Chapter VIII: A Quiet Home

I ARRIVED at Mrs. Lyell's on the last day of May, having on my way thither stayed for a few days in London, at Miss Carefull's. During that interval, I to some extent shook off the inevitable sadness that fell upon me as I closed a chapter in my book of life by saying farewell to my dear old home. I was looking forward with somewhat of interest and curiosity to my sojourn with Mrs. Lyell when I stepped from the train on to the East Weylea, platform that afternoon in May.

I knew that the house was close by; but having luggage with me, I took the solitary fly that was waiting outside the station. I was driven, it seemed to me, about a hundred yards along the broad, main road to London—the metropolis was not more than six miles distant—ere the driver turned his horse into a narrower, more rural road, and drew up before two high iron gates which, dismounting, he proceeded to throw open.

Whilst he did so, I had time to take in the appearance of a long, two-storied house built of pale brick, and wearing an expression—for houses as well as persons have expressions—of neat, staid respectability. There were two wings to the house: that to the left, as I afterwards learned, contained the kitchens and servants' rooms; that to the right, which had false windows, the coach-house and stables. Between the house and the iron gates lay a garden bright with flowers, unlike most gardens in having a pond set in the centre of its circular lawn, round which on either hand swept a broad carriage drive to the house.

As I drove by, I caught sight of the white and green buds of water-lilies floating on the surface of the pond, and noted the tree it seemed to me a kind of ash—quaintly clipped to the form of an open umbrella, which stood on the lawn between the pond and the sweep of gravel in front of the house.

But ere I could observe more, the fly came to a standstill before the square porch, and I saw that the don was open, and an elderly woman attired in black, with white cap and apron, was waiting to receive me.

"Miss Carmichael, I suppose," she said, coming forward to assist me to alight. "My mistress is expecting you. If you will walk this way, miss, I will see to your luggage."

So saying, she took my bag and led the way across a square hall into which a broad shallow staircase descended.

Even in those few seconds I received an impression of dainty purity as I crossed the hall with its shining oilcloth, soft rugs, spotless paint, and was conscious of the exquisite country freshness which pervaded the house. Throwing open a door on the left, the servant announced me, and I entered a long, lofty room with a large French window at its further end, overlooking, as I saw at a glance, another garden at the back of the house.

But my attention was immediately engaged by a little form which rose from an easy chair and came towards me with outstretched arms. How can I describe Mrs. Lyell as I then saw her? It is not always easy to recall our first impressions of a face we have learned to love—a friend who has become most dear to us; but I will try.

I saw a tiny woman wearing a black stuff gown, relieved by a soft grey shawl and a widow's cap of snowy white. Her face was withered and wrinkled, her hair silvery, the hands which clasped mine so tenderly were shrunken and bony from age. I had not expected to see so aged a woman. Mrs. Lyell was nearly eighty, and eighty seems very old to nineteen. I was wont to shrink from the very old, but Mrs. Lyell's appearance inspired me with neither awe nor repugnance, for the aged, furrowed face was radiant with goodwill, and the faded eyes shone with the light of a pure and loving soul.

"Welcome, dear Dorothy," she said, in her gentle, quavering tones; "you are welcome both for your own and for your parents' sake. Your father has often spoken to me of you, and I am very glad to see you at last."

It was natural to me to restrain emotion in the presence of others. Since my father's death scarce anyone had seen me weep; but now tears rose in my eyes as I stooped to receive Mrs. Lyell's warm kisses, and I had hard work to keep from crying. She saw how I was moved and was silent for a few moments, merely showing her sympathy by stroking my hand which she held in hers.

"How tall you are, my love!" she said, presently. "I had no idea you were such a tall girl."

And indeed I felt very tall and big as I stood before that wee, fragile-looking old lady.

"I am dreadfully tall!" I said, apologetically. "A great deal too tall."

"Never mind, dear, that is a matter beyond our control. The Bible reminds us, does it not, that we cannot add one cubit to our stature? And it makes no difference whether we are short or tall as long as we try to be good. But here comes Sarah; I daresay you will like her to take you to your room. We shall have tea in half an hour's time."

The servant who had admitted me now appeared. She was a thin, sallow woman, almost as tall as I was, but rather crooked of figure. She must have been many years younger than her mistress, but she looked old to me, for her hair was grey, and there were wrinkles on her forehead, and crow's-feet about her eyes. I caught her black eyes examining me with a hard, narrow gaze, which was not agreeable, and though she was very polite as she attended me upstairs, her voice and manner were not pleasing to me.

The room in which she left me was furnished according to old-fashioned ideas of comfort. There was a huge four-post bedstead hung with snowy dimity, and holding a mountainous feather bed, covered with a heavy knitted counterpane. White textures, too, curtained the window, shrouded the looking-glass, and enveloped in voluminous folds the dressing-table. A large Bible lay on a table at the foot of the bed, and beside the table stood a high-backed, luxuriously cushioned elbow-chair. I smiled as my eyes fell on it. It was the chair for an old lady or an invalid, but hardly one in which I should care to sit often.

On taking possession of a new room, I always hasten to the window, for it is a matter of importance to me what sort of outlook my bedroom commands. I did so now, and, drawing back the curtain, looked down upon another garden, even pleasanter than that through which I had approached the house. My eyes rested on a large, well-kept lawn, soft as velvet, green as emerald, in the centre of which stood a fine mulberry tree not yet in full leafage. At each extremity of the lawn on the side fronting the house rose, like a giant sentinel, a tall walnut tree, still brown and irresponsive to the touch of spring, though the other trees In the garden were showing their freshest green. I could see little more of the garden save a deep border of flowers and a laurel hedge behind it, above which rose the trunks and foliage of sundry fruit trees; but the prospect held me long at the window. I dearly loved a garden, and there was more than the garden to be seen, for beyond it stretched a fair expanse of fields and hedgerows, with wooded uplands faintly visible in the distance, through a veil of blue haze.

Suddenly I remembered the punctuality practised in that house, and that I had to unpack some of my things, and rearrange my dress ere going downstairs. I was as expeditious as possible; but when I entered the dining-room, tea was waiting, and Mrs. Lyell had already taken her place at the table.

She requested that I would be kind enough to pour out the tea. Of course, I willingly complied; but how strange I felt as I seated myself before the handsome antique silver equipage! Then Mrs. Lyell folded her hands and bent her head with a reverent, childlike air, and, to my surprise, offered up, not a formal grace, but a short prayer, in which she thanked God for bringing me there in safety, and prayed that His blessing might rest on me.

I knew not what to think of this proceeding, it seemed to me so odd. I scarcely liked it, and yet I could not help being touched by the simple, trustful spirit the prayer breathed. I grew accustomed afterwards to Mrs. Lyell's habit of thus, at the beginning of a meal, pouring forth in brief but earnest prayer the thoughts and desires uppermost in her heart.

It was very pleasant, that first meal I took with Mrs. Lyell. The dainty nicety of the table arrangements, the homemade bread, the delicious butter, the rich cake and sweet biscuits on which the cook prided herself, were all duly appreciated by me. Whilst I took my tea, my eyes wandered to some portraits placed on the mantelshelf. There was a miniature painting of a lady in a very short-waisted gown, with her hair piled in a high crown above her brows, which, greatly as the little wrinkled face beside me had altered since then, I could yet recognise as representing Mrs. Lyell in early life! The portrait, wrought in similar style, of a gentleman wearing the straight-cut coat and stiff stock of a previous age, I concluded to be that of the deceased Mr. Lyell. Between these, in a pretty morocco frame, was a portrait which was quite modern, the photograph of a young man with a bright, animated countenance. The face seemed to smile as I looked at it; but the smile was in the eyes alone; the strong, well-cut mouth was firmly closed.

This portrait attracted me. It had a fascination which drew my eyes to it again and again, so that Mrs. Lyell, who sat with her back to the mantelpiece, seeing my glance constantly turning in that direction, asked me at length—

"What do you see there, my dear, that interests you so much?"

"Oh!" I stammered, a little embarrassed by the question. "I was only looking at that likeness."

"Whose likeness? My nephew's? Ah, you may well admire that; a good face, has he not? He is my grand-nephew, Leonard Glynne by name. His father died in India years ago when Leonard was a mere child, and his mother did not survive her husband many years. She was my dearly loved niece."

I looked at the portrait with still more interest. Leonard! I liked the name. It suited him, I fancied, for I felt sure that he was brave and strong.

"It was very sad for him to lose both his parents," I said.

"Yes, a great loss; but he was brought up in the home of his father's brother at Bournemouth, and his uncle was very good to him. Since he grew into manhood, he has lived in London, for he does business in the city."

"Do you see him often?" I asked.

"Not very. He spends his Sundays with me when he has no other engagement, and he drops in now and then to ask how I am. But he has many friends, and his company is so much in request that I do not see him very often, although he lives near. I do not complain of that. An old woman's society is not very enlivening to a young man, and there is little to interest him here. But Leonard is very good and kind when he comes, dear fellow!"

I could not wonder that Mr. Leonard Glynne was popular with his acquaintances, for his looks seemed to testify to a happy, genial nature. When should I see this nephew of Mrs. Lyell's?

"He has just gone off for a month's tour in Switzerland," Mrs. Lyell said, as if in answer to my thought. "He came in last night to bid me good-bye. I see more of him than I used to since I made him the present of a horse. My motives for doing so were rather interested; but he was delighted with the gift. Now he need no longer complain of the distance Weylea is from the city. He can ride to and fro and see his friends, and is to a great extent independent of the railway."

"It was a happy thought of yours," I said, longing to ask some questions but too shy to do so.

"Yes," said Mrs. Lyell, smiling; "I forget now what made me think of such a thing. I suppose he gave me a hint that he should like a horse."

"It must be lovely in Switzerland at this time," I said, with a little sigh.

"It is a most beautiful country at any time, I suppose; but in June the flowers are said to be so lovely," replied Mrs. Lyell. "Leonard has been there before. He is very fond of travelling; rather too fond, I think, sometimes; but, perhaps, I should not say so, for it is a pure and elevated pleasure he finds in beholding the grandeur and beauty of the works of God."

When we rose from the table, Mrs. Lyell asked me if I should like to take a turn in the garden. Perhaps she caught some wistful glance I cast in that direction, for I was longing to get amongst the trees and flowers. She could not accompany me, she said, with a smile, for she was so feeble and so susceptible to cold that she rarely went out, and then only in a bath chair or carriage.

With what pleasure I opened the window, stepped on to the little stone balcony, and ran down the steps into the garden! Our dear old garden at home was a wilderness compared with this well-kept, well-ordered ground; but somehow the one reminded me of the other. Ah, how I came to love Mrs. Lyell's garden in after days! At this hour, I could almost weep to think how it has vanished, and of the commonplace, suburban houses which stand, row after row, on the ground where roses once flourished, and apples and pears mellowed in the autumn sunshine.

And yet it was an ordinary garden enough; there were no tortuous mazes, no leafy alcoves or miniature glens. Straight down, on either side, ran a broad gravel path, intersected here and there by other paths, equally straight. Best I liked the lower part, where apple and pear trees grew amidst cabbages and kitchen stuff, where fruit trees were trained against the walls; where there were thickets of gooseberry and currant bushes, and where a bed of strawberry plants promised a fine crop of that luscious fruit.

As I paced the garden paths on that fair May evening, whilst a thrush perched on the mulberry tree made the air ring with his sweetly-thrilling notes, my heart was content. So elastic are our spirits when we are young, that in spite of the sorrowful changes I had recently experienced, I was not unhappy. Mrs. Lyell and her surroundings were different from what I had expected. Everything was much pleasanter than Mabel's representations, or rather my imagination enlarging upon Mabel's representations, had led me to expect. Already I loved the dear old lady, and believed that I should be happy with her. I was not afraid of the quietude and monotony which Mabel had warned me I should find hard to bear.

Presently, however, I felt constrained to go indoors. Mrs. Lyell was seated in her easy chair knitting. I fetched some needlework, and sat down beside her. She talked to me very kindly about my father and mother, and asked questions concerning Mabel and Edmund. I must confess that the hour we spent thus seemed long to me.

At a quarter to nine Sarah appeared, bringing a couple of tall candles. She closed the shutters, lighted the candles, wheeled her mistress's chair to the table, and placed a Bible and prayer-book before her. Then the household came in for family worship. How old everyone about the place seemed! I had encountered in the garden an old gardener, bent double with years, who had scowled at me, as though he thought so young a being had no right to be there, and now as I saw that the cook was even older than Sarah, and the housemaid, supposed to be young, was a woman considerably past thirty, I felt myself ridiculously juvenile compared with everyone about me.

Immediately after prayers Mrs. Lyell retired to her own room, where, as she explained to me, she took her supper of gruel. She begged me to excuse her leaving me, saying that she found it necessary for her health to live by rule, and never on any account deviated from her mode of life. As she said this, Sarah stood waiting to lead her upstairs. I half suspected that she, even more than her mistress, believed in a strict observance of rule.

Mrs. Lyell kissed me tenderly as she said good-night. The younger servant brought in a light repast for my solitary consumption. I ate it contentedly, and, not long after, I too went to bed. I laid my head on the pillow that night with a feeling of deep thankfulness. I had gained the quiet, peaceful shelter I needed till I could furnish myself with the means of winning independence.