CHAPTER III.

“I CAN understand what you felt,” Walter said, when he heard of Florence’s interview with Mrs. North; “still, I wish we could do something for her.”

“It has made me miserable; but I don’t quite see what we can do. We can’t invite her here—who would come to meet her? As for my going to see her again, I would go willingly if I thought I should do her any good; but I don’t think she would care about seeing me. She imagines I am good and disagreeable.”

“Poor Floggie! Perhaps you might write her a little letter, and then let it drop.”

“I’ll wait till I hear some news about Aunt Anne; then I will write, and try to make my letter rather nice.”

This excuse was soon given her.

Mrs. Burnett, Mr. Fisher’s Whitley friend, called to see Florence one afternoon.

“I thought perhaps you would come for a drive with me,” she said; “it is lovely in the Park to-day—such beautiful sunshine.”

“It would be delightful,” Florence answered, for she always liked Mrs. Burnett; “but I am afraid I must go to tea with a cousin in Kensington Gore. I promised to meet Walter there, and go for a walk afterwards.”

“Let me drive you there, at any rate.”

“That would be very kind,” Florence said, and in five minutes they were on their way.

“Have you seen Mr. Fisher lately?” Mrs. Burnett asked, as they went across the Park.

“I saw him two or three weeks ago.”

“He has grown very grave and silent. I have an idea that he fell in love with a rather handsome girl who used to come and see his mother. I think she was a friend of yours, Mrs. Hibbert.”

“He doesn’t look like a man to fall in love,” Florence said, trying not to betray Mr. Fisher’s confidence.

“Oh, but you never know what is going on inside people—their feelings are so often at variance with their appearance. My husband said once that he sometimes thought people drew lots for their souls, because they are so seldom matched with their bodies.”

“Perhaps they do, and for their hearts as well. It would account for the strange capacity some people have for loving, though you have only to look at them to see it is hopeless that they should be loved back again.”

“I know, and it is terrible that love should so often depend, as it does, on the chance arrangement of a little flesh and blood—for that is what beauty amounts to.”

“Oh, but we don’t always love beauty.”

“No, not always,” Mrs. Burnett answered; “but the shape of a face, for instance, will sometimes prevent our love going to a very beautiful soul.”

“And a few years and wrinkles will make love ridiculous or impossible,” Florence said, thinking of Aunt Anne. Oddly enough, Mrs. Burnett evidently thought of her too, for she asked—

“Has your aunt been at the cottage at Witley lately?”

“No,” answered Florence; but she did not want to discuss Aunt Anne. “My children so often remember the donkey-cart,” she said; “it was a great joy to them.”

“Oh, I’m very glad. When you go to Witley again, I hope you will use the pony.”

“What has become of the donkey?”

“We were obliged to sell it. It would not go at all at last. We are not going to Witley ourselves till July; so, meanwhile, I hope you will use the pony. Only, dear Mrs. Hibbert, you won’t let him go too fast uphill, for it spoils his breath; and we never let him gallop downhill, for fear of his precious knees.”

“I will be very careful,” Florence said, rather amused.

“I’m afraid we don’t let him go too fast, even on level ground,” Mrs. Burnett added; “for he’s a dear little pony, and we should be so grieved if he came to any harm.”

“Perhaps he would be safer always standing still,” Florence suggested.

“Oh, but he might catch cold then; but do remember, dear Mrs. Hibbert, when you are going to Witley, that you have only to send a card the night before to the gardener, and he will meet you at the station.”

“Thank you, only I should be rather afraid to use him for fear of accidents.”

“Oh, but you needn’t be; and we are so glad to have him exercised. Perhaps Mrs. Baines would like to drive him? Why, we are at Kensington Gore already. It has been delightful to have you for this little drive. Good-by, dear Mrs. Hibbert.”

Walter was waiting for Florence at her cousin’s. He gave her a sign not to stay too long.

“We so seldom get a walk together,” he said, when they were outside, “that it seemed a pity to waste our time under a roof. Let us get into the Park;” and they crossed over.

“How lovely it is,” Florence said, “with the tender green coming out on the trees. The brown boughs look as if they were sprinkled with it. And what a number of people are out. The Park is beginning to have quite a season-like look.”

“Do you remember how Aunt Anne used to come here and contemplate the Albert Memorial?” Walter asked. “By the way, Fisher was talking of Wimple to-day; he is very sore about him.”

“It was very vexing; I wish we had never seen him, don’t you?”

“What, Wimple? I should think so. I asked Fisher if he knew the fellow’s address; he says the last time he heard of him he was somewhere near Gray’s Inn Road. I wonder if she was with him?”

“Walter!” exclaimed Florence, and she almost clutched his arm, “I believe she is over there. Perhaps that is why she has been running in our thoughts all day.”

A little distance off, on a bench under a tree, sat a spare black figure, with what looked like a cashmere shawl pulled round the slight shoulders. Limp and sad the figure looked: there was an expression of loneliness in every line of it.

“It is very like her,” Walter said. They went a little nearer; they were almost beside her; but they could not see her face, which was turned away from them.

“Oh, it must be she,” Florence said, in a whisper. Perhaps she heard their footsteps, for the black bonnet turned slowly round, and, sure enough, there was the face of Aunt Anne. It looked thin and woebegone.

“Aunt Anne! Dear Aunt Anne! Why have you left us all this time without a sign?” and Florence put her arms round the slender shoulders.

“Aunt Anne! Why, this is real good luck!” Walter exclaimed.

“My dear Florence, my dear Walter,” the old lady said, looking at them with a half-dazed manner; “bless you, dear children; it does me good to see you.”

“You don’t deserve it, you know,” he said tenderly, “for cutting us.”

“It wasn’t my fault, dear Walter,” she answered; “you and Florence and the dear children have been constantly in my thoughts; but we have had many unavoidable anxieties since our marriage; besides, I was not sure that you desired to see me again.”

“Why, of course we did. But you don’t deserve to see us again after leaving us alone all this long time. Where is Wimple?”

“He is at Liphook,” she answered. “He is not strong, and finds the air beneficial to him.”

“It was always beneficial to him,” Walter said dryly, as he sat down beside her.

“He ought not to leave you alone, dear Aunt Anne; you don’t look well,” Florence said.

“I am very frail, my love, but that is all. London air is never detrimental to me, as it is to Alfred. He finds that Liphook invigorates him, and he frequently goes there for two or three days; but, as our means are not adequate to defray the expenses of much travelling, I remain in town. Walter,” she asked, looking up with a touch of her old manner, “did you enjoy your visit to India? I hope you have most pleasant recollections of your journey.”

“I’ll tell you what, Floggie dear,” Walter said, not answering Aunt Anne’s question, “we’ll take her back with us at once.”

“Oh no, my love,” the old lady began; “it is impossible——”

“How can it be impossible?” Florence said gaily; “you are evidently all alone in London; so we’ll run away with you. The children are longing to see you, and I want to show you all the things Walter brought from India. There is a little ivory elephant for you.”

“It was just like him to think of me,” the old lady said, with a flicker of her former brightness; but in a moment her sadness returned, and Walter noticed that there was almost a cowed expression on her face. It went to his heart, and gave him a mighty longing to thrash Wimple.

“You must come at once,” he said, putting on an authoritative manner; “then you can tell us all your news, and we will tell you all ours. There, put your arm in mine, and Florence shall go the other side to see you don’t escape.”

“He is just the same. He makes me think of his dear father,” she said, as she walked between them; “and of that happy day at Brighton, years and years ago now, when I met you both on the pier. Do you remember, my dear ones?”

“Of course we do!” said Walter; “and how victoriously you carried us off then, just as we are carrying you off now.”

“Oh, he’s just the same,” the old lady repeated.

“Here’s a four-wheeler,” he said, when they reached the Bayswater Road. “This is quite an adventure; only,” he added gently, “you don’t look up to much.”

“I shall be better soon,” she said, and dropped into silence again. She looked, almost vacantly, out of the cab window as they went along, and they were afraid to ask her questions, for, instinctively, they felt that things had not gone well with her. Presently she turned to Florence. “Did you say the children were at home, my love?”

“Yes, dear.” The old lady looked out again at the green trees in the Park, and almost furtively at the shops in Oxford Street. Then she turned to Florence.

“My love,” she said, “I must take those dear children a little present. Would you permit the cabman to stop at a sweetmeat-shop? We shall reach one in a moment.”

“Oh, please don’t trouble about them, dear Aunt Anne.”

“I shouldn’t like them to think I had forgotten them, my love,” she pleaded.

“No, and they shan’t think it,” Walter said, patting her hand. “Hi! stop, cabby. Stay in the cab; I’ll go and get something for them.” In a few minutes he reappeared with two boxes of chocolates. “I think that’s the sort of thing,” he said. She looked at them carefully, opened them, and examined the name of the maker.

“You have selected them most judiciously, dear Walter,” she answered.

“That’s all right. Now we’ll go on.” She looked at the boxes once more, and put them down, satisfied.

“It was just like you, to save me the fatigue of getting out of the cab,” she said to her nephew. “I hope the children will like them; they were always most partial to chocolates. You must remind me to reimburse you for them presently, my dear.” And once more she turned to the window.

“Aunt Anne, are you looking for any one?” Walter asked presently.

“No, my love, but I thought the cabman was going through Portman Square, and that he would pass Sir William Rammage’s house.”

“That worthy was at Cannes the other day, I saw.”

“He stays there till next month,” she explained, and then they were all silent until they reached the end of their journey. It was impossible to talk much to Aunt Anne; it seemed to interrupt her thoughts. Silence seemed to have become a habit to her, just as it had to Alfred Wimple. She was a little excited when they stopped at the house, and lingered before the entrance for a moment. Almost sadly she looked up at the balcony on which she had sat with Alfred Wimple, and slowly her left eye winked, as if many things had happened since that happy night of which only she had a knowledge.

They sat her down in an easy-chair, and gave her tea, and made much of her, and asked no questions—only showed their delight at having her with them again. Gradually the tender old face looked happier, the sad lines about the mouth softened, and once there was quite a merry note in her voice, as she laughed and said, “You dear children, you are just the same.” Then Catty and Monty were brought in, and she kissed them, and patronized them, and gave them their chocolates, and duly sent them away again, just as she always used to do.

“I began to work a little hood for Catty,” she said, “but I never finished it; it was not that I was dilatory, but that my eyes are not as good as they were.” She said the last words sadly, and Florence, looking up quickly, wondered if they were dimmed from weeping.

“Poor Aunt Anne,” she said soothingly; “but you are not as lonely as formerly?”

“No, my love, only Alfred has a great deal of work to do. It keeps him constantly at his chambers; and his health not being good, he is obliged to go out of town very often, so that, unwillingly”—and she winked sadly—“he is much away from me.”

“What work is he doing?” Walter asked.

“My dear,” she said, with gentle dignity, “you must forgive me for not answering that question, but I feel that he would not approve of my discussing his private affairs.”

“Have you comfortable rooms in town?” Florence asked, in order to change the subject.

“No, my love, they are not very comfortable, but we are not in a pecuniary position to pay a large rent.” She paused for a moment, and her face became grave and set. Florence, watching her, fancied that there was a little quiver to the upper lip.

“Aunt Anne, dear Aunt Anne, I am certain you are not very happy—tell us what it is. We love you. Do tell us—is anything the matter? Is Mr. Wimple kind to you? Are you poor?”

“Yes, do tell us!” Walter said, and put his arm round her shoulder, and gave it a little affectionate caress.

She hesitated for a moment. “My dears,” she said gratefully, but a little distantly, “Alfred is very kind to me, but he is very much tried by our circumstances. He is not strong, and he is obliged to be separated from me very often. It causes him much regret, although he is too unselfish to show it.”

“But you ought not to be very poor, if Wimple has lots of work,” Walter said.

“I fear it is not very profitable work, dear Walter, and though I have an allowance from Sir William Rammage, it does not defray all our expenses”—and she was silent. Walter and Florence were silent too. They could not help it, for Aunt Anne had grown so grave, and she seemed to lose herself in her thoughts. Only once did she refer to the past.

“Walter, dear,” she asked, “did you find my little gifts useful when you were away?” Aunt Anne always used to inquire after the wear and tear of her presents.

“Indeed I did,” he answered heartily. “I was speaking of them only to-day—wasn’t I, Floggie?” But he concealed the fact that all the scissors were lost, lest she should want to give him some more.

“Aunt Anne,” Florence asked, “isn’t there anything we could do for you? You don’t look very well.”

“The spring is so trying, my love,” the old lady said gently.

“I expect you want a change quite as much as Mr. Wimple.”

“Oh no, my love. I have been a little annoyed by my landlady, who was impertinent to me this morning. It depresses me to have a liberty taken with me.” Perhaps the rent was not paid, Florence thought, but she did not dare to ask. Aunt Anne shivered and pulled her shawl round her again, and explained that she had not put on her warm cloak, as it was so sunny and bright, and the people in the Park might have observed that it was shabby; and while she was talking a really brilliant idea came to Walter.

“Aunt Anne,” he exclaimed, “why should not you and Wimple go to our cottage at Witley for a bit? Oh! but I forgot—he stays with friends at Liphook, doesn’t he?”

“No, my love, he lodges with an old retainer.”

“Oh,” said Walter, shortly, remembering a different account that Wimple had given him the year before, on the memorable morning when they met in the Strand. “Well, I think it would be an excellent thing if you and he went to our cottage. It is standing empty; we don’t want it just yet, and there you could be together.” Aunt Anne looked up with keen interest.

“Yes, why not?” exclaimed Florence. “I wish you would. You would be quite happy there.”

“My love,” said the old lady, eagerly, “it would be delightful. But I’m afraid there are reasons that render it impossible for me to accept your kindness.”

“What reasons?—do speak out,” they said entreatingly, “because, perhaps, we can smooth them away.”

“My dears,” said the old lady, “I must be frank with you. I am indebted to some of the tradespeople there, and I am not in a position to pay their bills.”

“They are all paid,” Walter said joyfully, “so don’t trouble about them; and, moreover, we told them that they were never to give us any credit, so I am afraid they won’t give you any next time, any more than they will us, but you won’t mind that.”

“And then, my love,” the old lady went on, to Florence, “I have no servants.”

“I can arrange that,” said Florence. “I can telegraph to Jane Mitchell, the postman’s sister, who always comes in and does for us when we go alone, from Saturday to Monday, and take no servant. Do go, Aunt Anne; it will do you a world of good. I shall take you back to your lodgings, and get you ready, and send you off to-morrow morning.”

Aunt Anne stood up excitedly. “My dears,” she said, “I will bless you for sending me. I can’t bear this separation. I want to be with him, and he wants me—I know he does; it makes him cross and irritable to be away from me.” There was almost a wild look in her eyes. They were astonished at her vehemence. But suddenly she seemed to remember something, and all her excitement subsided. “I cannot go until Sir William Rammage returns to town, or his solicitor does. My quarter’s allowance is not due for some weeks, and unfortunately——”

“We’ll make that all right, Aunt Anne; leave it to us,” said Walter. “Florence will come round in the morning and carry you off, and Wimple will be quite astonished when you send for him.”

Aunt Anne looked up almost gaily. “Yes, my love, he will be quite astonished. You have made me happy,” she added, with something like a sob; “bless you for all your goodness. Now, my dear ones, you must permit me to depart; I shall have so many arrangements to make this evening. Bless you for all your kindness.”

“I am going to take you back in a hansom,” said Walter. And in a few minutes they were driving to the address she had given, a florist’s shop in a street off the Edgware Road.

“I think her rooms were on the top floor,” he told Florence, when he returned, “for she looked up at the windows with a mournful air when we arrived. The house seemed neglected, and the shop had a dead-and-gone air; nothing in it but some decayed plants and a few stray slugs. It is my opinion that she is left in a garret all by herself, poor dear; and that Wimple takes himself off to his chambers, or to his Liphook friends, and has a better time.”

“He’s a horrid thing!”

“Floggie, do you know that he is our uncle Alfred?” her husband asked wickedly. She looked at him for a moment in bewilderment, then she understood.

“Walter,” she said, “if you ever say that again I will run away from you. I shall go and write a line to Mrs. Burnett’s gardener,” she added, “and tell him to meet us with the pony to-morrow; she said I was to use it, and I think it would be good for Aunt Anne not to be excited by the sight of Steggall’s waggonette. I am certain she is very unhappy.”

“I don’t know how she could expect to be anything else,” he answered. “Poor thing, what the deuce did he marry her for? There is some mystery at the bottom of it.”

* * * * *

Walter had divined rightly. Aunt Anne’s lodging was at the top of the house. When he left her she went slowly up the dark staircase that led to it. On the landing outside her door were her two canvas-covered boxes, one on top of the other. She looked at them for a moment, half hesitatingly, as if she were thinking of the journey they would take to-morrow, and of the things she must not forget to put into them. She turned the handle of the front-room door and walked in. Alfred Wimple was sitting by a cinder fire, over which he was trying to make some water boil. He looked up as she entered, but did not rise from the broken cane-bottomed chair.

“Why did you go out, Anne?” he asked severely, without giving her any sort of greeting.

“My dear one,” she said excitedly, going forward, “I did not dream of your being here; it is, indeed, a joyful surprise.” She put her hands on his shoulder and leaned down. He turned his head away with a quick movement, and her kiss brushed his cheek near the ear; but she pretended not to see it. “When did you come, my darling?”

“Two hours ago,” he said solemnly; “and I wanted some tea.”

“I am so sorry, but I did not dream of your coming. Are you better, my dear one?” She tried to pull the fire together with the little poker.

“I am a little better,” he answered. “You will never make the water boil over that fire.”

“Yes, I will”—and she looked into the coal-scuttle. “Have you come up to town for good, dear Alfred?” The scuttle was empty, but she found some little bits of wood and tried to make a blaze.

“I don’t know; I am going back to my chambers presently to do a night’s work.”

“And to-morrow?” she asked anxiously.

“Perhaps you will see me to-morrow,” he answered. “Can you give me something to eat? I wish you would make a decent fire.”

“I will, my dear one. If you will rest here patiently for a few minutes, I will go downstairs and ask the landlady to let me have some coals.”

“I have no money,” he said sullenly; “understand that.”

“But I have, my darling,” she answered joyfully; “and I am quite sure you require nourishment. Will you let me go out and buy you a chop?”

“Give me some tea. I can get dinner on my way back.”

“Won’t you stay with me this evening, Alfred? I have some news for you, and I have been so lonely.” She looked round the shabby room, as if to prove to him how impossible it was to find comfort in it.

“No, I can’t stay,” he answered shortly. “How much money have you got?”

“I have a sovereign. Walter slipped it into my glove just now. I have been to see them both, Alfred.”

“What did they say about me?”

“They spoke of you most kindly, my darling,” she answered, and winked very timidly.

“Why couldn’t he give you more? A sovereign isn’t much,” Wimple said discontentedly. “I see Rammage is not coming back from Cannes just yet,” he added.

“My dear,” she said gravely, “you are fatigued with your journey, and hungry, and I know you are anxious. If you will excuse me a moment, I will make some little preparations for your comfort.” And, with the dignity that always sat so quaintly upon her, she rose from the rug and left the room. She returned in a few minutes, followed by the landlady with a scuttleful of coals. Then she made some tea, and cut some bread and butter, and set it before Alfred Wimple, all the time putting off, nervously, the telling of her great bit of news. She looked at him while he ate and drank, and her face showed that she was not looking at the actual man before her, but at some one she had endowed with a dozen beauties of heart and soul: she wished he could realize that he possessed them; they might have given him patience and made him happier.

“Did you enjoy the country?” she asked gently.

“Yes”—he coughed uneasily—“but I was not well. I shall go there again soon.”

“What do you do all day?” she asked. “Have you any society?”

He was silent for a moment, as if struggling with the destitution of speech that always beset him. “I can’t give you an account of all my days, Anne,” he said, and turned to the fire.

“I did not ask it, Alfred; you know that I never intrude upon your privacy. I had some news,” she went on, with a pathetic note in her voice, “and hoped it would be pleasing to you.”

“What is it?” The expression of his face had not changed for a moment from the one of sulky displeasure it had worn when she entered, and her manner betrayed a certain nervousness, as if she felt that he was with her against his will, and only by gentle propitiation could she keep him at all.

“Walter and Florence have offered to lend us their cottage at Witley. We can go to it to-morrow—if it is convenient to you, dear Alfred,” she added meekly.

“I shall not go there,” he said sullenly; and for a moment he looked her full in the face with his dull eyes.

“I thought the air of that locality was always beneficial to you,” she said, in the same tone in which she had last spoken.

“Thank you, I don’t wish to go to that ‘locality,’ and be laughed at.” He half mocked her as he spoke.

“Why should you be laughed at?” she asked, with almost a cry of pain in her voice, for she knew what the answer would be, beforehand; but the words were forced from her, she could not help them. He coughed and looked at her again.

“People generally laugh at a young man who marries an old woman, Anne.” She got up and went to the end of the room, and came back again, and put her hand upon his shoulder.

“No one is there to laugh,” she said. “There is no one there to know. We need not keep any society.” She did not see the absurdity of the last remark, and made it quite gravely. “There are only a few people in the neighbourhood at all, and those of an inferior class. It does not matter what they think.”

“It matters to me what every one thinks.”

“We cannot remain here much longer,” she went on. “The landlady was most impertinent to-day. I think Florence and Walter would help to pay her if we went to the cottage to-morrow. They said they would arrange everything.”

“It is a long way from Liphook,” he said, almost to himself; “if any one saw us, they wouldn’t suspect that we were married. They would think you were my aunt, perhaps.”

“They may think what they please, Alfred,” she answered, “if you are only with me.” Then her voice changed. “My dear one, I cannot bear life unless you are gentle to me,” she pleaded; “and I cannot bear it here alone any longer, always away from you, day after day. I am your wife, Alfred, and, if I am an old woman, I love you with all the years I remember, and all the love that has been stored up in me since my youth. I want to be near you, to take care of you, to see that you have comforts. You can say that I am your aunt, if it pleases you. I never feel that I am your wife, only that it is my great privilege to be near you and to serve you.” She stopped, as if unable to go on, and he was silent a moment or two before he answered.

“It might be a good idea; as you say, there is no one about there to know.”

“Are you ashamed of me?”

“I don’t want to look ridiculous.” Then a flash came into her eyes, and the old spirit asserted itself.

“Alfred,” she said, “if you do not love me, I think at least you should learn to treat me with respect. If I am so distasteful to you we had better separate. I cannot go on bearing all that I have borne patiently for months. Let me go to Florence and Walter; they will be kind to me, and I will never be a burden upon you. The allowance that Sir William Rammage gives me would keep me in comfort alone, and it struck me the other day that, when he dies, perhaps he will leave me something.”

He looked at her with sudden alarm. The cowed look seemed to have gone from her face to his, and as she saw it she gathered strength, and went on, “I cannot be insulted, Alfred; I cannot and will not.”

“Don’t be foolish, Anne; I am irritable sometimes, and I am not strong——”

“That is why I have borne so much from you.”

“I will go to Witley with you,” he said, ignoring her remark altogether; “that is, if you like, and can raise the money to go. I have none.”

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