Part 8 (1/2)
”Yes,” said Howard, ”'the old, unhappy, far-off things,' that turn themselves into songs and stories! That is another puzzle; one's own sorrows and tragedies, would one like to think of them as being made into songs for other people to enjoy? I suppose we ought to be glad of it; but there does not seem anything poetical about them at the time; and yet they end by being sweeter than the old happy things. The 'Isle of Thorns'! Yes, that IS a beautiful name.”
Suddenly there came a faint musical sound on the air, as sweet as honey. Howard held up his hand. ”What on earth or in heaven is that?”
he said.
”Those are the chimes of Sherborne!” said Maud. ”One hears them like that when the wind is in this quarter. I like to hear them--they have always been to me a sort of omen of something pleasant about to happen.
Perhaps it is in your honour to-day, to welcome you!”
”Well,” said Howard, ”they are beautiful enough by themselves; and if they will bring me greater happiness than I have, I shall not object to that!”
They smiled at each other, and stood in silence for a little, and then Maud pointed out some neighbouring villages. ”All this,” she said, ”is Cousin Anne's--and yours. I think the Isle of Thorns is yours.”
”Then the old chief shall not be disturbed,” said Howard.
”How curious it is,” said Maud, ”to see a place of which one knows every inch laid out like a map beneath one. It seems quite a different place! As if something beautiful and strange must be happening there, if only one could see it!”
”Yes,” said Howard, ”it is odd how we lose the feeling that a place is romantic when we come to know it. When I first went up to Cambridge, there were many places there that seemed to me to be so interesting: walls which seemed to hide gardens full of thickets, strange doorways by which no one ever pa.s.sed out or in, barred windows giving upon dark courts, out of which no one ever seemed to look. But now that I know them all from the inside, they seem commonplace enough. The hidden garden is a place where Dons smoke and play bowls; the barred window is an undergraduate's gyp-room; there's no mystery left about them now.
This place as I see it to-day--well, it seems the most romantic place in the world, full of unutterable secrets of life and death; but I suppose it may all come to wear a perfectly natural air to me some day.”
”That is what I like so much about Cousin Anne,” said Maud; ”nothing seems to be commonplace to her, and she puts back the mystery and wonder into it all. One must learn to do that for oneself somehow.”
”Yes, she's a great woman!” said Howard; ”but what shall we do now?”
”Oh, I am sorry,” said Maud, ”I have been keeping you all this time--wouldn't you like to go and look for Jack? I think I heard a shot just now up the valley.”
”No,” said Howard, looking at her and smiling, ”we won't go and look for Jack to-day; he has quite enough of my company. I want your company to-day, and only yours. I want to get used to my new-found cousin.”
”And to get rid of the sense of romance about her?” said Maud with a smile; ”you will soon come to the end of me.”
”I will take my chance of that,” said Howard. ”At present I feel on the other side of the wall.”
”But I don't,” said Maud, laughing; ”I can't think how you slip in and fit in as you do, and disentangle all our little puzzles as you have done. I thought I should be terrified of you--and now I feel as if I had known you ever so long. You are like Cousin Anne, you know.”
”Perhaps I am, a little,” said Howard, ”but you are not very much like Jack! Show me Mrs. Darby's house, by the way. I wonder how things are going.”
”There it is,” said Maud, pointing to a house not far from the Vicarage, ”and there is Dr. Grierson's dogcart. I am afraid I had not been thinking about her; but I do hope it's all right. I think she will get over this. Don't you always have an idea, when people are ill, whether they will get well or not?”
”Yes,” said Howard, ”I do; but it doesn't always come right!”
They lingered long on the hill, and at last Maud said that she must return for tea. ”Papa will be sure to bring Dr. Grierson in.”
They went down the hill, talking lightly and easily; and to Howard it was more delightful than anything he had known to have a peep into the girl's frank and ingenuous mind. She was full of talk--spontaneous, inconsequent talk--like Jack; and yet with a vast difference. Hers was not a wholly happy temperament, Howard thought; she seemed oppressed by a sense of duty, and he could not help feeling that she needed some sort of outlet. Neither the Vicar nor Jack were people who stood in need of sympathy or affection. He felt that they did not quite understand the drift of the girl's mind, which seemed clear enough to him. And yet there fell on him, for all his happiness, a certain dissatisfaction. He would have liked to feel less elderly, less paternal; and the girl's frank confidence in him, treating him as she might have treated an uncle or an elder brother, was at once delightful and disconcerting. The day began to decline as they walked, and the light faded to a sombre bleakness. Howard went back to the Vicarage with her, and, at her urgent request, went in to tea. They found the Vicar and Dr. Grierson already established. Mrs. Darby was quite comfortable, and no danger was apprehended. The Vicar's diagnosis had been right, and his precautions perfect. ”I could not have done better myself!” said Dr. Grierson, a kindly, bluff Scotchman. Howard became aware that the Vicar must have told the Doctor the news about his inheritance, and was subtly flattered at being treated by him with the empress.e.m.e.nt reserved for squires. Jack came in--he had been shooting all afternoon--and told Howard he was improving. ”I shall catch you up,” he said. He seemed frankly amused at the idea of Howard having spent the afternoon with Maud. ”You have got the whole family on your back, it seems,” he said. Maud was silent, but in her heightened colour and sparkling eye Howard discerned a touch of happiness, and he enjoyed the quiet attention she gave to his needs. The Vicar seemed sorry that they had not made a closer inspection of the village. ”But you were right to begin with a general coup d'oeil,” he said; ”the whole before the parts! First the conspectus, then the details,” he added delightedly. ”So you have been to the Isle of Thorns?” he went on. ”I want to rake out the old fellow up there some day--but Cousin Anne won't allow it--you must persuade her; and we will have a splendid field-day there, unearthing all the old boy's arrangements; I am sure he has never been disturbed.”
”I am afraid I agree with my aunt,” said Howard, shaking his head.
”Ah, Maud has been getting at you, I perceive,” said the Vicar. ”A very feminine view! Now in the interests of ethnology we ought to go forward--dear me, how full the world is of interesting things!”