Chapter XII

Oh, Childhood--blessed time of hope and love,
When all we knew was Nature’s simple law,--
How may we yearn again that time to prove
When we looked round, and loved whate’er we saw.
* * *

When Churchill retired to bed, he in vain attempted to think of the events of the day as of no importance to him,--merely the return of a relation of the family, whom it was natural that warm-hearted amiable people should be very glad to see again, and who would soon again depart to follow his precarious profession, perhaps only to return after another such long interval, to be once more received in the same manner. But still, whenever he thought he had succeeded in closing his eyes upon this idea, the image of George walking away with his arm round Lucy’s waist would disagreeably intrude itself: true, she considered him as a near relation,--had been educated as a sister; but was that the way he considered the matter, and was it likely that this innocent illusion would long continue if he chose to enlighten her? He could not at the same time help flattering himself that he had made a favourable impression on her; and, confirmed as this hope was by her deportment towards him, at the conclusion of the supper, he believed that if he made up his mind then to press his suit he might bear off the prize. Yet there was something in this manner of effecting that object which did not altogether satisfy him. In his project of being loved for himself alone, he had always anticipated that, whilst abandoning the outward advantages of rank and fortune, he presented himself as an equal to a person like Lucy; still he would retain the power of inspiring her with a decided passion, and he had never looked forward to any thing like competition with such a rival as George Darnell.

I am afraid it must also be allowed that there were some things in Lucy’s deportment that evening which, desperately in love as he found himself, charmed as he was with her beauty, fascinated with her simplicity, had not quite pleased him. In their _tête-à-tête_ rambles, there had never any thing occurred to weaken the illusion of her perfections; on the contrary her soft and gentle manners, animated only by an attractive freshness of character, which was brought into play by the workings of natural good sense, were constantly strengthening his attachment. But the unrestrained ebullition of high spirits is a terrible touchstone by which to try the want of conventional refinement, either of mind or manners; and there were many moments in the course of the evening, whilst she was enjoying to the utmost some of her “cousin George’s” nautical jokes, when her lover could not help thinking “Is that exactly the way in which I should like Lady Castleton to behave?”

Churchill rose the next morning with one conviction impressed strongly on his mind, as the result of the contradictory reflections with which he had been perplexed during the night, and this was that at any rate he had no longer any time to lose in inaction; that either his visit to Bankside Farm must now draw to a conclusion, or it must assume the more decided and permanent character with which he had meant before long to invest it.

As a mere itinerant artist, his stay had now been prolonged enough for any assumed object which in that character he could put forward. And if as such only, he meant to be recollected by the inmates of farmer Darnell’s, it was now high time that he should pack up his portfolios, already superabundantly stored with sketches, in every variety of light, close studies, and distant effects, of every object worth commemorating, within the reach of a walk with Lucy.

He had his misgivings too, that even if this did not occur to himself as a reason for shortening his stay, it would, ere long, be hinted to him in no very indirect terms by Mrs. Darnell, with whom he had never been a great favourite, as being, as she said, “at best, but a bit of a vagabond, only better than a stroller or a mountebank, inasmuch as he daubed his nasty paint on paper, instead of on his own person.” His taking Lucy gadding about with him, was also a great waste of time: but his worst offence in the eyes of this orderly housewife was, that by occupying George’s room, he had caused the ejection of the hams from the spare bed-room. All these reasons made it evident that it would not be entirely optional to himself to prolong his stay indefinitely. On the other hand, he could not but be aware that if he had, as he flattered himself, already made a favourable impression on Lucy, it was very desirable now, that he should confirm and strengthen that, without allowing time for any _retour_ of her earlier partiality for her cousin and playmate to arise and occupy even a corner of that heart which was to love him exclusively and for himself alone. Still that it should be necessary, in regulating his future conduct, to guard against such a possibility, grated unpleasantly against his feelings, and gave a dissatisfied and undecided turn to his thoughts, and when he had slowly descended the stairs to breakfast, even whilst he had the latch of the parlour-door in his hand, the question rose unbidden in his mind, “Am I really in love?”

The next moment, however, the effect of the first sight of Lucy answered that question beyond a shadow of doubt, as he thought, in the affirmative. It was Sunday morning, and Lucy was dressed for church. There is, perhaps, no costume, however studied, so attractive as the unaffected assumption, in simplicity and good taste, of their best attire on this day of rest, by persons in that rank of life to whom Sunday really makes a distinction of dress; utterly perverted and lost as that effect is, when it causes an awkward and exaggerated imitation of the already _outré_ fashions of their betters. But Lucy was simplicity itself, and fresh and radiant and lovely as she looked in the maiden purity of her snowy robe, so did she always present herself on this day of thanksgiving, coming out with as little alloy of coquetry as the flowers of nature, which greet in their gayest and most brilliant colouring the spring which gives them birth.

So dilatory had Churchill’s complicated reflections made his toilet, that the breakfast was far advanced when he entered, and the conversation, which he only for a moment interrupted, was one not calculated to please him; for he found George arranging, apparently very much to his satisfaction, a _tête-à-tête_ walk with Lucy to church; whilst it was suggested that Churchill should go bodkin between Mr. and Mrs. Darnell in the taxed-cart.

From this uninviting mode of conveyance he was, however, opportunely relieved by a declaration on the part of Farmer Darnell, that he was unfitted for service by a touch of lumbago, which he had caught riding home that stormy evening from Mayton, instead of staying there quietly till morning. The excuse having been admitted by Mrs. Darnell, with the qualification, that this was the first she had heard of it, and the prospective consolation that he certainly ought not to go to Mayton at all next week, it became necessary to arrange some other division of march, as, luckily for Churchill, Mrs. Darnell decidedly objected to trusting her precious person to his charioteering powers. “How should he know how to drive? he was never like to have had a chay, a poor _predistinarian_ painter!” as she called him: “No; her dear George must come with her in the cart.” George, however little he liked the change, did not make any decided objection, probably recollecting enough of earlier days to know that, if his aunt chose it, objection would be of no use; and also a little tickled by the decided superiority over Churchill, which this preference marked, as he already began to entertain an indefinite feeling of jealousy of the other’s position in the family.

He therefore undertook with confidence to “pilot” his aunt to church, though he professed that of late his hands had been more used to manage the “rudder” than the “ribbons.” It was impossible for the most practised woman of the world to have shown less by her manner than Lucy did whether this ultimate arrangement was or was not agreeable to her. “After all,” thought Churchill, as they started together from the front door, “her natural manner is easy and unembarrassed, and it is only while in actual collision with what is coarse and uncongenial around her, that a momentary taint is breathed upon its purity; when I shall have removed her from the reach of contagion, that innocent simplicity will alone remain, upon which I may engraft what impression I like, and I shall learn to think of her only as a being whose whole existence is comprised in my happiness.”

“Lucy,” screamed Mrs. Darnell at the extent of her voice, just as they had cleared the garden-gate, and Churchill had closed the foregoing reflections, “Lucy, have you minded that the crust to George’s pie is made of short paste, as he used to like it?”

“Oh yes, mother, I wasn’t like to forget that,” answered Lucy, with an eagerness which Lord Castleton thought was not very appropriately applied to another’s pie-crust, by a being whose whole existence he had just settled was to be devoted to his happiness.