CHAPTER II.
AT ten o'clock the next morning Norah and Magdalen stood alone in the
hall at Combe-Raven watching the departure of the carriage which took
their father and mother to the London train.
Up to the last moment, both the sisters had hoped for some explanation
of that mysterious "family business" to which Mrs. Vanstone had so
briefly alluded on the previous day. No such explanation had been
offered. Even the agitation of the leave-taking, under circumstances
entirely new in the home experience of the parents and children, had
not shaken the resolute discretion of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone. They had
gone—with the warmest testimonies of affection, with farewell embraces
fervently reiterated again and again—but without dropping one word, from first to last, of the nature of their errand.
As the grating sound of the carriage-wheels ceased suddenly at a turn in
the road, the sisters looked one another in the face; each feeling, and each betraying in her own way, the dreary sense that she was openly excluded, for the first time, from the confidence of her parents. Norah's customary reserve strengthened into sullen silence—she sat down in one of the hall chairs and looked out frowningly through the open house door. Magdalen, as usual when her temper was ruffled, expressed her dissatisfaction in the plainest terms. "I don't care who knows it—I think we are both of us shamefully ill-used!" With those words, the young lady followed her sister's example by seating herself on a hall chair and looking aimlessly out through the open house door.
Almost at the same moment Miss Garth entered the hall from the
morning-room. Her quick observation showed her the necessity for
interfering to some practical purpose; and her ready good sense at once
pointed the way.
"Look up, both of you, if you please, and listen to me," said Miss
Garth. "If we are all three to be comfortable and happy together, now
we are alone, we must stick to our usual habits and go on in our
regular way. There is the state of things in plain words. Accept the
situation—as the French say. Here am I to set you the example. I have
just ordered an excellent dinner at the customary hour. I am going to
the medicine-chest next, to physic the kitchen-maid—an unwholesome
girl, whose face-ache is all stomach. In the meantime, Norah, my dear, you will find your work and your books, as usual, in the library. Magdalen, suppose you leave off tying your handkerchief into knots and use your fingers on the keys of the piano instead? We'll lunch at one, and take the dogs out afterward. Be as brisk and cheerful both of you as I am. Come, rouse up directly. If I see those gloomy faces any longer, as sure as my name's Garth, I'll give your mother written warning and go back to my friends by the mixed train at twelve forty."
Concluding her address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led
Norah to the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning-room, and
went on her own way sternly to the regions of the medicine-chest.
In this half-jesting, half-earnest manner she was accustomed to maintain
a sort of friendly authority over Mr. Vanstone's daughters, after her
proper functions as governess had necessarily come to an end. Norah, it
is needless to say, had long since ceased to be her pupil; and Magdalen
had, by this time, completed her education. But Miss Garth had lived too
long and too intimately under Mr. Vanstone's roof to be parted with for
any purely formal considerations; and the first hint at going away which
she had thought it her duty to drop was dismissed with such affectionate
warmth of protest that she never repeated it again, except in jest. The
entire management of the household was, from that time forth, left in
her hands; and to those duties she was free to add what companionable
assistance she could render to Norah's reading, and what friendly
superintendence she could still exercise over Magdalen's music. Such
were the terms on which Miss Garth was now a resident in Mr. Vanstone's
family.
Toward the afternoon the weather improved. At half-past one the sun
was shining brightly; and the ladies left the house, accompanied by the
dogs, to set forth on their walk.
They crossed the stream, and ascended by the little rocky pass to the
hills beyond; then diverged to the left, and returned by a cross-road
which led through the village of Combe-Raven.