THE RUINS OF HAZELDEN.
NEXT day William walked to Wymering Church, five miles away, whither Clinton drove Martha Gillyflower and her guest. The tall girl with her dark-gray cloak on, and a borrowed black straw bonnet of Mall’s, and a black veil supplied by the good old woman, was a demure and nun-like figure enough. If she knew nothing of our church service, she nevertheless went through — shall I call it? — her drill very exactly; she imitated, I suppose, the down-sittings and up-risings, the kneelings and the courtesies, and the reverential air of the worthy old housekeeper, close by whose side she stood, enjoying, as they did in the quaint little church, a small seat to themselves near the door.
It is not possible, however, quite to veil such beauty as that of the young girl who stood beside Mrs. Gillyflower. That devout woman was made uneasy and indignant by the marked attention with which the three persons who constituted the worth and gallantry of that primitive place of worship regarded her companion. Squire Belleston, who lived four miles away at the other side, and is a lean young fellow of 50, with a good deal of gold-chain and jewelry, and a flower always in his button hole, ogled the pew, with marked but sly benignity, during the admirable sermon of the Rev. Doctor Runt. Short Mr. Alfred Runt, the rector’s eldest son and heir, did, in more earnest if less graceful fashion, the same thing; and young Mr. Sudors, the doctor’s assistant, who had come all the way from Golden Friars to spend the day, sacrificed the entire Litany to ogling in a lost sweet way the self-same point of observation — sucking all the while the polished ivory ball that forms the handle of his cane, and which he was very near swallowing in consequence of a sudden look of fierce detection from Mrs. Martha Gillyflower.
These interesting young gentlemen would possibly have given that discreet chaperone further trouble, had they not been entangled in the porch by their, young lady acquaintances and others. So Martha in the tax-cart led by Peter Clinton, and the strange girl on foot, found themselves quite unmolested ascending the steep bit of hill under the old ash-trees near the church.
Perched on a bough of one of these great ash-trees that stoop over that narrow road, and half-hid among the ivy that thickly covers it, a little black-eyed sunburnt boy looked down on them as they slowly made their way up the hill. He dropped from the branch to the road, and ran after the girl, begging with the whine of a professed mendicant.
When the horses had reached the top of the hill, the girl had fallen some way behind, and was talking with the little fellow, who was walking slowly up the hill beside her. She questioned the boy sharply, and lent an attentive ear, with a very thoughtful face, as he answered volubly. When Clinton looked back, he saw her dismiss him with a wave of her hand; and then she hurried after the tax-cart, and got up in silence, with an anxious and pale face, and did not speak to Martha till they had got a long way towards home.
“How long have you lived, Mrs. Gillyflower?” she asked, at last.
“Hoot, lass — there’s a question! Well, a good while, ye may suppose.”
“Well — well! well — well!” said the girl, sadly.
“And what’s the matter now, wise-head?”
“I was thinking ye must be pretty well tired,” she said, sweetly, with a shrug.
“Tired! Not I, lass; I’m good for twenty years yet.”
“I don’t know what we’re put here for. Life’s a fire that burns sore, Mrs. Gillyflower; I’d rather mine was cold,” wailed the girl. “‘Taint long cutting a grave, and then there’s no more trouble about a poor fool!”
“By Jen, here’s a doleful homminy!” said the old woman. “Do you want to put us in the dumps? Awa’ wi’ ye, ye goose!”
“Goose and gander; your parson said the same to-day — up in his box,” said the girl, more like herself. “If I’m a fool, he’s a bigger! And what are you, Mrs. Gillyflower, to go all that way to listen to his preachment?”
“There’s a wide difference between a parson in a pulpit and a chit like you, lass, jiggin’ heam in a gig. Can’t ye talk o’ something else, dear, and leave those things to sich as understand them?”
“That’s a secret we’ll all understand some day,” said the girl, and laughed gently.
About an hour later William tapped at the kitchen-window, close to which the girl was whistling to the bullfinch.
“Come out, Miss Perdita, please, till I show you one of our castles; and if old Martha hears you whistling on Sunday; I don’t know what may happen. I know I dare not do it.”
She blushed, she laughed, and she ran out.
“You were very good to come, and make no favor of it,” said William, speaking low.
“It is none, sir. It may lie in my power yet to serve you, and if it should, I will.”
“I’m sure you would — though I don’t deserve it. I call you Miss Perdita, because I don’t know your name, and you won’t tell it; and I should consider that a favor, for instance, if you would.”
“Any name you please, sir. Names are nothing.”
“We go by this path. You see the ruin, quite close to us. We lived there once, before this house was built. But why won’t you tell me your name? — ain’t that very unkind?”
“’Twould be no kindness to tell it, sir; my name’s no consequence.”
“If you knew me better, perhaps you would tell it?”
“Yes, sir — if I knew you better.”
“And liked me better?”
“I’m of no consequence, sir; I shan’t be here long,” she said, very gravely. “I should not like my name mentioned. If some people could find out where I was, they would hurt me, I think; and please, sir, don’t ask me.”
He walked on a few steps in silence, looking down at the grass near his feet — disappointed. After a while, said William, raising his eyes, and looking about him:
“There is one place that I have been at, that is wonderfully like this; and oh! I wish I knew everything that has ever happened there.”
Rather a crazy speech was this, but he looked serious enough. He was thinking of the paragraph about the fugitive nun in the Beacon of Northumbria, which had begun to trouble him.
“It is a place on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire; it is very like this — only it has a nunnery, but that is in a hollow, and shows very little; and there is a ruined castle there — so like this — with just the same kind of trees about it; it is called Fothergang, and I think you have been there, not very long ago; I’m nearly sure — and — will you tell me?”
It was not mere curiosity that urged this question. It was an entreaty rather than a question, and urged with an earnestness that was pathetic.
The girl looked at him darkly with a side-glance for a second, and dropped her eyes, and then looked, in silence, at the walls of the old castle; and then, with a fearless look at William, dismissing her momentary embarrassment, and with a little tone of defiance in what she said, she answered:
“Yes, sir, I have seen that place; I suppose you have been told so. I’ve been at Fothergang lately; and now you may tell the people that’s looking for me, if ye like.”
She turned away slowly, pale, and with a faint smile in which he saw pain and scorn.
“Tell those people!” he repeated. “Why, I’d die to protect you! How can you — how could you — say anything so cruel? Not to living creature but yourself should I for worlds say anything that could endanger you!”
“I was vexed. I don’t think, maybe, all I said; and I won’t talk of Fothergang another word.”
“Nor I,” said the Squire,’ “nor ask a question.”
A considerable silence intervened before he resumed his office of cicerone.
“From this little knoll it looks very well. I don’t know why they did not go on living there; it was a much finer building than the house. The house was built just 180 years ago, and we have been growing poorer and poorer ever since. It was not lucky, you see. There used to be fighting here long ago, in these northern counties — very different from our times. We had seven castles; that is half as many as the Howards had,” said William.
“One house is enough for a family — and too much often,” she said, quietly.
“You mean where there is not money to keep it,” said William with a shrug and a laugh.
“You say you’re poor, sir, but you’ve been very kind; would not it be vile in me to laugh at your poverty? You’ll not think so of me.” She looked beautifully proud, and her fiery black eyes turned on him for a moment. “I would not let any one make little of you, sir.”
I don’t know that William Haworth had ever felt so gratified before. He was silent for a little time — he was so happy and proud.
He did not acknowledge it; he went on speaking of the ruined towers before them. He was looking at her, and had never seen, he thought, anything so beautiful. William Haworth, you never were in so great danger before! He was growing, without half knowing it, to love her.
“Come as far as that door; through it you can see a great deal.”
They stood side by side, and she looked into the chiaroscuro of the old chamber; and on its great stone angle, on which was seen the chiselling of seven hundred years before, she leaned her hand, an image of perishable youth and grace.
“You never saw a place like that before, did you?” said William.
“Oh yes, sir; we were once close to one very like this. I used to be in it every day, running up and down a curlikew stair like that, and running along the wall at top; I was always very nimble.”
So William told his story, and pointed out all that was worth seeing; and, leaning on the side of the doorway, he looked at her and sighed.
“I like you better every hour; it is hard you don’t like me better!” and with this odd and sad speech he was silent. Then he said:
“I tell you what — I’ll set this down in my mind. Whenever you tell me your name, it will be a sign that you trust me more, and like me better; and I won’t ask — you shall do it of yourself. But I’ll tell you mine. My name is Willie, and you must call me by it, and never ‘Sir’ any more.”
“I’m only a poor girl, sir; I could not do that.”
“You will — I entreat!”
“No, sir. My people — we keep separate — they like that best. I’ll take no such freedom, sir; I’m only a poor girl.”
“No, you’re not poor. You’re the wealthiest girl in England, in the true wealth of beauty, and grace, and mind; and the finest lady that ever I saw or could imagine!”
“I did not think you could talk so foolish, sir,” said the girl, turning her head toward home, with a pained look.
“Is it foolish ever to speak the truth?” said he, impetuously.
“I’m going home, sir, to the house; the old lady will be expecting me. There was a thing I was going to tell you — a question to ask — but that don’t matter.”
“But it does matter; I implore of you to tell me!”
“No, sir. I don’t like that wild talk you’re so fond of — it’s making little of me.”
“It was, perhaps, very wrong,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll be quite different, you’ll see. You must forgive me. You don’t think — you couldn’t — that I ever forgot the respect I owe you?”
“No, I don’t think that; but I don’t like it, sir, nohow; and can’t we talk quiet, like other folk?”
“Well — well, can I do more than promise? I won’t; I’ll speak just as you please. I’ll keep my word, upon my honor!”
“Well, sir, I’ll tell you.”