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Page 6
Four months had then passed since his departure, and during that time
Miss Woolsworthy had performed all her usual daily duties in their
accustomed course. No one could discover that she had been less careful
in her household matters than had been her wont, less willing to go
among her poor neighbours, or less assiduous in her attentions to her
father. But not the less was there a feeling in the minds of those
around her that some great change had come upon her. She would sit
during the long summer evenings on a certain spot outside the parsonage
orchard, at the top of a small sloping field in which their solitary cow
was always pastured, with a book on her knees before her, but rarely
reading. There she would sit, with the beautiful view down to the
winding river below her, watching the setting sun, and thinking,
thinking, thinking--thinking of something of which she had never spoken.
Often would Miss Le Smyrger come upon her there, and sometimes would
pass her even without a word; but never--never once did she dare to ask
of the matter of her thoughts. But she knew the matter well enough. No
confession was necessary to inform her that Patience Woolsworthy was in
love with John Broughton--ay, in love, to the full and entire loss of
her whole heart.
On one evening she was so sitting till the July sun had fallen and
hidden himself for the night, when her father came upon her as he
returned from one of his rambles on the moor. 'Patty,' he said, 'you
are always sitting there now. Is it not late? Will you not be cold?'
'No papa,' she said, 'I shall not be cold.'
'But won't you come to the house? I miss you when you come in so late
that there's no time to say a word before we go to bed.'
She got up and followed him into the parsonage, and when they were in
the sitting-room together, and the door was closed, she came up to him
and kissed him. 'Papa,' she said, 'would it make you very unhappy if I
were to leave you?'
'Leave me!' he said, startled by the serious and almost solemn tone of
her voice. 'Do you mean for always?'
'If I were to marry, papa?'
'Oh, marry! No; that would not make me unhappy. It would make me very
happy, Patty, to see you married to a man you would love;--very, very
happy; though my days would be desolate without you.'
'That is it, papa. What would you do if I went from you?'
'What would it matter, Patty? I should be free, at any rate, from a
load which often presses heavy on me now. What will you do when I shall
leave you? A few more years and all will be over with me. But who is it,
love? Has anybody said anything to you?'
'It was only an idea, papa. I don't often think of such a thing; but I
did think of it then.' And so the subject was allowed to pass by. This
had happened before the day of the second arrival had been absolutely
fixed and made known to Miss Woolsworthy.
And then that second arrival took place. The reader may have understood
from the words with which Miss Le Smyrger authorized her nephew to make
his second visit to Oxney Colne that Miss Woolsworthy's passion was not
altogether unauthorized. Captain Broughton had been told that he was not
to come unless he came with a certain purpose; and having been so told,
he still persisted in coming. There can be no doubt but that he well
understood the purport to which his aunt alluded. 'I shall assuredly
come,' he had said. And true to his word, he was now there.
Patience knew exactly the hour at which he must arrive at the station at
Newton Abbot, and the time also which it would take to travel over those
twelve up-hill miles from the station to Oxney. It need hardly be said
that she paid no visit to Miss Le Smyrger's house on that afternoon; but
she might have known something of Captain Broughton's approach without
going thither. His road to the Colne passed by the parsonage-gate, and
had Patience sat even at her bedroom window she must have seen him. But
on such an evening she would not sit at her bedroom window;--she would
do nothing which would force her to accuse herself of a restless longing
for her lover's coming. It was for him to seek her. If he chose to do
so, he knew the way to the parsonage.
Miss Le Smyrger--good, dear, honest, hearty Miss Le Smyrger, was in a
fever of anxiety on behalf of her friend. It was not that she wished her
nephew to marry Patience,--or rather that she had entertained any such
wish when he first came among them. She was not given to match-making,
and moreover thought, or had thought within herself, that they of Oxney
Colne could do very well without any admixture from Eaton Square. Her
plan of life had been that when old Mr. Woolsworthy was taken away from
Dartmoor, Patience should live with her, and that when she also shuffled
off her coil, then Patience Woolsworthy should be the maiden-mistress
of Oxney Colne--of Oxney Colne and of Mr. Cloysey's farm--to the utter
detriment of all the Broughtons. Such had been her plan before nephew
John had come among them--a plan not to be spoken of till the coming of
that dark day which should make Patience an orphan. But now her nephew
had been there, and all was to be altered. Miss Le Smyrger's plan would
have provided a companion for her old age; but that had not been her
chief object. She had thought more of Patience than of herself, and now
it seemed that a prospect of a higher happiness was opening for her
friend.
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