Her eye half unconsciously reiterated her meaning as she shook hands with Mr. Carleton. And without speaking a word for other people to hear, his look and smile in return were more than an answer. Fleda sat for some time after he was gone, trying to think what it was in eye and lip which had given her so much pleasure. She could not make out anything but approbation ?
the look of loving approbation that one gives to a good child; but she thought it had also something of that quiet intelligence ? a silent communication of sympathy which the others in company could not share.
She was roused from her reverie by Mrs. Evelyn.
"Fleda, my dear, I am writing to your aunt Lucy ? have you any message to send?"
"No, Mrs. Evelyn ? I wrote myself to-day."
And she went back to her musings.
"I am writing about you, Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn again, in a few minutes.
"Giving a good account, I hope, ma"am," said Fleda, smiling.
"I shall tell her I think sea-breezes have an unfavourable effect upon you," said Mrs. Evelyn ? "that I am afraid you are growing pale; and that you have clearly expressed yourself in favour of a garden at Queechy, rather than any lot in the city ? or anywhere else ? so she had better send for you home immediately."
Fleda tried to find out what the lady really meant; but Mrs.
Evelyn"s delighted amus.e.m.e.nt did not consist with making the matter very plain. Fleda"s questions did nothing but aggravate the cause of them, to her own annoyance; so she was fain at last to take her light and go to her own.
She looked at her flowers again with a renewal of the first pleasure and of the quieting influence the giver of them had exercised over her that evening; thought again how very kind it was of him to send them, and to choose them so; how strikingly he differed from other people; how glad she was to have seen him again, and how more than glad that he was so happily changed from his old self. And then from that change and the cause of it, to those higher, more tranquillizing, and sweetening influences that own no kindred with earth"s dust, and descend like the dew of heaven to lay and fertilize it.
And when she laid herself down to sleep, it was with a spirit grave, but simply happy; every annoyance and unkindness as unfelt now as ever the parching heat of a few hours before when the stars are abroad.
CHAPTER X.
"A snake bedded himself under the threshold of a country house."
L"ESTRANGE.
To Fleda"s very great satisfaction Mr. Thorn was not seen again for several days. It would have been to her very great comfort, too, if he could have been permitted to die out of mind as well as out of sight; but he was brought up before her "lots of times," till poor Fleda almost felt as if she was really in the moral neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, every natural growth of pleasure was so withered under the barren spirit of raillery. Sea-breezes were never so disagreeable since winds blew; and nervous and fidgety again whenever Mr.
Carleton was present, Fleda retreated to her work and the table, and withdrew herself as much as she could from notice and conversation; feeling humbled ? feeling sorry, and vexed, and ashamed, that such ideas should have been put into her head, the absurdity of which, she thought, was only equalled by their needlessness. "As much as she could" she withdrew; but that was not entirely; now and then interest made her forget herself, and quitting her needle she would give eyes and attention to the princ.i.p.al speaker as frankly as he could have desired. Bad weather and bad roads for those days put riding out of the question.
One morning she was called down to see a gentleman, and came eschewing in advance the expected image of Mr. Thorn. It was a very different person.
"Charlton Rossitur! My dear Charlton, how do you do? Where did you come from?"
"You had better ask me what I have come for," he said, laughing, as he shook hands with her.
"What have you come for?"
"To carry you home."
"Home?" said Fleda.
"I am going up there for a day or two, and mamma wrote me I had better act as your escort, which, of course, I am most willing to do. See what mamma says to you."
"When are you going, Charlton?" said Fleda, as she broke the seal of the note he gave her.
"To-morrow morning."
"That is too sudden a notice, Captain Rossitur," said Mrs.
Evelyn. "Fleda will hurry herself out of her colour, and then your mother will say there is something in sea-breezes that isn"t good for her; and then she will never trust her within reach of them again ? which I am sure Miss Ringgan would be sorry for."
Fleda took her note to the window, half angry with herself that a kind of banter, in which certainly there was very little wit, should have power enough to disturb her. But though the shaft might be a slight one, it was winged with a will; the intensity of Mrs. Evelyn"s enjoyment in her own mischief gave it all the force that was wanting. Fleda"s head was in confusion; she read her aunt"s note three times over before she had made up her mind on any point respecting it.
"MY DEAREST FLEDA,
"Charlton is coming home for a day or two ? hadn"t you better take the opportunity to return with him? I feel as if you had been long away, my dear child ? don"t you feel so too? Your uncle is very desirous of seeing you; and as for Hugh and me, we are but half ourselves. I would not still say a word about your coming home if it were for your good to stay; but I fancy from something in Mrs. Evelyn"s letter, that Queechy air will by this time do you good again; and opportunities of making the journey are very uncertain. My heart has grown lighter since I gave it leave to expect you. ? Yours, my darling,
R.
"P. S. ? I will write to Mrs. E. soon."
"What string has pulled these wires that are twitching me home?" thought Fleda, as her eyes went over and over the words which the feeling of the lines of her face would alone have told her were unwelcome. And why unwelcome? ? "One likes to be moved by fair means and not by foul," was the immediate answer. "And, besides, it is very disagreeable to be taken by surprise. Whenever in any matter of my staying or going, did aunt Lucy have any wish but my pleasure?" Fleda mused a little while; and then, with a perfect understanding of the machinery that had been at work, though an extremely vague and repulsed notion of the spring that had moved it, she came quietly out from her window and told Charlton she would go with him.
"But not to-morrow?" said Mrs. Evelyn, composedly. "You will not hurry her off so soon as that Captain Rossitur?"
"Furloughs are the stubbornest things in the world, Mrs.
Evelyn; there is no spirit of accommodation about them. Mine lies between to-morrow morning, and one other morning some two days thereafter; and you might as soon persuade Atlas to change his place. Will you be ready, coz?"
"I will be ready," said Fleda; and her cousin departed.
"Now, my dear Fleda,"" said Mrs. Evelyn, but it was with that funny face, as she saw Fleda standing thoughtfully before the fire; "you must be very careful in getting your things together ?"
"Why, Mrs. Evelyn?"
"I am afraid you will leave something behind you, my love."
"I will take care of that, Ma"am, and that I may, I will go and see about it at once."
Very busy till dinner-time; she would not let herself stop to think about anything. At dinner, Mr. Evelyn openly expressed his regrets for her going, and his earnest wishes that she would at least stay till the holidays were over.
"Don"t you know Fleda better, Papa," said Florence, "than to try to make her alter her mind? When she says a thing is determined upon, I know there is nothing to do but to submit with as good a grace as you can."
"I tried to make Captain Rossitur leave her a little longer,"
said Mrs. Evelyn; "but he says furloughs are immovable, and his begins to-morrow morning ? so he was immovable too. I should keep her notwithstanding, though, if her aunt Lucy hadn"t sent for her."
"Well, see what she wants, and come back again," said Mr.
Evelyn.
"Thank you, Sir," said Fleda, smiling gratefully; "I think not this winter."
"There are two or three of my friends that will be confoundedly taken aback," said Mr. Evelyn, carefully helping himself to gravy.