Wilfrid Cumbermede, George MacDonald [essential reading .txt] 📗

found room for both the soles of her absurdly small feet; and that evening, when I went wandering, after my custom, with a volume of Dante in my hand, the book remained unopened, and from the form of Clara flowed influences mingling with and gathering fresh power from those of Nature, whose feminine front now brooded over me half-withdrawn in the dim, starry night. I remember that night so well! I can recall it now with a calmness equal to its own. Indeed in my memory it seems to belong to my mind as much as to the outer world; or rather the night filled both, forming the space in which my thoughts moved, as well as the space in which the brilliant thread of the sun-lighted crescent hung clasping the earth-lighted bulk of the moon. I wandered in the grass until midnight was long by, feeling as quietly and peacefully at home as if my head had been on the pillow and my soul out in a lovely dream of cool delight. We lose much even by the good habits we form. What tender and glorious changes pass over our sleeping heads unseen! What moons rise and set in rippled seas of cloud, or behind hills of stormy vapour, while we are blind! What storms roll thundering across the airy vault, with no eyes for their keen lightnings to dazzle, while we dream of the dead who will not speak to us! But ah! I little thought to what a dungeon of gloom this lovely night was the jasmine-grown porch!

The next morning I was glad to think that there was no wolf at my door, howling work--work! Moldwarp Hall drew me with redoubled attraction; and instead of waiting for the afternoon, which alone I had intended to occupy with my new undertaking, I set out to cross the park the moment I had finished my late breakfast. Nor could I conceal from myself that it was quite as much for the chance of seeing Clara now and then as from pleasure in the prospect of an ordered library that I repaired thus early to the Hall. In the morning light, however, I began to suspect, as I walked, that, although Clara's frankness was flattering, it was rather a sign that she was heart-whole towards me than that she was careless of Brotherton. I began to doubt also whether, after our first meeting, which she had carried off so well-cool even to kindness-she would care to remember that I was in the house, or derive from it any satisfaction beyond what came of the increased chances of studying the Brothertons from a humorous point of view. Then, after all, why was she there?-and apparently on such familiar terms with a family socially so far superior to her own? The result of my cogitations was the resolution to take care of myself. But it had vanished utterly before the day was two hours older. A youth's wise talk to himself will not make him a wise man, any more than the experience of the father will serve the son's need.

I was hard at work in my shirt-sleeves, carrying an armful of books across the corridor, and thinking whether I had not better bring my servant with me in the afternoon, when Clara came out of her room.

'Here already, Wilfrid!' she exclaimed. 'Why don't you have some of the servants to help you? You're doing what any one might as well do for you.'

'If these were handsomely bound,' I answered, 'I should not so much mind; but being old and tattered, no one ought to touch them who does not love them.'

'Then, I suppose, you wouldn't trust me with them either, for I cannot pretend to anything beyond a second-hand respect for them.'

'What do you mean by a second-hand respect?' I asked.

'I mean such respect as comes from seeing that a scholar like you respects them.'

'Then I think I could accord you a second-hand sort of trust-under my own eye, that is,' I answered, laughing. 'But you can scarcely leave your hostess to help me.'

'I will ask Miss Brotherton to come too. She will pretend all the respect you desire.'

'I made three times the necessary dust in order to frighten her away yesterday.'

'Ah! that's a pity. But I shall manage to overrule her objections-that is, if you would really like two tolerably educated housemaids to help you.'

'I will gladly endure one of them for the sake of the other,' I replied.

'No compliments, please,' she returned, and left the room.

In about half an hour she re-appeared, accompanied by Miss Brotherton. They were in white wrappers, with their dresses shortened a little, and their hair tucked under mob caps. Miss Brotherton looked like a lady's-maid, Clara like a lady acting a lady's-maid. I assumed the command at once, pointing out to what heaps in the other room those I had grouped in this were to be added, and giving strict injunctions as to carrying only a few at once, and laying them down with care in regularly ordered piles. Clara obeyed with a mock submission, Miss Brotherton with a reserve which heightened the impression of her dress. I was instinctively careful how I spoke to Clara, fearing to compromise her, but she seemed all at once to change her rôle , and began to propose, object, and even insist upon her own way, drawing from me the threat of immediate dismission from my service, at which her companion laughed with an awkwardness showing she regarded the pleasantry as a presumption. Before one o'clock, the first room was almost empty. Then the great bell rang, and Clara, coming from the auxiliary chamber, put her head in at the door.

'Won't you come to luncheon?' she said, with a sly archness, looking none the less bewitching for a smudge or two on her lovely face, or the blackness of the delicate hands which she held up like two paws for my admiration.

'In the servants' hall? Workmen don't sit down with ladies and gentlemen. Did Miss Brotherton send you to ask me?'

She shook her head.

'Then you had better come and lunch with me.'

She shrugged her shoulders.

'I hope you will some day honour my little fragment of a house. It is a curious old place,' I said.

'I don't like musty old places,' she replied.

'But I have heard you speak with no little admiration of the Hall: some parts of it are older than my sentry-box.'

'I can't say I admire it at all as a place to live in,' she answered curtly.

'But I was not asking you to live in mine,' I said-foolishly arguing.

She looked annoyed, whether with herself or me I could not tell, but instantly answered,

'Some day-when I can without-But I must go and make myself tidy, or Miss Brotherton will be fancying I have been talking to you!'

'And what have you been doing, then?'

'Only asking you to come to lunch.'

'Will you tell her that?'

'Yes-if she says anything.'

'Then you had better make haste, and be asked no questions.'

She glided away. I threw on my coat, and re-crossed the park.

But I was so eager to see again the fair face in the mob cap, that, although not at all certain of its reappearance, I told my man to go at once and bring the mare. He made haste, and by the time I had finished my dinner she was at the door. I gave her the rein, and two or three minutes brought me back to the Hall, where, having stabled her, I was at my post again, I believe, before they had finished luncheon. I had a great heap of books ready in the second room to carry into the first, and had almost concluded they would not come, when I heard their voices-and presently they entered, but not in their mob caps.

'What an unmerciful master you are!' said Clara, looking at the heap. 'I thought you had gone home to lunch.'

'I went home to dinner,' I said. 'I get more out of the day by dining early.'

'How is that, Mr Cumbermede?' asked Miss Brotherton, with a nearer approach to cordiality than she had yet shown.

'I think the evening the best part of the day-too good to spend in eating and drinking.'

'But,' said Clara, quite gravely, 'are not those the chief ends of existence?' 'Your friend is satirical, Miss Brotherton,' I remarked.

'At least, you are not of her opinion, to judge by the time you have taken,' she returned.

'I have been back nearly an hour,' I said. 'Workmen don't take long over their meals.'

'Well, I suppose you don't want any more of us now,' said Clara. 'You will arrange the books you bring from the next room upon these empty shelves, I presume?'

'No, not yet. I must not begin that until I have cleared the very last, got it thoroughly cleaned, the shelves seen to, and others put up.'

'What a tremendous labour you have undertaken, Mr Cumbermede!' said Miss Brotherton. 'I am quite ashamed you should do so much for us.'

'I, on the contrary, am delighted to be of any service to Sir Giles.'

'But you don't expect us to slave all day as we did in the morning?' said Clara.

'Certainly not, Miss Coningham. I am too grateful to be exacting.'

'Thank you for that pretty speech. Come, then, Miss Brotherton, we must have a walk. We haven't been out-of-doors to-day.'

'Really, Miss Coningham, I think the least we can do is to help Mr Cumbermede to our small ability.'

'Nonsense!'-(Miss Brotherton positively started at the word.) 'Any two of the maids or men would serve his purpose better, if he did not affect fastidiousness. We sha'n't be allowed to come to-morrow if we overdo it to-day.'

Miss Brotherton was evidently on the point of saying something indignant, but yielded notwithstanding, and I was left alone once more. Again I laboured until the shadows grew thick around the gloomy walls. As I galloped home, I caught sight of my late companions coming across the park; and I trust I shall not be hardly judged if I confess that I did sit straighter in my saddle, and mind my seat better. Thus ended my second day's work at the library of Moldwarp Hall.


CHAPTER XXXIV.


AN EXPOSTULATION.

Neither of the ladies came to me the next morning. As far as my work was concerned, I was in considerably less need of their assistance, for it lay only between two rooms opening into each other. Nor did I feel any great disappointment, for so long as a man has something to do, expectation is pleasure enough, and will continue such for a long time. It is those who are unemployed to whom expectation becomes an agony. I went home to my solitary dinner almost resolved to return to my original plan of going only in the afternoons.

I was not thoroughly in love with Clara; but it was certainly the hope of seeing her, and not the pleasure of handling the dusty books, that drew me back to the library that afternoon. I had got rather tired of the whole affair in the morning. It was very hot, and the dust was choking, and of the volumes I opened as they passed through my hands, not one was of the slightest interest to me. But for the chance of seeing Clara I