"I don't want to hear that sort of talk, Dolly."
"Why not, mother?"
"It don't mean anything. I would rather have people show their religion in their lives, than hear them talk about it."
"But, mother, isn't there comfort in those words?"
"No. It ain't true."
"O mother! _What_ isn't true?"
"That. There is a difference between things, and there is no use trying to make out they're all alike. Sour isn't sweet, and hard ain't soft.
What's the use of talking as if it was? I always like to look at things just as they are."
"But, mother!"--
"Now, don't talk, Dolly, but just tell me. What is the good of my getting sick just now? just now, when you ought to be going into company? And we have got to give up our house, and you and I go and bury ourselves down in some out-of-the-way place, and your father get along as he can; and how we shall get along without him to manage, I am sure I don't know."
"He will run down to see us often, mother."
"The master's eye wants to be all the while on the spot, if anything is to keep straight."
"But this is such a little spot; I think my eye can manage it."
"Then how are you going to take care of me?--if you are overseeing the place. And I don't believe my nerves are going to stand it, all alone down there. It'll be lonely. I'd rather hear the carts rattle. It's dreadful, to hear nothing."
"Well, we will try how it goes, mother; and if it does not go well, we will try somewhere else."
The house in town was given up, and Mr. Copley moved into lodgings.
Some furniture and two servants were sent down to the cottage; but the very day when the ladies were to follow, Mr. Copley was taken possession of by some really important business. The secretary volunteered to supply his place; and in his company Mrs. Copley and Dolly made the little journey, one warm summer day.
Dolly had her own causes for anxiety, the weightier that they must be kept to herself. Nevertheless, the influence of sweet nature could not be withstood. The change from city streets and crowds to the green leafiness of June in the country, the quiet of unpaved roads, the deliciousness of the air full of scents from woodland and field, excited Dolly like champagne. Every nerve thrilled with delight; her eyes could not get enough, nor her lungs. And when they arrived at the cottage, Brierley Cottage it was called, she was filled with a glad surprise. It was no common, close, musty, uncomfortable little dwelling; but a roomy old house with plenty of space, dark oak wainscotings, casement windows with little diamond panes, and a wide porch covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle. These were in blossom now, and the air was perfumed with their incomparable sweetness. Round the house lay a small garden ground, which having been some time without care looked pretty wild.
Dolly uttered her delight as the party entered the porch. Mrs. Copley passed on silently, looking at everything with critical eyes.
"What a charming old house, mother! so airy and so old-fashioned, and _everything_ so nice."
"I am afraid there is not much furniture in it," remarked the secretary.
"We don't want much, for two people," said Dolly gaily.
"But when your father brings a dinner party down," said Mrs. Copley; "how does he suppose we shall manage then? You must have chairs for people to sit on."
Dolly did not answer; it had struck her that her father had no intention of bringing dinner parties down, and that he had made his arrangements with an evident exclusion of any such idea. He had thought two women servants enough. For the rest, leaving parties out of consideration, the house had a rambling supply of old furniture, suiting it well enough; it looked pretty, and quaint, and cool; and Dolly for her part was well content.
They went over the place, taking a general survey; and then Mrs. Copley lay down on a lounge while supper was getting ready, and Dolly and Mr.
St. Leger went out to the porch. Here, beyond the roses and honeysuckles, the eye found first the wild garden or pleasure ground.
There was not much of it, and it was a mere tangle of what had once been pretty and sweet. It sloped, however, down to a little stream which formed the border of the property; and on the other side of this stream the ground rose in a grassy bank, set with most magnificent oaks and beeches. A little foot-bridge spanned the stream and made a picturesque point in the view, as a bridge always does. The sun was setting, throwing his light upon that grassy bank and playing in the branches of the great oaks and beeches. Dolly stood quite still, with her hands crossed upon her bosom, looking.
"The garden has had nothing done to it," said St. Leger. "That won't do. It's quite distressing."
"I suppose father never thought of engaging a gardener," said Dolly.
"We have gardeners to spare, I am sure, at home. I'll send over one to train those vines and put things in some shape. You'd find him useful, too, about the house. I'll send old Peters; he can come as well as not."
"Oh, thank you! But I don't know whether father would choose to afford a gardener," said Dolly low.
"He shall not afford it. I want him to come for my own comfort. You do not think I want your father to pay my gardener."
"You are very kind. What ground is that over there?"
"That? that is Brierley Park. It is a great place. The stream divides the park from this cottage ground."
"Can one go over the bridge?"
"Of course. The place is left to itself; nobody is at the house now."
"Why not?"
"I suppose they like some other place better," said St. Leger, shrugging his shoulders. "You would like to go and see the house and the pictures. The next time I come down I'll take you there."
"Oh, thank you! And may I go over among those grand trees? may I walk there?"
"Walk there, or ride there; you may do what you like; nobody will hinder you. If you meet anybody that has a right to know, you can tell him who you are. But don't go to the house till I come to go with you."
"You are very good, Mr. St. Leger," said Dolly gratefully. But then, as if shy of what he might next say, she turned and went in to her mother.
Dolly always kept Mr. St. Leger at a certain fine, insensible distance.
He seemed to be very near; he was really very much at home in the family; nevertheless, an atmospheric wall, felt but not seen, divided him from Dolly. It was so invisible that it was unmanageable; it kept him at a distance.
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE PARK.
The next day was a delightful one in Dolly's experience. Mr. St. Leger went back to town early in the morning; and as soon as she was free of him, Dolly's delight began. She attended to her mother, and put her in comfort; next, she examined the house and its capabilities, and arranged the little household; and then she gave herself to the garden.
It was an unmitigated wilderness. The roses had grown into irregular, wide-spreading shrubs, with waving, flaunting branches; yet sweet with their burden of blushing flowers. Lilac bushes had passed all bounds, and took up room most graspingly. Hawthorn and eglantine, roses of Sharon and stocky syringas, and other bushes and climbers, had entwined and confused their sprays and branches, till in places they formed an impenetrable mass. In other places, and even in the midst of this overgrown thicket, jessamine stars peeped out, lilies and violets grew half smothered, mignonette ran along where it could; even carnations and pinks were to be seen, in unhappy situations, and daisies and larkspur and scarlet geraniums, lupins and sweet peas, and I know not what more old-fashioned flowers, showed their fair faces here and there. It was bewildering, and beyond Dolly's powers to put in order.
She wished for old Peter's arrival; and meantime cut and trimmed a little here and there, gathered a nosegay of wildering blossoms, considered what might be done, and lost herself in the sweet June day.
At last it was growing near lunch time, and she went in. Mrs. Copley was lying on an old-fashioned lounge; and the room where she lay was brown with old oak, quaint with its diamond-paned casement windows, and cool with a general effect of wooden floor and little furniture; while roses looked in at the open window, and the light was tempered by the dark panelling and low ceiling. Dolly gave an exclamation of delight.
"What is it?" said Mrs. Copley fretfully.
"Mother, this place is so lovely! and this room,--do you know how perfectly pretty it is?"
"It isn't half furnished. Not half."
"But it is furnished enough. There are only two of us; and certainly here are all the things that we want, and a great deal more than we want; and it is so pretty! so pretty!"