She smiles, lays her hand on Margery"s shoulder, and gently, but with determination, draws her towards the door.
Once outside, she turns, and, locking the door, carefully puts the key in her pocket.
Slowly, reluctantly, she descends the stairs,--slowly, and with a visible effort, presses her lips in gentle greeting to her father"s care-worn cheek. The bells still ring on joyously, merrily; the sun shines; the world is white with snow, more pure than even our purest thoughts; but no sense of rest or comfort comes to Ruth. Oh, dull and heavy heart that holds a guilty secret. Oh, sad (even though yet innocent) is the mind that hides a hurtful thought! Not for you do Christmas bells ring out their happy greeting! Not for such as you does sweet peace reign triumphant.
CHAPTER XIII.
"Is she not pa.s.sing fair?"--_Two Gentlemen of Verona._
The day at length dawns when Miss Broughton chooses to put in an appearance at Pullingham. It is Thursday evening on which she arrives, and as she has elected to go to the vicarage direct, instead of to Gowran, as Clarissa desired, nothing is left to the latter but to go down on Friday to the Redmonds" to welcome her.
She (Clarissa) had taken it rather badly that pretty Georgie will not come to her for a week or so before entering on her duties; yet in her secret soul she cannot help admiring the girl"s pluck, and her determination to let nothing interfere with the business that must for the future represent her life. To stay at Gowran,--to fall, as it were, into the arms of luxury,--to be treated, as she knew she would be, by Clarissa, as an equal, even in worldly matters, would be only to unfit her for the routine that of necessity must follow. So she abstains, and flings far from her all thought of a happiness that would indeed be real, as Clarissa had been dear to her two years ago; and to be dear to Georgie once would mean to be dear to her forever.
The vicar himself opens the door for Clarissa, and tells her Miss Broughton has arrived, and will no doubt be overjoyed to see her.
"What a fairy you have given us!" he says, laughing. "Such a bewildering child; all golden hair, and sweet dark eyes, and mourning raiments. We are perplexed--indeed, I may say, dazed--at her appearance; because we have one and all fallen in love with her,--hopelessly, irretrievably,--and hardly know how to conduct ourselves towards her with the decorum that I have been taught to believe should be shown to the instructress of one"s children. Now, the last young woman was so different, and--"
"Young," says Miss Peyton.
"Well, old, if you like it. She certainly, poor soul, did remind one of the "sere and yellow." But this child is all fire and life; and really," says the vicar, with a sigh that may be relief, "I think we all like it better; she is quite a break-in upon our monotony."
"I am so glad you all like her;" says Clarissa, quite beaming with satisfaction. "She was such a dear little thing when last I saw her; so gentle, too,--like a small mouse."
"Oh, was she?" says the vicar, anxiously. "She is changed a little, I think. To me she is rather terrifying. Now, for instance, this morning at breakfast, she asked me, before the children, "if I didn"t find writing sermons a bore." And when I said--as I was in duty bound to say, my dear Clarissa--that I did not, she laughed out quite merrily, and said she "didn"t believe me"! Need I say the children were in raptures? but I could have borne that, only, when Mrs. Redmond forsook me and actually laughed too, I felt the end of all things was come.
Clarissa," (severely), "I do hope I don"t see you laughing, too."
"Oh, no!--not--not much," says Miss Peyton, who is plainly enjoying the situation to its utmost. "It is very hard on you, of course."
"Well, it is," says the vicar, with his broad and rather handsome smile, that works such miracles in the parish and among the mining people, who look upon him as their own special property. "It is difficult for a man to hope to govern his own household when his nearest and dearest turn him into open ridicule. Your little friend is a witch. What shall we do with her?"
"Submit to her," says Clarissa. "Where is she? I want to see her."
"Cissy will find her for you. I dare say they are together, unless your "Madam Quicksilver," as I call her, has taken to herself wings and flown away."
He turns, as though to go with her.
"No, no," says Clarissa; "I shall easily find her by myself. Go, and do what you meant to do before I stopped you."
Moving away from him, she enters the hall, and seeing a servant, is conducted by her to a small room literally strewn with work of all kinds. Books, too, lie here in profusion, and many pens, and numerous bottles of ink, and a patriarchal sofa that never saw better days than it sees now, when all the children prance over it, and love it, and make much of it, as being their very own.
On this ancient, friend a tiny fairy-like girl is sitting, smiling sweetly at Cissy Redmond, who is chattering to her gayly and is plainly enchanted at having some one of her own age to converse with.
The fairy is very lovely, with red-gold hair, and large luminous blue eyes, soft and dark, that can express all emotions, from deepest love to bitterest scorn. Her nose is pure Greek; her lips are tender and mobile; her skin is neither white nor brown, but clear and warm, and somewhat dest.i.tute of color. Her small head is covered with ma.s.ses of wavy, luxuriant, disobedient hair, that shines in the light like threads of living gold.
She is barely five feet in height, but is exquisitely moulded. Her hands and feet are a study, her pretty rounded waist a happy dream.
She starts from the sofa to a standing position as Clarissa enters, and, with a low, intense little cry, that seems to come direct from her heart, runs to her and lays her arms gently round her neck.
Once again Clarissa finds herself in Brussels, with her chosen friend beside her. She clasps Georgie in a warm embrace; and then Cissy Redmond, who is a thoroughly good sort, goes out of the room, leaving the new governess alone with her old companion.
"At last I see you," says Miss Broughton, moving back a little, and leaning her hands on Clarissa"s shoulders that she may the more easily gaze at her. "I thought you would never come. All the morning I have been waiting, and watching, and longing for you!"
Her voice is peculiar,--half childish, half petulant, and wholly sweet. She is not crying, but great tears are standing in her eyes as though eager to fall, and her lips are trembling.
"I didn"t like to come earlier," says Clarissa, kissing her again. "It is only twelve now, you know; but I was longing every bit as much to see you as you could be to see me. Oh, Georgie, how glad I am to have you near me! and----you have not changed a little sc.r.a.p."
She says this in a relieved tone.
"Neither have you," says Georgie: "you are just the same. There is a great comfort in that thought. If I had found you changed,--different in any way,--what should I have done? I felt, when I saw you standing tall and slight in the doorway, as if time had rolled back, and we were together again at Madame Brochet"s. Oh, how happy I was then!
And now----now----"
The big tears in her pathetic eyes tremble to their fall, she covers her face with her hands.
"Tell me everything," says Clarissa, tenderly.
"What is there to tell?--except that I am alone in the world, and very desolate. It is more than a year ago now since----since----papa left me. It seems like a long century. At first I was apathetic; it was despair I felt, I suppose; indeed, I was hardly conscious of the life I was leading when with my aunt. Afterwards the reaction set in; then came the sudden desire for change, the intense longing for work of any kind; and then----"
"Then you thought of me!" says Clarissa, pressing her hand.
"That is true. Then I thought of you, and how ready your sympathy had ever been. When--when he died, he left me a hundred pounds. It was all he had to leave." She says this hastily, pa.s.sionately, as though it must be gone through, no matter how severe the pain that accompanies the telling of it. Clarissa, understanding, draws even closer to her.
This gentle movement is enough. A heart, too full, breaks beneath affection"s touch. Georgie bursts into tears.
"It was all on earth he _had_ to give," she sobs, bitterly, "and I think he must have _starved_ himself to leave me even that! Oh, shall I ever forget?"
"In time," whispers Clarissa, gently. "Be patient: wait." Then, with a sigh, "How sad for some this sweet world can be!"
"I gave my aunt forty pounds," goes on the fair-haired beauty, glad to find somebody in whom she can safely confide and to whom her troubles may be made known. "I gave it to her because I had lived with her some time, and she was not kind to me, and so I felt I should pay her something. And then I put a little white cross on _his_ grave before I left him, lest he should think himself quite forgotten. It was all I could do for him," concludes she, with another heavy sob that shakes her slight frame.
Her heart seems broken! Clarissa, who by this time is dissolved in tears, places her arms round her, and presses her lips to her cheek.
"Try, _try_ to be comforted," entreats she. "The world, they tell me, is full of sorrow. Others have suffered, too. And nurse used to tell me, long ago, that those who are unhappy in the beginning of their lives are lucky ever after. Georgie, it may be so with you."
"It may," says Georgie, with a very faint smile; yet, somehow, she feels comforted.
"Do you think you will be content here?" asks Clarissa, presently, when some minutes have pa.s.sed.
"I think so. I am sure of it. It is such a pretty place, and so unlike the horrid little smoky town from which I have come, and to which"
(with a heavy sigh), "let us hope, I shall never return."
"Never do," says Clarissa giving her rich encouragement. "It is ever so much nicer here." As she has never seen the smoky town in question, this is a somewhat gratuitous remark. "And the children are quite sweet, and very pretty; and the work won"t be very much; and--and I am only just, an easy walking-distance from you."
At this termination they both laugh.
Georgie seems to have forgotten her tears of a moment since, and her pa.s.sionate burst of grief. Her lovely face is smiling, radiant; her lips are parted; her great blue eyes are shining. She is a warm impulsive little creature, as p.r.o.ne to tears as to laughter, and with a heart capable of knowing a love almost too deep for happiness, and as surely capable of feeling a hatred strong and lasting.
The traces of her late emotion are still wet upon her cheeks. Perhaps she knows it not, but, "like some dew-spangled flower, she shows more lovely in her tears." She and Clarissa are a wonderful contrast.