Heriot's Choice Part 28

she had said when Mildred had pressed her the previous night. 'No, you cannot do anything for me, Aunt Milly. I only want to help myself and other people to do right.' And Mildred, who was secretly weary of this endless scrupulosity, and imagined it was only a fresh attack of Olive's troublesome conscience, was fain to rest content with the answer, though she reproached herself not a little afterwards for a selfish evasion of a manifest duty.

The remainder of the day pa.s.sed over pleasantly enough. Dr. Heriot had contrived to make his peace with Miss Trelawny, for she had regained her old serenity of manner when Mildred saw her again. She came just as they were starting, to beg that Mildred would spend a long day at Kirkleatham House.

'Papa is going over to Appleby, to the Sessions Court, and I shall be alone all day to-morrow. Do come, Mildred,' she pleaded. 'You do not know what a treat it will be to me.' And though Mildred hesitated, her objections were all overruled by Richard, who insisted that n.o.body wanted her, and that a holiday would do her good.

Richard's arguments prevailed, and Mildred thoroughly enjoyed her holiday. Some hours of unrestrained intercourse only convinced her that Ethel Trelawny's faults lay on the surface, and were the result of a defective education and disadvantageous circ.u.mstances, while the real n.o.bility of her character revealed itself in every thought and word. She had laid aside the slight hauteur and extravagance that marred simplicity and provoked the just censure of men like Dr. Heriot; lesser natures she delighted to baffle by an eccentricity that was often ill-timed and out of place, but to-day the stilts, as Dr. Heriot termed them, were out of sight. Mildred's sincerity touched the right keynote, her brief captiousness vanished, unconsciously she showed the true side of her character. Gentle, though unsatisfied; childishly eager, and with a child's purity of purpose; full of lofty aims, unpractical, waiting breathless for mere visionary happiness for which she knew no name; a sweet, though subtle egotist, and yet tender-hearted and womanly;--no wonder Ethel Trelawny was a fascinating study to Mildred that long summer's day.

Mildred listened with unwearied sympathy while Ethel dwelt pathetically on her lonely and purposeless life, with its jarring gaieties and absence of congenial fellows.h.i.+p.

'Papa is dreadfully methodical and business-like. He always finds fault with me because I am so unpractical, and will never let me help him, or talk about what interests him; and then he cares for politics. He was so disappointed because he failed in the last election. His great ambition is to be a member of parliament. I know they got him to contest the Kendal borough; but he had no chance, though he spent I am afraid to say how much money. The present member was too popular, and was returned by a large majority. He was very angry because I did not sympathise with him in his disappointment; but how could I, knowing it was for the honour of the position that he wanted it, and not for the highest motives? And then the bribery and corruption were so sickening.'

'I do not think we ought to impute any but the highest motives until we know to the contrary,' returned Mildred, mildly.

Ethel coloured. 'You think me disloyal; but papa knows my sentiments well; we shall never agree on these questions--never. I fancy men in general take a far less high standard than women.'

'You are wrong there,' returned practical Mildred, firing up at this sweeping a.s.sertion, which had a taint of heresy in her ears. 'Because men live instead of talk their opinions, you misjudge them. Do you think the single eye and the steady aim is not a necessary adjunct of all real manhood? Look at my brother, look at Dr. Heriot, for example; they are no mere worldlings, leading purposeless existences; they are both hard workers and deep thinkers.'

'We will leave Dr. Heriot out of the question; I see he has begun to be perfection in your eyes, Mildred. Nay,'--and Mildred drew herself up with a little dignity and looked annoyed,--'I meant nothing but the most platonic admiration, which I a.s.sure you he reciprocates in an equal degree. He thinks you a very superior person--so well-principled, so entirely unselfish; he is always quoting you as an example, and----'

'I agree with you that we should leave personalities in the background,'

returned Mildred, hastily, and taking herself to task for feeling aggrieved at Dr. Heriot calling her a superior person. The argument waxed languid at this point; Ethel became a little lugubrious under Mildred's reproof, and relapsed into pathetic egotism again, pouring out her longings for vocation, work, sympathy, and all the disconnected iota of female oratory worked up into enthusiasm.

'I want work, Mildred.'

'And yet you dream dreams and see visions.'

'Hus.h.!.+ please let me finish. I do not mean make-believes, s.h.i.+fts to get through the day, fanciful labours befitting rank and station, but real work, that will fill one's heart and life.'

'Yours is a hungry nature. I fear the demand would double the supply.

You would go starved from the very place where we poor ordinary mortals would have a full meal.'

Ethel pouted. 'I wish you would not borrow metaphors from our tiresome Mentor. I declare, Mildred, your words have always more or less a flavour of Dr. Heriot's.'

Mildred quietly took up her work. 'You know how to reduce me to silence.'

But Ethel playfully impeded the sewing by laying her crossed hands over it.

'Dr. Heriot's name seems an apple of discord between us, Mildred.'

'You are so absurd about him.'

'I am always provoked at hearing his opinions second-hand. I have less comfort in talking to him than to any one else; I always seem to be airing my own foolishness.'

'At least, I am not accountable for that,' returned Mildred, pointedly.

'No,' returned Ethel, with her charming smile, which at once disarmed Mildred's prudery. 'You wise people think and talk much alike; you are both so hard on mere visionaries. But I can bear it more patiently from you than from him.'

'I cannot solve riddles,' replied Mildred, in her old sensible manner.

'It strikes me that you have fas.h.i.+oned Dr. Heriot into a sort of bugbear--a _bete noir_ to frighten naughty, prejudiced children; and yet he is truly gentle.'

'It is the sort of gentleness that rebukes one more than sternness,'

returned Ethel in a low voice. 'How odd it is, Mildred, when one feels compelled to show the worst side of oneself, to the very people, too, whom one most wishes to propitiate, or, at least--but my speech threatens to be as incoherent as Olive's.'

'I know what you mean; it comes of thinking too much of a mere expression of opinion.'

'Oh no,' she returned, with a quick blush; 'it only comes from a rash impulse to dethrone Mentor altogether--the idea of moral leading reins are so derogatory after childhood has pa.s.sed.'

'You must give me a hint if I begin to lecture in my turn. I shall forget sometimes you are not Olive or Chriss.'

The soft, brilliant eyes filled suddenly with tears.

'I could find it in my heart to wish I were even Olive, whom you have a right to lecture. How nice it would be to belong to you really, Mildred--to have a real claim on your time and sympathy.'

'All my friends have that,' was the soft answer. 'But how dark it is growing--the longest day must have an end, you see.'

'That means--you are going,' she returned, regretfully. 'Mother Mildred is thinking of her children. I shall come down and see you and them soon, and you must promise to find me some work.'

Mildred shook her head. 'It must not be my finding if it is to satisfy your exorbitant demands.'

'We shall see; anyhow you have left me plenty to think about--you will leave a little bit of suns.h.i.+ne behind you in this dull, rambling house.

Shall you go alone? Richard or Royal ought to have walked up to meet you.'

'Richard half promised he would, but I do not mind a lonely walk.' And Mildred nodded brightly as she turned out of the lodge gates. She looked back once; the moon was rising, a star shone on the edge of a dark cloud, the air was sweet with the breath of honeysuckles and roses, a slight breeze stirred Ethel's white dress as she leaned against the heavy swing-gate, the sound of a horse's hoofs rang out from the distance, the next moment she had disappeared into the shrubbery, and Dr. Heriot walked his horse all the way to the town by the side of Mildred.

Mildred's day had refreshed and exhilarated her; congenial society was as new as it was delightful. 'Somehow I think I feel younger instead of older,' thought the quiet woman, as she turned up the vicarage lane and entered the courtyard; 'after all, it is sweet to be appreciated.'

'Is that you, Aunt Milly? You look ghost-like in the gloaming.'

'Naughty boy, how you startled me! Why did not you or Richard walk up to Kirkleatham House?'

'We could not,' replied Roy, gravely. 'My father wanted Richard, and I--I did not feel up to it. Go in, Aunt Milly; it is very damp and chilly out here to-night.' And Roy resumed his former position of lounging against the trellis-work of the porch. There was a touch of despondency in the lad's voice and manner that struck Mildred, and she lingered for a moment in the porch.

'Are you not coming in too?'

'No, thank you, not at present,' turning away his face.

'Is there anything the matter, Roy?'

'Yes--no. One must have a fit of the dumps sometimes; life is not all syrup of roses'--rather crossly for Roy.

'Poor old Royal--what's amiss, I wonder? There, I will not tease you,'

touching his shoulder caressingly, but with a half-sigh at the reticence of Betha's boys. 'Where is Richard?'

'With my father--I thought I told you;' then, mastering his irritability with an effort, 'please don't go to them, Aunt Milly, they are discussing something. Things are rather at sixes and sevens this evening, thanks to Livy's interference; she will tell you all about it.

Good-night, Aunt Milly;' and as though afraid of being further questioned, Roy strode down the court, where Mildred long afterwards heard him kicking up the beck gravel, as a safe outlet and vent for pent-up irritability.

Mildred drew a long breath as she went upstairs. 'I shall pay dearly for my pleasant holiday,' she thought. She could hear low voices in earnest talk as she pa.s.sed the study, but as she stole noiselessly down the lobby no sound reached her from the girls' room, and she half hoped Olive was asleep.

As she opened her own door, however, there was a slight sound as of a caught breath, and then a quick sob, and to her dismay she could just see in the faint light the line of crouching shoulders and a bent figure huddled up near the window that could belong to no other than Olive. It must be confessed that Mildred's heart shrank for a moment from the weary task that lay before her; but the next instant genuine pity and compa.s.sion banished the unworthy thought.