Her mamma was very tired, and went to bed before tea, the gentlemen had a long talk over the fire, the boys and Beatrice laughed and talked, and she helped her grandmamma to hand about the tea, answering her questions about her mother's health and habits, and heard a good deal that interested her, but still she could not feel as if it were Sunday. At Rocksand she used to sit for many a pleasant hour, either in the darkening summer twilight, or the bright red light of the winter fire, repeating or singing hymns, and enjoying the most delightful talks that the whole week had to offer, and now she greatly missed the conversation that would have "set this strange week to rights in her head," as she said to herself.
She thought over it a good deal whilst Bennet was brushing her hair at night, feeling as if it had been a week-day, and as if it would be as difficult to begin a new fresh week on Monday morning, as it would a new day after sitting up a whole night. How far this was occasioned by Knight Sutton habits, and how far it was her own fault, was not what she asked herself, though she sat up for a long time musing on the change in her way of life, and scarcely able to believe that it was only last Sunday that she had been sitting with her mother over their fire at Rocksand. Enough had happened for a whole month. Her darling project was fulfilled; the airy castle of former days had become a substance, and she was inhabiting it: and was she really so very much happier? There she went into a reverie-but musing is not meditating, nor vague dreamings wholesome reflections; she went on sitting their, chiefly for want of energy to move, till the fire burnt low, the clock struck twelve, and Mrs. Frederick Langford exclaimed in a sleepy voice, "My dear, are you going to sleep there?"
CHAPTER VIII.
BREAKFAST was nearly over on Monday morning, when a whole party of the Sutton Leigh boys entered with the intelligence that the great pond in Knight's Portion was quite frozen over, and that skating might begin without loss of time.
"You are coming, are you not, Bee?" said Alex, leaning over the back of her chair.
"O yes," said she, nearly whispering "only take care. It is taboo there,"-and she made a sign with her hand towards Mrs. Langford, "and don't frighten Aunt Mary about Fred. O it is too late, Carey's doing the deed as fast as he can."
Carey was asking Fred whether he had ever skated, or could skate, and Fred was giving an account of his exploits in that line at school, hoping it might prove to his mother that he might be trusted to take care of himself since he had dared the danger before. In vain: the alarmed expression had come over her face, as she asked Alexander whether his father had looked at the ice.
"No," said Alex, "but it is perfectly safe. I tried it this morning, and it is as firm as this marble chimney-piece."
"He is pretty well to be trusted," said his grandfather, "more especially as it would be difficult to get drowned there."
"I would give a shilling to anyone who could drown himself there," said Alex.
"The travelling man did," exclaimed at once Carey, John, and Richard.
"Don't they come in just like the Greek chorus?" said Beatrice, in a whisper to Fred, who gave a little laugh, but was too anxious to attend to her.
"I thought he was drowned in the river," said Alex.
"No, it was in the deep pool under the weeping willow, where the duckweed grows so rank in summer," said Carey.
Uncle Geoffrey laughed. "I am sorry to interfere with your romantic embellishments, Carey, or with the credit of your beloved pond, since you are determined not to leave it behindhand with its neighbours."
"I always thought it was there," said the boy.
"And thought wrong; the poor man was found in the river two miles off."
"I always heard it was at Knight's Pool," repeated Carey.
"I do not know what you may have heard," said Uncle Geoffrey; "but as it happened a good while before you were born, I think you had better not argue the point."
"Grandpapa," persisted Carey, "was it not in Knight's Pool?"
"Certainly not," was the answer drily given.
"Well," continued Carey, "I am sure you might drown yourself there."
"Rather than own yourself mistaken," said Uncle Geoffrey.
"Carey, Carey, I hate contradiction," said grandmamma, rising and rustling past where he stood with a most absurd, dogged, unconvinced face. "Take your arm off the mantelpiece, let that china cup alone, and stand like a gentleman. Do!"
"All in vain!" said Beatrice. "To the end of his life he will maintain that Knight's Pool drowned the travelling man!"
"Well, never mind," said John, impatiently, "are we coming to skate this morning or are we not?"
"I really wish," said Aunt Mary, as if she could not help it, "without distrusting either old Knight's Pool or your judgment, Alexander, that you would ask some one to look at it."
"I should like just to run down and see the fun," said Uncle Geoffrey, thus setting all parties at rest for the moment. The two girls ran joyfully up to put on their bonnets, as Henrietta wished to see, Beatrice to join in, the sport. At that instant Mrs. Langford asked her son Geoffrey to remove some obstacle which hindered the comfortable shutting of the door, and though a servant might just as well have done it, he readily complied, according to his constant habit of making all else give way to her, replying to the discomfited looks of the boys, "I shall be ready by the time the young ladies come down."
So he was, long before Henrietta was ready, and just as she and Beatrice appeared on the stairs, Atkins was carrying across the hall what the boys looked at with glances of dismay, namely, the post-bag. Knight Sutton, being small and remote, did not possess a post-office, but a messenger came from Allonfield for the letters on every day except Sunday, and returned again in the space of an hour. A very inconvenient arrangement, as everyone had said for the last twenty years, and might probably say for twenty years more.
As usual, more than half the contents were for G. Langford, Esq., and Fred's face grew longer and longer as he saw the closely-written business-like sheets.
"Fred, my poor fellow," said his uncle, looking up, "I am sorry for you, but one or two must be answered by this day's post. I will not be longer than I can help."
"Then do let us come on," exclaimed the chorus.
"Come, Queenie," added Alex.
She delayed, however, saying, "Can I do any good, papa?"
"Thank you, let me see. I do not like to stop you, but it would save time if you could just copy a letter."
"O thank you, pray let me," said Beatrice, delighted. "Go on, Henrietta, I shall soon come."
Henrietta would have waited, but she saw a chance of speaking to her brother, which she did not like to lose.
Her mother had taken advantage of the various conversations going on in the hall, to draw her son aside, saying, "Freddy, I believe you think me very troublesome, but do let me entreat of you not to venture on the ice till one of your uncles has said it is safe."
"Uncle Roger trusts Alex," said Fred.
"Yes, but he lets all those boys take their chance, and a number of you together are likely to be careless, and I know there used to be dangerous places in that pond. I will not detain you, my dear," added she, as the others were preparing to start, "only I beg you will not attempt to skate till your uncle comes."
"Very well," said Frederick, in a tone of as much annoyance as ever he showed his mother, and with little suspicion how much it cost her not to set her mind at rest by exacting a promise from him. This she had resolutely forborne to do in cases like the present, from his earliest days, and she had her reward in the implicit reliance she could place on his word when once given. And now, sighing that it had not been voluntarily offered, she went to her sofa, to struggle and reason in vain with her fears, and start at each approaching step, lest it should bring the tidings of some fatal accident, all the time blaming herself for the entreaties which might, as she dreaded, place him in peril of disobedience.