XI

On the third day, as soon as breakfast was over, Hubert introduced the subject of his departure. Julia waited, but as Emily did not speak, she said, 'We thought you liked the country better than town.'

'So I do, but——'

'He's tired of us, and we had better leave,' Emily said, abruptly.

Hubert started a little; he looked appealingly at Julia, and seeing the look of genuine pain upon his face, she took pity on him. 'You should not speak like that, Emily dear; I can see that you pain Mr. Price very much.'

'I hope, Emily, that you will stay here as long as you like,' he said, in a low, gentle voice; 'as long as it is convenient and agreeable to you.'

'We cannot stay here without you,' Emily replied; 'we are your guests.'

'And,' said Julia, smiling, 'if there are guests, there must be a host. But if you have business in London, of course you must go.'

'I was not thinking of myself,' said Hubert, 'but of you ladies. I was afraid that you were already tired of me; that you might like to be left alone; that you had business, preparations. I daresay I was all wrong; but if Emily knew——'

'I'm sorry, Hubert; I did not mean to offend you. I'm very unlucky. You'll forgive me.'

'I've nothing to forgive; I only hope that you'll never think again that I want to get rid of you. I hope that you'll stop at Ashwood as long as ever it suits you to do so. I don't see how I can say more.'

'I like to stop here as long as you are here,' Emily said, in a low voice. 'That is all I meant.'

'Then we're all of one mind, I don't want to go back to London. If you don't find me in your way, I shall be delighted to stay.'

'Of course,' said Julia, 'we poor country folk can hardly hope to amuse you.'

'I don't know about that!' exclaimed Emily. 'Where would he find any one to play and sing to him in the evenings as you can?'

The conversation paused, and all were happier that morning, though none knew why. Days passed, desultory and sweet, and with a pile of books about him, he lay in a long cane chair under the trees; then the book would drop on his knees, and blowing smoke in curling wreaths, he lost himself in dramatic meditations. It was pleasant to see that Emily had grown innocently, childishly fond of her cousin, and her fondness expressed itself in a number of pretty ways. 'Now, Hubert, Hubert, get out of my way,' she would say, feigning a charming petulance; or she would come and drag him out of his chair, saying, 'Come, Hubert, I can't allow you to lie there any longer; I have to go to South Water, and want you to come with me?'

And walking together, they seemed like an Italian greyhound and a tall, shaggy setter.

A cloud only appeared on Emily's face when Julia spoke of their departure. Julia had proposed that they should leave at the end of the month, and Emily had consented to this arrangement. The end of the month had appeared to her indefinitely distant, but three weeks of the subscribed time had passed, and signs of departure had become more numerous and more peremptory. Allusion had been made to the laundress, and Julia had asked Emily if she could get all her things into a single box; if not, they would have to send to Brighton for another. Emily had no notion of what her box would hold, and she showed little disposition to count her dresses or put her linen in order. She seemed entirely taken up thinking what books, what pictures, what china she could take away. She would like to have this bookcase, and might she not take the wardrobe from her own room? and she had known the clock all her life, and it did seem so hard to part with it.

'My dear girl, all these things belong to Mr. Price; you really cannot take them away without asking him.'

'But he won't refuse; he'll let me have anything I like.'

'He can't very well refuse, so I think it would be nicer on your part not to ask for anything.'

'I must have some of these things: I want to make the house we are going to live in, in London, look as much like Ashwood as possible.'

'You'd like to take the whole house with you if you could.'

'Yes; I think I should.' And Emily turned and looked vaguely up and down the passage. 'I wonder if he'd give me the picture of the windmill?'

'The landing would look very bare without it.'

'It would indeed, and when we came down here on a visit—for I suppose we shall come down here sometimes on visits—I should miss the picture dreadfully, so I don't think I'll ask him for it. But I must take some pictures away with me. There are a lot of old things in the lumber-room at the top of the house, that no one knows anything about. I think I'll ask him to let me have them. I'll take him for a good long ramble through the house. He hasn't seen any of it yet, except just the rooms we live in down-stairs.'

Emily went straight to Hubert. He was lying in the long wicker chair, his straw hat drawn over his eyes, for the sun was finding its sharp, white way through the leaves of the beeches.

'Now, Hubert, I want you. Are you asleep?'

'Asleep! No, I was only thinking.' He threw his legs over the edge of the low chair and stood up.

'If I tell you what I want, you won't refuse me, will you?'

'No,' he said smilingly; 'I don't think I shall.'

'Are you sure?' she said, looking at him enigmatically. Then in a lighter tone: 'I want you to give me a lot of things—oh, not a great many, nothing very valuable, but——'

'But what, Emily?... You can have anything you want.'

'Well, we shall see. You must come with me; I must show you what—I shan't want them unless you like to give them. Come along. Oh, you must come. I should not care about them unless you came with me, and let me point them out.' She passed her little hand into the arm of his rough coat, and led him towards the house. 'You know nothing of your own house, so before I go I intend to show you all over it. You have no idea what a funny old place it is up-stairs—endless old lumber-rooms which you would never think of going into if I didn't take you. When I was a little girl I wasn't often allowed down-stairs: the top of the house still seems to me more real than any other part.' Throwing open a door at the head of the stairs, she said: 'This used to be my nursery. It is all bare and deserted now, but I remember it quite different. I used to spend hours looking out of that window. From it you can see all over the park, and the park used to be my great delight. I used to sit there and make resolutions that next time I went out I would be braver, and explore the hollows full of bushes and tall ferns.'

'Did you never break your resolutions?'

'Sometimes. I was afraid of meeting fairies or elves. There are glades and hollows that used to seem very wonderful. And they still seem very wonderful, only not quite in the same way. Doesn't the world seem very wonderful to you? I'm always wondering at things. But I know I'm only a silly little girl, and yet I like to talk to you about my fancies. Down there in the beech wood there is a beautiful glade. I loved to play there better than anywhere else. I used to lie there on a fur rug and play at paper dolls. I always fancied myself a duchess or a princess.'

'You are full of dreams, Emily.'

'Yes; I suppose I am. Everything is pleasant and happy in dreams. I love dreaming. They thought I'd never learn to read; but it wasn't because I was stupid, but because I wouldn't study. I'd put my hands to my head, and, looking at the book, which I didn't see, I'd think of all sorts of things, imagine myself a fairy princess.'

'And it was in this room that you dreamed all those dreams?'

'Yes; in this dear old room. You see that picture: that is one of the things I intended to ask you to give me.'

'What? That old, dilapidated print?'

'You mustn't abuse my picture. I used to spend hours wondering if those horsemen galloping so madly through the wood were robbers, and if they had robbed the castle shown between the trees. I used to wonder if they would succeed in escaping. They wouldn't gallop their horses like that unless they were being pursued.... Can I have the picture?'

'Of course you can. Is that—that is not all you are going to ask me for?'

'I did think of asking you for a few more things. Do you mind?'

'No, not the least. The more you ask for, the more I shall be pleased.'

'Then you must come down-stairs.'

They went down to the next landing. Emily stopped before a bed-room, and, looking at Hubert shyly and interrogatively, she said—

'This is my room. I don't know if it is in a fit state to show you. I'm not a very tidy girl. I'll look first.'

'Yes; it will do,' she said, drawing back. 'You can look in. I want you to give me that wardrobe. It isn't a very handsome one, but I've used it ever since I was a little girl; it has a hollow top, and I used to hide things there. Do you think you can spare it?'

'Yes; I think I can,' he said, smiling.

Then she led him up-stairs through the old lumber rooms, picking out here and there some generally broken and always worthless piece of furniture, pleading for it timidly, and strangely delighted when he nodded, granting her every request. She asked him to pull out what she had chosen from the débris, and a curious collection they made in the passage—dim and worm-eaten pictures, small book-cases, broken vases which she proposed mending.

Hubert wiped the dust from his hands and coat-sleeves.

'What a lot of things you have given me! Now we shall be able to get on nicely with our furnishing.'

'What furnishing?'

'The furnishing of the little house in London where Julia and I are going to live. You said you intended to add a hundred a year to the three hundred a year which Mr. Burnett should have left me; I don't see why you should do such a thing, but if you do we shall have four hundred a year to live upon. Julia says that we shall then be able to afford to give fifty pounds a year for a house. We can get a very nice little house, she says, for that—of course, in one of the suburbs. The great expense will be the furnishing; we are going to do it on the hire system. I daresay one can get very nice things in that way, but I do want to make the place look a little like Ashwood; that is why I'm asking you for these things. I was always fond of playing in these old lumber-rooms, and these dim old pictures, which I don't think any one knows anything of except myself, will remind me of Ashwood. They will look very well, indeed, hanging round our little dining-room. You are sure you don't want them, do you?'

'No; I won't want them. I'm only too pleased to be able to give them to you.'

'You are very good, indeed you are. Look at these old haymakers; I never saw but one little corner of this picture before; it was stowed away behind a lot of lumber, and I hadn't the strength to pull it out.... I'm afraid you've got yourself rather dusty.'

'Oh no; it will brush off.'

'I shall hang this picture over the fireplace; it will look very well there. I daresay you don't see anything in it, but I'd sooner have these pictures than those down-stairs. I love the picture of the windmill on the first landing——'

'Then why not have it? I'll have it taken down at once.'

'No; I could not think of taking it. How would the landing look without it? I should miss it dreadfully when I came here—for I daresay you will ask us to visit you occasionally, when you are lonely, won't you?'

'My dear Emily, whenever you like, I hope you will come here.'

'And you will come and stay with us in London? Your room will be always ready; I'll look after that. We shall feel very offended, indeed, if you ever think of going to an hotel. Of course, you mustn't expect much; we shall only be able to keep one servant, but we shall try to make you comfortable, and, when you come, you'll take me to the theatres, to see one of your own plays.'

'If my play's being played, certainly. But would it be right for me to pay you visits in London?'

'They would be very wicked people indeed who saw anything wrong in it; you are my cousin. But why do you say such things? You destroy all my pleasure, and I was so happy just now.'

'I'm afraid, Emily, your happiness hangs on a very slender thread.'

She looked at him inquiringly, but feeling that it would be unwise to attempt an explanation, he said in a different tone—

'But, Emily, if you love Ashwood so well, why do you go away?'

'Why do I go away? We have been here now some time.... I can't live here always.'

'Why not? Why not let things go on just as they are?'

'And live here with you, I and Julia?'

'Yes; why not?'

'We should bore you; you want to write your plays, you'd get tired of me.'

'Your being here would not prevent my writing my plays. I have been thinking all the while of asking you to remain, but was afraid you would not care to live here.'

'Not care to live here! But you'll get tired of us; we might quarrel.'

'No; we shall never quarrel. You will be doing me a great favour by remaining. Just fancy living alone in this great house, not a soul to speak to all day! I'm sure I should end by going out and hanging myself on one of those trees.'

'You wouldn't do that, would you?'

Hubert laughed. 'You and Mrs. Bentley will be doing me a great favour by remaining. If you go away I shall be robbed right and left, the gardens will go to rack and ruin, and when you come down here you won't know the place, and then, perhaps, we shall quarrel.'

'I shouldn't like Ashwood to go to rack and ruin—and my poor flowers! And I'm sure you'd forget to feed the swans. If you did that, I could not forgive you.'

'Well, let these grave considerations decide you to remain.'

'Are you really serious?'

'I never was more serious in my life.'

'Well then, may I run and tell Julia?'

'Certainly, and I'll—no, I won't. I'll look up the housemaids and tell them to restore this interesting collection of antiquities to their original dust.'