Chapter XIII

And if there be a human tear,
From passion’s dross refined and clear--
A tear so tempered and so meek
That would not stain an angel’s cheek--
’Tis that which tender fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter’s head.

Alice Darnell had rather expected her niece on this day, though none in particular had been specified by Lady Castleton, in the announcement of her intention. She had, therefore, come over to her brother’s to meet her. The farmer himself was, at the moment of her arrival, out superintending his labourers--employment being more than ever necessary to him. Alice Darnell, therefore, took this opportunity to announce to Lucy the return of her cousin George, thinking, with a woman’s recollections of past times, some preparation for that event expedient. So announced, Lucy was prepared for the reception of her cousin, when, having first watched her progress upwards from his hiding-place, he soon afterwards himself made his appearance.

Lucy’s greeting of him was frank and cordial; and if there was, on either side, any awkwardness in the meeting, it was screened from observation by the immediate entrance of her father, whose voice was first heard exclaiming, “Where is she? where is’t my darling? my little Lucy!” and he rushed into her arms. “Hast spoilt her by making Lady Lucy on her? Noa; there’s still the same gentle look, and kind eye. But let’s look again: why, she’s a sight thinner nor she was. Hast not fed, dear? How’s this?”

“No, father; you forget I’ve been ill, and of course in distress too; nothing more.”

“Yees; but the pratty plump cheek’s quite dipped in, I’s sure; and what’s this?” encircling with the capacious span of his finger and thumb, her somewhat emaciated arm, through the ample folds of her crape gigot sleeve, “Why’s not now half the size. Ah! these vanities,” said he, thrusting his fingers through the bows which, in the fashion of that day, hung from the shoulder; “this here ribbon grass is a terrible crop for wasting the soil that grows it. But this is a sad lonely house you’re come to now, Lucy,” as his thoughts turned to the cause of her visit; “sad, lonely place, indeed. Why there’s nobody now to keep nout in order. Cocks and hens just walk in at the front door, and Betty and the farming-men walk out at the back jist when they both like; and neither niver stop to ask my leave, whether one may come in, or t’other gang out; and I’s sure, even the kitchen clock there, like a big coward, has ticked twice as loud, since there has been none to talk against it.”

But seeing that this allusion, homely as it was, to the recent calamity, had still the effect of upsetting Lucy, and causing her to weep bitterly, he stopped short, saying, “No; but no more of this at present;” and, though not celebrated for tact, the intuitive effort of kind feeling, and true affection, enabled him soon to recover his composure; and by way of turning the conversation, he asked her, “And hast seen many fine folks in your fine hoam, Lady Lucy? Ah! let them come as fine, and as many, and as used to bedizenment as they may be, there’lt have been none to match my little Lucy in _prattiness_. Her little nose is still as straight as ever; there’ll have been none there to put it out of joint.”

“Dear father, your partiality makes you fancy that there is nothing in the world like your little Lucy; but if you’d been where I’ve been biding, you would soon have learnt the difference. We have not seen much company; but there is one that would in every respect shame me in the comparison. Lady Gayland is as much above me in beauty, as in book-learning.”

“And Lady Gayland has been staying with you at Lord Castleton’s house?” said George, inquiringly, as if he knew something about her, that made this a matter of surprise to him.

“Yes, dear Lady Gayland. But why should that surprise you?” asked Lucy, in her turn, anxious to find out on what his knowledge of Lady Gayland was founded; but he evaded further mention of the subject on that occasion. Some time afterwards, however, when they were alone together, and she again alluded to Lady Gayland, he also again hinted his surprise, that she should have been a guest in Castleton’s house; and when pressed by Lucy to explain what he knew of that lady, he began by asking whether she remembered Jack Carter.

This preliminary having, after reciprocal explanation, been assented to, George continued that, immediately after her wedding, Jack Carter had returned to Somersby, previously to sailing in the ship to which Castleton had recommended him, and which was the same to which George himself belonged. He had remained some few days in the neighbourhood, to renew acquaintance with his early friends, amongst whom were many of Lord Castleton’s present establishment; and, upon joining the ship, he told George, to whom, as acquainted with all the circumstances, he thought he could, without displeasing his patron, communicate in confidence; that what most excited the general surprise at my Lord’s unexpected marriage, was, that it had been the universal impression, from the reports made by those servants who had been abroad with him, that he was certainly to be united to Lady Gayland.

“Even so I thought. What would I now give that so it had been. Abroad?--Yes! and then I had never seen him but that once. Who would not then have been happier?”

“Happier, Lucy?--then _you_ are not happy?”

“Do not ask me, dear George; there was a time when I had not a thought that I would not have shared with you; but now, there are thoughts which are my husband’s alone. Let us talk of something else. My poor father!--he’s not fitted to live in an empty house; I wish you’d fill it for him, George.”

“How do you mean, Lucy, ‘fill it?’”

“That you should marry, George. Nay, do not start so; I know that you will say that your profession takes you much abroad; but then your wife might bide your return. She would be a comfort to my father, he would be a protector to her; and this house might be a home to all.”

“No, Lucy; I’d better now never try to have a home; a roving life is my best resource. Change stands to me in the place of comfort; and bustle does instead of happiness. One could not get a home at once, either, just by the wishing it. My notion of home is, that every thought, feeling, and wish should be in perfect concert, and that the house should be the last thing to be in common.”

“This,” thought Lucy, “is his notion of home: how different has been my experience of it!”

But Lucy was not the only person under her father’s roof, at the present moment, who thought that it would well become George to take a wife.

Mrs. Jenkins, Lucy’s maid, being now completely enlightened on the subject of her mistress’s origin, thought, perhaps, that there must be something in the atmosphere of Morden Bay, to make _més-alliances_ epidemic; and with so exaggerated a case of that description before her, as the elevation of the farmer’s daughter to the peerage, it was no great stretch of her imagination, to fancy that she might captivate a petty officer; and, as she had here little to do, and nobody to see but George, who was a good-looking manly youth, it was natural for her to suppose herself in love with him.

Mrs. Jenkins had good eyes and teeth; and though her freshness had been somewhat impaired by late hours, having been forced to watch in solitude the return of daylight, and a succession of _young_ mistresses, yet she dressed herself with as much care and success as her lady, and was altogether rather a smart figure. But if she had been ten times as attractive, it is certain that George would, in his present position, have viewed her with indifference, or rather, not looked on her at all.

When she could no longer resist this conviction, her self-complacency could not otherwise account for the fact than by imagining that he had raised his aspiring eyes as high as her mistress; and this idea once received, she became impatient to leave her service, and make as much mischief of her discovery as she could. The defective accommodation of the farmer’s house was the plea upon which she chose to put her departure. “Very sorry, my lady, but I find it quite _un_possible to remain, if I’m to sleep in the _hole_ in which they’ve thrust me.”

“Why, what’s the matter with your room, Jenkins?”

“Why, my lady, it can’t be supposed that I’m to put up with _stuccy_; I’ve always been used to be _papered_, ever since I went first into service.”

“I can only say, Jenkins, that the room in which you at present are, is the one out of which _I_ never slept till within the last few months.”

“P_a_rfectly possible, my lady; but there’s a difference between what some people are ’customed to, and what other people _were_ ’customed to.”

Further attempts to appease the irritated Abigail, predetermined to be affronted, only produced fresh impertinence; and this being overheard by George, brought down a sharp rebuke, which did not propitiate his slighted admirer. The result was, that as no attempt to persuade her to stay appeared to Lucy likely to succeed, she was allowed to depart in a fishing-boat for Sandford.

Though Lucy, from motives of delicacy, had declined entering into any explanation with George, as to the disappointment which she had experienced in the state of her husband’s feelings towards her; yet she did not think it necessary to maintain the same reserve with her aunt Alice. But even to her, her regrets were general, always accompanied with the expressed consciousness of her own deficiencies and unfitness; and, if she had gathered any specific cause of uneasiness from what she might have overheard in the shrubbery, not even to the feminine confidante of her early years, did she suffer any complaint on that head to pass her lips.

Alice, whose acuteness and experience had foreseen the probability of many of the drawbacks on her niece’s elevation, which had since occurred, (though they, of course, did not appear so inevitable as to justify her in opposing what was otherwise so advantageous,) could now do no more than advise her to hasten and mitigate, as much as she could, any expectations of exclusive devotion; and to use every exertion that in _her_ conduct, at least, no cause of censure might arise.