England -- Fiction; France -- Fiction; Governesses -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction
"Certainly. Write when you like, and what you like. I shall answer his
letter. It contains something more, that I have not shown you."
"Am I not to see it?"
For answer Sir Harry folded the letter back, and placed a postscript
before me. It seemed to me more amazing than the other.
"Should my niece, Anne Hereford, find herself less happy as Lady
Chandos—your wife—than she expects to be, and wish for a refuge, my
house will be open to her. If she enters it, whether in the present
year or in those long to come, she will be treated in every way as my
own child; and be very amply provided for at my death."
"Do you expect you will require a refuge?"
His eyes were gleaming with merriment as he spoke it—a whole lifetime
of loving affection in their depths. If mine unconsciously looked back
their great and tender trust, it was not my fault. But a vision of
sometime meeting Edwin Barley and thanking him for this new kindness;
of making some little atonement for my past hatred, so far as words of
gratitude could atone, rose within me as a vision.
The following week we quitted Chandos for Scarborough—all of us, except
Sir Harry. There were many things to be done to the house, improvements
and alterations, and he remained to superintend them. He spent
Christmas with us at Heneage Grange: it was a smaller place than
Chandos, very open, very pretty, and belonged to Lady Chandos for life.
I was to remain and be married from thence; Lady Chandos so decided it.
The winter had passed, the spring had come, before I saw Chandos again.
I was then in Harry's carriage: alone with him; his dear wife, his wife
of only a day or two. Chandos was very far from Heneage Grange, and we
had taken the journey easily, travelling post.
I saw it as we turned round from the avenue; and did not know it: so
different was it now in its light and gay appearance from the gloomy
place of the previous autumn. The trees, some of them cut down, were
budding into the fresh green of spring; the flowers were opening in
their parterres; the birds sang joyously; the once closed and barred
windows were open cheerily to the warm sun. All things spoke of hope
for us, as if nature had arrayed herself expressly in her brightest
colours.
I saw the servants in their gala clothes, with their glad faces of
greeting, coming forth to welcome us, Hickens at their head, and Lizzy
Dene with her bunches of black curls. The tears rained over my eyes,
and Harry turned to me.
"My darling, what is grieving you?"
"Joy, I think. There is a promise of so much happiness that I cannot
realize it, can scarcely believe in it. My past life has been nothing
but loneliness; can you wonder at my almost doubting the great
blessings showered upon me now? Harry!"—and I looked down with a shy
whisper—"it seems that I never, never can be sufficiently grateful to
God."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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