Margaret Capel Volume Ii Part 16

"Quite, mamma," said she, steadily.

"You will not be prudent, and let me read prayers to you at home?" said Mr. Haveloc, who was leaning over her chair. "Not to day; but if I live, Mr. Haveloc, I shall call upon you another Sunday in that capacity," returned Aveline, in a low voice.

"The poney is ready," he said, taking up her prayer-book.

"You think me very wilful, I am afraid," said she, as he arranged her cloak, around her.

"Sick people have a right, you know, to be wilful," he replied.

Aveline sighed; and spoke no more during the ride. Mr. Haveloc led the poney, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick walked by her daughter's side.

At the gate of the church-yard she dismounted, and Mark, who had followed at a distance, led the poney away to the Vicarage till the service was over.

Aveline bore the fatigue remarkably well. She remained seated and abstracted, repeating solemnly the responses with the people. Sometimes she seemed to s.h.i.+ver, as if something awful occurred to her mind. But at the Belief, she rose up suddenly, and remained standing with her face turned to the altar, repeating the words after the clergyman in a distinct voice. And it seemed to be quite involuntary on her part, for she sat down again with the same abstracted air, and remained during the service apparently unconscious, or forgetful of the presence of any one.

"I thought I got through it very well," said Aveline, as she was going home.

"Much better, my love, than I expected," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

"Don't hurry the pony, Mr. Haveloc; this road is so beautiful. I am not at all impatient to get home," said Aveline.

It was a narrow, steep lane, with high banks, partly composed of broad ledges of rock, with all their fine variety of colours, showing through fern and creepers, and stunted bushes of oak and maple.

Mr. Haveloc led the poney as slowly as he liked to go, stopping from time to time to gather wild flowers for Aveline. All at once the sun went in; the air became chilly--then the wind rose. Dark ma.s.ses of ragged vapour came hurrying over the landscape, floating and drifting over the hills; now parting like a curtain, now collecting and settling in a dense ma.s.s that almost concealed the outline of the country.

"It is the sea-fog. It is coming towards us!" cried Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

"What are we to do with Aveline?"

She looked really bewildered.

"Oh, my dear mamma, don't mind me," said Aveline; "Mrs. Grant's cottage is at the end of the lane; I will go in there till the fog is past."

"Let us make haste then, Mr. Haveloc," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, mending her pace; "the fog travels fast. She will be wet. What will become of us?"

"Can you go faster?" asked Mr. Haveloc, who was urging the pony as fast as he could walk.

"No; my head swims," said Aveline. She could not bear anything like agitation or hurry.

Mrs. Grant, who had just arrived from church by a path across the fields, was all astonishment when she saw the party coming briskly towards the cottage door. She stepped out of the little garden gate to meet them.

"Why, Miss Aveline, my dear young lady, what brings you out so far from home?" she asked.

Aveline was too flurried to speak.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick began her explanations, but they were interrupted in the midst, for Aveline, after a vain attempt to get off the poney, sank into Mr. Haveloc's arms, and fainted away.

Mrs. Grant was terribly frightened. She thought at first that Aveline was dead. Mrs. Fitzpatrick was as usual, calm and prompt.

"Don't go away," were her first words when she recovered, turning her eyes in search of Mr. Haveloc. "Tell me when you are quite restored, that I may have the pleasure of scolding you," he said, coming up to her chair. "I do not know what business you have to frighten us in this way."

"I will tell you what, dear Mrs. Grant," said Aveline, "we will send for our dinner to add to yours, and we will all dine together. It will be something like a pic-nic."

Mrs. Fitzpatrick agreed. Aveline could not move at present, and she must not be kept waiting for her dinner.

Mr. Haveloc offered to walk home, and give what orders Mrs. Fitzpatrick pleased.

"And be sure to come back and dine with us," said Aveline, eagerly.

"Have a little mercy on him, Aveline," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, smiling; "he may not be quite so fond of pic-nics as you are."

But Aveline insisted; and Mr. Haveloc readily promised that he would come back to dine.

"Is not it nice, Mr. Haveloc?" said Aveline, when they were all seated round the little table in Mrs. Grant's kitchen. Aveline being in the old lady's easy chair, supported with pillows.

If anybody had told Mr. Haveloc at any period of his life, that he would be dining in a cottage with an old nurse, he would have thought he might safely deny the charge; but as he was there, he quite won Mrs. Grant's heart by his politeness to her; and so overcame her by his care for Aveline, that although not much given to hyperbole, she frankly owned that she thought him an angel, the first moment she was alone with Mrs.

Fitzpatrick.

The sea-fog pa.s.sed off, and the afternoon was brilliant.

Mark led home the pony, and bespoke a carriage from the inn, to take Aveline home after tea.

She laid down on the nurse's bed till tea-time; and then rose refreshed and better.

The nurse remained with her, and, at her particular desire, Mr. Haveloc and her mamma went to church a second time.

"And, my darling, whatever you do, don't go to church again until Mr.

Lindsay gives you leave," said Mrs. Grant, as she helped Aveline into the carriage.

"Ah, Mrs. Grant!" said Aveline, "if I had not felt that this would be the last time, do you think I should have been so earnest to go?"

CHAPTER X.

_Ant._ Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life; Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife; Give me thy hand.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

There was, perhaps, nothing on earth for which Elizabeth Gage would have felt more unmixed contempt, than for an unrequited attachment;--no fate under Heaven from which she would have considered herself more utterly exempt; and yet, to her dismay, she began to suspect that she felt too warm an interest for her father's guest. The fact was, that she had felt this interest and admiration so very long before they met, that it was not now a very easy task to undo these feelings. She merely copied strictly the silence and reserve that distinguished his manner; talked no more than politeness demanded; and at once wished and dreaded the termination of his visit.

He suited Captain Gage admirably, though no two characters could be more opposite. He was less like a sailor than a courtier of Elizabeth's reign. His gravity, his cla.s.sical tastes, his habits of study, his proficiency in the dead languages, together with that cast of countenance seldom seen but in the age to which it belongs, seemed to stamp him as the companion of Raleigh and Southampton. But he still retained a plainness of speech and directness of purpose that is supposed to be generally indicative of the profession to which he belonged.

He had regained his health in great measure. He did as other people; he joined Elizabeth and her father in their rides and walks; he knew all Captain Gage's tenants; he had been with Elizabeth to the alms-houses; he even carried her basket for her, but always in silence. He had observed her at the head of her father's table, in their large dinner parties; he had gone out with them in return; he had watched the four or five young gentlemen who were pretending timidly to Miss Gage's favour, and the two middle aged men who alternately made her an offer once a quarter.

One sunny morning in August, Elizabeth came into the breakfast-room, where her father was standing by the open gla.s.s doors, and having embraced him and taken her place before the urn, she saw Sir Philip at a little distance on the lawn, talking to one of the gardeners.