an hour, in your life?"

"You shall see!" cried Josephine, dancing out of the room. Mrs.

Churchill followed, with a laughing apology for her daughter's wild spirits; since she had been at this delightful place, she had, she declared, been like a bird let loose.

"The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods,"

I longed to say to my aunt, would hardly know how to enjoy them. The miserable prisoner that had spent all its life, in narrow cramped limits, on the sill of a city window, hopped on a smooth perch, and eaten canary-seed and loaf-sugar since its nativity, would hardly be at home in wide, sunny fields, or "groves deep and high," would shudder to clasp with its tender claws the rough bark of the forest twigs, and would be doubtful of the flavor of a wild strawberry, and think twice before it would stoop to drink of the roaring mountain-stream. It would, I fancy, before nightfall, creep miserably back to its cage, as the fittest, safest, most comfortable place for its narrowed and timid nature.

"So!" said Victor, looking at me with a curl on his handsome lip, as the drawing-room was vacated by all but ourselves. "Are you going to spend an hour of this splendid fresh morning in making yourself fine?"

"Not if I know myself intimately!" I exclaimed, cramming my work, thimble, and scissors into my workbox, and springing up. "I do not fancy devoting three hours to those tiresome Mason girls nor their horse-and-dog brothers. I shall never be missed, and I am going to the village for a walk."

"Why to the village?" said Victor, following me, and reaching down my flat hat from the deer's horns that it had been decorating in the hall.

"Why will you not come to the lake and let me row you up to the pines?"

"I ought to have paid my devoirs to the housekeeper at the Parsonage the very day I arrived," I answered, as we descended the steps. "She is a great friend of mine, and she will be hurt if I neglect her any longer.

Indeed, it's a very pleasant walk, and you'll be repaid for taking it, if we should find Mr. Shenstone at home. He is so kind, and the very best man in the world."

"That's the clergyman?" said Victor, making a grimace. "I don't affect clergymen, as a general thing, but for your sake I will try to be favorably impressed; your friends I always try to admire; our host, for instance, who just pa.s.sed down the terrace, without so much as a look toward us, though he could not possibly have avoided seeing us. Why do you bite your lip?" continued he, watching me narrowly. "I cannot learn the signs of your face. Pale and red, smiling and frowning, like any April day. There! what chord have I touched now? The thought gave you actual pain."

"Nothing!" I exclaimed, hurriedly. "There's Stephen on the lawn. I want to talk to him," and I ran across to where he stood, leaning on his rake, watching us. While I talked to him, Victor threw himself upon the heap of new-cut hay at a little distance from us, and played with Tigre.

I saw that Stephen's eyes often wandered to where he lay, his hat off, the wind lifting the dark hair from his handsome face.

"If I might make so bold," said Stephen, in a low tone, as I was turning away, "has that young gentleman lived long in this country?"

"I do not know, really," I said, with a laugh. "Shall I ask him, Stephen?"

"No, Miss, I shouldn't like you to ask him; but I should like to know."

"I'll find out for you sometime," I said, as I nodded a good bye and rejoined Victor.

It was, as he said, a splendid day--all sultriness dissipated by the strong wind. We had a beautiful walk through the woods, though I couldn't quite forget "our rustic friend," as Victor called his unknown enemy; but he made such a joke of it that it was impossible to have much feeling of alarm connected with it. The village, however, he seemed not to care to visit.

"Had I not better wait for you here?" he said, lingering as we pa.s.sed out of the woods into the lane that led to the village.

"No, indeed," I said, perversely; "if you stay here I shall go home another way."

He laughed, but rather uneasily, and followed me.

I bent my head so that my hat hid my face as we entered the low gate of the Parsonage, for I dreaded Victor's inquiring eyes just then. I preceded him down the little path bordered with flowers, and, stepping on the porch, raised the knocker. We waited for several minutes, and still no answer; so, telling my companion to follow me, I pa.s.sed on into the study.

"What a cool, shady, pleasant room!" said Victor, as he gave me a seat and threw himself into another. "I am sure I could write a sermon myself against the pomps and vanities if I had such a sweet, calm retreat to repose in meantime."

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed impatiently, "what do these men know of temptation, who have never felt a pa.s.sion stronger than this summer wind, nor seen a rood beyond their own study windows! These calm, slow natures, bred in the retirement and quiet of the country, can preach, perhaps with profit, to their humble flocks; but to men who have been in the thick of the fight, never."

I shook my head. "You will not say that after you have seen Mr.

Shenstone; but here he comes."

The clergyman stood for a moment in the doorway before he entered, his tall, stooping figure nearly filling it. I advanced to meet him, and Victor rose. The room was so dark that at first he did not recognize me, and, of course, saw but indistinctly my companion. But as I spoke, he extended his hand cordially, and gave us both a kind reception.

"I have been expecting a visit from you," he said, sitting down beside me, and speaking in the quiet tone that was habitual with him, and looking at me with his kind smile. "You have been here some days, have you not?"

"Yes, sir, and I've meant to come; but there has been something going on every day that has interfered, and I have supposed every day, sir, that you would be there."

"Ah!" he said, with the slightest perceptible fading of the smile, "I have been so long out of gay company that I should not be at home there now. The quiet of my little village suits me best."

I knew this would be a confirmation of Victor's judgment, so I hurried on to say, "But, sir, you sometimes go among gay people. I am sure you are often at Windy Hill, and at the Emersons, are you not?"

"Sometimes--oh! yes; but it seems different with Rutledge. It would be to me," he went on in a lower tone, "unspeakably grating and painful to see that place throw off the gloom and silence that it has worn for twenty years--twenty years and more. But you cannot be expected to understand this. I had forgotten you were nearly a child as yet. You only know regret and sorrow by name, I suppose."

There must have been an involuntary denial of this on my face, for he looked at me attentively for a moment; then, in a tone that had a little sadness in it, he said:

"But you are older than you were last fall, my child, I see; one takes quick strides sometimes toward maturity after one has crossed the threshold. This little girl and I, Mr. Viennet, were very good friends last year and I hope that the world has not separated us quite, though it has changed one of us a little, I fear."

I could not keep back the sudden tears that rushed into my eyes; the tone of sympathy so strange to my ears exorcised the evil tempers that had swayed me so long. If it had not been for Victor's presence, I should have thrown off the reserve and silence that I had so long maintained toward all around me, and have saved myself perhaps from years of misery.

Only Mr. Shenstone's compa.s.sionate eyes saw the emotion that flashed through mine; murmuring some excuse about finding Mrs. Arnold, I quitted the room. I found her in the apartment that had been my sick-room, busy as ever with her silent, rapid needle. Throwing my arms around her neck, I kissed her affectionately.

"Why have you not been before?" she said, quietly.

"Because I haven't done anything right or pleasant since I came," I returned, with a little bitterness.

Mrs. Arnold shook her head. "Mr. Shenstone would tell you not to let that go on."

"Don't!" I exclaimed, with an impatient gesture; "don't tell me what I ought to do--don't talk to me about my duty. I am sick and tired of it all. I want to forget all about everything that makes me miserable, and only be petted and made much of," and, throwing myself down on a low stool at her feet, I drew her hand around my neck.

"You were always willful," she said, sadly; "but you used to like to hear about your duty."

"I don't now; I've got over that. I shall never come to the Parsonage if you talk to me about it. We don't have time for duty at Rutledge now-a-days. Oh! Mrs. Arnold, it seems like a different place. Why don't you come and see how fine the house looks. There's to be a masquerade on the Fourth. You should come and see how beautifully it will be decorated, and how pretty all our dresses will be."

The hand around my neck was quickly withdrawn; with a sudden start, she rose and walked nervously about the room, the color fluttering in her cheeks, and her hand pa.s.sing rapidly over her smooth, grey hair.

"Yes, yes," she said at last, sitting down and trying to command herself. "I know it is all right; you are young and you ought to enjoy yourself. I hope you are happy there."

"You need not imagine that I am!" I exclaimed bitterly. "You may be sure I have enough to keep me down, and make me wretched, gay as they all are. But I'm not going to talk about it," I said, interrupting myself, "for you'll begin to tell me how I ought to bear it, and that I can't listen to now. Tell me how the school goes on. Does the new teacher work well, and do the children like her?"