Aldyth's Inheritance by Eglanton Thorne

ON the following morning Aldyth found her mother looking white and worn. And in response to her daughters anxious questioning, she confessed that she had hardly slept at all during the night. Yet she was not to be persuaded to rest longer in bed. She was eager to rise, and throughout the day, she showed a restlessness and irritability which was trying to those about her, but was not to be wondered at in one upon whom such heavy trouble had fallen.

In the afternoon Aldyth, who had been packing a hamper of flowers for the benefit of her girl friends at Whitechapel, wished to convey it to the railway station. It was a lovely autumn afternoon, so she proposed that her mother and Gladys should accompany her for the drive, and they should make a long round to Woodham, where she would leave them to return home in the care of old John, as she wished to call at her aunt's.

"But how will you get home if we go on in the carriage? " asked Gladys.

"Oh, I shall have a cup of tea with auntie, and then walk home," said Aldyth.

"Walk! " exclaimed Gladys. "All that long, dull road!"

"Oh, I shall not keep to the road," said Aldyth. "There is a shorter way across some fields. It is a pleasant walk, and I shall enjoy it this evening."

"What, all alone! " said Gladys. "I should be scared to walk by myself in the country."

"That is because you are not used to the country," said Aldyth. "I can assure you, the open fields have no terrors for me."

"But you will be very tired; surely it will not be wise of you to do so, Aldyth," said her mother, feeling more reluctance to the idea than she could easily have accounted for.

"I am not afraid of fatigue," said Aldyth. "I have often walked here from Woodham-sometimes with Guy, sometimes by myself. You will see I shall come in as fresh as a daisy."

Aldyth had set her heart upon having a talk with her aunt, and she was not disposed to lightly relinquish her plan.

Mrs. Stanton looked annoyed, and talked about remaining at home herself, in which case Aldyth would have felt constrained to keep her company. But in truth, Mrs. Stanton was longing to escape for a while from the house where her consciousness of the hidden will seemed an intolerable oppression. No doubt after awhile this nervous, restless feeling would pass, and she would cease to dread self-betrayal, or that strange reluctant impulse to confession which came to her in Aldyth's presence. But whilst she felt thus, it was impossible to sit inactive in rooms in which she had no right to sit. The long drive offered a relief which she could not reject, so she let Aldyth persuade her to get ready, and took her place in the carriage, whilst Aldyth arranged some cushions for her comfort, with more than ever of the air of a banished queen.

It was a pleasant day, and to Aldyth, whose heart had a burden which no one could share, the calm, restful beauty of the autumn day was soothing. Every peaceful country scene on which her eyes fell had its preciousness for her. Here the last load of a late harvest was being lifted, but for the most part the stubble fields lay white and bare, surrounded by the green pastures; here was a cottage orchard, with its gnarled trees bowing beneath a weight of rosy apples; there was an old moss-grown well, with its bucket and pulley; and there a woman whose bees had swarmed in a neighbouring elder-tree, and who was endeavouring to attract them to a hive by means of a jingling performance with a key and a frying-pan.

This last sight made Gladys laugh; but her mother looked on everything with a melancholy, indifferent gaze.

"How dreary this flat landscape is! " she said once. "Nothing to be seen but fields and windmills!"

Aldyth alighted at the railway station, and having consigned her hamper to the care of the station-master, walked up the town towards her aunt's cottage. But as she approached the Blands' house, Mrs. Bland smiled and beckoned to her from the bow-window, and it was impossible to pass without a word. The house door could always be opened from the outside. Aldyth opened it, and stepped in without ceremony.

"All alone? " she said, as she kissed her old friend; "how strange you must feel without one of the girls!"

"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Bland. "Gwen thought I ought to keep her home for half a term, to bear me company, and deemed me a hard-hearted parent because I would not listen to her suggestion. But I do not approve of broken work."

"And what news of the others? " asked Aldyth.

"Oh, fairly good," said Mrs. Bland. "Kitty seems to be enjoying herself very much, and she says Hilda is a little brighter. They are at Dinan. When they wrote, they had been to see the ruined castle in which 'the Lady of La Garraye' lived. Kitty has been reading the poem, and seems much impressed by it. I was surprised at the way in which she wrote. It was as if Kitty and Hilda had changed places. Hilda says little in her letters, poor child. I fancy she would be sorry for me to think she was at all more cheerful. If I can find Kitty's letter, you shall read it."