Part 15 (2/2)

”Yes, my dear.”

”You had letters of introduction to Dr. Mulhaus, when he came to reside in this village?” asked Miss Thornton.

”Yes; Lord C----, whom I knew at Oxford, recommended me to him.”

”His real name, I daresay, is not Mulhaus. Do you know what his real name is, brother?”

How very awkward plain plump questions of this kind are. The Vicar would have liked to answer ”No,” but he could not tell a lie. He was also a very bad hand at prevaricating; so with a stammer, he said ”Yes!”

”So do I!” said Miss Thornton.

”Good Lord, my dear, how did you find it out?”

”I recognised him the first instant I saw him, and was struck dumb. I was very discreet, and have never said a word even to you till now; and, lately, I have been thinking that you might know, and so I thought I would sound you.”

”I suppose you saw him when you were with her ladys.h.i.+p in Paris, in '14?”

”Yes; often,” said Miss Thornton. ”He came to the house several times.

How well I remember the last. The dear girls and I were in the conservatory in the morning, and all of a sudden we heard the door thrown open, and two men coming towards us talking from the breakfast-room. We could not see them for the plants, but when we heard the voice of one of them, the girls got into a terrible flutter, and I was very much frightened myself. However, there was no escape, so we came round the corner on them as bold as we could, and there was this Dr. Mulhaus, as we call him, walking with him.”

”With him?--with who?”

”The Emperor Alexander, my dear, whose voice we had recognised; I thought you would have known whom I meant.”

”My dear love,” said the Vicar, ”I hope you reflect how sacred that is, and what a good friend I should lose if the slightest hint as to who he was, were to get among the gentry round. You don't think he has recognised you?”

”How is it likely, brother, that he would remember an English governess, whom he never saw but three times, and never looked at once?

I have often wondered whether the Major recognised him.”

”No; Buckley is a Peninsular man, and although at Waterloo, never went to Paris. Lans--Mulhaus, I mean, was not present at Waterloo. So they never could have met. My dear discreet old sister, what tact you have!

I have often said to myself, when I have seen you and he together, 'If she only knew who he was;'--and to think of your knowing all the time.

Ha! ha! ha! That's very good.”

”I have lived long where tact is required, my dear brother. See, there goes young Mr. Hawker!”

”I'd sooner see him going home than coming here. Now, I'd go out for a turn in the lanes, but I know I should meet half a dozen couples courting, as they call it. Bah! So I'll stay in the garden.”

The Vicar was right about the lanes being full of lovers. Never a vista that you looked down but what you saw a ghostly pair, walking along side by side. Not arm in arm, you know. The man has his hands in his pockets, and walks a few feet off the woman. They never speak to one another--I think I don't go too far in saying that. I have met them and overtaken them, and come sharp round corners on to them, but I never heard them speak to one another. I have asked the young men themselves whether they ever said anything to their sweethearts, and those young men have answered, ”No; that they didn't know as they did.” So that I am inclined to believe that they are contented with that silent utterance of the heart which is so superior to the silly whisperings one hears on dark ottomans in drawing-rooms.

But the Vicar had a strong dislike to lovers' walks. He was a practical man, and had studied parish statistics for some years, so that his opinion is ent.i.tled to respect. He used to ask, why an honest girl should not receive her lover at her father's house, or in broad daylight, and many other impertinent questions which we won't go into, but which many a west-country parson has asked before, and never got an answer to.

Of all pleasant places in the parish, surely one of the pleasantest for a meeting of this kind was the old oak at the end of Hawker's plantation, where George met Nelly a night we know of. So quiet and lonely, and such pleasant glimpses down long oaken glades, with a bright carpet of springing fern. Surely there will be a couple here this sweet May evening.

So there is! Walking this way too! George Hawker is one of them; but we can't see who the other is. Who should it be but Mary, though, with whom he should walk, with his arm round her waist talking so affectionately. But see, she raises her head. Why! that is not Mary.

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