“Forgive you, cousin George, oh, yes!
One word only: it is true you were a child still
when I fancied I was a woman, and you have a right
to talk to me upon all things, except those that relate
to me and Lord Montfort; unless, indeed,” she
added with a bewitching half laugh, “unless you
ever see cause to scold me, there. Good-by,
my cousin, and in turn forgive me, if I was so petulant.
The Caroline you pelted with snowballs was always
a wayward, impulsive creature, quick to take offence,
to misunderstand, and—to repent.”
Back into the broad, broad gravel-walk, walked, more
slowly than before, Lady Montfort. Again the
sixty ghastly windows stared at her with all their
eyes; back from the gravelwalk, through a side-door
into the pompous solitude of the stately house; across
long chambers, where the mirrors reflected her form,
and the huge chairs, in their flaunting damask and
flaring gold, stood stiff on desolate floors; into
her own private room,—neither large nor
splendid that; plain chintzes, quiet book shelves.
She need not have been the Marchioness of Montfort
to inhabit a room as pleasant and as luxurious.
And the rooms that she could only have owned as marchioness,
what were those worth to her happiness? I know
not. “Nothing,” fine ladies will
perhaps answer. Yet those same fine ladies will
contrive to dispose their daughters to answer, “All.”
In her own room Lady Montfort sank on her chair; wearily,
wearily she looked at the clock; wearily at the books
on the shelves, at the harp near the window.
Then she leaned her face on her hand, and that face
was so sad, and so humbly sad, that you would have
wondered how any one could call Lady Montfort proud.
The groom of the chambers entered with the letters
by the afternoon post. That great house contrived
to worry itself with two posts a day. A royal
command to Windsor—
“I shall be more alone in a court than here,”
murmured Lady Montfort.
CHAPTER II.
Truly saith the proverb,
“Much corn lies under the straw that is not
seen.”
Meanwhile George Morley followed the long shady walk,—very
handsome walk, full of prize roses and rare exotics,
artificially winding too, —walk so well
kept that it took thirty-four men to keep it,—noble
walk, tiresome walk, till it brought him to the great
piece of water, which, perhaps, four times in the
year was visited by the great folks in the Great House.
And being thus out of the immediate patronage of fashion,
the great piece of water really looked natural, companionable,
refreshing: you began to breathe; to unbutton
your waistcoat, loosen your neckeloth, quote Chaucer,
if you could recollect him, or Cowper, or Shakspeare,
or Thomson’s “Seasons;” in short,
any scraps of verse that came into your head,—as
your feet grew joyously entangled with fern; as the
Copyrights
What Will He Do with It — Volume 05 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
