give it him yourself — I’ll not,” and she popped it into my hand, and made a sulky step back.
“My cousin is very much obliged,” I said, returning the book, and smiling for her, and he took it smiling also and said —
“I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss Ruthyn, I should have hesitated about showing you my poor scrawls. But these are not my best, you know; Lady Knollys will tell you that I can really do better — a great deal better, I think.”
And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence, he took his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased and flattered.
He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought, and he was decidedly handsome — that is, his eyes and teeth, and clear brown complexion were — and there was something distinguished and graceful in his figure and gesture; and altogether there was the indescribable attraction of intelligence; and I fancied — though this, of course, was a secret — that from the moment he spoke to us he felt an interest in me. I am not going to be vain. It was a grave interest, but still and interest, for I could see him studying my features while I was turning over his sketches, and he thought I saw nothing else. It was flattering, too, his anxiety that I should think well of his drawing, and referring me to Lady Knollys. Carysbroke — had I ever heard my dear father mention that name? I could not recollect it. But then he was habitually so silent, that his not doing so argued nothing.
Chapter 35.
We Visit a Room in the Second Storey
MR. CARYSBROKE amused my fancy sufficiently to prevent my observing Milly’s silence, till we had begun our return homeward.
“The Grange must be a pretty house, if that little sketch is true; is it far from this?”
“’Twill be two mile.”
“Are you vexed, Milly?” I asked, for both her tone and looks were angry.
“Yes, I am vexed; and why not lass?”
“What has happened?”
“Well, now, that is rich! Why, look at that fellow, Carysbroke: he took no more notice to me than a dog, and kep’ talking to you all the time of his pictures, and his walks, and his people. Why, a pig’s better manners than that.”
“But, Milly dear, you forget, he tried to talk to you, and you would not answer him,” I expostulated.
“And is not that just what I say — I can’t talk like other folk — ladies, I mean. Every one laughs at me; an’ I’m dressed like a show, I am. It’s a shame! I saw Polly Shives — what a lady she is, my eyes! — laughing at me in church last Sunday. I was minded to give her a bit of my mind. An’ I know I’m queer. It’s a shame, it is. Why should I be so rum? it is a shame! I don’t want to be so, nor it isn’t my fault.”
And poor Milly broke into a flood of tears, and stamped on the ground, and buried her face in her short frock, which she whisked up to her eyes; and an odder figure of grief I never beheld.
“And I could not make head or tail of what he was saying,” cried poor Milly through her buff cotton, with a stamp; “and you twigged every word o’t. An’ why am I so? It’s a shame — a shame! Oh, ho, ho! it’s a shame!”
“But, my dear Milly, we were talking of drawing, and you have not learned yet, but you shall — I’ll teach you; and then you’ll understand all about it.”
“An’ every one laughs at me — even you; though you try, Maud, you can scarce keep from laughing sometimes. I don’t blame you, for I know I’m queer; but I can’t help it; and it’s a shame.”
“Well, my dear Milly, listen to me: if you allow me, I assure you, I’ll teach you all the music and drawing I know. You have lived very much alone; and, as you say, ladies have a way of speaking of their own that is different from the talk of other people.”
“Yes, that they have, an’ gentlemen too — like the Governor, and that Carysbroke; and a precious lingo it is — dang it — why, the devil himself could not understand it; an’ I’m like a fool among you. I could ‘most drown myself. It’s a shame! It is — you know it is. — It’s a shame!”
“But I’ll teach you that lingo too, if you wish it, Milly; and you shall know everything that I know; and I’ll manage to have your dressed better made.”
By this time she was looking very ruefully, but attentively, in my face, her round eyes and nose swelled, and her cheeks all wet.
“I think if they were a little longer — yours is longer, you know;” and the sentence was interrupted by a sob.
“Now, Milly, you must not be crying; if you choose you may be just the same as any other lady — and you shall; and you will be very much admired, I can tell you, if only you will take the trouble to quite unlearn all your odd words and ways, and dress yourself like other people; and I will take care of that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly; and I know you are very pretty.”
Poor Milly’s blubbered face expanded into a smile in spite of herself; but she shook her head, looking down.
“Noa, noa, Maud, I fear ‘twon’t be.” And indeed it seemed I had proposed to myself a labour of Hercules.
But Milly was really a clever creature, could see quickly, and when her ungainly dialect was mastered, describe very pleasantly; and if only she would endure the restraint and possessed the industry requisite, I did not despair, and was resolved at least to do my part.
Poor Milly! she was really very grateful, and entered into the project of her education with great zeal, and with a strange mixture of humility and insubordination.
Milly was in favour of again attacking “Beauty’s” position on her return, and forcing a passage from this side; but I insisted on following the route by which we had arrived, and so we got round the paling by the river, and were treated to a provoking grin of defiance by “Beauty,” who was talking across the gate to a slim young man, arrayed in fustian, and with an odd-looking cap of rabbit-skin on his head, which, on seeing us, he pulled sheepishly to the side of his face next to us, as he lounged, with his arm under this chin, on the top bar of the gate.
After our encounter of to-day, indeed, it was Miss “Beauty’s” wont to exhibit a kind of jeering disdain in her countenance whenever we passed.
I think Milly would have engaged her again, had I not reminded her of her undertaking, and exerted my new authority.
“Look at that sneak, Pegtop, there, going up the path to the mill. He makes belief now he does not see us; but he does, though, only he’s afraid we’ll tell the Governor, and he thinks Governor won’t give him his way with you. I hate that Pegtop; he stopped me o’ riding the cows a year ago, he did.”
I thought Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain that a total reformation was needed here; and I was glad to find that poor Milly seemed herself conscious of it; and that her resolution to become more like other people of her station was not a mere spasm of mortification and jealousy, but a genuine and very zealous resolve.
I had not half seen this old house of Bartram–Haugh yet. At first, indeed, I had but an imperfect idea of its extent. There was a range of rooms along one side of the great gallery, with closed window-shutters, and the doors generally locked. Old L’Amour grew cross when we went into them, although we could see nothing; and Milly was afraid to open the windows — not that any Bluebeard revelations were apprehended, but simply because she knew that Uncle Silas’s order was that things should be left undisturbed; and this boisterous spirit stood in awe of him to a degree which his gentle manners and apparent quietude rendered quite surprising.
There were in this house, what certainly did not exist at Knowl, and what I have never