Out in the Forty-Five Part 27

"Did you leave your eyes at Abbotscliff, my dear?"

"Aunt Kezia!" I cried.

Yes, there stood my Aunt Kezia, in her hood and scarf, looking as if only an hour had pa.s.sed since I saw her before. I was glad to see her, and I ventured to say so.

"Why, child, did you think I was going to send my lamb out into the wilderness, with never a farewell?"

"But how early you must have had to rise, Aunt Kezia!"

"Mrs Kezia, this is an unlooked-for pleasure," said the Doctor, coming forward. "I could never have hoped to see you at this hour."

"This hour! Why, 'tis but eight o'clock!" cries my Aunt Kezia. "What sort of a lig-a-bed do you think me, Doctor?"

"Madam, I think you the flower of creation!" cries he, bowing over her hand.

"You must have been reading the poets," saith she, "and not to much good purpose.--Flora, child, you look but white! And is this Miss Annas Keith, your friend? I am glad to see you, my dear. Don't mind an old woman's freedom: I call all girls 'my dear'."

Annas smiled, and said she was very pleased to feel as though my Aunt Kezia reckoned her among her friends.

"My friends' friends are mine," saith my Aunt Kezia. "Well, Cary, I have brought you all the things in your minute, save your purple lutestring scarf, which I could not find. It was not in the bottom shelf, as you set down."

"Why, where could I have put it?" said I. "I always keep it on that shelf."

I was sorry to miss it, because it is my best scarf, and I thought I should want it in London, where I suppose everybody goes very fine.

However, there was no more to be said--on my side. I found there was on my Aunt Kezia's.

"Here, hold your hand, child," saith she. "Your father sends you ten guineas to spend; and here are five more from me, and this pocket-piece from Sophy. You can get a new scarf in London, if you need it, or anything else you like better."

"Oh, thank you, Aunt Kezia!" I cried. "Why, how rich I shall be!"

"Don't waste your money, Cary: lay it out wisely, and then we shall be pleased. I will give you a good rule: Never buy anything without sleeping on it. Don't rush off and get it the first minute it comes into your head. You will see the bottom of your purse in a veek if you do."

"But it might be gone, Aunt Kezia."

"Then it is something you can do without."

"Is Hatty come home, Aunt?" said Flora.

"Not she," saith my Aunt Kezia. "Miss Hatty's gone careering off, the deer know where. I dare be bound you'll fall in with her. She is gone with Charlotte and Emily up to town."

I was sorry to hear that. I don't much want to meet Hatty--above all if Grandmamma be there.

Note 1. The great majority of Scottish Jacobites were Episcopalians and "Moderates," a term equivalent to the English "High and Dry." There were, however, a very few Presbyterians among them.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

RULES AND RIBBONS.

"No fond belief can day and night From light and darkness sever; And wrong is wrong, and right is right, For ever and for ever."

Last evening, as we were drawing our chairs up for a chat round the fire in our chamber, who should walk in but my Aunt Kezia.

"Nay, I'll not hold you long," saith she, as I arose and offered my seat. "I come but to give a bit of good counsel to my nieces here.

Miss Annas, my dear, it will very like not hurt you too."

"I shall be very glad of it, Mrs Kezia," said Annas.

"Well,"--saith my Aunt, and broke off all at once. "Eh, girls, girls!

Poor unfledged birds, fluttering your wings on the brim of the nest, and pooh-poohing the old bird behind you, that says, 'Take care, my dears, or you will fall!' She never flew out of the nest, did she?--she never preened her wings, and thought all the world lay before her, and she could fly as straight as any lark of them all, and catch as many flies as any swallow? Ay, nor she never tumbled off into the mire, and found she could not fly a bit, and all the insects went darting past her as safe as if she were a dead leaf? Eh, my la.s.sies, this would be a poor world, if it were all. I have seen something of it, though you thought not, likely enough. But flowers are flowers, and dirt is dirt, whether you find them on the banks of the Thames or of Ellen Water. And I have not dwelt all my life at Brocklebank: though if I had, I should have seen men and women, and they are much alike all the world over."

I could not keep it in, and out it came.

"Please, Aunt Kezia, don't be angry, but what is become of Cecilia Osborne?"

"I dare say you will know, Cary, before I do. She went to London, I believe."

"Oh, I don't want to see her, Aunt Kezia."

"Then you are pretty sure to do it."

"But why did she not--" I was afraid to go on.

"Why did she not keep her word? You can ask her if you want to know.

Don't say I wanted to know, that's all. I don't."

"But how was it, Aunt Kezia?" said I, for I was on fire with curiosity.

Flora made an attempt to check me.

"You are both welcome to know all I know," said my Aunt: "and that is, that she spent one evening at the Fells with us, and the Hebblethwaites and Mr Parmenter were there: the next day we saw nothing of her, and on the evening of the third there came a little note to me--a dainty little pink three-cornered note, all over perfume--in which Miss Cecilia Osborne presented her compliments to Mrs Kezia Courtenay, and begged to say that she found herself obliged to go to London, and would have set out before the note should reach me. That is as much as I know, and more than I want to know."

"And she did not say when she was coming back?"

"Not in any hurry, I fancy," said my Aunt Kezia, grimly.

"Going to stop away altogether?"

"She's welcome," answered my Aunt, in the same tone.

"Then who will live at Fir Vale?" asked Flora.

"Don't know. The first of you may that gets married. Don't go and do it on purpose."

Annas seemed much diverted. I wanted very much to know how Father had taken Cecilia's flight, but I did not feel I could ask that.

"Any more questions, young ladies?" saith my Aunt Kezia, quizzically.