Country Lodgings | Page 3

course this state of perfection could not be expected to continue. The young gentleman would soon aspire to the accomplishments of walking and talking--and then!--but as that hour of turmoil and commotion to which his mamma looked forward with ecstacy was yet at some months distance, I contented myself with saying of master Archy, with considerably less than the usual falsehood, that which everybody does say of only children, that he was the finest baby that ever was seen.
We met almost every day. Mrs. Cameron was never weary of driving about our beautiful lanes in her little pony-carriage, and usually called upon us in her way home, we being not merely her oldest, but almost her only friends; for lively and social as was her temper, there was a little touch of shyness about her, which induced her rather to shun than to covet the company of strangers. And indeed the cheerfulness of temper, and activity of mind, which made her so charming an acquisition to a small circle, rendered her independent of general society. Busy as a bee, sportive as a butterfly, she passed the greater part of her time in the open air, and having caught from me that very contagious and engrossing passion, a love of floriculture, had actually undertaken the operation of restoring the old garden at the Court--a coppice of brambles, thistles, and weeds of every description, mixed with flowering shrubs, and overgrown fruit-trees--to something like its original order. The farmer, to be sure, had abandoned the job in despair, contenting himself with growing his cabbages and potatoes in a field hard by. But she was certain that she and her maid Martha, and the boy Bill, who looked after her pony, would weed the paths, and fill the flower-borders in no time. We should see; I had need take good care of my reputation, for she meant her garden to beat mine.
What progress Helen and her forces, a shatter-brain boy who did not know a violet from a nettle, and a London-bred girl who had hardly seen a rose-bush in her life, would have made in clearing this forest of underwood, might easily be foretold. Accident, however, that frequent favourer of bold projects, came to her aid in the shape of a more efficient coadjutor.
Late one evening the fair Helen arrived at our cottage with a face of unwonted gravity. Mrs. Davies (her landlady) had used her very ill. She had taken the west wing in total ignorance of there being other apartments to let at the Court, or she would have secured them. And now a new lodger had arrived, had actually taken possession of two rooms in the centre of the house; and Martha, who had seen him, said he was a young man, and a handsome man--and she herself a young woman unprotected and alone!--It was awkward, very awkward! Was it not very awkward? What was she to do?
Nothing could be done that night; so far was clear; but we praised her prudence, promised to call at Upton the next day, and if necessary, to speak to this new lodger, who might, after all, be no very formidable person; and quite relieved by the vent which she had given to her scruples, she departed in her usual good spirits.
Early the next morning she re-appeared. "She would not have the new lodger disturbed for the world! He was a Pole. One doubtless of those unfortunate exiles. He had told Mrs. Davies that he was a Polish gentleman desirous chiefly of good air, cheapness, and retirement Beyond a doubt he was one of those unhappy fugitives. He looked grave, and pale, and thoughtful, quite like a hero of romance. Besides, he was the very person who a week before had caught hold of the reins when that little restive pony had taken fright at the baker's cart, and nearly backed Bill and herself into the great gravel-pit on Lanton Common. Bill had entirely lost all command over the pony, and but for the stranger's presence of mind, she did not know what would have become of them. Surely I must remember her telling me the circumstance? Besides, he was unfortunate! He was poor! He was an exile! She would not be the means of driving him from the asylum which he had chosen for all the world!--No! not for all my geraniums!" an expression which is by no means the anti-climax that it seems--for in the eyes of a florist, and that florist an enthusiast and a woman, what is this rusty fusty dusty musty bit of earth, called the world, compared to a stand of bright flowers?
And finding, upon inquiry, that M. Choynowski (so he called himself) had brought a letter of recommendation from a respectable London tradesman, and that there was