"Alhambra Lodge, and they receive private pupils, dear me!"
"Do you know, Ma'am, why I was not left there?"
"I dare say, my dear, it was because Mr. Thornton did not approve of their method of teaching; there is a great deal in method."
"Do you know, Ma'am, if Miss O'Reilly will call next Sunday?"
"Miss O'Reilly? that is an Irish name, is it not?"
"Yes, Ma'am, she is Irish, and so is her brother. They were born at a place called Bally Bunion."
"Bally Birmingham--how odd! One would think Birmingham could have done without the Bally. Were you too born at Bally Birmingham, my dear?"
"No, Ma'am, I was born in England."
"Don't you feel much more comfortable to know that?"
"I don't know, Ma'am; but can you tell me if Miss O'Reilly will call next Sunday?"
Mrs. Gray looked perplexed.
"Really," she replied, "I don't know, but I am sure if she does call, I shall be very happy to see her, and to offer her a cup of tea. I always have tea at five exactly."
She spoke earnestly, as if she feared her hospitable feelings might be doubted. I saw she knew nothing, and questioned her no more.
Mrs. Gray was one of those quiet Englishwomen who seem to enjoy dullness for its own sake. She lived in a dull neighbourhood, in a dull square, in a dull house, and, as I soon found, she led as dull a life as she could devise. We rose early, breakfasted together in the gloomy parlour, then went to the lessons, which lasted until our two o'clock dinner. She was an intelligent educated woman, but a nervous, timid teacher; and what with her sensitiveness and her fear that she was not doing her duty by me, she managed from the first day to render both herself and her pupil somewhat uncomfortable. After dinner we took a short walk in the square, or in a neighbouring walk planted with dusty elms, and called the Mall.
We took tea at five exactly; I sat up until bed-time, preparing my lessons for the next day, whilst Mrs. Gray worked, or slyly read novels.
At first she was as secretive about it as if she were still a school- girl, and I a stern schoolmistress; but when she saw that I was not ignorant of the nature of the brown circulating-library volumes that now and then peeped out of her work-basket, she gave up the concealment part of the business, and informed me that though she did not approve of novels generally, she thought herself justified in making exceptions.
Her taste for fiction was shared by Miss Taylor and Mrs. Jones, the only friends she saw constantly. Once a week they came to tea with us, and twice Mrs. Gray took tea with them. They were very quiet, inoffensive women, with the organ of wonder large. I could see that they considered me from the first as a sort of living novel, a "Margaret the Orphan," a "Child of Mystery," etc. I entered Mrs. Gray's house on a Wednesday; the same evening they took tea with her, and I detected both the looks and signs they exchanged, and overheard whispered remarks of "How strange!"
"Most mysterious!" "You don't say so!" and the like.
If Jane and Fanny Brook had overpowered me with their boisterous ways, the slow and quiet life I led with Mrs. Gray depressed me even to a sense of pain. I felt it much during the first few days, and waited impatiently for the Sunday. It came, but brought not Kate. I sat by the window the whole day long, eagerly watching for her through the iron railings that fenced in our abode, but she came not. As dusk closed around the dull square and brooded heavily over its melancholy trees, my last hope vanished. At first I thought she was offended with me and would not come, then it occurred to me that she might not know where I was.
"My dear," earnestly said Mrs. Gray, "pray leave that window; you will take cold. Miss O'Reilly, I dare say, will call to-morrow."
"Had I not better write to her, Mrs. Gray, and tell her I am with you?"
"No, my dear," replied Mrs. Gray, looking fidgety, "you must not do that, if you please. I dare say she will call tomorrow; pray leave the window."
I obeyed the gentle injunction, but I had no faith in the hope held forth; I did not think Kate would come, and indeed she did not, nor on the following Sunday either. I again asked Mrs. Gray if I could not write to Miss O'Reilly, who, I felt sure, did not know where I was.
"My dear," nervously said Mrs. Gray, "I fear that if Miss O'Reilly does not know it, it must be because Mr. Thornton did not wish her to know it.
I should be very happy to see her, and I dare say she is a very charming person; but I must go by Mr. Thornton's wishes."
All my entreaties could not induce her to alter her resolve. If I could have disobeyed her injunction I would, but open means I saw not, and hidden ones I had not the wit to devise; so I availed myself of the only permission she gave me--that of writing to Mr. Thornton, asking his leave to see my friends. Mrs. Gray sent the letter to his solicitors, but either it did not reach him, or he did not think it worthy his attention, for he never answered it. I saw how foolish I had been to place myself under his control, and the thought that I had myself done it, and was perhaps severed for ever from Cornelius and Kate, ended by affecting my health. In my grief I had said that if I only knew how they were, I should not mind so much not seeing them. Mrs. Gray eagerly caught at this, and offered to ascertain the matter. I gave her the names of the chief tradespeople with whom Miss O'Reilly dealt, and she set off one afternoon on her errand. She stayed away two hours, and returned with a cheerful face.
"Well," she said, sitting down and smiling at my eager look, "I have learned everything. I called in at Parkins the baker, and asked Mrs.
Parkins if she knew an Irish family of the name of MacMahon (that was not a story, you know, dear, because there are Irish MacMahons; indeed I knew three myself, though I cannot say they lived in the Grove), to which Mrs.
Parkins replied, she did not know any MacMahons, and the only Irish family who dealt with her were a Mr. and Miss O'Reilly; Mrs. O'Reilly that was to be, would, she hoped, also give her her custom in time; I asked what sort of a person she was. Fair and handsome, and Mr. O'Reilly and his sister dark, but also very handsome. I said I did not think they could be the MacMahons, who were all red-haired; and thanking Mrs.
Parkins, I came back. I hope, my dear, you will not fret after such good tidings; for if Mr. O'Reilly is going to get married, he cannot be very poorly nor his sister either; and I am sure you are too sensible to care about the bride-cake; so it is all right, you see."
Alas! yes, it was all right, and I felt how little I must now be missed in the home where I had once been petted and indulged so tenderly. They were going to marry; there was nothing to fear or hope now. Mrs. Gray, unaware of the jealousy that had been the source of all my misery, continued to descant on this agreeable state of things, and altogether derived some innocent enjoyment from the part she had acted, and the spice of adventure it had thrown in her monotonous life.
It was a sort of comfort to know that Kate and Cornelius were well, but it passed with time; and at length my ardent entreaties and solemn promises not to betray my presence by word, sign, or look, wrung from Mrs. Gray the favour of being taken one evening to the Grove, so that, in passing by the house, I might perhaps catch a glimpse of the faces I loved. Chance, or rather the kind power that disdains not to indulge our human weakness, favoured me.
The evening was grey and mild, as it often is in the English summer. The Grove was lonely. Mrs. Gray and I kept in the shadow of the trees, on the side of the street facing Kate's house; and walked up and down two or three times. The front parlour was not lit; I could see nothing of what passed within, but in the stillness of that quiet evening I once or twice caught the tones of the voice of Cornelius. I started to hear them.
"My dear," nervously said Mrs. Gray, "had we not better go?"
"Not yet, Ma'am," I entreated; "Deborah will soon bring up the lamp, the window will remain open awhile, and then I shall be able to see them, whilst they, you know, cannot see me."
All happened as I had said; Deborah brought up the lamp, laid it down on the table and left the window open. Now I could see. The lamp burned with a clear and steady flame, that illumined the whole room; the pictures stood forth on the red paper of the walls, and on that sombre yet clear back-ground appeared, vivid and distinct, the figures of Cornelius, Kate, and Miriam. She sat reclining back in her chair, and looking up at him as he stood behind her, laughing and talking pleasantly. I saw less of Kate, who sat a little in the back-ground, bent over her work. They seemed both cheerful and happy, for whilst I stood looking at them, half blinded by tears, Cornelius suddenly turned away from Miriam, went up to the piano, opened it, and sat down to sing the 'Exile of Erin.' What with hearing his voice again, and with standing there listening to him, myself an exile from his home, and, alas! from his heart, I wept. As the song closed with its mournful cadence, Kate rose, shut the window, and drew down the blind, thus excluding me from both sight and sound.
"Don't you think, dear, we had better go now?" whispered Mrs. Gray, gently leading me away from the spot where I still stood looking and listening, though there was no more to see or hear.
I yielded apathetically, and my companion hurried me away, nervously looking behind every now and then, and declaring, "She had never gone through anything to equal this, never!" Indeed by her two friends it was considered quite an adventure, and served to enhance the mystery with which it pleased their imagination to surround me.
I had longed passionately for the favour Mrs. Gray had granted, but to have obtained it only added to my secret torment. I had now been six weeks with the kind lady, but what with the dull monotonous life I led in that dull house and the grief of being severed from those I loved so dearly, I again became languid, if not ill. Mrs. Gray's instructions were to let me want for nothing; she at once called in a physician, who gave me plenty of bitter physic to drink, and ordered me to take more exercise. We lived within half an hour's walk of Kensington Gardens, and every fine day Mrs. Gray conscientiously took me there to spend the interval between dinner and tea. She sat down on one of the benches and read, whilst I wandered away at will.
Those gardens are very beautiful. They have verdure, water, rare fowl, singing birds, flowers wild and cultivated, warm sunshine, deep shade, and brooding over all that solemn charm which lingers around ancient trees and woodland places. I was then studying botany, and my chief pleasure was to look out for wild flowers or linger in some solitary spot. I remember one well,--a solemn grove of elms and beeches, sombre and quiet as a cloister. I often sought its gloom, led by that instinct which makes the stricken deer fly to the shade. When I sat down at the moss-covered base of those venerable trees, something of the soothing calmness of pure nature seemed to fall on my spirit, with their vast shadow. Above me sang the thrush and blackbird, whom I had so often heard in the lanes around my old home. They were happy; to me their song sounded neither gay nor joyful, but wild, sweet, and mournful as that of the enchanted bird heard by bonny Kilmeny in the glen.
One day, in my search for botanical specimens, I wandered further than usual. At length I came to a circular hollow enclosed by fine old trees, of which one lay extended on the earth, uprooted in a recent storm. Its vast boughs were beginning to wither, and its huge roots rose brown and bare, for the first time beholding light; but of these signs, though I noted them as we will note things even when our very hearts are stirred within us. I thought not then; for at once I had seen and recognized Cornelius, who sat on the trunk of the tree sketching.
Absorbed in his task he did not see me, and I stood mute within a few paces of him, looking at him with my flowers in my hand. Through the trees behind me the sun streamed in a few bright rays, that sent my lengthened shadow on the grass. Cornelius saw it and looked up; the pencil dropped from his hand and he turned very pale. Had he moved, or had I? I know not, but the next moment I was locked in his embrace. What I said or did, I cannot tell; he kissed me again and again with many an endearing epithet. For some time neither spoke.
"Oh, my poor lost lamb!" he said, as I lay clasped in his arms too happy for speech, "where have you been all this time?"
"I have been at Mrs. Gray's; how is Kate?"
"She is well, but unhappy about you. Who is Mrs. Gray? Where does she live? Is she kind? Why are you so pale?"
"I am not well; I take physic every morning; Mrs. Gray is very kind; she lives in Auckland Square, number three."
"I know the place; but why, you naughty child, did you not write to let us know where you were?"
"Mrs. Gray would not let me. I wrote to Mr. Thornton, and he never answered; but Mrs. Gray was very kind; once she went to Parkins, and found out that you and Kate were quite well, and another time she took me to the Grove, and I saw you both through the open window; it was in the evening; you sang the 'Exile of Erin;' I stood with Mrs. Gray listening on the other side of the street."
"And you never even came to the door?"
"Mrs. Gray would not have allowed it; besides--"
"Well, what is it?"
"You know," I replied, shunning his look, "what you said to me before I went to Miss Clapperton's."
He did not answer, but when I again looked at him, the glow my words had called up had not left his face.
"You are not here alone?" he observed after an embarrassed pause.