"And where are we going to, now?" asked Allan. "Into another garden?"She laughed gayly. "How very odd of you, Mr. Armadale, not to know, when it all belongs to you! Are you really seeing Thorpe Ambrose this morning for the first time? How indescribably strange it must feel! No, no; don't say any more complimentary things to me just yet. You may turn my head if you do. We haven't got the old lady with us; and I really must take care of myself.
Let me be useful; let me tell you all about your own grounds. We are going out at that little gate, across one of the drives in the park, and then over the rustic bridge, and then round the corner of the plantation--where do you think? To where I live, Mr. Armadale; to the lovely little cottage that you have let to papa. Oh, if you only knew how lucky we thought ourselves to get it!'
She paused, looked up at her companion, and stopped another compliment on the incorrigible Allan's lips.
"I'll drop your arm," she said coquettishly, "if you do! We _were_ lucky to get the cottage, Mr. Armadale. Papa said he felt under an obligation to you for letting it, the day we got in. And _I_ said I felt under an obligation, no longer ago than last week.""You, Miss Milroy!" exclaimed Allan.
"Yes. It may surprise you to hear it; but if you hadn't let the cottage to papa, I believe I should have suffered the indignity and misery of being sent to school."Allan's memory reverted to the half-crown that he had spun on the cabin-table of the yacht, at Castletown. "If she only knew that Ihad tossed up for it!" he thought, guiltily.
"I dare say you don't understand why I should feel such a horror of going to school," pursued Miss Milroy, misinterpreting the momentary silence on her companion's side. "If I had gone to school in early life--I mean at the age when other girls go--Ishouldn't have minded it now. But I had no such chance at the time. It was the time of mamma's illness and of papa's unfortunate speculation; and as papa had nobody to comfort him but me, of course I stayed at home. You needn't laugh; I was of some use, I can tell you. I helped papa over his trouble, by sitting on his knee after dinner, and asking him to tell me stories of all the remarkable people he had known when he was about in the great world, at home and abroad. Without me to amuse him in the evening, and his clock to occupy him in the daytime--""His clock?" repeated Allan.
"Oh, yes! I ought to have told you. Papa is an extraordinary mechanical genius. You will say so, too, when you see his clock.
It's nothing like so large, of course, but it's on the model of the famous clock at Strasbourg. Only think, he began it when Iwas eight years old; and (though I was sixteen last birthday) it isn't finished yet! Some of our friends were quite surprised he should take to such a thing when his troubles began. But papa himself set that right in no time; he reminded them that Louis the Sixteenth took to lock-making when _his_ troubl es began, and then everybody was perfectly satisfied." She stopped, and changed color confusedly. "Oh, Mr. Armadale," she said, in genuine embarrassment this time, "here is my unlucky tongue running away with me again! I am talking to you already as if I had known you for years! This is what papa's friend meant when he said my manners were too bold. It's quite true; I have a dreadful way of getting familiar with people, if--" She checked herself suddenly, on the brink of ending the sentence by saying, "if I like them.""No, no; do go on!" pleaded Allan. "It's a fault of mine to be familiar, too. Besides, we _must_ be familiar; we are such near neighbors. I'm rather an uncultivated sort of fellow, and I don't know quite how to say it; but I want your cottage to be jolly and friendly with my house, and my house to be jolly and friendly with your cottage. There's my meaning, all in the wrong words. Do go on, Miss Milroy; pray go on!"She smiled and hesitated. "I don't exactly remember where I was,"she replied, "I only remember I had something I wanted to tell you. This comes, Mr. Armadale, of my taking your arm. I should get on so much better, if you would only consent to walk separately. You won't? Well, then, will you tell me what it was Iwanted to say? Where was I before I went wandering off to papa's troubles and papa's clock?""At school!" replied Allan, with a prodigious effort of memory.
"_Not_ at school, you mean," said Miss Milroy; "and all through _you._ Now I can go on again, which is a great comfort. I am quite serious, Mr. Armadale, in saying that I should have been sent to school, if you had said No when papa proposed for the cottage. This is how it happened. When we began moving in, Mrs.
Blanchard sent us a most kind message from the great house to say that her servants were at our disposal, if we wanted any assistance. The least papa and I could do, after that, was to call and thank her. We saw Mrs. Blanchard and Miss Blanchard.
Mistress was charming, and miss looked perfectly lovely in her mourning. I'm sure you admire her? She's tall and pale and graceful--quite your idea of beauty, I should think?""Nothing like it," began Allan. "My idea of beauty at the present moment--"Miss Milroy felt it coming, and instantly took her hand off his arm.
"I mean I have never seen either Mrs. Blanchard or her niece,"added Allan, precipitately correcting himself.
Miss Milroy tempered justice with mercy, and put her hand back again.
"How extraordinary that you should never have seen them!" she went on. "Why, you are a perfect stranger to everything and everybody at Thorpe Ambrose! Well, after Miss Blanchard and I had sat and talked a little while, I heard my name on Mrs.
Blanchard's lips and instantly held my breath. She was asking papa if I had finished my education. Out came papa's great grievance directly. My old governess, you must know, left us to be married just before we came here, and none of our friends could produce a new one whose terms were reasonable. 'I'm told, Mrs. Blanchard, by people who understand it better than I do,'