you come every week to see Mrs. Pomfret?”
“Yes, sir, every Thursday, only when she’s got to go out with Miss Donnithorne.”
“And she’s teaching you something, is she?”
“Yes, sir, the lace-mending as she learnt abroad, and the stocking-mending—it looks just like the stocking, you can’t tell it’s been mended; and she teaches me cutting-out too.”
“What! are you going to be a lady’s maid?”
“I should like to be one very much indeed.” Hetty spoke more audibly now, but still rather tremulously; she thought, perhaps she seemed as stupid to Captain Donnithorne as Luke Britton did to her.
“I suppose Mrs. Pomfret always expects you at this time?”
“She expects me at four o’clock. I’m rather late to-day, because my aunt couldn’t spare me; but the regular time is four, because that gives us time before Miss Donnithorne’s bell rings.”
“Ah, then, I must not keep you now, else I should like to show you the Hermitage. Did you ever see it?”
“No, sir.”
“This is the walk where we turn up to it. But we must not go now. I’ll show it you some other time, if you’d like to see it.”
“Yes, please, sir.”
“Do you always come back this way in the evening, or are you afraid to come so lonely a road?”
“Oh no, sir, it’s never late; I always set out by eight o’clock, and it’s so light now in the evening. My aunt would be angry with me if I didn’t get home before nine.”
“Perhaps Craig, the gardener, comes to take care of you?”
A deep blush overspread Hetty’s face and neck. “I’m sure he doesn’t; I’m sure he never did; I wouldn’t let him; I don’t like him,” she said hastily, and the tears of vexation had come so fast that before she had done speaking a bright drop rolled down her hot cheek. Then she felt ashamed to death that she was crying, and for one long instant her happiness was all gone. But in the next she felt an arm steal round her, and a gentle voice said, “Why, Hetty, what makes you cry? I didn’t mean to vex you. I wouldn’t vex you for the world, you little blossom. Come, don’t cry; look at me, else I shall think you won’t forgive me.”
Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and was stooping towards Hetty with a look of coaxing entreaty. Hetty lifted her long dewy lashes, and met the eyes that were bent towards her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look. What a space of time those three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her! Love is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places. While Arthur gazed into Hetty’s dark beseeching eyes, it made no difference to him what sort of English she spoke; and even if hoops and powder had been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then that Hetty wanted those signs of high breeding.
But they started asunder with beating hearts: something had fallen on the ground with a rattling noise; it was Hetty’s basket; all her little workwoman’s matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a capability of rolling to great lengths. There was much to be done in picking up, and not a word was spoken; but when Arthur hung the basket over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his look and manner. He just pressed her hand, and said, with a look and tone that were almost chilling to her, “I have been hindering you; I must not keep you any longer now. You will be expected at the house. Good-bye.”
Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried back towards the road that led to the Hermitage, leaving Hetty to pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarieties and sadness. Would he meet her again as she came home? Why had he spoken almost as if he were displeased with her? And then run away so suddenly? She cried, hardly knowing why.
Arthur too was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a more distinct consciousness. He hurried to the Hermitage, which stood in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench, slammed it after him, pitched Zeluco into the most distant corner, and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable stiff way, as we often do when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling.
He was getting in love with Hetty—that was quite plain. He was ready to pitch everything else—no matter where—for the sake of surrendering himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself. It was no use blinking the fact now—they would get too fond of each other, if he went on taking notice of her—and what would come of it? He should have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be miserable. He must not see her alone again; he must keep out of her way. What a fool he was for coming back from Gawaine’s!
He got up and threw open the windows, to let in the soft breath of the afternoon, and the healthy scent of the firs that made a belt round the Hermitage. The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out and looked into the leafy distance. But he considered his resolution sufficiently fixed: there was no need to debate with himself any longer. He had made up his mind not to meet Hetty again; and now he might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be if circumstances were different—how pleasant it would have been to meet her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were thinking of him too—twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were with the tear on their lashes! He would like to satisfy his soul for a day with looking at them, and he must see her again—he must see her, simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her—just to prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes, that would be the best thing to do after all.
It was a long while—more than an hour before Arthur had brought his meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until he should see Hetty again. And it was already late enough to go and dress for dinner, for his grandfather’s dinner-hour was six.
Chapter XIII.
Evening in the Wood.
It happened that Mrs. Pomfret had had a slight quarrel with Mrs. Best, the housekeeper, on this Thursday morning—a fact which had two consequences highly convenient to Hetty. It caused Mrs. Pomfret to have tea sent up to her own room, and it inspired that exemplary lady’s maid with so lively a recollection of former passages in Mrs. Best’s conduct, and of dialogues in which Mrs. Best had decidedly the inferiority as an interlocutor with Mrs. Pomfret, that Hetty required no more presence of mind than was demanded for using her needle, and throwing in an occasional “yes” or “no.” She would have wanted to put on her hat earlier than usual; only she had told Captain Donnithorne that she usually set out about eight o’clock, and if he should go to the Grove again expecting to see her, and she should be gone! Would he come? Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation. At last the minute-hand of the old-fashioned brazen-faced timepiece was on the last quarter to eight, and there was every reason for its being time to get ready for departure. Even Mrs. Pomfret’s preoccupied mind did not prevent her from noticing what looked like a new flush of beauty in the little thing as she tied on her hat before the looking-glass.
“That child gets prettier and prettier every