when she looked at me, as if she had something to tell and was looking into my face to see whether she might or might not do it. But it never went any further; we began to speak of Molly Jackson, and that was an interminable subject. Molly was a widow in the village, and she gave us all a great deal of trouble. She had a quantity of little children, to whom the people on the Green were very kind, and she was a good-natured soft soul, always falling into some scrape or other. This time was the worst of all; it was when the talk got up about Thomas Short. People said that Molly was going to marry him. It would have been very foolish for them both, of course. He was poor and he was getting old, and would rather have hindered than helped her with her children. We gentlefolks may, or may not, be sentimental about our own concerns; but we see things in their true light when they take place among our poor neighbours. As for the two being a comfort to each other we never entered into that question; there were more important matters concerned.
‘I don’t know what would become of the poor children,’ said I. ‘The man would never put up with them, and indeed it could not be expected; and they have no friends to go to. But I don’t think Molly would be so wicked; she may be a fool but she has a mother’s heart.’
Lady Denzil gave a faint smile and turned on her sofa as if something hurt her; she did not answer me all at once—and as I sat for a minute silent in that soft obscurity, Molly Jackson, I acknowledge, went out of my head. Then all at once when I had gone on to something else, she spoke; and her return to the subject startled me, I could not have told how.
‘There are different ways of touching a mother’s heart,’ she said; ‘she might think it would be for their good; I don’t think it could be, for my part; I don’t think it ever is; a woman is deceived, or she deceives herself; and then when it is too late–’
‘What is too late?’ said Sir Thomas behind us. He had come in at the great window, and we had not noticed. I thought Lady Denzil gave a little start, but there was no sign of it in her face.
‘We were talking of Molly Jackson,’ she said. ‘Nothing is ever too late here, thanks to your precise habits, you old soldier. Molly must be talked to, Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she said, turning to me.
‘Oh, yes, she will be talked to,’ said I; ‘I know the rector and his wife have both called; and last time I saw her, Mrs. Wood–’
‘You are not one of the universal advisers,’ said Lady Denzil, patting my arm with her white hand. It was no virtue on my part, but she spoke as if she meant it for a compliment. And then we had to tell the whole story over again to Sir Thomas, who was very fond of a little gossip like all the gentlemen, but had to have everything explained to him, and never knew what was coming next. He chuckled and laughed as men do over it. ‘Old fool!’ he said. ‘A woman with half-a-dozen children.’ It was not Molly but Thomas Short that he thought would be a fool; and on our side, it is true that we had not been thinking of him.
Molly Jackson has not much to do with this story, but yet it may be as well to say that she listened to reason, and did not do anything so absurd. It was a relief to all our minds when Thomas went to live in Langham parish the spring after, and married somebody there. I believe it was a girl out of the workhouse, who might have been his daughter, and led him a very sad life. But still in respect to Molly it was a relief to our minds. I hope she was of the same way of thinking. I know for one thing that she lost her temper, the only time I ever saw her do it—and was very indignant about the young wife. ‘Old fool!’ she said, and again it was Thomas that was meant. We had a way of talking a good deal about the village folks, and we all did a great deal for them—perhaps, on the whole, we did too much. When anything happened to be wanting among them, instead of making an effort to get it for themselves, it was always the ladies on the Green they came to. And, of course, we interfered in our turn.
CHAPTER II
It was in the spring of the following year that little Mary first came to the Lodge. Sir Thomas had been absent for some time, on business, Lady Denzil said, and it was he who brought the child home. It is all impressed on my mind by the fact that I was there when they arrived. He was not expected until the evening, and I had gone to spend an hour with Lady Denzil in the afternoon. It was a bright spring day, as warm as summer; one of those sweet surprises that come upon us in England in intervals between the gray east wind and the rain. The sunshine had called out a perfect crowd of golden crocuses along the borders. They had all blown out quite suddenly, as if it had been an actual voice that called them, and God’s innocent creatures had rushed forth to answer to their names. And there were heaps of violets about the Lodge which made the air sweet. And there is something in that first exquisite touch of spring which moves all hearts. Lady Denzil had come out with me to the lawn. I thought she was quieter than usual, with the air of a woman listening for something. Everything was very still, and yet in the sunshine one felt as if one could hear the buds unfolding, the young grass and leaflets thrilling with their new life. But it did not seem to me that Lady Denzil was listening to these. I said, ‘Do you expect Sir Thomas now?’ with a kind of vague curiosity; and she looked in my face with a sudden quick glance of something like suspicion which I could not understand.
‘Do I look as if I expected something?’ she said. ‘Yes—I expect some news that probably I shall not like. But it does not matter, my dear. It is nothing that affects me.’
She said these words with a smile that was rather dreary to see. It was not like Lady Denzil. It was like saying, ‘So long as it does not affect me you know I don’t care,’—which was so very, very far from my opinion of her. I did not know what to answer. Her tone somehow disturbed the spring feeling, and the harmony of the flowers.
‘I wish Sir Thomas had been here on such a lovely day,’ she said, after a while; ‘he enjoys it so. Peace is very pleasant, my dear, when you are old. You don’t quite appreciate it yet, as we do.’ And then she paused again and seemed to listen, and permitted herself the faintest little sigh.
‘I think I am older than you are, Lady Denzil,’ I said.
Then she laughed in her natural soft way. ‘I dare say you are,’ she said. ‘That is the difference between your restless middle age and our oldness. You feel old because you feel young. That’s how it is; whereas, being really old, we can afford to be young again—sometimes,’ she added softly. The last word was said under her breath. I don’t suppose she thought I heard it; but I did, being very quick of hearing, and very fond of her, and feeling there was something underneath which I did not know.
Just then there came the sound of wheels upon the road, and Lady Denzil started slightly. ‘You have put it into my head that Sir Thomas might come by the three o’clock train,’ she said. ‘It would be about time for it now.’ She had scarcely stopped speaking and we had just turned towards the gate, when a carriage entered. I saw at once it was one of the common flys that are to be had at the station, and that it was Sir Thomas who put his head out at the window. A moment after it stopped. He had seen Lady Denzil on the lawn. He got out with that slight hesitation which betrays an old man; and then he turned and lifted something out of the carriage. For the first moment one could not tell what it was—he made a long stride on to the soft greensward, with his eyes fixed upon Lady Denzil, and then he put down the child on the lawn. ‘Go to that lady,’ he said. For my part I stood and stared, knowing nothing of the feelings that might lie underneath. The child stood still with her little serious face and looked at us both for a moment, and then she walked steadily up to Lady Denzil, who had not moved. I was quite unprepared for what followed. Lady Denzil fell down on her knees on the grass—she took the child to her, into her arms, close to her breast. All at once she fell into a passion of tears. And yet that does not express what I saw. It was silent; there were no cries nor sobs, such as a young woman might have uttered. The tears fell as if they had been pent up all her life, as if all her life she had been waiting for this moment: while Sir Thomas stood looking on, half sad, half satisfied. It seemed a revelation to him as it was to me. All this time when
