North and South
Page 293Mr. Bell knew something of what would be passing through her
mind, and wisely and kindly held his tongue. They drove up to the
Lennard Arms; half farm-house, half-inn, standing a little apart
from the road, as much as to say, that the host did not so depend
on the custom of travellers, as to have to court it by any
obtrusiveness; they, rather, must seek him out. The house fronted
the village green; and right before it stood an immemorial
lime-tree benched all round, in some hidden recesses of whose
leafy wealth hung the grim escutcheon of the Lennards. The door
of the inn stood wide open, but there was no hospitable hurry to
receive the travellers. When the landlady did appear--and they
might have abstracted many an article first--she gave them a kind
welcome, almost as if they had been invited guests, and
apologised for her coming having been so delayed, by saying, that
a-field, and she had been too busy packing up the baskets to hear
the noise of wheels over the road, which, since they had left the
highway, ran over soft short turf.
'Why, bless me!' exclaimed she, as at the end of her apology, a
glint of sunlight showed her Margaret's face, hitherto unobserved
in that shady parlour. 'It's Miss Hale, Jenny,' said she, running
to the door, and calling to her daughter. 'Come here, come
directly, it's Miss Hale!' And then she went up to Margaret, and
shook her hands with motherly fondness.
'And how are you all? How's the Vicar and Miss Dixon? The Vicar
above all! God bless him! We've never ceased to be sorry that he
left.' Margaret tried to speak and tell her of her father's death; of
her mother's it was evident that Mrs. Purkis was aware, from her
only touch her deep mourning, and say the one word, 'Papa.' 'Surely, sir, it's never so!' said Mrs. Purkis, turning to Mr.
Bell for confirmation of the sad suspicion that now entered her
mind. 'There was a gentleman here in the spring--it might have
been as long ago as last winter--who told us a deal of Mr. Hale
and Miss Margaret; and he said Mrs. Hale was gone, poor lady. But
never a word of the Vicar's being ailing!' 'It is so, however,' said Mr. Bell. 'He died quite suddenly, when
on a visit to me at Oxford. He was a good man, Mrs. Purkis, and
there's many of us that might be thankful to have as calm an end
as his. Come Margaret, my dear! Her father was my oldest friend,
and she's my god-daughter, so I thought we would just come down
together and see the old place; and I know of old you can give us
comfortable rooms and a capital dinner. You don't remember me I
see, but my name is Bell, and once or twice when the parsonage
Miss Hale. Let me show you to a room, Miss Margaret, where you
can take off your bonnet, and wash your face. It's only this very
morning I plunged some fresh-gathered roses head downward in the
water-jug, for, thought I, perhaps some one will be coming, and
there's nothing so sweet as spring-water scented by a musk rose
or two. To think of the Vicar being dead! Well, to be sure, we
must all die; only that gentleman said, he was quite picking up
after his trouble about Mrs. Hale's death.' 'Come down to me, Mrs. Purkis, after you have attended to Miss
Hale. I want to have a consultation with you about dinner.' The little casement window in Margaret's bed-chamber was almost
filled up with rose and vine branches; but pushing them aside,
and stretching a little out, she could see the tops of the
parsonage chimneys above the trees; and distinguish many a
well-known line through the leaves.