The End of a Coil. Warner Susan
suppose we shall manage then? You must have chairs for people to sit on."
Dolly did not answer; it had struck her that her father had no intention of bringing dinner parties down, and that he had made his arrangements with an evident exclusion of any such idea. He had thought two women servants enough. For the rest, leaving parties out of consideration, the house had a rambling supply of old furniture, suiting it well enough; it looked pretty, and quaint, and cool; and Dolly for her part was well content.
They went over the place, taking a general survey; and then Mrs. Copley lay down on a lounge while supper was getting ready, and Dolly and Mr. St. Leger went out to the porch. Here, beyond the roses and honeysuckles, the eye found first the wild garden or pleasure ground. There was not much of it, and it was a mere tangle of what had once been pretty and sweet. It sloped, however, down to a little stream which formed the border of the property; and on the other side of this stream the ground rose in a grassy bank, set with most magnificent oaks and beeches. A little foot-bridge spanned the stream and made a picturesque point in the view, as a bridge always does. The sun was setting, throwing his light upon that grassy bank and playing in the branches of the great oaks and beeches. Dolly stood quite still, with her hands crossed upon her bosom, looking.
"The garden has had nothing done to it," said St. Leger. "That won't do. It's quite distressing."
"I suppose father never thought of engaging a gardener," said Dolly.
"We have gardeners to spare, I am sure, at home. I'll send over one to train those vines and put things in some shape. You'd find him useful, too, about the house. I'll send old Peters; he can come as well as not."
"Oh, thank you! But I don't know whether father would choose to afford a gardener," said Dolly low.
"He shall not afford it. I want him to come for my own comfort. You do not think I want your father to pay my gardener."
"You are very kind. What ground is that over there?"
"That? that is Brierley Park. It is a great place. The stream divides the park from this cottage ground."
"Can one go over the bridge?"
"Of course. The place is left to itself; nobody is at the house now."
"Why not?"
"I suppose they like some other place better," said St. Leger, shrugging his shoulders. "You would like to go and see the house and the pictures. The next time I come down I'll take you there."
"Oh, thank you! And may I go over among those grand trees? may I walk there?"
"Walk there, or ride there; you may do what you like; nobody will hinder you. If you meet anybody that has a right to know, you can tell him who you are. But don't go to the house till I come to go with you."
"You are very good, Mr. St. Leger," said Dolly gratefully. But then, as if shy of what he might next say, she turned and went in to her mother. Dolly always kept Mr. St. Leger at a certain fine, insensible distance. He seemed to be very near; he was really very much at home in the family; nevertheless, an atmospheric wall, felt but not seen, divided him from Dolly. It was so invisible that it was unmanageable; it kept him at a distance.
CHAPTER XI
IN THE PARK
The next day was a delightful one in Dolly's experience. Mr. St. Leger went back to town early in the morning; and as soon as she was free of him, Dolly's delight began. She attended to her mother, and put her in comfort; next, she examined the house and its capabilities, and arranged the little household; and then she gave herself to the garden. It was an unmitigated wilderness. The roses had grown into irregular, wide-spreading shrubs, with waving, flaunting branches; yet sweet with their burden of blushing flowers. Lilac bushes had passed all bounds, and took up room most graspingly. Hawthorn and eglantine, roses of Sharon and stocky syringas, and other bushes and climbers, had entwined and confused their sprays and branches, till in places they formed an impenetrable mass. In other places, and even in the midst of this overgrown thicket, jessamine stars peeped out, lilies and violets grew half smothered, mignonette ran along where it could; even carnations and pinks were to be seen, in unhappy situations, and daisies and larkspur and scarlet geraniums, lupins and sweet peas, and I know not what more old-fashioned flowers, showed their fair faces here and there. It was bewildering, and beyond Dolly's powers to put in order. She wished for old Peter's arrival; and meantime cut and trimmed a little here and there, gathered a nosegay of wildering blossoms, considered what might be done, and lost herself in the sweet June day.
At last it was growing near lunch time, and she went in. Mrs. Copley was lying on an old-fashioned lounge; and the room where she lay was brown with old oak, quaint with its diamond-paned casement windows, and cool with a general effect of wooden floor and little furniture; while roses looked in at the open window, and the light was tempered by the dark panelling and low ceiling. Dolly gave an exclamation of delight.
"What is it?" said Mrs. Copley fretfully.
"Mother, this place is so lovely! and this room, – do you know how perfectly pretty it is?"
"It isn't half furnished. Not half."
"But it is furnished enough. There are only two of us; and certainly here are all the things that we want, and a great deal more than we want; and it is so pretty! so pretty!"
"How long do you suppose there are to be only two of us?"
"I don't know that, mother. Lawrence St. Leger is just gone, and I don't want him back, for my part. In fact, I don't believe we have dinner enough for three."
"That's another thing. Where are we going to get anything to eat?"
"Lunch will be ready in a minute, mother."
"What have we got?"
"What you like. Frizzled beef and chocolate."
"I like it, – but I don't suppose it is very nourishing. Where are we to get what we want, Dolly? how are we to get bread, and butter, and marketing?"
"There's a village half a mile off. And, here is lunch on the table. We shall not starve to-day."
Mrs. Copley liked her chocolate and found the bread good. Nevertheless, she presently began again.
"Are we to live here alone the rest of our lives, Dolly? or what do you suppose your father's idea is? It's a very lonesome place, seems to me."
"Why, mother, we came here to get you well; and it's enough to make anybody well. It is the loveliest place I have ever seen, I think. Mr. St. Leger's grand establishment is nothing to it."
"And what do you mean by what you said about Lawrence St. Leger? Are you glad to have even him go away?"
"Yes, mother, a little bit. He was rather in my way."
"In your way! that's very ungrateful. How was he in your way?"
"Somebody to attend to, and somebody to attend to me. I like to be let alone. By and by, when you are sleeping, I shall go over and explore the park."
"What I don't understand," said Mrs. Copley, recurring to her former theme, "is, why, if he wanted me to be in the country, your father did not take a nice house somewhere just a little way out of London, – there are plenty of such places, – and have things handsome; so that he could entertain company, and we could see somebody. We can have nobody here. It looks really quite like poor people."
"That isn't a very bad way to look," said Dolly calmly.
"Not? Like poor people?" cried Mrs. Copley. "Dolly, don't talk folly. Nobody likes that look, and you don't, either."
"I am not particularly afraid of it. But, mother, we do not want to entertain company while you are not well, you know."
"No; and so here you are shut up and seeing no creature. I wish we were at home!"
Dolly did not precisely wish that; not at least till she had had time to examine this new leaf of nature's book opened to her. And yet she sighed a response to her mother's words. It was all the response she made.
She was too tired with her unwonted gardening exertions to go further exploring that afternoon. It was not