Thistle and Rose - Amy Walton (beginner reading books for adults .txt) 📗

as though he had forgotten her presence.

"It was there I first met your mother," he said, "or rather, at Dornton. We were married in Dornton church."

"Oh," said Anna, very much interested, "did mother live at Dornton? I never knew that."

"And that reminds me," said Mr Forrest, taking a leather case out of his pocket, and speaking with an effort, "I've something I want to give you before you go away. You may as well have it now. To-morrow we shall be both in a hurry. Come here."

He opened the case and showed her a small round portrait painted on ivory. It was the head of a girl of eighteen, exquisitely fair, with sweet, modest-looking eyes. "Your mother," he said briefly.

Anna almost held her breath. She had never seen a picture of her mother before, and had very seldom heard her mentioned.

"How lovely!" she exclaimed. "May I really have it to keep?"

"I had it copied for you from the original," said Mr Forrest.

"Oh, father, thank you so much," said Anna earnestly. "I do so love to have it."

Mr Forrest turned away suddenly, and walked to the window. He was silent for some minutes, and Anna stood with the case in her hand, not daring to speak to him. She had an instinct that it was a painful subject.

"Well," he said at last, "I need not tell you to take care of it. When I come back you'll be nearly as old as she was when that was painted. I can't hope more than that you may be half as good and beautiful."

Anna gazed earnestly at the portrait. There were some words in tiny letters beneath it: "Priscilla Goodwin," she read, "aged eighteen."

Priscilla! A soft, gentle sort of name, which seemed to suit the face.

If father wanted me to look like this, she thought to herself, he shouldn't have called me "Anna." How could any one named Anna grow so pretty!

"Why was I named Anna?" she asked.

"It was your mother's wish," replied Mr Forrest. "I believe it was her mother's name."

"Is my grandmother alive?" said Anna.

"No; she died years before I ever saw your mother. Your grandfather, old Mr Goodwin, is living still--at Dornton."

"At Dornton!" exclaimed Anna in extreme surprise. "Then why don't I go to stay with him while you're away, instead of at Waverley?"

"Because," said Mr Forrest, turning from the window to face his daughter, "it has been otherwise arranged."

Anna knew that tone of her father's well; it meant that she had asked an undesirable question. She was silent, but her eager face showed that she longed to hear more.

"Your grandfather and I have not been very good friends," said Mr Forrest at length, "and have not met for a good many years--but you're too young to understand all that. He lives in a very quiet sort of way. Once, if he had chosen, he might have risen to a different position. But he didn't choose, and he remains what he has been for the last twenty years--organist of Dornton church. He has great musical talent, I've always been told, but I'm no judge of that."

These new things were quite confusing to Anna; it was difficult to realise them all at once. The beautiful, fair-haired mother, whose picture she held in her hand, was not so strange. But her grandfather! She had never even heard of his existence, and now she would very soon see him and talk to him. Her thoughts, hitherto occupied with Waverley and the Rectory, began to busy themselves with the town of Dornton, the church where her mother had been married, and the house where she had lived.

"Aunt Sarah knows my grandfather, of course," she said aloud. "He will come to Waverley, and I shall go sometimes to see him at Dornton?"

"Oh, no doubt, no doubt, your aunt will arrange all that," said Mr Forrest wearily. "And now you must leave me, Anna; I've no time to answer any more questions. Tell Mary to take a lamp into the study, and bring me coffee. I have heaps of letters to write, and people to see this evening."

"Your aunt will arrange all that!" What a familiar sentence that was. Anna had heard it so often that she had come to look upon Aunt Sarah as a person whose whole office in life was to arrange and settle the affairs of other people, and who was sure to do it in the best possible way.

When she opened her eyes the next morning, her first movement was to feel under her pillow for the case which held the picture of her mother. She had a half fear that she might have dreamt all that her father had told her. No. It was real. The picture was there. The gentle face seemed to smile at her as she opened the case. How nice to have such a beautiful mother! As she dressed, she made up her mind that she would go to see her grandfather directly she got to Waverley. What would he be like? Her father had spoken of his musical talent in a half-pitying sort of way. Anna was not fond of music, and she very much hoped that her grandfather would not be too much wrapped up in it to answer all her questions. Well, she would soon find out everything about him. Her reflections were hurried away by the bustle of departure, for Mr Forrest, though he travelled so much, could never start on a journey without agitation and fuss, and fears as to losing his train. So, for the next hour, until Anna was safely settled in a through carriage for Dornton, with her ticket in her purse, a benevolent old lady opposite to her, and the guard prepared to give her every attention, there was no time to realise anything, except that she must make haste.

"Well, I think you're all right now," said Mr Forrest, with a sigh of relief, as he rested from his exertions. "Look out for your aunt on the platform at Dornton; she said she would meet you herself.--Why," looking at his watch, "you don't start for six minutes. We needn't have hurried after all. Well, there's no object in waiting, as I'm so busy; so I'll say good-bye now. Remember to write when you get down. Take care of yourself."

He kissed his daughter, and was soon out of sight in the crowded station. Anna had now really begun her first journey out into the world.


CHAPTER TWO.

DORNTON.

A bird of the air shall carry the matter.

On the same afternoon as that on which Anna was travelling towards Waverley, Mrs Hunt, the doctor's wife in Dornton, held one of her working parties. This was not at all an unusual event, for the ladies of Dornton and the neighbourhood had undertaken to embroider some curtains for their beautiful old church, and this necessitated a weekly meeting of two hours, followed by the refreshment of tea, and conversation. The people of Dornton were fond of meeting in each other's houses, and very sociably inclined. They met to work, they met to read Shakespeare, they met to sing and to play the piano, they met to discuss interesting questions, and they met to talk. It was not, perhaps, so much what they met to do that was the important thing, as the fact of meeting.

"So pleasant to _meet_, isn't it?" one lady would say to the other. "I'm not very musical, you know, but I've joined the glee society, because it's an excuse for _meeting_."

And, certainly, of all the houses in Dornton where these meetings were held, Dr Hunt's was the favourite. Mrs Hunt was so amiable and pleasant, the tea was so excellent, and the conversation of a most superior flavour. There was always the chance, too, that the doctor might look in for a moment at tea-time, and though he was discretion itself, and never gossiped about his patients, it was interesting to gather from his face whether he was anxious, or the reverse, as to any special case.

This afternoon, therefore, Mrs Hunt's drawing-room presented a busy and animated scene. It was a long, low room, with French windows, through which a pleasant old garden, with a wide lawn and shady trees, glimpses of red roofs beyond, and a church tower, could be seen. Little tables were placed at convenient intervals, holding silk, scissors, cushions full of needles and pins, and all that could be wanted for the work in hand, which was to be embroidered in separate strips; over these many ladies were already deeply engaged, though it was quite early, and there were still some empty seats.

"Shall we see Mrs Forrest this afternoon?" asked one of those who sat near the hostess at the end of the room.

"I think not," replied Mrs Hunt, as she greeted a new-comer; "she told me she had to drive out to Losenick about the character of a maid-servant."

"Oh, well," returned the other with a little shake of the head, "even Mrs Forrest can't manage to be in two places at once, can she?"

Mrs Hunt smiled, and looked pleasantly round on her assembled guests, but did not make any other answer.

"Although I was only saying this morning, there's very little Mrs Forrest can't do if she makes up her mind to it," resumed Miss Gibbins, the lady who had first spoken. "Look at all her arrangements at Waverley! It's well known that she manages the schools almost entirely--and then her house--so elegant, so orderly--and such a way with her maids! _Some_ people consider her a little stiff in her manner, but I don't _know_ that I should call her that."

She glanced inquiringly at Mrs Hunt, who still smiled and said nothing.

"It's not such a very difficult thing," said Mrs Hurst, the wife of the curate of Dornton, "to be a good manager, or to have good servants, if you have plenty of money." She pressed her lips together rather bitterly, as she bent over her work.

"There was one thing, though," pursued Miss Gibbins, dropping her voice a little, "that Mrs Forrest was not able to prevent, and that was her brother-in-law's marriage. I happen to know that she felt that very much. And it _was_ a sad mistake altogether, wasn't it?"

She addressed herself pointedly to Mrs Hunt, who was gazing serenely out into the garden, and that lady murmured in a soft tone:

"Poor Prissy Goodwin! How pretty and nice she was!"

"Oh, as to that, dear Mrs Hunt," broke in a stout lady with round eyes and a very deep voice, who had newly arrived, "that's not quite the question. Poor Prissy was very pretty, and very nice and refined, and as good as gold. We all know that. But _was_ it the right marriage for Mr Bernard Forrest? An organist's daughter! or you might even say, a music-master's daughter!"

"Old Mr Goodwin has aged very much lately," remarked Mrs Hunt. "I met him this morning, looking so tired, that I made him come in and rest a little. He had been giving