A Country Gentleman and His Family · Chapter 16 (2/2)

“I think,” said Lady Markland⁠—“for we have really been at it conscientiously for a long time and doing our best⁠—I think, Geoff, we may shut up our books for today. You know there will be your lessons to prepare tonight.”

“I’ll go and look at Theo’s horse. Have you got that big black one? I shall be back in a moment, mamma.”

“If you look behind you will find some books, Geoff; some that perhaps you will like.”

“Oh, good!” said the boy, with his elfish little countenance lighting up. He was very slight and small for his age, a little shadow darting across the sunshine. The half of the terrace lay in a blaze of light, but all was cool and fresh in the corner where Lady Markland’s light chairs and table were placed in the angle of the balustrade, there half hidden by a luxuriant climbing rose. Above Lady Markland’s head was a cluster of delicate golden roses, tinged in their hearts with faint red, in all the wealth of their second bloom. Her black dress, profound black, without any relief, was the only dark point in the scene. A little faint colour of recovering health, and perhaps of brightening life, had come to her face. She was very tranquil, resting as people rest after a long illness, in a sort of convalescence of the heart.

“You must forgive his familiarity, Mr. Warrender; you are so good to him, and at his age one is so apt to presume on that.”

Warrender had no inclination to waste the few minutes in which he had her all to himself in any discussion of Geoff. He said hastily, “I have brought some other books to be looked at⁠—things which people are talking of. I don’t know if you will care for them, but there is a little novelty in them, at least. I was in town yesterday⁠—”

“You are very good to me too,” she said. “A new book is a wonderful treat. I thought you must be occupied or absent that we did not see you here.”

Again that past tense, that indication that in his absence⁠—Warrender felt his head grow giddy with too much delight. “I was afraid to come too often, lest you should think me⁠—importunate.”

“How so?” she said simply. “You have been like a young brother ever since⁠—How could I think you other than kind? The only thing is that you do too much for me. I ought to be trying to walk alone.”

“Why, while I am here?” cried the young man; “asking nothing better, nothing half so good as to be allowed to do what I can⁠—which, after all, is nothing.”

She gave a slight glance at him under her eyelids, with a faint dawning of surprise at the fervour of his tone. “The world which people say is so hard is really very kind,” she said. “I never knew till now how kind⁠—at least when one has a great evident claim upon its sympathy⁠—or pity, should I say? Those who find it otherwise are perhaps those whose troubles cannot be made public, and yet who expect their fellow-creatures to divine.”

Warrender was sadly cast down to be considered only as the world, a type, so to speak, of mankind in general, kind to those whose claims were undeniable. He replied with a swelling heart, “There must always be individuals who divine, though perhaps they may not dare to show their sympathy⁠—ah, don’t say pity, Lady Markland!”

“You humour me,” she said, “because you know I love to talk. But pity is very sweet; there is a balm in it to those who are wounded.”

“Sympathy is better.

“ ‘Mighty love would cleave in twain

The lading of a single pain,

And part it, giving half to him.’ ”

“Ah,” she cried, with a glimmer in her eyes, “if you go to the poets, Mr. Warrender! And that is more than sympathy. What did he call it himself? ‘Such a friendship as had mastered time.’ ”

“Mamma, mamma, look here!” came in advance of his appearance the voice of Geoff. He came panting, flying round the other angle of the terrace, with his arms full of books. And here, as if it were a type of all that was coming, the higher intercourse, the exchange of thought, the promotion of the man over the child, came suddenly to an end.