Caterina tore herself from Anthony with the desperate effort of one who has just self-recollection enough left to be conscious that the fumes of charcoal will master his senses unless he bursts a way for himself to the fresh air; but when she reached her own room, she was still too intoxicated with that momentary revival of old emotions, too much agitated by the sudden return of tenderness in her lover, to know whether pain or pleasure predominated. It was as if a miracle had happened in her little world of feeling, and made the future all vague — a dim morning haze of possibilities, instead of the sombre wintry daylight and clear rigid outline of painful certainty.
She felt the need of rapid movement. She must walk out in spite of the rain. Happily, there was a thin place in the curtain of clouds which seemed to promise that now, about noon, the day had a mind to clear up. Caterina thought to herself, ‘I will walk to the Mosslands, and carry Mr. Bates the comforter I have made for him, and then Lady Cheverel will not wonder so much at my going out.’ At the hall door she found Rupert, the old bloodhound, stationed on the mat, with the determination that the first person who was sensible enough to take a walk that morning should have the honour of his approbation and society. As he thrust his great black and tawny head under her hand, and wagged his tail with vigorous eloquence, and reached the climax of his welcome by jumping up to lick her face, which was at a convenient licking height for him, Caterina felt quite grateful to the old dog for his friendliness. Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
The ‘Mosslands’ was a remote part of the grounds, encircled by the little stream issuing from the pool; and certainly, for a wet day, Caterina could hardly have chosen a less suitable walk, for though the rain was abating, and presently ceased altogether, there was still a smart shower falling from the trees which arched over the greater part of her way. But she found just the desired relief from her feverish excitement in labouring along the wet paths with an umbrella that made her arm ache. This amount of exertion was to her tiny body what a day’s hunting often was to Mr. Gilfil, who at times had his fits of jealousy and sadness to get rid of, and wisely had recourse to nature’s innocent opium — fatigue.
When Caterina reached the pretty arched wooden bridge which formed the only entrance to the Mosslands for any but webbed feet, the sun had mastered the clouds, and was shining through the boughs of the tall elms that made a deep nest for the gardener’s cottage — turning the raindrops into diamonds, and inviting the nasturtium flowers creeping over the porch and low-thatched roof to lift up their flame-coloured heads once more. The rooks were cawing with many-voiced monotony, apparently — by a remarkable approximation to human intelligence — finding great conversational resources in the change of weather. The mossy turf, studded with the broad blades of marsh-loving plants, told that Mr. Bates’s nest was rather damp in the best of weather; but he was of opinion that a little external moisture would hurt no man who was not perversely neglectful of that obvious and providential antidote, rum-and-water.
Caterina loved this nest. Every object in it, every sound that haunted it, had been familiar to her from the days when she had been carried thither on Mr. Bates’s arm, making little cawing noises to imitate the rooks, clapping her hands at the green frogs leaping in the moist grass, and fixing grave eyes on the gardener’s fowls cluck-clucking under their pens. And now the spot looked prettier to her than ever; it was so out of the way of Miss Assher, with her brilliant beauty, and personal claims, and small civil remarks. She thought Mr. Bates would not be come into his dinner yet, so she would sit down and wait for him.
But she was mistaken. Mr. Bates was seated in his arm-chair, with his pocket-handkerchief thrown over his face, as the most eligible mode of passing away those superfluous hours between meals when the weather drives a man indoors. Roused by the furious barking of his chained bulldog, he descried his little favourite approaching, and forthwith presented himself at the doorway, looking disproportionately tall compared with the height of his cottage. The bulldog, meanwhile, unbent from the severity of his official demeanour, and commenced a friendly interchange of ideas with Rupert.
Mr. Bates’s hair was now grey, but his frame was none the less stalwart, and his face looked all the redder, making an artistic contrast with the deep blue of his cotton neckerchief, and of his linen apron twisted into a girdle round his waist.
‘Why, dang my boottons, Miss Tiny,’ he exclaimed, ‘hoo coom ye to coom oot dabblin’ your faet laike a little Muscovy duck, sich a day as this? Not but what ai’m delaighted to sae ye. Here Hesther,’ he called to his old humpbacked house-keeper, ‘tek the young ledy’s oombrella an’ spread it oot to dray. Coom, coom in, Miss Tiny, an’ set ye doon by the faire an’ dray yer faet, an’ hev summat warm to kape ye from ketchin’ coold.’
Mr. Bates led the way, stooping under the doorplaces, into his small sitting-room, and, shaking the patchwork cushion in his arm-chair, moved it to within a good roasting distance of the blazing fire.
‘Thank you, uncle Bates’ (Caterina kept up her childish epithets for her friends, and this was one of them); ‘not quite so close to the fire, for I am warm with walking.’
‘Eh, but yer shoes are faine an’ wet, an’ ye must put up yer faet on the fender. Rare big faet, baint ’em? — aboot the saize of a good big spoon. I woonder ye can mek a shift to stan’ on ’em. Now, what’ll ye hev to warm yer insaide? — a drop o’ hot elder wain, now?’
‘No, not anything to drink, thank you; it isn’t very long since breakfast,’ said Caterina, drawing out the comforter from her deep pocket. Pockets were capacious in those days. ‘Look here, uncle Bates, here is what I came to bring you. I made it on purpose for you. You must wear it this winter, and give your red one to old Brooks.’
‘Eh, Miss Tiny, this is a beauty. An’ ye made it all wi’ yer little fingers for an old feller laike mae! I tek it very kaind on ye, an’ I belave ye I’ll wear it, and be prood on’t too. These sthraipes, blue an’ whaite, now, they mek it uncommon pritty.’
‘Yes, that will suit your complexion, you know, better than the old scarlet one. I know Mrs. Sharp will be more in love with you than ever when she sees you in the new one.’
‘My complexion, ye little roogue! ye’re a laughin’ at me. But talkin’ o’ complexions, what a beautiful colour the bride as is to be has on her cheeks! Dang my boottons! she looks faine and handsome o’ hossback — sits as upraight as a dart, wi’ a figure like a statty! Misthress Sharp has promised to put me behaind one o’ the doors when the ladies are comin’ doon to dinner, so as I may sae the young un i’ full dress, wi’ all her curls an’ that. Misthress Sharp says she’s almost beautifuller nor my ledy was when she was yoong; an’ I think ye’ll noot faind man i’ the counthry as’ll coom up to that.’
‘Yes, Miss Assher is very handsome,’ said Caterina, rather faintly, feeling the sense of her own insignificance returning at this picture of the impression Miss Assher made on others.
‘Well, an’ I hope she’s good too, an’ll mek a good naice to Sir Cristhifer an’ my ledy. Misthress Griffin, the maid, says as she’s rether tatchy and find-fautin’ aboot her cloothes, laike. But she’s yoong — she’s yoong; that’ll wear off when she’s got a hoosband, an’ children, an’ summat else to think on. Sir Cristhifer’s fain an’ delaighted, I can see. He says to me th’ other mornin’, says he, “Well, Bates, what do you think of your young misthress as is to be?” An’ I says, “Whay, yer honour, I think she’s as fain a lass as iver I set eyes on; an’ I wish the Captain luck in a fain family, an’ your honour laife an’ health to see’t.” Mr. Warren says as the masther’s all for forrardin’ the weddin’, an’ it’ll very laike be afore the autumn’s oot.’
As Mr. Bates ran on, Caterina felt something like a painful contraction at her heart. ‘Yes,’ she said, rising, ‘I dare say it will. Sir Christopher is very anxious for it. But I must go, uncle Bates; Lady Cheverel will be wanting me, and it is your dinner-time.’
‘Nay, my dinner doon’t sinnify a bit; but I moosn’t kaep ye if my ledy wants ye. Though I hevn’t thanked ye half anoof for the comfiter — the wrapraskil, as they call’t. My feckins, it’s a beauty. But ye look very whaite and sadly, Miss Tiny; I doubt ye’re poorly; an’ this walking i’ th’ wet isn’t good for ye.’
‘O yes, it is indeed,’ said Caterina, hastening out, and taking up her umbrella from the kitchen floor. ‘I must really go now; so good-bye.’
She tripped off, calling Rupert, while the good gardener, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, stood looking after her and shaking his head with rather a melancholy air.
‘She gets moor nesh and dillicat than iver,’ he said, half to himself and half to Hester. ‘I shouldn’t woonder if she fades away laike them cyclamens as I transplanted. She puts me i’ maind on ’em somehow, hangin’ on their little thin stalks, so whaite an’ tinder.’
The poor little thing made her way back, no longer hungering for the cold moist air as a counteractive of inward excitement, but with a chill at her heart which made the outward chill only depressing. The golden sunlight beamed through the dripping boughs like a Shechinah, or visible divine presence, and the birds were chirping and trilling their new autumnal songs so sweetly, it seemed as if their throats, as well as the air, were all the clearer for the rain; but Caterina moved through all this joy and beauty like a poor wounded leveret painfully dragging its little body through the sweet clover-tufts — for it, sweet in vain. Mr. Bates’s words about Sir Christopher’s joy, Miss Assher’s beauty, and the nearness of the wedding, had come upon her like the pressure of a cold hand, rousing her from confused dozing to a perception of hard, familiar realities. It is so with emotional natures whose thoughts are no more than the fleeting shadows cast by feeling: to them words are facts, and even when known to be false, have a mastery over their smiles and tears. Caterina entered her own room again, with no other change from her former state of despondency and wretchedness than an additional sense of injury from Anthony. His behaviour towards her in the morning was a new wrong. To snatch a caress when she justly claimed an expression of penitence, of regret, of sympathy, was to make more light of her than ever.