Whereupon, Rachel discovered that the peacocks were creatures of yew-tree, perched at either end of the garden fence. Mr. Clare had found them there, and preserved them with solicitous fidelity.
Nothing could be less like than he was to the grave, thin, stooping ascetic in a long coat, that she had expected. He was a tall, well-made man, of the same youthful cast of figure as his nephew, and a far lighter and more springy step, with features and colouring recalling those of his niece, as did the bright sunny playful sweetness of his manner; his dark handsome eyes only betraying their want of sight by a certain glassy immobility that contrasted with the play of the expressive mouth. It was hard to guess why Bessie should have shunned such an uncle. Alick took Rachel to the bedroom above the library, and, like it, with two windows—one overlooking churchyard, river, and hayfields, the other commanding, over the peacock hedge, a view of the playground, where Mr. Clare was seen surrounded by boys, appealing to him on some disputed matter of cricket. There was a wonderful sense of serenity, freshness, and fragrance, inexpressibly grateful to Rachel’s wearied feelings, and far more comfortable than the fine scenery through which she had been carried, because no effort to look and admire was incumbent on her—nay, not even an effort to talk all the evening. Mr. Clare seemed to have perfectly imbibed the idea that rest was what she wanted, and did not try to make small talk with her, though she sat listening with pleased interest to the conversation between him and his nephew—so home like, so full of perfect understanding of one another.
“Is there anything to be read aloud?” presently asked Alick.
“You have not by chance got Framley Parsonage?”
“I wish I had. I did pick up Silas Marner, at a station, thinking you might like it,” and he glanced at Rachel, who had, he suspected, thought his purchase an act of weakness. “Have you met with it?”
“I have met with nothing of the sort since you were here last;” then turning to Rachel, “Alick indulges me with novels, for my good curate had rather read the catalogue of a sale any day than meddle with one, and I can’t set on my pupil teacher in a book where I don’t know what is coming.”
“We will get Framley,” said Alick.
“Bessie has it. She read me a very clever scene about a weak young parson bent on pleasing himself; and offered to lend me the book, but I thought it would not edify Will Walker. But, no doubt, you have read it long ago.”
“No,” said Rachel; and something withheld her from disclaiming such empty employments. Indeed, she was presently much interested in the admirable portraiture of Silas Marner, and still more by the keen, vivid enjoyment, critical, droll, and moralizing, displayed by a man who heard works of fiction so rarely that they were always fresh to him, and who looked on them as studies of life. His hands were busy all the time carving a boss for the roof of one of the side aisles of his church—the last step in its gradual restoration.
That night there was no excitement of nerve, no morbid fancy to trouble Rachel’s slumbers; she only awoke as the eight o’clock bell sounded through the open window, and for the first time for months rose less weary than she had gone to rest. Weekday though it were, the description “sweet day, so calm, so cool, so bright,” constantly recurred to her mind as she watched the quiet course of occupation. Alick, after escorting his uncle to a cottage, found her searching among the stores in the music stand.
“You unmusical female,” he said, “what is that for?”
“Your uncle spoke of music last night, and I thought he would like it.”
“I thought you had no such propensity.”
“I learnt like other people, but it was the only thing I could not do as well as Grace, and I thought it wasted time, and was a young ladyism; but if can recover music enough to please him, I should be glad.”
“Thank you,” said Alick, earnestly. “He is very much pleased with your voice in speaking. Indeed, I believe I first heard it with his ears.”
“This is a thorough lady’s collection of music,” said Rachel, looking through it to hide her blush of pleasure. “Altogether the house has not a bachelor look.”
“Did you not know that he had been married? It was when he first had the living twelve years ago. She was a very lovely young thing, half Irish, and this was the happiest place in the world for two years, till her little brother was sent home here from school without proper warning of a fever that had begun there. We all had it, but she and her baby were the only ones that did not recover! There they lie, under the yew-tree, where my uncle likes to teach the children. He was terribly struck down for years, though he went manfully to his work, and it has been remarkable how his spirits and sociability have returned since he lost his sight; indeed, he is more consistently bright than ever he was.”
“I never saw anyone like him,” said Rachel. “I have fallen in with clergy that some call holy, and with some that others call pious, but he is not a bit like either. He is not even grave, yet there is a calming, refreshing sense of reverence towards him that would be awe, only it is so happy.”
Alick’s response was to bend over her, and kiss her brow. She had never seen him so much gratified.
“What a comfort your long stay with him must have been,” she said presently, “in the beginning of his blindness!”
“I hope so. It was an ineffable comfort to me to come here out of Littleworthy croquet,
