He went over to Markland with his books, but left them in the dogcart, shy, when he was actually in her presence, of carrying her that bribe. Books were a bribe to her; she had been out of the way of gratifications of this kind, and too solitary and forsaken during the latter part of her married life to know what was going on and to supply herself. She was sitting with Geoff upon the terrace, which ran along one side of the house, when Warrender appeared, and both teacher and pupil received him with something that looked very like relief; for the day was warm, and the terrace was but ill chosen as a schoolroom. The infinite charm of a summer day, the thousand invitations to idleness with which the air is full, the waving trees (though there were not many of them), the scent of the flowers, the singing of the birds, all distracted Geoff’s attention, and sooth to say his mother’s too. She would have been glad to sit quiet, to escape the boy’s questioning, to put away the irksome lessons which she herself did not much more than understand, and to which she brought a mind unaccustomed and full of other thoughts. Of these other thoughts there were so many, both of the future and the past: it was very hard to keep her attention to the little boy’s Latin grammar. And Geoff on his side was weary too; he should have been in a schoolroom, shut out from temptation, with maps hung along the walls, instead of waving trees, and where he could not have stopped to cry out, “I say, mamma, there’s a squirrel. I am certain it is a squirrel,” in the midst of his exercises. That, of course, was very bad. And then up to a recent period he had shared all, or almost all, his mother’s thoughts; but since his father’s death these had become so full of complications that a child could no longer share them, though neither quite understood the partial severance which had ensued. Both were relieved, however, when the old butler appeared at the end of the terrace, pointing out to Warrender where the little group was. The man did not think it necessary to expose himself to the full blaze of the sunshine in order to lead “a great friend” like Mr. Warrender close up to my lady’s chair.
“We are very glad to see you; in fact, we are much too glad to see you,” said Lady Markland, with a smile. “We are ashamed to say that we were not entering into our work as we ought. Nature is always so busy doing a hundred things, and calling us to come and look what she is about. We take more interest in her occupations than in our own.”
“Mamma makes a story of everything,” said Geoff, half aggrieved; “but I’m in earnest. Grammar is dreadful stuff; there are no reflections in it. Why can’t one begin to read books straight off, without nasty, stupid rules?”
Warrender took little note of what the boy said. Meanwhile he had shaken hands and made his salutations, and his sovereign lady, with a smile, had given him a chair. He felt himself entering, out of the blank world outside, into the sphere of her existence, which was his Vita Nuova, and was capable for the moment of no other thought.
“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
