Читать книгу Margaret Capel, vol. 2 - Ellen Wallace - Страница 1

There is a portion of the coast in one of the southern counties of England, which, without aspiring to the sublimity of foreign scenery, possesses a certain grandeur from the abruptness and variety of its outline. High cliffs stand boldly forward into the sea, while the intermediate shore rises and falls in gentle and uncertain undulations. For many miles inland, this irregular character of the surface continues. The ground rises and falls so suddenly, that in many places the trees which clothe the tops of the hills, almost shut out the sky from the spectator in the valley; while many coloured rocks, vary by their wild forms and rich tints, the even line of verdure which extends over the precipitous sides of these ravines.

This part of the country is rich in scenes of peculiar beauty. Brooks trickle from the shade of deep thickets, or sparkle in stony cells overgrown with creepers at the foot of a confused heap of broken rocks.

Hill and dale crowd upon each other in quick succession—every turn in the way leads to fresh aspects of the prospect. Now the traveller's view is bounded by high banks, overgrown with trees and tangled brushwood; now the ground breaks away in such a gradual slope, that the sea may be discerned in the distance, trembling in the sunshine, or breaking in rough foam upon the long brown line of the beach.

Half way between one of these bold headlands and the shore, there stood a beautiful cottage, with a thickly wooded hill at the back, and a highly cultivated plot of garden ground in the front: while the side of the house stood so near the edge of a sudden descent in the cliff, that nothing but a broad terrace-walk intervened between the garden-windows, and the abrupt declivity which was washed by the waves when the tide was higher than usual.

It was a brilliant evening. The sun had almost descended to the horizon, and a long pathway of golden light fell upon the calm sea, and the wet sand from which the waves had just receded.

A dim radiance seemed to fill the air, and to blend hills, trees, and sky together in one soft and many tinted confusion of colours; while the lengthened rays threaded their brilliant way among the slender stems of the trees, and dropped like diamonds upon the dark rivulets that lay in shadow among the brushwood during the early part of the day.

It was an evening when the whole earth looked so bright, so costly, steeped in sunlight, and surrendered to the stillness which belongs to that quiet hour, that it seemed as if this lower world might be fitly inhabited only by fairies or other such fragile creatures of the imagination. Such, however, were not the denizens of the cottage by the hill-side; but a comely old lady in an antique cap and black silk gown, who had the appearance of a house-keeper, or confidential servant, and who was leaning over the Gothic gate at the end of the shrubbery, and looking along the winding road, as if on the watch for some expected travellers.

Her patience was not put to any lengthened test. In a few minutes, a carriage was seen rapidly advancing to the house. The old woman retreated to the porch; the carriage drew up, and a lady of a commanding aspect descended, followed by a slight graceful girl.

"Ah! nurse, dear nurse! how glad I am to see you!" exclaimed the young lady, throwing herself into the old woman's arms.

"Welcome to England! Welcome back, my darling!" said the nurse, endeavouring to execute a curtsey to the elder lady, while imprisoned in the embrace of the younger one.

"I am rejoiced to see you again, nurse Grant," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, the elder of the two ladies, "Aveline, my love, we are just in the way here—let us go in."

"Yes, mamma. I long to see the dear rooms again. How comfortable every thing looks! Nurse, come in. Mamma, you said that nurse should drink tea with us to-night."

"Yes, if nurse pleases," said the lady, as they went into the drawing-room, where tea was awaiting them in all the English delicacy of that meal. "Aveline has been depending on your company all the way from Southampton, Mrs. Grant."

"Bless her, the darling!" said the old woman. "She is tired with her journey, is she not? I hope she means to eat something. A fresh egg, or some cold chicken, Miss Aveline?"

"Eat, nurse! you will see how I eat;" said the young lady drawing to the table. "I should be ashamed that anybody but you should see me eat after a long journey. I am so hungry!"

"Her appetite is very good," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, in a decided tone. "She is come back in every respect, nurse, better than she was. Her stay in Italy has been of the utmost advantage to her."

"Thank God!" said Mrs. Grant, looking earnestly at the young lady. "There is some good then in foreign parts."

"Oh, nurse!" cried Aveline. "Not a word against Italy. It is the only country to enjoy and improve life. If it were not that this is our home, I could have spent my life at Naples, or—Sorrento."

"You were very fond of Sorrento," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, looking inquiringly at her daughter.

"Yes. That is, I was tired of it at last. It was a great relief to go on to Milan, there is something in the sea-side that—a monotony I mean—after—"

"Yet, you could have spent your life there;" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick in a subdued tone.

"In Italy, mamma? At any place in Italy. It is not the spot, but the thin warm air that makes me feel so full of life. Oh, dear nurse, you do look so handsome. You cannot think how ugly the old Italian women are, with their thick brown skins and deep wrinkles, and coarse grizzled hair. English people have certainly a more delicate texture. Even I was thought pretty in Italy."

"Pretty in Italy!" said the old lady indignantly. "I fancy, Miss Aveline, the gentlemen must be much changed since my time, if you are not thought pretty anywhere."

"Oh, hush, nurse!" said Aveline lifting up her finger. "It is only safe to tell little children they are pretty. Grown up ones are too ready to believe it."

"It is little matter here, Miss Aveline," said the old woman. "You have no neighbours."

"No neighbours, nurse? I was but waiting until we had finished tea to ask you about them all. How is the good old widow by the church—and Mrs. Wood, the baker—and young Mrs. Wood at the post-office? And Harding, the carpenter—and the fisherman's family on the other side of the cliff? Is little Jane as pretty as ever? Of course not. Her father I know has cut all her curls off, as he always does, and she is beginning to lose her teeth; so that she will not be fit to look at for these ten years."

While she was talking on in this lively manner, the old woman kept her eyes fixed on her face with a serious and anxious expression.

Aveline was fearfully thin; her hands, which she used in speaking, more than an English woman, were almost transparent; and from fatigue, the blue veins had risen over them in every direction. The colour in her cheeks was fixed like a bright spot of rouge under each eye, giving a brilliancy that was almost fierce in its expression to eyes that were dark as night, and remarkable for their size.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who followed the nurse's looks with an eagerness that she could scarcely repress, caught her eye and remained silent, fixing her gaze upon the old woman's countenance with an intensity that she could hardly sustain. It seemed as if she ardently desired to read the nurse's opinion of her child, but was equally anxious that she should not then express it.

"Well, nurse," said Aveline, "what news? I hope all these good people are not dead, that you keep such a profound silence upon their proceedings."

"All pretty much as you left them, Miss Aveline," said the nurse, rousing herself from her contemplation. "I cannot speak positively with respect to the beauty of the fisherman's children; though I always see three or four curly heads round his door when I pass. He lost one poor little one in the winter with the whooping cough. The neighbours said it was a mercy, as he had such a large family, but I don't know that the parents felt the less on that account."

"Poor people!" said Aveline. "I'll tell you what, mamma, I shall get up early to-morrow, and go down to the cottage with Susan, and buy some prawns for breakfast; and then I shall see what the children would like as a present. I am always so glad when people are in want of nice clean little straw bonnets. There is nothing romantic in giving away flannel petticoats or thick worsted stockings."

"Remember, Miss Aveline," said the nurse, "that you give away a great deal of comfort with those warm clothes."

"And if you intend to take a long walk to-morrow," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "you had better not sit up later to-night. You have had a long journey, and should be prudent; though you bore it remarkably well."

But Aveline was unwilling to retire. Although she was evidently suffering from over fatigue, she persisted in wandering restlessly round the room, looking at all the trifling ornaments with which it was strewn. Mrs. Grant noticed with pain that her step was languid, and that she stooped very much as she walked. Presently she was seized with a distressing fit of coughing.

"A lozenge, if you please, Mamma," said Aveline, coming up to her mother's chair.

"Now Aveline I know you are tired," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "take your lozenges and go to bed at once. She always coughs," she said turning to Mrs. Grant, "when she is over fatigued. She always did from a child." "Come, Miss Aveline," said Mrs. Grant, "I am going home in a minute—let me see you off. Dear heart! how I recollect the time when you were a little girl; what a trouble there always was to get you to bed."

"Why what particular secrets have you good people to talk over that you wish me away?" said Aveline laughing, "what account have you to give mamma of the turkey poults and the guinea fowls that I may not hear? But, good night, nurse; you will have me plaguing you early to-morrow, at your cottage, and pillaging your strawberry beds, which you know are a great deal better than ours. As for you, mamma, I shall not say good night, because you will be upstairs long before I am asleep."

"Her spirits are excellent, nurse," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, in a tone that seemed as if she was desirous to be assured of the fact.

"They are—very high, Ma'am;" said Mrs. Grant. "How do you think she is looking?" asked Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

"I shall tell better to-morrow, Ma'am," said the old woman with rather an unsteady voice; "I should like, I confess to see her looking a little less thin."

"She was always thin as a child if you remember, Mrs. Grant, and when a girl grows very tall, she naturally grows thin at the same time. I think nothing of that."

"No, no, Ma'am," said Mrs. Grant cheerfully, "young girls will look thin sometimes."

"She was very ill at Nice you know; the north-east wind brought back her cough and frightened us very much. And we had a desponding kind of a man as our medical attendant. There is nothing so unfavourable to an invalid as one of those over-anxious people about them. But, you see, now the weather is warm she is getting on nicely."

Mrs. Grant felt her hopes sinking fast away before the news that the medical man's opinion was an unfavourable one. She thought it a bad sign that he should despond, where no particular interest led him to exaggerate the case.

"You can have no idea," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "of what we suffered at Nice. You have heard of the prejudice the Italians entertain against any illness that they consider to be of a consumptive tendency. And Aveline having something of a cough—in short, Mrs. Grant, they fancied that my poor child was in a decline; and when she was at the worst, they took fright, and ordered us out of our lodgings at a moment's notice. Aveline was too ill to travel—our hostess was peremptory—and I knew well that no other house would take us in. It was then that a country-woman of ours, a Mrs. Maxwell Dorset, hearing of our distress, sought us out, and instantly offered us apartments in her house. It was impossible to stand on ceremony at such a time. I accepted her kindness, and had we been her nearest relatives, we could not have been more warmly welcomed nor more carefully attended."

"Thank God that you are safe again on English ground," said the old nurse; "where, at least, we do not turn sick people into the streets, the Pagans! And Heaven reward the good lady who took compassion on you in your need."

And so saying, Mrs. Grant took her departure.

As soon as Mrs. Fitzpatrick was alone, she sat down before her writing case, and leaning her head on her hand seemed lost in thought. She had but few and distant relations, and since her widowhood had lived in such retirement, that except two or three neighbouring families she numbered as few friends. She had in early life, lived much in the world; but having withdrawn into solitude, the world had paid her the usual compliment, and forgotten her existence. She had lost several children when very young, and all her affections centred upon this only girl whose health was so precarious. She wrote a few lines to a medical man of some eminence who lived a few miles off, to announce her return, and to beg that he would lose no time in paying them a visit.

"It is best to be upon the safe side;" she said to herself, "Aveline is gaining strength; but Mr. Lindsay may point out some means that would escape me. He is so clever, and has known her constitution from a child. I am sure he will think she is improved by her residence abroad."

So saying she rose to retire for the night; and casting her eyes round the room, she saw lying about, Aveline's gloves, her handkerchief and scarf, which she had thrown aside and forgotten, with the carelessness of youth. These she gathered up and folded together with that indescribable air of tenderness, which, in a mother, sometimes extends itself to the trifles that her child has worn or touched; and then went up stairs to take a last look at Aveline—and to sleep, if she could.