A Country Sweetheart. Dora Russell
a good bargain with the government during the last months for mounts for the troops. John got a little weary, it must be confessed, to all this, but the squire was interested. John was thinking of the sunny garden not far away, and wishing he was wandering with fair May among the flowers. However, he made no sign of this. He left Mr. Churchill with the impression that he was a sensible, well-bred young man, and likely to make a good landlord, and this last idea was an important point to Mr. Churchill’s mind.
The uncle and nephew left Woodside in time to be back to the Hall for lunch, and when they entered the dining-room, to their great surprise they found Mrs. Temple awaiting their arrival.
It was the first time that she had been down-stairs since her boy’s death, and the squire went forward with some emotion, and took her hand when he saw her.
“My dear,” he said, “I am very glad you are able to come down to-day—this is John Temple, my nephew.”
John bowed low, and Mrs. Temple fixed her dark eyes on his face, but did not speak, or make any allusion to their meeting on the corridor the day before.
“We have had a long walk,” continued the squire, a little nervously, “and you must be hungry, John?”
“Please sit down, then,” said Mrs. Temple, still looking at John with her restless eyes, and waving him to take a seat at the table. “It’s a fine day outside, isn’t it?”
“A charming day,” answered John. “Do you think you will feel well enough to venture out a little?”
“I don’t know,” she replied; “I am weary of being indoors. I feel as if I can not breathe, and yet to go out so soon, so soon”—and she covered her face with her hand.
“My love, I entreat you not to agitate yourself,” said the squire, yet more nervously.
She took her hand from her face; her eyes were dry and hard, and she smiled a bitter smile.
“I did not mean to make a scene,” she said. “I meant to be as if nothing had happened—as if I had still something to live for. I apologize to you, Mr. Temple.”
Again John bowed low his comely head.
“I wish you could understand,” he said, “how deeply and truly I sympathize with your grief—I do, indeed, Mrs. Temple.”
There was the ring of truth in his voice; the gleam of truth in his gray eyes, and Mrs. Temple seemed to understand this.
“Do not let us speak of it,” she said, and as she spoke she seated herself at the table. “Now, tell me where you have both been?”
“We have been over some of the farms,” answered the squire, hastily, and John understood that for some reason or other he did not wish to speak of their visit to Woodside to his wife.
But John was an easy conversationalist, and the lunch hour passed not unpleasantly. After it was over Mrs. Temple rose, restlessly.
“Come with me into the garden for a short time,” she said, addressing John; “it will occupy my mind a little to talk to you.”
“I shall be most happy,” he answered, and for the next half-hour he walked up and down the garden walks with his uncle’s wife. She was evidently trying to keep herself under control, but occasionally she grew excited.
“You must have thought me mad yesterday,” she said once, “to waylay you as I did. But I felt so restless to see you; I hated you, you know, because—because you had come to take my darling’s place.”
“I hope you will not hate me any longer,” replied John, gently.
She looked at him searchingly.
“No,” she said, “I do not think I shall. But bear with me for a little while, for I have suffered so much. Mine has been a life of suffering,” she added, impetuously. “No one knows, none but my own heart, what I have gone through.”
“We all suffer at times, I believe,” answered John, gravely.
“But men do not suffer as women do,” continued Mrs. Temple, excitedly. “Men can go out into the world, can fight, can struggle, while we sit breaking our hearts at home. But why speak of it? Anyone can tell what my life has been—look at my marriage?”
“But my uncle is most devoted to you?”
“A young woman married to an old man! Take my advice, Mr. Temple, don’t marry an old woman.”
She gave a harsh little laugh as she said this, and it jarred on John’s ears. He grew restless to go away. It must be nearing three o’clock, he knew, and he wanted to be in the woods at Fern Dene, with someone who was fresh and fair, not like this dark, handsome, spirit-torn woman. And with quick intuition Mrs. Temple perceived this.
“You are tired of me,” she said, “and I am getting tired of you. Good-by for the present; we will meet again at dinner;” and with this she nodded and turned away, and John was free to follow his own inclinations.
CHAPTER VI.
CRUEL WORDS.
What these inclinations were we may easily guess. To walk as quickly to Fern Dene as possible, yet when he arrived there he found that May Churchill was just preparing to go home.
“I could not come before,” he explained, hastily; “my uncle’s wife took into her head to go into the garden, and asked me to go with her, and what could I do?”
“Poor Mrs. Temple!” said May, pityingly.
“Yes, indeed, she is greatly to be pitied.”
“Her loss was terrible, most terrible. Phil was such a dear, bright boy, and to die unconscious, as he did, must have nearly broken his mother’s heart.”
“Do you know her?” inquired John Temple.
“A little; merely through things connected with the schools and the church, you know. I used to teach at the schools once,” added the Mayflower, with a smile rippling over her rosy lips; “but Mrs. Layton made herself so disagreeable that I left off, and since then I have been one of her black sheep.”
“I hope I shall be one of her black sheep, too.”
“It has its disadvantages though, I assure you. If you have any little peccadillos or failings, Mrs. Layton will find them out and preach them on the housetops, unless you are in her good graces.”
“I am sure you have neither peccadillos nor failings.”
“Ask Mrs. Layton,” laughed May.
“Mrs. Layton’s opinion would never change mine.”
“Then you are stanch to your friends,” said May, looking at him with her beautiful eyes.
“I know I shall always be stanch to you.”
May laughed and turned away her head, and John saw the white throat color and the lovely bloom on her smooth cheeks deepen.
“We are forgetting the ferns,” she said.
“So we are; tell me the best place to find them.”
She led him up a green arcade, through which a shallow stream went bubbling on. By the marge of the water strong, hardy ferns were plentiful, but these were principally of the larger kinds. But here and there in little mossy dells, the rarer fronds in their delicate greenery grew, and John Temple, pen-knife in hand, was speedily engaged in cutting them from the earth. The Mayflower stood by his side, while John knelt on the ground, and John felt conscious that the situation was a dangerous one. Alone in the woods with a beautiful girl, kneeling practically at her feet! Yet he felt wonderfully happy.