Part 11 (1/2)
To Lady Chetwoode, who is fond of young life, she is especially grateful, and creeps into her kind heart in an incredibly short time, finding no impediment to check her progress.
Once a day, armed with huge gloves and a gigantic scissors, Lady Chetwoode makes a tour of her gardens, snipping, and plucking, and giving superfluous orders to the attentive gardeners all the time. After her trots Lilian, supplied with a basket and a restless tongue that seldom wearies, but is always ready to suggest, or help the thought that sometimes comes slowly to her hostess.
”As you were saying last night, my dear Lilian----” says Lady Chetwoode, vaguely, coming to a full stop before the head gardener, and gazing at Lilian for further inspiration; she had evidently remembered only the smallest outline of what she wants to say.
”About the ivy on the north wall? You wanted it thinned. You thought it a degree too straggling.”
”Yes,--yes; of course. You hear, Michael, I want it clipped and thinned, and---- There was something else about the ivy, my child, wasn't there?”
”You wished it mixed with the variegated kind, did you not?”
”Ah, of course. I wonder how I ever got on without Lilian,” says the old lady, gently pinching the girl's soft peach-like cheek. ”Florence, without doubt, is a comfort,--but--she is not fond of gardening. Shall we come and take a peep at the grapes, dear?” And so on.
Occasionally, too,--being fond of living out of doors in the summer, and being a capital farmeress,--Lady Chetwoode takes a quiet walk down to the home farm, to inspect all the latest arrivals. And here, too, Miss Lilian must needs follow.
There are twelve merry, showy little calves in one field, that run all together in their ungainly, jolting fas.h.i.+on up to the high gate that guards their domain, the moment Lady Chetwoode and her visitor arrive, under the mistaken impression that she and Lilian are a pair of dairy-maids coming to solace them with unlimited pans of milk.
Lilian cries ”Shoo!” at the top of her gay young voice, and instantly all the handsome, foolish things scamper away as though destruction were at their heels, leaving Miss Chesney delighted at the success of her own performance.
Then in the paddock there are four mad little colts to be admired, whose chief joy in life seems to consist in kicking their hind legs wildly into s.p.a.ce, while their more sedate mothers stand apart and compare notes upon their darlings' merit.
This paddock is Lilian's special delight, and all the way there, and all the way back she chatters unceasingly, making the old lady's heart grow young again, as she listens to, and laughs at, all the merry stories Miss Chesney tells her of her former life.
To-day--although the morning has been threatening--is now quite fine.
Tired of sulking, it cleared up half an hour ago, and is now throwing out a double portion of heat, as though to make up for its early deficiencies.
The
”King of the East, ... girt With song and flame and fragrance, slowly lifts His golden feet on those empurpled stairs That climb into the windy halls of heaven,”
and, casting his million beams abroad, enlivens the whole earth.
It is a day when one might saunter but not walk, when one might dream though wide awake, when one is perforce amiable because argument or contradiction would be too great an exertion.
Sir Guy--who has been making a secret though exhaustive search through the house for Miss Chesney--now turns his steps toward the orchard, where already instinct has taught him she is usually to be found.
He is not looking quite so _insouciant_, or carelessly happy, as when first we saw him, now two weeks ago; there is a little gnawing, dissatisfied feeling at his heart, for which he dare not account even to himself.
He thinks a good deal of his ward, and his ward thinks a good deal of him; but unfortunately their thoughts do not amalgamate harmoniously.
Toward Sir Guy Miss Chesney's actions have not been altogether just.
Cyril she treats with affection, and the utmost _bonhommie_, but toward his brother--in spite of her civility on that first day of meeting--she maintains a strict and irritating reserve.
He is her guardian (detestable, thankless office), and she takes good care that neither he or she shall ever forget that fact. Secretly she resents it, and openly gratifies that resentment by denying his authority in all things, and being specially willful and wayward when occasion offers; as though to prove to him that she, for one, does not acknowledge his power over her.
Not that this ill-treated young man has the faintest desire to a.s.sert any authority whatever. On the contrary, he is most desirous of being all there is of the most submissive when in her presence; but Miss Chesney declines to see his humility, and chooses instead to imagine him capable of oppressing her with all sorts of tyrannical commands at a moment's notice.
There is a little cloud on his brow as he reaches the garden and walks moodily along its princ.i.p.al path. This cloud, however, lightens and disappears, as upon the southern border he hears voices that tell him his search is at an end.