CHAPTER IV.
TOWARDS the end of the week we received a card from the town
ladies. _Vicar of Wakefield_.
THE curate was gone, and the lessons suspended; otherwise--as like each
to each as sunshine or cloud permitted--day followed day in the calm
retreat of Brook-Green,--when, one morning, Mrs. Leslie, with a letter in
her hand, sought Lady Vargrave, who was busied in tending the flowers of
a small conservatory which she had added to the cottage, when, from
various motives, and one in especial powerful and mysterious, she
exchanged for so sequestered a home the luxurious villa bequeathed to her
by her husband.
To flowers--those charming children of Nature, in which our age can take
the same tranquil pleasure as our youth--Lady Vargrave devoted much of
her monotonous and unchequered time. She seemed to love them almost as
living things; and her memory associated them with hours as bright and as
fleeting as themselves.
"My dear friend," said Mrs. Leslie, "I have news for you. My daughter,
Mrs. Merton, who has been in Cornwall on a visit to her husband's mother,
writes me word that she will visit us on her road home to the Rectory in
B-----shire. She will not put you much out of the way," added Mrs.
Leslie, smiling, "for Mr. Merton will not accompany her; she only brings
her daughter Caroline, a lively, handsome, intelligent girl, who will be
enchanted with Evelyn. All you will regret is, that she comes to
terminate my visit, and take me away with her. If you can forgive that
offence, you will have nothing else to pardon."
Lady Vargrave replied with her usual simple kindness; but she was
evidently nervous at the visit of a stranger (for she had never yet seen
Mrs. Merton), and still more distressed at the thought of losing Mrs.
Leslie a week or two sooner than had been anticipated. However, Mrs.
Leslie hastened to reassure her. Mrs. Merton was so quiet and
good-natured, the wife of a country clergyman with simple tastes; and
after all, Mrs. Leslie's visit might last as long, if Lady Vargrave would
be contented to extend her hospitality to Mrs. Merton and Caroline.
When the visit was announced to Evelyn, her young heart was susceptible
only of pleasure and curiosity. She had no friend of her own age; she
was sure she should like the grandchild of her dear Mrs. Leslie.
Evelyn, who had learned betimes, from the affectionate solicitude of her
nature, to relieve her mother of such few domestic cares as a home so
quiet, with an establishment so regular, could afford, gayly busied
herself in a thousand little preparations. She filled the rooms of the
visitors with flowers (not dreaming that any one could fancy them
unwholesome), and spread the tables with her own favourite books, and had
the little cottage piano in her own dressing-room removed into
Caroline's--Caroline must be fond of music. She had some doubts of
transferring a cage with two canaries into Caroline's room also; but when
she approached the cage with that intention, the birds chirped so
merrily, and seemed so glad to see her, and so expectant of sugar, that
her heart smote her for her meditated desertion and ingratitude. No, she
could not give up the canaries; but the glass bowl with the goldfish--oh,
that would look so pretty on its stand just by the casement; and the
fish--dull things!--would not miss her.
The morning, the noon, the probable hour of the important arrival came at
last; and after having three times within the last half-hour visited the
rooms, and settled and unsettled and settled again everything before
arranged, Evelyn retired to her own room to consult her wardrobe, and
Margaret,--once her nurse, now her abigail. Alas! the wardrobe of the
destined Lady Vargrave--the betrothed of a rising statesman, a new and
now an ostentatious peer; the heiress of the wealthy Templeton--was one
that many a tradesman's daughter would have disdained. Evelyn visited so
little; the clergyman of the place, and two old maids who lived most
respectably on a hundred and eighty pounds a year, in a cottage, with one
maidservant, two cats, and a footboy, bounded the circle of her
acquaintance. Her mother was so indifferent to dress; she herself had
found so many other ways of spending money!--but Evelyn was not now more
philosophical than others of her age. She turned from muslin to
muslin--from the coloured to the white, from the white to the
coloured--with pretty anxiety and sorrowful suspense. At last she
decided on the newest, and when it was on, and the single rose set in the
lustrous and beautiful hair, Carson herself could not have added a charm.
Happy age! Who wants the arts of the milliner at seventeen?
"And here, miss; here's the fine necklace Lord Vargrave brought down when
my lord came last; it will look so grand!"
The emeralds glittered in their case; Evelyn looked at them irresolutely;
then, as she looked, a shade came over her forehead, and she sighed, and
closed the lid.
"No, Margaret, I do not want it; take it away."
"Oh, dear, miss! what would my lord say if he were down! And they are so
beautiful! they will look so fine! Deary me, how they sparkle! But you
will wear much finer when you are my lady."
"I hear Mamma's bell; go, Margaret, she wants you."
Left alone, the young beauty sank down abstractedly, and though the
looking-glass was opposite, it did not arrest her eye; she forgot her
wardrobe, her muslin dress, her fears, and her guests.
"Ah," she thought, "what a weight of dread I feel here when I think of
Lord Vargrave and this fatal engagement; and every day I feel it more and
more. To leave my dear, dear mother, the dear cottage--oh! I never can.
I used to like him when I was a child; now I shudder at his name. Why is
this? He is kind; he condescends to seek to please. It was the wish of
my poor father,--for father he really was to me; and yet--oh that he had
left me poor and free!"
At this part of Evelyn's meditation the unusual sound of wheels was heard
on the gravel; she started up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and hurried
down to welcome the expected guests.
