Read Ebook: A Yellow Aster Volume 1 (of 3) by Caffyn Mannington Mrs

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Ebook has 617 lines and 30690 words, and 13 pages

Mr. Waring groaned in spirit and mourned over the depravity of the race as he read their epistles, and drew farther back than ever into his shell. If the average man and woman without the academical walls resembled these productions, the less one had to do with them the better, he very reasonably reflected.

After this had been going on for the space of three months, he came, one morning, down to breakfast. He felt very sick at heart; his pupils seemed so amazingly full of enthusiasm for minor concerns, and so absolutely lacking in it for the one thing needful, that he was cut to the quick and moved to much gentle wrath. And then these letters! They were fast becoming his Nemesis.

He ate his breakfast and watched with unwonted pleasure some dust motes dancing in a sunbeam, and raising his eyes to follow them, they unconsciously strayed farther out into the college quad, where the dew was still sparkling on every grass blade, and shimmering on every flower.

Mr. Waring felt quite cheerful and revived as he pushed away his plate and cup and began to open his letters. Letter after letter was laid down, a spasm of pain passing each time across his face, and more than once an audible groan escaped him.

At last he picked up a letter gingerly, as he handled all this variety of correspondence--the village mathematician being an unclean beast--but this letter seemed somehow different, he turned it over with growing interest, and even took the pains to examine the postmark, then he opened it and found a quite different production from any he had yet received.

First on opening it a curious indefinite scent struck on his nostrils. He sniffed it up perplexedly; some queer old memories began to stir in him, and he paused a moment to try and classify them, but he could not, so he set himself to examine the contents of the missive.

The answer given to his problem was accurate and the accompanying remarks clear, strong, and to the point, written in a woman's hand and signed with a woman's name, "Grace Selwyn".

That letter was answered before the breakfast things were cleared away, and certain fresh problems enclosed which were not sent in any other direction.

Many letters went and came after that, containing problems and their answers, the answers always full of that strange, vague, delicious scent, which seemed to waft itself through the study and to remain there, caught with the dust motes in the sunbeam.

A longing and a yearning for those little notes began to take possession of Henry Waring and to disturb his mind. Old memories of the time when he wore frocks and toddled, began to haunt him, and his work was no longer done by reflex action.

He consulted a doctor, but as he only confided half his symptoms to that scientific person, quite suppressing the letters, the doctor felt rather out of it and prescribed quinine, which had no effect whatsoever.

Towards the close of the day he presented himself at the door of a queer old red-brick manor house in Kent owned by a Colonel Selwyn and his wife, and asked simply for "Miss Grace Selwyn".

In three months from that day the two came down the path hand in hand and stepped out together on life's journey, and six months later through the death of a cousin, Waring Park fell to them and made up for the loss of the Fellowship.

THE very day after Gwen's flight into history Mr. and Mrs. Waring walked up to the Rectory and got through their talk with the master of it.

They had delivered themselves to Mr. Fellowes, and were now walking down the Rectory drive, both looking a little pained. Mr. Waring's disengaged hand was pressed to his forehead and his brows were knit, and Mrs. Waring looked as if she were engaged in a silent struggle against disturbing thoughts.

The air was still and soft, and some stray stars had already taken possession of the evening sky, where the little streaks of rose, left by the sun, looked quite out of place, and felt it too, seemingly, for they were creeping behind the hills with a soft little shiver of dismay, like a timid guest who suddenly discovers that every soul but himself has left.

The silence and the calm helped Mr. and Mrs. Waring, who were both trying to throw off the consideration of minor matters and to return to that of vital affairs. Generally so easy, like the slipping back of a pair of seals into the water after a rugged land journey, to-night this seemed a strangely hard task to tackle.

They often seemed to receive the same impression at the same moment, and something or other in the bright glow of the Rectory study and in the perfectly at-home and at-ease air of a pair of twins that the Rector's wife had temporary charge of, and had brought in to say good-night, had given them a little jar which would keep on quivering.

These were not sufficiently tangible sensations for discussion, there seemed nothing in them that these two persons could seize upon and argue from to any purpose, so they were struggling to put them behind them. Mr. Waring succeeded, his wife was not so fortunate.

The vague feeling was quite like a Jack-in-the-box for sudden appearances during the next few days, and whenever it sprang up, a little ache followed hot on the heels of it.

At last she made a supreme effort to regain her reason, and remarked with rather deceptive cheerfulness,

"I think, dearest, we may now dismiss this matter from our minds. I am quite willing to trust it in Mr. Fellowes' hands, as I presume you are. You do feel perfect confidence in him?" she questioned a little anxiously, as Mr. Waring did not speak for a moment.

He paused to sigh. "We have so little time, love, to give to him, time is so very much to us. Our other neighbours seem to hunt when they do not fish and fish when they do not hunt, they can have neither time nor strength left for intellectual culture. Then Mr. and Mrs. Fellows have, I believe, duties; they sit on Boards and Councils and no doubt follow other pursuits of like order, but as companions, naturally they must be impossible. Then as to his wife, she is a comely person--she is, is she not, dearest? I am so very poor a judge--but I do not perceive any glimmerings of thought in her. You can better judge of her, dear, have you ever discovered any?"

Mrs. Waring considered for a moment then she shook her head.

"I do not think I have expected any," she said, "so indeed I have hardly looked. I have only thought of her kindness, and of her knowledge of children and their feeding. I am very fond of her and so very grateful, but I have never once really talked to her."

"I thought so--it is strange--strange. However, I am most thankful this business is done, we may now be able to begin those papers to-night--I look forward with much pleasure to them. Curious what very opposed views we take on this subject--h'm, I fancy I am right, dear."

Mrs. Waring thought not, and signified the fact by a very decided shake of her sweet golden locks, that looked more like spun silver in the moon's rays.

They had now reached the great flight of steps that flanked either side of the entrance door.

When they got to the top, by one accord they paused, and leant over the castellated ivy-clad wall that protected the platform of granite slabs connecting the two flights of steps, and gazed out into the evening, but a sudden horrible sound made Mrs. Waring jump nervously, then quiver from head to foot, and caused her husband's brows to contract as sharply as if there had been a spring in them.

It turned out to be Gwen scraping an old violin and coughing frightfully all down the corridor.

"Dearest, do you think we should summon Dr. Guy?" said Mr. Waring when they had somewhat recovered.

"Oh no, love, Mary assures me there is no danger whatever, she calls that dreadful noise 'a simple stomach cough'."

"In that case we must request Mary to keep her in the nursery, such noises are most upsetting. Pray be as quick as you can, my darling, we might get to work at once. But surely it is not the gong I hear?"

"Love, I fear it is only too true," cried Mrs. Waring in trembling distress. "I had no idea of the lateness of the hour, and oh, Henry, we were late again yesterday and the servants were quite upset. Oh, you will be quick with your dressing, will you not?"

Then with one last little hand-squeeze she fled to her room with a terrified glance into the solemn face of a hurt-looking footman.

WHEN he had bidden farewell to the Warings in his porch and watched them curiously till a clump of firs hid them from him, Mr. Fellowes went back to his study with a very curious assortment of expressions on his face; there was a good deal of amusement there, a decided touch of sadness, much doubt, and some dismay.

He had, however, little time to reduce this confusion to order; an impatient tap at the door was followed by the entrance of a bright eager little woman, in a long trailing garment of a curious combination of heliotrope and pale yellow.

"John, are you ready for me? May I hear all of it?" she demanded, putting her little hand on his big ones.

"I feel in rather a yeasty condition at this minute, but I'll subside shortly, no doubt. Will you be able to hold out a little longer?"

"Haven't I borne it for two mortal hours and twenty minutes? Were they talking all the time? I was in an awful fright it was something I mustn't hear. Two scientists in trouble about their souls, perhaps?"

"Fortunately I can divulge all I know, but you needn't be flippant. It's all very funny, but it's just as woefully sad. What on earth are you at?"

"Pinning up my skirts, the fire would ruin this colour in a night. Do you like my gown?"

"I do, but whether the parish will, is another question."

"Oh, never mind the parish, I'll teach it; you have no idea how easy it is to get round people if you know the track. Is that yeast risen high enough or has it gone sad? Remember I have held out a frightful time."

"Hold out another five minutes while I write a note, I must catch this post."

When Mr. Fellowes brought his little seventeen-years old wife home to the respectable parish of Waring, just four years before this time, it was the generally received opinion of most competent judges that he had a good deal to answer for.

To begin with, she was American, that fact in itself was quite without precedent. The entire clerical annals of the diocese did not furnish a like example. This, to any right-minded judgment, was as much as an insult to the parishioners, who were in consequence put to much trouble and inconvenience in rubbing up their imaginations to tackle the case, having no previous experience to go upon.

A deceased Colonel, of whom they knew a great deal too much, and a living peer, of whom on the contrary, they knew a great deal too little, both inhabitants of the county, had indeed married Americans, the results in the one case being disastrous; of the other they possessed no proven data, but they were at least at liberty to draw their own conclusions.

But for a parson to do this thing! It was unheard-of, and partook of the nature of a scandal.

This being put in the form of an axiom spread widely, and carried much weight.

This was four years ago, however, and things had changed a good deal. Mrs. Fellowes' husband was no fool, he knew what he was about when he brought home, as the finish to the one long holiday of his life, the little New England girl to be his helpmate.

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