Chapter 14

_RUSHBROOK_

"About the windings of the maze to hear The soft wind blowing. Over meadowy holms And alders, garden aisles." --TENNYSON.

Arnold Wayne wrote his letter to Mr. Lennard, but the rector had already made arrangements to go to Switzerland. Mrs. Lennard, however, had decided not to accompany him; she had made up her mind to spend a couple of months with a maiden lady living at Rushbrook, and it was her wish that Elsie Kilner should be with her there. So it came to pass that Jamie and the three people who were linked together through his little person all came to sojourn within a stone's-throw of each other. Miss Ryan and Mrs. Lennard had been school-fellows and bosom friends, and the friendship had lasted through all the chances and changes of life.

Willow Farm and its broad acres belonged to Miss Ryan, and was managed for her by her nephew Francis. She lived in an old-fashioned house, long and low, with quaint dormer-windows set in a peaked roof of red tiles. The house stood in the middle of a garden filled to overflowing with country flowers, and the warm, sweet perfume of the crowded beds made Elsie feel that she had come close to the very heart of summer. The sun was ripening the black, juicy berries on the loaded cherry-trees; bees kept up a ceaseless hum; large roses pressed close together in masses of bloom.

"What a little world of sweets!" said Elsie, smelling a bunch of crimson carnations.

She was standing on the door-step after breakfast, wearing her pretty grey gown, and a creamy muslin kerchief knotted at the throat. Her face, under the golden straw-hat, was so richly, yet delicately, coloured that it wore the aspect of a flower.

A slim, tall man, of eight or nine and twenty, stood looking at that face in the morning light; he had just given her the carnations. "I am glad you like the old place here," he said. "It isn't as romantic, of course, as Wayne's Court, but it is comfortable. You know Wayne? He is a very good fellow."

"I met him in town," Elsie answered.

"Ah, yes! he knows your friends the Lennards. What a wanderer he has been! But now, they tell me, he seems inclined to settle down at last."

"That is a good thing," said Elsie, raising the carnations to her face.

"He'll marry, I suppose," Francis Ryan went on. "The Danforths are trying to make up the match with Mrs. Verdon. Do you know her? A fair woman, with sky-blue eyes. She has come to The Cedars again, close to the Court; so that looks as if she meant business."

This was the news that Elsie heard on her first day at Willow Farm. It gave her a strong desire for solitude, and she was glad when Francis said that he must go and look after one of the horses. She waited until he had disappeared, and then went down a long gravelled walk, between crowded borders, to a little white gate. Lifting the latch, she walked across a green meadow, and found herself close to the brink of a river. Rushbrook was a place of many waters, a land of green and silver, beautiful with the peace that belongs to a pastoral country. She soon found a cosy nook on an old tree-trunk in the shade, and sat down to think. It was a good spot for a reverie. You could listen to the whisper of the water among the sedges, and look off, across the river, to the low-lying meadows beyond--a scene which was fascinating in its intense quietness. It rests the eye and brain to gaze at those cool green levels, broidered with silvery rivulets, and watch the water stealing among rushes and tall rustling reeds.

It was a lovely morning--soft, hazy, exquisite, as mornings in August often are. Looking back across the meadow, Elsie saw a row of copper-beeches standing in an even line against the deep, dreamy blue of the sky. Away to the left was a mass of foliage hiding the red peaked roof of Willow Farm.

She had not expected to be very happy when she came to Rushbrook. Deep down in her heart was a fear which she kept carefully covered over; she was ashamed of its very existence, and strove to hide it from her own sight. It was Mrs. Verdon--always Mrs. Verdon--who was to have everything worth having.

Of course, it was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Wayne should fall in love with Mrs. Verdon. The match would be approved by everybody, and Elsie's judgment just then was not clear enough to see that the matches approved by everybody are precisely those which seldom take place.

It was jealousy--ugly, plain, unconquerable jealousy--which was tormenting Elsie now. It is a dreadful moment when a woman looks deep into her innermost self and catches the gleam of a fierce fire burning there.

She looked out again at the shining water, and drew in deep breaths of pure air. The freshness of the streams was in the atmosphere; all around was the intense greenness of water-fed grass.

What a sweet old earth it was, after all! Green pastures and still waters were to be found by all who let the angels guide them. It is our own fault always if we enter the barren and dry land where no water is.

The old trunk on which she sat was close to the edge of the water. Overhead the spreading boughs of an elm protected her from the sun; a little bird, hidden among the leaves, gave out a clear note now and then. Elsie, feeling a sense of comfort stealing into her heart unawares, began to listen to the bird. The bunch of carnations lay upon her knee.

A rustling in the grasses near made her start. Arnold Wayne was coming down the slope of the bank to the spot where she was sitting.

"What a charming nook you have discovered!" he said, his brown face lighting up with pleasure at the sight of her. "I have been to Willow Farm to seek you."

"How did you know that I was here?" Elsie asked as she gave him her hand.

"Mrs. Lennard was standing at a window upstairs when you went out. She watched you cross the field and go down to the river. I heard that you arrived last night."

"Yes," said Elsie, a contented look coming into her brown eyes. "It is delicious to get away from London, delicious to tread on cool grass instead of hot paving-stones."

"And you are going to stay in Rushbrook a long time. Mrs. Lennard has been telling me all her plans. The rector is coming here on his return from Switzerland, and then you will all pay the long-promised visit to the Court."

"We shall see," Elsie returned, with a little air of gravity. "The present is so lovely that I don't care to look into the future, Mr. Wayne. I am charmed with the river. I like to smell the damp, fresh scent of the sedges."

"I'm glad it does you good," he answered, rather absently. "You have some fine carnations there," he added, lightly touching the flowers on her lap.

"Yes; Mr. Ryan gathered them after breakfast."

She spoke the words without thinking about them at all, and she was not looking at Arnold when she uttered them. If his face changed, she did not see it.

"So he is beginning to give her flowers already," Arnold thought.

Meanwhile Elsie was wondering whether he had yet seen Mrs. Verdon. The two widows had travelled down to Rushbrook on Monday, and this was Wednesday.

"Jamie must be delighted to be here," she said after a little pause.

"He is quite radiant," Arnold replied. "What lungs the boy has! I could hear him shouting as I walked up the lane to The Cedars yesterday afternoon."

"So he has called on her already," Elsie thought.

"Mrs. Verdon is afraid of the river," he went on. "The young rascal wants to make straight for the water; he has brought a regular fleet with him. They will have to keep a sharp watch."

"He is a dear little man," Elsie said warmly. "If your friend had lived he would have been proud of his nephew."

"I hope he'll grow up as good as dear old Harold," rejoined Arnold in a graver tone. "And I hope, too, that he won't miss Harold's influence over his life. He's in a fair way to be spoilt, you see."

"Mrs. Verdon really wants to do her best for him," said Elsie, with perfect sincerity. "And nurse is a very sensible woman."

"But it takes a man to manage a strong boy. A woman can't do it alone."

"He will help her to manage him," Elsie thought. "It is right, I know. This is what Meta would have wished. I am beginning to hate myself."

Aloud she said pleasantly, "I shall call at The Cedars to-morrow, and say that I will take care of Jamie sometimes."

"I came to ask you all to dine at the Court on Saturday," said Arnold, after another brief silence. "Mrs. Lennard will come, and so will Ryan; but Miss Ryan declined. I want you to get acquainted with my old place, Miss Kilner; there are one or two pictures which you will like, I think."

"Thank you," Elsie answered frankly. "I am very fond of pictures."

"You were looking at a picture when I saw you first," Arnold Wayne remarked, gazing at her with remembering eyes. "You were quite absorbed in it, and saw nothing else. And you only came out of your dream when the rector shouted a greeting to me."

Elsie smiled, and there was something dreamy in the smile. She had changed her attitude as she sat on the old trunk, and had laid the carnations on the bark by her side.

"I remember the picture," she said in a musing tone. "Two nuns were waiting outside a convent door. One of these days I think I shall be a nun."

"No, you won't," he answered in a masterful voice. "Will you walk a little way along the bank? There's a picturesque island farther on, a wonderful place for wild-flowers."

She rose. And the bunch of carnations was left forgotten on the trunk of the tree.