So confusedly thinking she reached home, and approaching the door, heard the noise of many voices in the parlour. There was evidently company, and in her present excited state nothing would suit her better; so sliding up to her room, and changing her dress a little, she came down and entered the parlour.
"Behold," cried the Doctor, as she entered the room, "the evening-star has arisen at last. My dear young lady, we have been loudly lamenting your absence and indisposition."
"I have been listening to your lamentations, Doctor," she replied.
"They were certainly loud, and from the frequent bursts of laughter, I judged they were getting hysterical, so I came down."
There was quite a party assembled. The Vicar and Major Buckley were talking earnestly together. Troubridge and the Doctor were side by side, while next the fire was Mrs. Buckley, with young Sam asleep on her lap, and Miss Thornton sitting quietly beside her.
Having saluted them all, Mary sat down by Mrs. Buckley, and began talking to her. Then the conversation flowed back into the channel it had been following before her arrival.
"I mean to say, Vicar," said the Major, "that it would be better to throw the four packs into two. Then you would have less squabbling and bickering about the different boundaries, and you would kill the same number of hares with half the dogs."
"And you would throw a dozen men out of work, sir," replied the Vicar, "in this parish and the next, and that is to be considered; and about half the quantity of meat and horseflesh would be consumed, which is another consideration. I tell you I believe things are better as they are."
"I hear they got a large stern-cabin; did they, Mr. Troubridge?" said the Doctor. "I hope they'll be comfortable. They should have got more amidships if they could. They will be sick the longer in their position."
"Poor boys!" said Troubridge; "they'll be more heart-sick than stomach-sick, I expect. They'd halfrepented before they sailed."
Mary sat down by Mrs. Buckley, and had half an hour's agreeable conversation with her, till they all rose to go. Mrs. Buckley was surprised at her sprightliness and good spirits, for she had expected to find her in tears. The Doctor had met the Major in the morning, and told him what had passed the night before, so Mrs. Buckley had come in to cheer Mary up for the loss of her lover, and to her surprise found her rather more merry than usual. This made the good lady suspect at once that Mary did not treat the matter very seriously, or else was determined to defy her father, which, as Mrs. Buckley reflected, she was perfectly able to do, being rich in her own right, and of age. So when she was putting on her shawl to go home, she kissed Mary, and said kindly,--
"My love, I hope you will always honour and obey your father, and I am sure you will always, under all circumstances, remember that I am your true friend. Good night."
And having bidden her good night, Mary went in. The Doctor was gone with the Major, but Tom Troubridge sat still before the fire, and as she came in was just finishing off one of his thundering fits of laughter at something that the Vicar had said.
"My love," said the Vicar, "I am so sorry you have been poorly, though you look better to-night. Your dear aunt has been to Tom's room, so there is nothing to do, but to sit down and talk to us."
"Why, cousin Tom," she said, laughing, "I had quite forgot you; at least, quite forgot you were going to stay here. Why, what a time it is since I saw you."
"Isn't it?" he replied; "such a very long time. If I remember right, we met last out at the gate. Let's see. How long was that ago?"
"You ought to remember," she replied; "you're big enough. Well, good night. I'm going to bed."
She went to her room, but not to bed. She sat in the window, looking at the stars, pale in the full moonlight, wondering. Wondering what George was doing. Wondering whether she would listen to his audacious proposal. And wondering, lastly, what on earth her father would say if she did.
Chapter X
IN WHICH WE SEE A GOOD DEAL OF MISCHIEF BREWING.
A month went on, and May was well advanced. The lanes had grown dark and shadowy with their summer bravery; the banks were a rich mass of verdure once more, starred with wild-rose and eglantine; and on the lesser woodland stream, the king fern was again concealing the channel with brilliant golden fronds; while brown bare thorn-thickets, through which the wind had whistled savagely all winter, were now changed into pleasant bowers, where birds might build and sing.
A busy month this had been for the Major. Fishing every day, and pretty near all day, determined, as he said, to make the most of it, for fear it should be his last year. There was a beaten path worn through the growing grass all down the side of the stream by his sole exertions; and now the May-fly was coming, and there would be no more fishing in another week, so he worked harder than ever. Mrs. Buckley used to bring down her son and heir, and sit under an oak by the river-side, sewing.
Pleasant, long days they were when dinner would be brought down to the old tree, and she would spend the day there, among the long meadow-grass, purple and yellow with flowers, bending under the soft west wind. Pleasant to hear the corncrake by the hedge-side, or the moorhen in the water. But pleasantest of all was the time when her husband, tired of fishing, would come and sit beside her, and the boy, throwing his lately-petted flowers to the wind, would run crowing to the spotted beauties which his father had laid out for him on the grass.
The Vicar was busy in his garden, and the Doctor was often helping him, although the most of his time was spent in natural history, to which he seemed entirely devoted. One evening they had been employed rather later than usual, and the Doctor was just gone, when the Vicar turned round and saw that his sister was come out, with her basket and scissors, to gather a fresh bouquet for the drawing-room.
So he went to join her, and as he approached her he admired her with an affectionate admiration. Such a neat, trim figure, with the snow-white handkerchief over her head, and her white garden gloves; what a contrast to Mary, he thought; "Both good of their sort, though," he added.
"Good evening, brother," began Miss Thornton. "Was not that Dr. Mulhaus went from you just now?"
"Yes, my dear."
"You had letters of introduction to Dr. Mulhaus, when he came to reside in this village?" asked Miss Thornton.
"Yes; Lord C----, whom I knew at Oxford, recommended me to him."
"His real name, I daresay, is not Mulhaus. Do you know what his real name is, brother?"
How very awkward plain plump questions of this kind are. The Vicar would have liked to answer "No," but he could not tell a lie. He was also a very bad hand at prevaricating; so with a stammer, he said "Yes!"
"So do I!" said Miss Thornton.
"Good Lord, my dear, how did you find it out?"
"I recognised him the first instant I saw him, and was struck dumb. I was very discreet, and have never said a word even to you till now; and, lately, I have been thinking that you might know, and so I thought I would sound you."
"I suppose you saw him when you were with her ladyship in Paris, in '14?"
"Yes; often," said Miss Thornton. "He came to the house several times.
How well I remember the last. The dear girls and I were in the conservatory in the morning, and all of a sudden we heard the door thrown open, and two men coming towards us talking from the breakfast-room. We could not see them for the plants, but when we heard the voice of one of them, the girls got into a terrible flutter, and I was very much frightened myself. However, there was no escape, so we came round the corner on them as bold as we could, and there was this Dr. Mulhaus, as we call him, walking with him."
"With him?--with who?"
"The Emperor Alexander, my dear, whose voice we had recognised; I thought you would have known whom I meant."
"My dear love," said the Vicar, "I hope you reflect how sacred that is, and what a good friend I should lose if the slightest hint as to who he was, were to get among the gentry round. You don't think he has recognised you?"
"How is it likely, brother, that he would remember an English governess, whom he never saw but three times, and never looked at once?
I have often wondered whether the Major recognised him."
"No; Buckley is a Peninsular man, and although at Waterloo, never went to Paris. Lans--Mulhaus, I mean, was not present at Waterloo. So they never could have met. My dear discreet old sister, what tact you have!
I have often said to myself, when I have seen you and he together, 'If she only knew who he was;'--and to think of your knowing all the time.
Ha! ha! ha! That's very good."
"I have lived long where tact is required, my dear brother. See, there goes young Mr. Hawker!"
"I'd sooner see him going home than coming here. Now, I'd go out for a turn in the lanes, but I know I should meet half a dozen couples courting, as they call it. Bah! So I'll stay in the garden."
The Vicar was right about the lanes being full of lovers. Never a vista that you looked down but what you saw a ghostly pair, walking along side by side. Not arm in arm, you know. The man has his hands in his pockets, and walks a few feet off the woman. They never speak to one another--I think I don't go too far in saying that. I have met them and overtaken them, and come sharp round corners on to them, but I never heard them speak to one another. I have asked the young men themselves whether they ever said anything to their sweethearts, and those young men have answered, "No; that they didn't know as they did." So that I am inclined to believe that they are contented with that silent utterance of the heart which is so superior to the silly whisperings one hears on dark ottomans in drawing-rooms.
But the Vicar had a strong dislike to lovers' walks. He was a practical man, and had studied parish statistics for some years, so that his opinion is entitled to respect. He used to ask, why an honest girl should not receive her lover at her father's house, or in broad daylight, and many other impertinent questions which we won't go into, but which many a west-country parson has asked before, and never got an answer to.
Of all pleasant places in the parish, surely one of the pleasantest for a meeting of this kind was the old oak at the end of Hawker's plantation, where George met Nelly a night we know of. So quiet and lonely, and such pleasant glimpses down long oaken glades, with a bright carpet of springing fern. Surely there will be a couple here this sweet May evening.
So there is! Walking this way too! George Hawker is one of them; but we can't see who the other is. Who should it be but Mary, though, with whom he should walk, with his arm round her waist talking so affectionately. But see, she raises her head. Why! that is not Mary.