Volume Ii Part 92 (1/2)
Drawing Fleda's arm within hers, and giving kind recognition to the rest who stood around, Mrs. Carleton led her to the stairs and mounted them, repeating in a whisper, ”He will be here presently again.” They went to Mrs. Carleton's dressing- room, Fleda wondering in an internal fever, whether ”orders had been given” to expect her also? ? from the old butler's benign look at her, as he said, ”All is well!” she could not help thinking it. If she maintained her outward quiet, it was the merest external crust of seeming; there was nothing like quiet beneath it; and Mrs. Carleton's kiss and fond words of welcome were hardly composing.
Mrs. Carleton made her sit down, and with very gentle hands was busy arranging her hair, when the housekeeper came in to pay her more particular respects, and to offer her services.
Fleda hardly ventured a glance to see whether _she_ looked benign. She was a dignified elderly person, as stately and near as handsome as Mrs. Carleton herself.
”My dear Fleda,” said the latter, when she had finished the hair, ”I am going to see my sister; will you let Mrs.
Fothergill help you in anything you want, and take you then to the library ? you will find no one, and I will come to you there. Mrs. Fothergill, I recommend you to the particular care of this lady.”
The recommendation was not needed, Fleda thought, or was very effectual; the housekeeper served her with most a.s.siduous care, and in absolute silence. Fleda hurried the finis.h.i.+ng of her toilet.
”Are the people quiet in the country?” she forced herself to say.
”Perfectly quiet, Ma'am. It needed only that my master should be at home to make them so.”
”How is that?”
”He has their love and their ear, Ma'am, and so it is that he can just do his pleasure with them.”
”How is it in the neighbouring country?”
”They're quiet, Ma'am, I believe ? mostly ? there's been some little disturbance in one place and another, and more fear of it, as well as I can make out, but it's well got over, as it appears. The n.o.blemen and gentlemen in the country around were very glad, all of them, I am told, of Mr. Carleton's return.
Is there nothing more I can do for you, Ma'am?”
The last question was put with an indefinable touch of kindliness which had not softened the respect of her first words. Fleda begged her to show the way to the library, which Mrs. Fothergill immediately did, remarking, as she ushered her in, that ”those were Mr. Carleton's favourite rooms.”
Fleda did not need to be told that; she put the remark and the benignity together, and drew a nervous inference. But Mrs.
Fothergill was gone, and she was alone. n.o.body was there, as Mrs. Carleton had said.
Fleda stood still in the middle of the floor, looking around her, in a bewildered effort to realize the past and the present; with all the mind in the world to cry, but there was too great a pressure of excitement, and too much strangeness of feeling at work. Nothing before her, in the dimly familiar place, served at all to lessen this feeling, and, recovering from her maze, she went to one of the glazed doors, which stood open, and turned her back upon the room with its oppressive recollections. Her eye lighted upon nothing that was not quiet now. A secluded piece of smooth green, partially bordered with evergreens, and set with light shrubbery of rare kinds, exquisitely kept; over against her a sweetbriar that seemed to have run wild, indicating, Fleda was sure, the entrance of the path to the rose garden, that her memory alone would hardly have helped her to find. All this in the bright early summer morning, and the sweet aromatic smell of firs and flowers coming with every breath. There were draughts of refreshment in the air. It composed her, and drinking it in delightedly, Fleda stood with folded arms in the doorway, half forgetting herself and her position, and going in fancy from the firs and the roses, over a very wide field of meditation indeed. So lost that she started fearfully on suddenly becoming aware that a figure had come just beside her.
It was an elderly and most gentlemanly-looking man, as a glance made her know. Fleda was rea.s.sured and ashamed in a breath. The gentleman did not notice her confusion, however, otherwise than by a very pleasant and well-bred smile, and immediately entered into some light remarks on the morning, the place, and the improvements Mr. Carleton had made in the latter. Though he said the place was one of those which could bear very well to want improvement; but Carleton was always finding something to do which excited his admiration.
”Landscape gardening is one of the pleasantest of amus.e.m.e.nts,”
said Fleda.
”I have just knowledge enough in the matter to admire; to originate any ideas is beyond me; I have to depend for them upon my gardener and my wife, and so I lose a pleasure, I suppose; but every man has his own particular hobby. Carleton, however, has more than his share ? he has half a dozen, I think.”
”Half a dozen hobbies!” said Fleda.
”Perhaps I should not call them hobbies, for he manages to ride them all skilfully; and a hobby-horse, I believe, always runs away with a man.”
Fleda could hardly return his smile. She thought people were possessed with an unhappy choice of subjects in talking to her that morning. But fancying that she had very ill kept up her part in the conversation, and must have looked like a simpleton, she forced herself to break the silence which followed the last remark, and asked the same question she had asked Mrs. Fothergill ? if the country was quiet?
”Outwardly quiet,” he said; ”O yes ? there is no more difficulty ? that is, none which cannot easily be handled.
There was some danger a few months ago, but it is blown over; all was quiet on Carleton's estates so soon as he was at home, and that, of course, had great influence on the neighbourhood.
No, there is nothing to be apprehended. He has the hearts of his people completely, and one who has their hearts can do what he pleases with their heads, you know. Well, he deserves it ? he has done a great deal for them.”
Fleda was afraid to ask in what way; but perhaps he read the question in her eyes.
”That's one of his hobbies ? ameliorating the condition of the poorer cla.s.ses on his estates. He has given himself to it for some years back; he has accomplished a great deal for them ? a vast deal indeed! He has changed the face of things, mentally and morally, in several places, with his adult schools, and agricultural systems, and I know not what; but the most powerful means, I think, after all, has been the weight of his personal influence, by which he can introduce and carry through any measure; neither ignorance, nor prejudice, nor obstinacy, seem to make head against him. It requires a peculiar combination of qualities, I think ? very peculiar and rare ? to deal successfully with the mind of the ma.s.ses.”