XXIV
The Honeymoon
“Around the very place doth brood
Rev. Isaac Williams
A calm and holy quietude.”
The level beams of a summer sun, ending one of his longest careers, were tipping a mountain peak with an ineffable rosy purple, contrasting with the deep shades of narrow ravines that cleft the rugged sides, and gradually expanded into valleys, sloping with green pasture, or clothed with wood. The whole picture, with its clear, soft sky, was retraced on the waters of the little lake set in emerald meadows, which lay before the eyes of Rachel Keith, as she reclined in a garden chair before the windows of a pretty rustic-looking hotel, but there was no admiration, no peaceful contemplation on her countenance, only the same weary air of depression, too wistful and startled even to be melancholy repose, and the same bewildered distressed look that had been as it were stamped on her by the gaze of the many unfriendly eyes at the Quarter Sessions, and by her two unfortunate dinner parties.
The wedding was to have been quietness itself, but though the bridegroom had refused to contribute sister, brother-in-law, or even uncle to the numbers, conventionalities had been too strong for Mrs. Curtis, and “just one more” had been added to the guests till a sufficient multitude had been collected to renew all Rachel’s morbid sensations of distress and bewilderment with their accompanying feverish symptoms, and she had been only able to proceed on her journey by very short stages, taken late in the day.
Alick had not forgotten her original views as to travelling, and as they were eventually to go to Scotland, had proposed beginning with Dutch reformatories and Swiss cretins; but she was so plainly unfit for extra fatigue and bustle, that the first few weeks were to be spent in Wales, where the enjoyment of fine scenery might, it was hoped, be beneficial to the jaded spirits, and they had been going through a course of passes and glens as thoroughly as Rachel’s powers would permit, for any over-fatigue renewed feverishness and its delusive miseries, and the slightest alarm told upon the shattered nerves.
She did not easily give way at the moment, but the shock always took revenge in subsequent suffering, which all Alick’s care could not prevent, though the exceeding charm of his tenderness rendered even the indisposition almost precious to her.
“What a lovely sunset!” he said, coming to lean over the back of her chair. “Have you been watching it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you very much tired?”
“No, it is very quiet here.”
“Very; but I must take you in before that curling mist mounts into your throat.”
“This is a very nice place, Alick, the only really quiet one we have found.”
“I am afraid that it will be so no longer. The landlord tells me he has letters from three parties to order rooms.”
“Oh, then, pray let us go on,” said Rachel, looking alarmed.
“Tomorrow afternoon then, for I find there’s another waterfall.”
“Very well,” said Rachel, resignedly.
“Or shall we cut the waterfall, and get on to Llan—something?”
“If you don’t think we ought to see it.”
“Ought?” he said, smiling. “What is the ought in the case? Why are we going through all this? Is it a duty to society or to ourselves?”
“A little of both, I suppose,” said Rachel.
“And, Rachel, from the bottom of your heart, is it not a trying duty?”
“I want to like what you are showing me,” said Rachel.
“And you are more worried than delighted, eh?”
“I—I don’t know! I see it is grand and beautiful! I did love my own moors, and the Spinster’s Needles, but—Don’t think me very ungrateful, but I can’t enter into all this! All I really do care for is your kindness, and helping me about,” and she was really crying like a child unable to learn a lesson.
“Well,” he said, with his own languor of acquiescence, “we are perfectly agreed. Waterfalls are an uncommon bore, if one is not in a concatenation accordingly.”
Rachel was beguiled into a smile.
“Come,” he said, “let us be strong minded! If life should ever become painful to us because of our neglect of the waterfalls, we will set out and fulfil our tale of them. Meantime, let me take you where you shall be really quiet, home to Bishopsworthy.”
“But your uncle does not expect you so soon.”
“My uncle is always ready for me, and a week or two of real rest there would make you ready for the further journey.”
Rachel made no opposition. She was glad to have her mind relieved from the waterfalls, but she had rather have been quite alone with her husband. She knew that Lord and Lady Keith had taken a house at Littleworthy, while Gowanbrae was under repair, and she dreaded the return to the bewildering world, before even the first month was over; but Alick made the proposal so eagerly that she could not help assenting with all the cordiality she could muster, thinking that it must be a wretched, disappointing wedding tour for him, and she would at least not prevent his being happy with his uncle; as happy as he could be with a person tied to him, of whom all his kindred must disapprove, and especially that paragon of an uncle, whom she heard of like an intensification of all that class of clergy who had of late been most alien to her.
Alick did not press for her real wishes, but wrote his letter, and followed it as fast as she could bear to travel. So when the train, a succession of ovens for living bodies disguised in dust, drew up at the Littleworthy Station, there was a ready response to the smart footman’s inquiry, “Captain and Mrs. Keith?” This personage by no means accorded with Rachel’s preconceived notions of the Rectory establishment, but she next heard the peculiar clatter by which a grand equipage announces its importance, and saw the coronetted blinkers tossing on the other side of the
