“I have often been told that they are inclined to take advantage,” she replied, with a look which convinced me at once that she would make a first-rate housekeeper, for what butcher could resist it? “My dear father would have much trouble with them, if, if—I mean if he were at all allowed to have it. But he is always so full of great things.”
“Oh, what a happy man he must be! I have heard that he is the most clever, and learned, and one of the most celebrated men in London.”
I may not have heard all that, but still I was perfectly justified in saying it, for it made her talk; and every time she spoke, her voice sounded sweeter than it did the time before.
“You have been told the truth; it is acknowledged universally,” she went on as if there were no fame to equal his, and with a sparkle in her blue eyes, as if a star had flashed in heaven; “there seems to be nothing that he does not know, and nothing that he does not improve by his knowledge, and make useful for—I mean for the world at large. How I can be his child, and yet so stupid and slow-witted, is a thing that amazes me, and I am trying always not to think of it.”
“I am sure you are not stupid. I am sure you are very quick-witted. I never saw any one half so clever, and accomplished, and ladylike, and gentle, and”—“lovely” was the word I was about to use; but she stopped me, with a smile that would have stopped a rushing bull.
“I am showing my quick wits now,” she said, presenting the charm of her hand again, “by never even thanking you for all you did last evening. I was thinking before you appeared, that but for you I should probably be tossing in these wild waters now, or probably carried down as far as London Bridge, without a chance even of being buried. And it made me so sad, when I remembered that it would make no difference to any one.”
“How can you say such a dreadful thing?” I exclaimed with great indignation, for her eyes that had been so full of light were darkened with sadness, and turned away; “it is not true that I saved you in the least, though I wish that I had; I should deserve to live for ever; but you speak as if no one in the world had any love for the sweetest, and best, and most lovely creature in it.”
This was going rather far, I must confess; not that any word of it was at all exaggerated, or even approached the proper mark; but that it might seem a little early, on the part of one who had never had the pleasure of beholding the lady, till the previous afternoon. The remembrance of this was very awkward to me, and I was wild with myself, but could not stop the mischief now.
“Will you oblige me, Mr. Orchardson,” she asked, as gently as if I had shown no folly, “by just looking down or up the village, to see if Mrs. Marker is coming. She was to have been here ten minutes ago; and we have to make a long round now, since the bridge on the lower road is washed away. I ought not to trouble you; but I never know exactly where I am in country places, although I love the country so.”
This was more than I deserved; for a good box on the ears was the proper reward for my frowardness, and I should have been less abashed by it. “I am a bigger cad than Sam Henderson himself,” I whispered with a timid glance at her. But she seemed at a loss to know what my meaning was; and so with a deep but very clumsy bow, I departed to do her bidding.
Before I had taken many steps, there appeared the lady housekeeper in the distance, walking with great dignity, perhaps to console herself for the insolence of that Widow Cutthumb. Of this I knew nothing as yet, though it was plain that something unrighteous had disturbed her. And this made my humble demeanour more soothing and persuasive to her upright mind. After shaking her hand very warmly and paying a well-deserved compliment to her fine colour, I ventured to implore a little favour, which the sight of our garden wall sparkling in the sunshine, for it was newly topped with broken glass, suggested by some good luck to me.
“Oh, if you would only come,” I said, “and see my Uncle’s trees to-morrow! They are at their very best this week, before we begin to gather largely. The pears are hanging down, so that we have had to prop the branches, and the plums are as thick as eggs together, when the hen is sitting; only instead of being pale, some are of the richest gold, and some of a deep purple, like—like that magnificent amethyst you wear; and the peaches on the wall—you might almost compare these to a lady’s cheeks, when a gentleman tells her of her beauty—”
“Really, Mr. Orchardson, you are quite a poet!”
“And when you get tired of looking at them, and tasting the ripest, all you have to do is to come into the vinery, and sit beneath the leaves, and look all along it, wherever the clusters leave any room to look, until you don’t know which you like the best, the appearance of the black or the white ones, because so much depends upon the light. And then Uncle Corny comes with a pair of scissors, and says—‘Ma’am, that is not the way to look at it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating,’ and he hands you in a vine-leaf, being careful where he cuts it, a jet-black shoulder of Black Hamburgh, and an amber-coloured triplet of White Muscat.”
“Mr. Orchardson, you are making my mouth water, if a vulgar expression may be allowed to one who eats the bread of servitude.” I wondered to hear her speak thus, though I saw that she had been aggrieved by somebody. “And if you will be at home to-morrow afternoon, perhaps I might obtain permission to leave my mistress for an hour or two. I might walk down about four o’clock, when I have finished all the blacking of the boots.”
Something with a spiteful tang to it was rankling in her mind, as I perceived; but having no right to ask, I just lifted my hat and gazed at her gold chain and broach. Then a tear or two, started by her own words, came forth, and she looked at me softly.
“You would add to the favour of your invitation,” she said with a smile which made me look at something else, “if you would include in it Miss Kitty Fairthorn. Poor thing! She is put upon very sadly, and it would be such a treat for her. They see so little of the beauties of nature in London.”
“I am sure my Uncle will be most happy;” I answered as if I were not sure about myself.
CHAPTER VII.
DE GUSTIBUS.
Now my Uncle Cornelius Orchardson (a stout and calm fruit-grower, called in contumely “Corny the topper” by strangers who wanted his growth for nothing) professed and even practised a large contempt for gossip. Nevertheless it was plain enough that his feelings were hurt, if a thing went on, which he was bound in politeness to know, and yet was not offered any tidings of it. With such people it is always wiser, if you have done anything against their wishes, to let them know all the particulars at once; and so to have it out and be done with it. And I was beginning to love him now, which as a boy I had done but little, inasmuch as he never gave way to me. Obstinate as he was, and sometimes hot—if one tried to play tricks with him—I was not much afraid of Uncle Corny, although so dependent upon him. For I knew him to be a just man in the main, and one who kept no magnet of his own to fetch down the balance to his own desires. Yea, rather he would set the beam against himself, when it trembled in doubt of its duty.
With the hasty conclusions of youth, I believed that because he was now an old bachelor, though able to afford a wife many years ago, he had taken and held to an adverse view of the fairer and better half of the human race. And his frequent counsels to me to keep out of their way confirmed my conviction. The course of time proved that I was wrong in this, as in many other matters of my judgment; and my rule, if I had to begin again, would be to think the best of every man, till he compels me otherwise. But the worst of Uncle Corny was that he never cared to vindicate himself.
His countenance also was in keeping with this manner, and the build of his body and the habit of his gait. His figure was tall, yet wide and thick, and his face very solid and ample. He had never been comely by line and rule, yet always very pleasant for an honest man to look at, and likely to win the good word of a woman. Because there was strength and decision in his face, and a power of