But after it was over, she went quietly round to one or two old favourites, and talked to them a little.
They were growing out of children into great girls; passing out of her recollection in their rapid development, as she, by her three years' absence, was vanishing from theirs.
Still she was glad to have seen them all again, though a tinge of sadness mixed itself with her pleasure.
When school was over for the day, it was yet early in the summer afternoon; and Mrs. Hepworth proposed to Margaret that she and Mr. Bell should accompany her to the parsonage, and see the—the word 'improvements' had half slipped out of her mouth, but she substituted the more cautious term 'alterations' which the present Vicar was making.
Margaret did not care a straw about seeing the alterations, which jarred upon her fond recollection of what her home had been; but she longed to see the old place once more, even though she shivered away from the pain which she knew she should feel.
The parsonage was so altered, both inside and out, that the real pain was less than she had anticipated.
It was not like the same place.
The garden, the grass-plat, formerly so daintily trim that even a stray rose-leaf seemed like a fleck on its exquisite arrangement and propriety, was strewed with children's things; a bag of marbles here, a hoop there; a straw-hat forced down upon a rose-tree as on a peg, to the destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers, which in former days would have been trained up tenderly, as if beloved.
The little square matted hall was equally filled with signs of merry healthy rough childhood.
'Ah!' said Mrs. Hepworth, 'you must excuse this untidiness, Miss Hale.
When the nursery is finished, I shall insist upon a little order.
We are building a nursery out of your room, I believe.
How did you manage, Miss Hale, without a nursery?'
'We were but two,' said Margaret.
'You have many children, I presume?'
'Seven.
Look here! we are throwing out a window to the road on this side.
Mr. Hepworth is spending an immense deal of money on this house; but really it was scarcely habitable when we came—for so large a family as ours I mean, of course.'
Every room in the house was changed, besides the one of which Mrs. Hepworth spoke, which had been Mr. Hale's study formerly; and where the green gloom and delicious quiet of the place had conduced, as he had said, to a habit of meditation, but, perhaps, in some degree to the formation of a character more fitted for thought than action.
The new window gave a view of the road, and had many advantages, as Mrs. Hepworth pointed out.
From it the wandering sheep of her husband's flock might be seen, who straggled to the tempting beer-house, unobserved as they might hope, but not unobserved in reality; for the active Vicar kept his eye on the road, even during the composition of his most orthodox sermons, and had a hat and stick hanging ready at hand to seize, before sallying out after his parishioners, who had need of quick legs if they could take refuge in the
'Jolly Forester' before the teetotal Vicar had arrested them.
The whole family were quick, brisk, loud-talking, kind-hearted, and not troubled with much delicacy of perception.
Margaret feared that Mrs. Hepworth would find out that Mr. Bell was playing upon her, in the admiration he thought fit to express for everything that especially grated on his taste.
But no! she took it all literally, and with such good faith, that Margaret could not help remonstrating with him as they walked slowly away from the parsonage back to their inn.
'Don't scold, Margaret.
It was all because of you.
If she had not shown you every change with such evident exultation in their superior sense, in perceiving what an improvement this and that would be, I could have behaved well.
But if you must go on preaching, keep it till after dinner, when it will send me to sleep, and help my digestion.'
They were both of them tired, and Margaret herself so much so, that she was unwilling to go out as she had proposed to do, and have another ramble among the woods and fields so close to the home of her childhood.
And, somehow, this visit to Helstone had not been all—had not been exactly what she had expected.
There was change everywhere; slight, yet pervading all.
Households were changed by absence, or death, or marriage, or the natural mutations brought by days and months and years, which carry us on imperceptibly from childhood to youth, and thence through manhood to age, whence we drop like fruit, fully ripe, into the quiet mother earth.
Places were changed—a tree gone here, a bough there, bringing in a long ray of light where no light was before—a road was trimmed and narrowed, and the green straggling pathway by its side enclosed and cultivated.
A great improvement it was called; but Margaret sighed over the old picturesqueness, the old gloom, and the grassy wayside of former days.
She sate by the window on the little settle, sadly gazing out upon the gathering shades of night, which harmonised well with her pensive thought.
Mr. Bell slept soundly, after his unusual exercise through the day.
At last he was roused by the entrance of the tea-tray, brought in by a flushed-looking country-girl, who had evidently been finding some variety from her usual occupation of waiter, in assisting this day in the hayfield.
'Hallo!
Who's there!
Where are we?
Who's that,—Margaret?
Oh, now I remember all.
I could not imagine what woman was sitting there in such a doleful attitude, with her hands clasped straight out upon her knees, and her face looking so steadfastly before her.
What were you looking at?' asked Mr. Bell, coming to the window, and standing behind Margaret.
'Nothing,' said she, rising up quickly, and speaking as cheerfully as she could at a moment's notice.
'Nothing indeed!
A bleak back-ground of trees, some white linen hung out on the sweet-briar hedge, and a great waft of damp air.
Shut the window, and come in and make tea.'
Margaret was silent for some time.