THE SQUIRE IMPROVES HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH HIS GUEST.
WILLIAM was longing to talk, but he did not know how to begin. He felt a little gêné. In the girl’s serenity there was, a feeling of inferiority that embarrassed him. He was very much afraid that she would have completed her task, and gone away with her arm laden with flowers, before he had made up his mind what to say. He was standing beside her without a word, and looking, he began to think, very foolish; and his awkwardness was enhanced by the secret misgiving, “What an ass she must think me!”
At last a thought struck him, and he said: —
“I was so glad you stayed with us.”
“You are very kind, sir — yes, forty-eight hours — thank you, sir.”
“If you had gone, you know, it would have been as much as saying you thought us churls, and did not trust our hospitality; and I wish — it is not impertinence, I assure you — to ask you, if you’ll allow me, just a question or two. May I?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the girl, turning toward him, and standing like a picture of a Southern Flora, with her roses hanging clustered over her arm, and her eyes lowered to the grass near her foot. She does not look as if he were going to question her, but proud and grave, as a princess going to hear a petition.
“It was only this,” he began. “Mrs. Gillyflower says you are going to make a journey to the residence of some of your friends. I don’t know, of course, what the distance may be; but if you will allow me, I will tell Clinton, and you can drive in the tax-cart, twenty miles, in any direction you please.”
“Thank you, sir — that’s very kind of you; but I’ll walk, sir,” said this independent heroine. “I’ve very good shoes, sir.”
And, by way of demonstration, she put out, in a strong shoe, the very slenderest and shapeliest foot he had ever seen.
“Well — and will you pardon me this? You know you are very young,” he added, wisely, “and you can’t have much experience in travelling, especially in such travelling. And I radier think you have been leading a particularly quiet life.”
He said this pointedly, apropos of another accidental glimpse of her rosary, and he paused for a little; but there followed not the least sign or movement to indicate acquiescence or denial.
“And at all events,” he said, “I wish so very much you would allow me to renew Mrs. Gillyflower’s offer; she is really quite unhappy about it, and so am I — very; you ought to have some little provision more than she says you have about you.”
“That’s good of you, sir, but I have more money than I want; very little would carry me a long way.”
“I see you are more cruel than you look; you won’t allow me to be of the least use — you’ll accept nothing from us. I think that is hardly kind, Miss — Miss — You have not even told me your name.”
“Any name you please will do, sir.”
“Oh, I may take my choice,” he laughed. “I know that young ladies, when they betake themselves to a solitary life, change their names, as they do when they marry. Miss Mayflower, or Miss Nightingale, becomes Sister Eugenia, or Sister Cecilia; and I suppose you mean that I am at liberty to choose from the calendar, and I can’t choose very wrong.”
He said all this archly; he fancied —— simple youth! — that he might bring about a confidence, and become a champion; and he was growing to feel that he would give half Haworth for a chance of fighting in her quarrel. But the girl stood, as before, with her eyes lowered to the grass near her foot “You’ve refused all my poor requests,” said he. “I believe that compassion is killed in the shadow of the cloister, and a cruel purity, taintless and cold as snow, dwells only in that colorless and freezing life. May I ask you a question?”
“Surely, sir.”
“Is it true that you fear a revengeful man is in pursuit of you?”
“Mrs. Gillyflower told you that — did not she?” asked the girl, raising her splendid eyes to his.
“Yes, certainly, it was she,” he replied. “It is so, sir — quite true. That’s why I stayed; I would not have him overtake me in a lonely place. He’s always plotting mischief and rolling revenges. They say he’s mad; drink, I think, has made his brain unsound. I should have to run and fight and fight and run, for my life. He would not think twice; he’d fell me with his cudgel, as ready as look, and throw me in a brook.”
“Thank you for speaking so frankly,” said he. “Now, remember you are my guest and your life is dear to me; you shan’t leave this to-morrow.”
“Have you heard he’s about here?” she asked.
“No matter,” said he, evading. “You must stay over to-morrow. I say I will not risk you.”
“I would stay to-morrow, sir, only I’m sure my people will be looking for me; I sent them word.”
“That’s no reason. If they care for you as they ought, they should be only too glad that you were made safe until that ruffian is off your track. Pray remain; do — I entreat!”
He placed his hand upon her arm as he pleaded.
“It is very good of you, sir; and as you say, so I will.”
“You have made me so happy,” said he, and he did look quite radiant; “and I’ll tell Martha. Perhaps you’d prefer that she should ask you; and would not it be well if you told her everything? You have no idea what a wise old woman she is. She could give you such good counsel, and who knows but it may end by your staying with her — for I’m sure you like a quiet life — a great deal longer than you ever dreamed.”
And so he went on, eloquently, for a good while.
What was there so odd and unsatisfactory in the expression of her beautiful features, as the girl listened to his eloquence? He tried afterwards to analyze it. It resembled the expression which they wore in conversation with Martha Gillyflower — the expression with which a beautiful girl might listen to the kindly prattle of a child who thought itself wondrous wise. Amused superiority and good-nature, and something of sadness and compassion, were there.
“Well, I’ve been giving very wise advice, as I supposed, and I see you are laughing at me,” said he, with a smile.
“No, sir, I don’t laugh; you would not think that, but what you say would not answer me; there’s no one thing about it I could do.”
She smiled genuinely now, and shook her head.
“Well, I’ve had my innings, and done no good; will you try now? I should be very glad of good advice. Here I am, a poor man, of an old but decayed family, and far from content with his lot: what do you advise me to do?”
“I’m not fit to advise such as you are, sir.”
“Pray do, though. How can you tell? — how can I? I have no one to advise me, and your counsel might be the very best I could have.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, but try — pray do.”
“Do you understand horses?”
“No.”
“Are you going for a soldier?”
“No; what would you change about me?”
“I don’t know, sir; I think I’d throw the books out o’ the window.”
“Why?”
“They’re not manly. Why should you be sitting all day, like a woman, in a room — stifling?”
“But I must earn money, and I can’t do that without reading.”
“Liberty is better than money. What does a man want, after all, but bread and health? Men shutting themselves up in a house, like ladies! I sometimes wonder they’re not ashamed!”
There was no enthusiasm, real or affected, in this speech, which she spoke musingly; but it nettled him, for he thought he saw in her pretty face more of the old expression of amusement and disdain.
“Well, I for one don’t like it — I hate it!” pleaded he. “But so it is. We must do it, or be nowhere in the great race.”
“The great race up a hill, they say, and over a scawr; that’s what makes them old and tired before they’re well begun, spending their lives chasing — nothing! — in place of learning how little will make a man happy, and living in freedom.”
He looked in her face, and somehow he felt that the girl was right, and life a fallacy and a perversion.
“I dare say you are right,” he said, with a sigh. “I’m sure you are right; but we are entered so early for the race — in for the combat before we know; and then habit and pride, You speak truth, I think; but after a certain point is past, truth only makes us sad.”
“I’m going now, sir; in— “
“And — and — you won’t tell me your name?”
“I could tell you many names, sir, that would do as well as mine.”
“As well! — How?”
“As well to call me by, for a day.”
“Well, you won’t trust me.”
“There’s none but enemies near here that knows my name. I’d rather not, sir.”
“I must only make a guess, then — shall’ I?”
“No harm, sir — no good; you’ll never guess it,” she answered, carelessly.
“Will you tell me truly if I make a good guess?”
“I don’t think you will.”
“I think I could tell you one that is very like it.”
“Perhaps you could, sir.”
“Well, then, I think it is not very unlike — Euphemia,” said William Haworth, with a smile.
His meaning glance was met by a sudden flash from the girl’s splendid eyes; and she looked at him, for a moment or two, with a sort of startled expectation. It subsided in a moment more, but the Squire had made his inferences.
“You see, I’m not quite so much in the dark as you supposed,” said he, still smiling; and then more earnestly he continued: “But you are not to suppose — I am sure you could not do me that wrong — that if an accident has told me more than you intended to confess, I could be base and cowardly enough to permit any human being, while you honor my poor house with your presence, to trouble your quiet, or endanger your liberty. Pray rely upon me. We have never been cowards — never been traitors. I would defend you with my life!”
She looked with a side-glance of her large eyes in the face of the enthusiastic young man, and then down on the flowers that lay in a blooming sheaf on her arm, and said: —
“Some folks say you northern squires are hard — but all agree you’re proud — and you’ll allow none, small or great, that depends on you to be wronged; and I think you’re kind beside, sir, and would not like to see any one in trouble. Is not that so?”
William smiled.
“You give us north - countrymen a good character, and me in particular; and I am too much gratified by your commendation to refuse it. But, be that how it may, rely on us; we will take good care of you while you remain at Haworth.”
“You are good to me — all,” said the girl; “and please, sir, I’ll go in with these roses now — very kind; and I hope God will bless you!”
“And, mind, you’ve promised you stay over to-morrow?”
“Yes, sir — thanks.”
“Give me your hand upon it.”
And so she did, instantly. What a pretty slender hand it was! He was holding it longer than need be.
“I keep my word, sir, always. I’m grateful, sir, for your kindness,” she said, with a grave and gentle air, drawing her hand back at the same time, as if to settle the straggling flowers on her arm; and so she was gone, and he alone.
And William Haworth sighed, and leaned his shoulder against the tree, and sighed again. He was thinking of liberty, and sighing, to think that yeaning for it was vain as for heaven. And yet — why?