Chapter Forty Two.Church-Going.Hester went to church the next Sunday, as she wished, to hear Dr Levitt’s promised plain sermon on the duties of the times. Margaret gladly staid at home with the baby, thankful for the relief from the sight of sickness, and for the quiet of solitude while the infant slept. Edward was busy among those who wanted his good offices, as he now was, almost without intermission. Hester had to go alone.Everything abroad looked very strange—quite unlike the common Sunday aspect of the place. The streets were empty, except that a party of mourners were returning from a funeral. Either people were already all in church, or nobody was going. She quickened her pace in the fear that she might be late, though the bell seemed to assure her that she was not. Widow Rye’s little garden-plot was all covered with linen put out to dry, and Mrs Rye might be seen through the window, at the wash-tub. The want of fresh linen was so pressing, that the sick must not be kept waiting, though it was Sunday. Miss Nares and Miss Flint were in curl-papers, plying their needles. They had been up all night, and were now putting the last stitches to a suit of family mourning, which was to enable the bereaved to attend afternoon church. Miss Nares looked quite haggard, as she well might, having scarcely left her seat for the last fortnight, except to take orders for mourning, and to snatch a scanty portion of rest. She had endeavoured to procure an additional work-woman or two from among her neighbours, and then from Blickley: but her neighbours were busy with their domestic troubles, and the Blickley people wanted more mourning than the hands there could supply; so Miss Nares and Miss Flint had been compelled to work night and day, till they both looked as if they had had the sickness, and were justified in saying that no money could pay them for what they were undergoing. They began earnestly to wish what they had till now deprecated—that Dr Levitt might succeed in inducing some of his flock to forego the practice of wearing mourning. But of this there was little prospect: the people were as determined upon wearing black, as upon having the bell tolled for the dead; and Miss Nares’s heart sank at the prospect before her, if the epidemic should continue, and she should be able to get no help.Almost every second house in the place was shut up. The blank windows of the cottages, where plants or smiling faces were usually to be seen on a Sunday morning, looked dreary. The inhabitants of many of the better dwellings were absent. There were no voices of children about the little courts; no groups of boys under the churchyard wall. Of those who had frequented this spot, several were under the sod; some were laid low in fever within the houses; and others were with their parents, forming a larger congregation round the fortune-tellers’ tents in the lanes, than Dr Levitt could assemble in the church.Hester heard the strokes of the hammer and the saw as she passed the closed shop of the carpenter, who was also the undertaker. She knew that people were making coffins by candlelight within. Happening to look round after she had passed, she saw a woman come out, wan in countenance, and carrying under her cloak something which a puff of wind showed to be an infant’s coffin—a sight from which every young mother averts her eyes. As Hester approached a cottage whose thatch had not been weeded for long, she was startled by a howl and whine from within; and a dog, emaciated to the last degree, sprang upon the sill of an open window. A neighbour who perceived her shrink back, and hesitate to pass, assured her that she need not be afraid of the dog. The poor animal would not leave the place, whose inmates were all dead of the fever. The window was left open for the dog’s escape; but he never came out, though he looked famished. Some persons had thrown in food at first; but now no one had time or thought to spare for dogs.Mr Walcot issued from a house near the church as Hester passed, and he stopped her. He was roused or frightened out of his usual simplicity of manner, and observed, with an air of deep anxiety, that he trusted Mr Hope had better success with his patients than he could boast of. The disease was most terrific: and the saving of a life was a chance now seemingly too rare to be reckoned on. It really required more strength than most men had to stand by their duty at such a time, when they could do little more than see their patients die. Hester thought him so much moved, that he was at this moment hardly fit for business. She said:“We all have need of all our strength. I do not know whether worship gives it to you as it does to me. Will it not be an hour, or even half an hour, well spent, if you go with me there?” pointing to the church. “You will say you are wanted elsewhere; but will you not be stronger and calmer for the comfort you may find there?”“I should like it... I have always been in the habit of going to church... It would do me good, I know. But, Mrs Hope, how is this? I thought you had been a dissenter. I always said so. I have been very wrong—very ill-natured.”“I am a dissenter,” said Hester, smiling, “but you are not; and therefore I may urge you to go to church. As for the rest of the mystery, I will explain it when we have more time. Meanwhile, I hope you do not suppose that dissenters do not worship and need and love worship as other people do!”Mr Walcot replied by timidly offering his arm, which Hester accepted, and they entered the church together.The Rowlands were already in their pew. There was a general commotion among the children when they saw Mrs Hope and Mr Walcot walking up the aisle arm-in-arm. Matilda called her mother’s attention to the remarkable fact, and the little heads all whispered together. The church looked really almost empty. There were no Hunters, with their train of servants: there were no Levitts. The Miss Andersons had not entered Deerbrook for weeks; and Maria Young sat alone in the large double pew commonly occupied by her scholars. There was a sprinkling of poor; but Hester observed that every one in the church was in mourning but Maria and herself. It looked sadly chill and dreary. The sights and sounds she had met, and the aspect of the place she was in, disposed her to welcome every thought of comfort that the voice of the preacher could convey.There were others to whom consolation appeared even more necessary than to herself. Philip Enderby had certainly seen her, and was distressed at it. He could not have expected to meet her here; and his discomposure was obvious. He looked thin, and grave,—not to say subdued. Hester was surprised to find how she relented towards him, the moment she saw he was not gay and careless, and how her feelings grew softer and softer under the religious emotions of the hour. She was so near forgiving him, that she was very glad Margaret was not by her side. If she could forgive, how would it be with Margaret?The next most melancholy person present, perhaps, was Mr Walcot. He knew that the whole family of the Rowlands remained in Deerbrook from Mrs Rowland’s ostentation of confidence in his skill. He knew that Mr Rowland would have removed his family when the Greys departed, but that the lady had refused to go; and he felt how groundless was her confidence: not that he had pretended to more professional merit than he had believed himself to possess; but that, amidst this disease, he was like a willow-twig in the stream. He became so impressed with his responsibilities now, in the presence of the small and sad-faced congregation, that he could not refrain from whispering to Hester, that he could never be thankful enough that Mr Hope had not left Deerbrook long ago, and that he hoped they should be friends henceforth,—that Mr Hope would take his proper place again, and forgive and forget all that had passed. He thought he might trust Mr Hope not to desert him and Deerbrook now. Hester smiled gently, but made no reply, and did not appear to notice the proffered hand. It was no time or place to ratify a compact for her husband in his absence. All this time, Mr Walcot’s countenance and manner were sufficiently subdued: but his agitation increased when the solemn voice of Dr Levitt uttered the prayer—“Have pity upon us, miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality.”Here the voice of weeping became so audible from the lower part of the church, that the preacher stopped for a moment, to give other people, and possibly himself, time to recover composure. He then went on—“That, like as Thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”Every voice in the church uttered ‘Amen,’ except Mr Walcot’s. He was struggling with his sobs. Unexpected and excessive as were the tokens of his grief, Hester could not but respect it. It was so much better than gross selfishness and carelessness, that she could pity and almost honour it. She felt that Mr Walcot was as far superior to the quacks who were making a market of the credulity of the suffering people, as her husband, with his professional decision, his manly composure, and his forgetfulness of the injuries of his foes in their hour of suffering, was above Mr Walcot. The poor young man drank in, as if they were direct from Heaven, the suggestions contained in the preacher’s plain sermon on the duties of the time. Plain it was indeed,—familiarly practical to an unexampled degree; so that most of his hearers quitted the church with a far clearer notion of their business as nurses and neighbours than they had ever before had. The effect was visible as they left their seats, in the brightening of their countenances, and the increased activity of their step as they walked.“There, go,” said Hester, kindly, to her companion. “Many must be wanting you: but you have lost no time by coming here.”“No, indeed. But Mr Hope—”“Rely upon him. He will do his duty. Go and do yours.”“God bless you!” cried Walcot, squeezing her hand affectionately.Mrs Rowland saw this, as she always saw everything. She beckoned to Mr Walcot, with her most engaging smile, and whispered him with an air of the most intimate confidence, till she saw that her presence was wanted elsewhere, when she let him go.Mr Rowland, followed by Philip, slipped out of his pew as Hester passed, and walked down the aisle with her. He was glad to see her there; he hoped it was a proof that all her household were well in this sickly time. Philip bent forward to hear the answer. Mr Rowland went on to say how still and dull the village was. The shutters up, or the blinds down, at all the Greys’ windows, looked quite sad; and he never saw any of his friends from the corner-house in the shrubbery now. They had too many painful duties, he feared, to allow of their permitting themselves such pleasures: but his friends must take care not to overstrain their powers. They and he must be very thankful that their respective households were thus far unvisited by the disease; and they should all, in his opinion, favour their health by the indulgence of a little rational cheerfulness. Hester smiled, aware that never had their household been more cheerful than now.Whether it was that Hester’s smile was irresistible, or that other influences were combined with it, it had an extraordinary effect upon Philip. He started forward in front of her, and offered his hand, saying, so as to be heard by her alone—“Will you not?—I have no quarrel with you.”“And can you suppose,” she replied, in a tone more of compassion than of anger, “that I have none with you?—How strangely you must forget!” she added, as he precipitately withdrew his offered hand, and turned from her.“Forget! I forget!” he murmured, turning his face of woe towards her for one instant. “How little you know me!”“How little we all know each other!” said Hester, for the moment careless what construction might be put upon her words.“Even in this place,” said Dr Levitt, who had now joined them, and had heard the last words: “even in this place, where all hearts should be open, and all resentments forgotten. Are there any here who refuse to shake hands—at such a time as this?”“It is not for myself,” said Hester, distressed: “but how can I?”“It is true; she cannot. Do not blame her, Dr Levitt,” said Philip; and he was gone.It was this meeting which had cut short Mrs Rowland’s whispers with Mr Walcot, and brought her down the aisle in all her stateliness, with her train of children behind her.When Hester went home, she thought it right to tell Margaret exactly what had happened.“I knew it?” was all that Margaret said; but her heightened colour during the day told what unspeakable things were in her heart.Hester was occupied with speculations as to what might have been the event if Margaret had been to church instead of herself. Her husband would only shake his head, and look hopeless: but she still thought all might have come right, under the influences of the hour. Whether it were to be wished that Philip and Margaret should understand each other again, was another question. Yesterday Hester would have earnestly desired that Margaret should never see Enderby again. To-day she did not know what to wish. She and Margaret came silently to the same conclusion; “there is nothing for it but waiting.” If he had heard this, Hope would have shaken his head again.
Hester went to church the next Sunday, as she wished, to hear Dr Levitt’s promised plain sermon on the duties of the times. Margaret gladly staid at home with the baby, thankful for the relief from the sight of sickness, and for the quiet of solitude while the infant slept. Edward was busy among those who wanted his good offices, as he now was, almost without intermission. Hester had to go alone.
Everything abroad looked very strange—quite unlike the common Sunday aspect of the place. The streets were empty, except that a party of mourners were returning from a funeral. Either people were already all in church, or nobody was going. She quickened her pace in the fear that she might be late, though the bell seemed to assure her that she was not. Widow Rye’s little garden-plot was all covered with linen put out to dry, and Mrs Rye might be seen through the window, at the wash-tub. The want of fresh linen was so pressing, that the sick must not be kept waiting, though it was Sunday. Miss Nares and Miss Flint were in curl-papers, plying their needles. They had been up all night, and were now putting the last stitches to a suit of family mourning, which was to enable the bereaved to attend afternoon church. Miss Nares looked quite haggard, as she well might, having scarcely left her seat for the last fortnight, except to take orders for mourning, and to snatch a scanty portion of rest. She had endeavoured to procure an additional work-woman or two from among her neighbours, and then from Blickley: but her neighbours were busy with their domestic troubles, and the Blickley people wanted more mourning than the hands there could supply; so Miss Nares and Miss Flint had been compelled to work night and day, till they both looked as if they had had the sickness, and were justified in saying that no money could pay them for what they were undergoing. They began earnestly to wish what they had till now deprecated—that Dr Levitt might succeed in inducing some of his flock to forego the practice of wearing mourning. But of this there was little prospect: the people were as determined upon wearing black, as upon having the bell tolled for the dead; and Miss Nares’s heart sank at the prospect before her, if the epidemic should continue, and she should be able to get no help.
Almost every second house in the place was shut up. The blank windows of the cottages, where plants or smiling faces were usually to be seen on a Sunday morning, looked dreary. The inhabitants of many of the better dwellings were absent. There were no voices of children about the little courts; no groups of boys under the churchyard wall. Of those who had frequented this spot, several were under the sod; some were laid low in fever within the houses; and others were with their parents, forming a larger congregation round the fortune-tellers’ tents in the lanes, than Dr Levitt could assemble in the church.
Hester heard the strokes of the hammer and the saw as she passed the closed shop of the carpenter, who was also the undertaker. She knew that people were making coffins by candlelight within. Happening to look round after she had passed, she saw a woman come out, wan in countenance, and carrying under her cloak something which a puff of wind showed to be an infant’s coffin—a sight from which every young mother averts her eyes. As Hester approached a cottage whose thatch had not been weeded for long, she was startled by a howl and whine from within; and a dog, emaciated to the last degree, sprang upon the sill of an open window. A neighbour who perceived her shrink back, and hesitate to pass, assured her that she need not be afraid of the dog. The poor animal would not leave the place, whose inmates were all dead of the fever. The window was left open for the dog’s escape; but he never came out, though he looked famished. Some persons had thrown in food at first; but now no one had time or thought to spare for dogs.
Mr Walcot issued from a house near the church as Hester passed, and he stopped her. He was roused or frightened out of his usual simplicity of manner, and observed, with an air of deep anxiety, that he trusted Mr Hope had better success with his patients than he could boast of. The disease was most terrific: and the saving of a life was a chance now seemingly too rare to be reckoned on. It really required more strength than most men had to stand by their duty at such a time, when they could do little more than see their patients die. Hester thought him so much moved, that he was at this moment hardly fit for business. She said:
“We all have need of all our strength. I do not know whether worship gives it to you as it does to me. Will it not be an hour, or even half an hour, well spent, if you go with me there?” pointing to the church. “You will say you are wanted elsewhere; but will you not be stronger and calmer for the comfort you may find there?”
“I should like it... I have always been in the habit of going to church... It would do me good, I know. But, Mrs Hope, how is this? I thought you had been a dissenter. I always said so. I have been very wrong—very ill-natured.”
“I am a dissenter,” said Hester, smiling, “but you are not; and therefore I may urge you to go to church. As for the rest of the mystery, I will explain it when we have more time. Meanwhile, I hope you do not suppose that dissenters do not worship and need and love worship as other people do!”
Mr Walcot replied by timidly offering his arm, which Hester accepted, and they entered the church together.
The Rowlands were already in their pew. There was a general commotion among the children when they saw Mrs Hope and Mr Walcot walking up the aisle arm-in-arm. Matilda called her mother’s attention to the remarkable fact, and the little heads all whispered together. The church looked really almost empty. There were no Hunters, with their train of servants: there were no Levitts. The Miss Andersons had not entered Deerbrook for weeks; and Maria Young sat alone in the large double pew commonly occupied by her scholars. There was a sprinkling of poor; but Hester observed that every one in the church was in mourning but Maria and herself. It looked sadly chill and dreary. The sights and sounds she had met, and the aspect of the place she was in, disposed her to welcome every thought of comfort that the voice of the preacher could convey.
There were others to whom consolation appeared even more necessary than to herself. Philip Enderby had certainly seen her, and was distressed at it. He could not have expected to meet her here; and his discomposure was obvious. He looked thin, and grave,—not to say subdued. Hester was surprised to find how she relented towards him, the moment she saw he was not gay and careless, and how her feelings grew softer and softer under the religious emotions of the hour. She was so near forgiving him, that she was very glad Margaret was not by her side. If she could forgive, how would it be with Margaret?
The next most melancholy person present, perhaps, was Mr Walcot. He knew that the whole family of the Rowlands remained in Deerbrook from Mrs Rowland’s ostentation of confidence in his skill. He knew that Mr Rowland would have removed his family when the Greys departed, but that the lady had refused to go; and he felt how groundless was her confidence: not that he had pretended to more professional merit than he had believed himself to possess; but that, amidst this disease, he was like a willow-twig in the stream. He became so impressed with his responsibilities now, in the presence of the small and sad-faced congregation, that he could not refrain from whispering to Hester, that he could never be thankful enough that Mr Hope had not left Deerbrook long ago, and that he hoped they should be friends henceforth,—that Mr Hope would take his proper place again, and forgive and forget all that had passed. He thought he might trust Mr Hope not to desert him and Deerbrook now. Hester smiled gently, but made no reply, and did not appear to notice the proffered hand. It was no time or place to ratify a compact for her husband in his absence. All this time, Mr Walcot’s countenance and manner were sufficiently subdued: but his agitation increased when the solemn voice of Dr Levitt uttered the prayer—
“Have pity upon us, miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality.”
Here the voice of weeping became so audible from the lower part of the church, that the preacher stopped for a moment, to give other people, and possibly himself, time to recover composure. He then went on—
“That, like as Thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
Every voice in the church uttered ‘Amen,’ except Mr Walcot’s. He was struggling with his sobs. Unexpected and excessive as were the tokens of his grief, Hester could not but respect it. It was so much better than gross selfishness and carelessness, that she could pity and almost honour it. She felt that Mr Walcot was as far superior to the quacks who were making a market of the credulity of the suffering people, as her husband, with his professional decision, his manly composure, and his forgetfulness of the injuries of his foes in their hour of suffering, was above Mr Walcot. The poor young man drank in, as if they were direct from Heaven, the suggestions contained in the preacher’s plain sermon on the duties of the time. Plain it was indeed,—familiarly practical to an unexampled degree; so that most of his hearers quitted the church with a far clearer notion of their business as nurses and neighbours than they had ever before had. The effect was visible as they left their seats, in the brightening of their countenances, and the increased activity of their step as they walked.
“There, go,” said Hester, kindly, to her companion. “Many must be wanting you: but you have lost no time by coming here.”
“No, indeed. But Mr Hope—”
“Rely upon him. He will do his duty. Go and do yours.”
“God bless you!” cried Walcot, squeezing her hand affectionately.
Mrs Rowland saw this, as she always saw everything. She beckoned to Mr Walcot, with her most engaging smile, and whispered him with an air of the most intimate confidence, till she saw that her presence was wanted elsewhere, when she let him go.
Mr Rowland, followed by Philip, slipped out of his pew as Hester passed, and walked down the aisle with her. He was glad to see her there; he hoped it was a proof that all her household were well in this sickly time. Philip bent forward to hear the answer. Mr Rowland went on to say how still and dull the village was. The shutters up, or the blinds down, at all the Greys’ windows, looked quite sad; and he never saw any of his friends from the corner-house in the shrubbery now. They had too many painful duties, he feared, to allow of their permitting themselves such pleasures: but his friends must take care not to overstrain their powers. They and he must be very thankful that their respective households were thus far unvisited by the disease; and they should all, in his opinion, favour their health by the indulgence of a little rational cheerfulness. Hester smiled, aware that never had their household been more cheerful than now.
Whether it was that Hester’s smile was irresistible, or that other influences were combined with it, it had an extraordinary effect upon Philip. He started forward in front of her, and offered his hand, saying, so as to be heard by her alone—
“Will you not?—I have no quarrel with you.”
“And can you suppose,” she replied, in a tone more of compassion than of anger, “that I have none with you?—How strangely you must forget!” she added, as he precipitately withdrew his offered hand, and turned from her.
“Forget! I forget!” he murmured, turning his face of woe towards her for one instant. “How little you know me!”
“How little we all know each other!” said Hester, for the moment careless what construction might be put upon her words.
“Even in this place,” said Dr Levitt, who had now joined them, and had heard the last words: “even in this place, where all hearts should be open, and all resentments forgotten. Are there any here who refuse to shake hands—at such a time as this?”
“It is not for myself,” said Hester, distressed: “but how can I?”
“It is true; she cannot. Do not blame her, Dr Levitt,” said Philip; and he was gone.
It was this meeting which had cut short Mrs Rowland’s whispers with Mr Walcot, and brought her down the aisle in all her stateliness, with her train of children behind her.
When Hester went home, she thought it right to tell Margaret exactly what had happened.
“I knew it?” was all that Margaret said; but her heightened colour during the day told what unspeakable things were in her heart.
Hester was occupied with speculations as to what might have been the event if Margaret had been to church instead of herself. Her husband would only shake his head, and look hopeless: but she still thought all might have come right, under the influences of the hour. Whether it were to be wished that Philip and Margaret should understand each other again, was another question. Yesterday Hester would have earnestly desired that Margaret should never see Enderby again. To-day she did not know what to wish. She and Margaret came silently to the same conclusion; “there is nothing for it but waiting.” If he had heard this, Hope would have shaken his head again.
Chapter Forty Three.Working Round.Several days passed, and there was no direct news of Enderby. Maria never spoke of him, though many little intervals in Margaret’s busy life occurred when the friends were together, and Maria ought have taken occasion to say anything she wished. It was clear that she chose to avoid the subject. Her talk was almost entirely about the sick, for whom she laboured as strenuously as her strength would permit. She could not go about among them, nor sit up with the sufferers: but she cooked good things over her fire for them, all day long; and she took to her home many children who were too young to be useful, and old enough to be troublesome in a sick house. Between her cooking, teaching, and playing with the children, she was as fully occupied as her friends in the corner-house, and perhaps might not really know anything about Mr Enderby.Each one of the family had caught glimpses of him at one time or another. There was reason to think that he was active among Mr Walcot’s poor patients; and Hope had encountered him more than once in the course of his rounds, when a few words on the business of the moment were exchanged, and nothing more happened. Margaret saw him twice: once on horseback, when he turned suddenly down a lane to avoid her; and at the Rowlands’ dining-room window, with Ned in his arms. She never now passed that house when she could help it: but this once it was necessary; and she was glad that Philip had certainly not seen her. His back was half-turned to the window at the moment, as if some one within was speaking to him. Each time, his image was so stamped in upon her mind, that, amidst all the trials of such near neighbourhood without intercourse, his presence in Deerbrook was, on the whole, certainly a luxury. She had gained something to compensate for all her restlessness, in the three glimpses of him with which she had now been favoured. A thought sometimes occurred to her, of which she was so ashamed that she made every endeavour to banish it. She asked herself now and then, whether, if she had been able to sit at home, or take her accustomed walks, she should not have beheld Philip oftener:—whether she was not sadly out of the way of seeing him at the cottage in the lane, and the other sordid places where her presence was necessary. Not for this occasional question did she stay away one moment longer than she would otherwise have done from the cottage in the lane; but while she was there, it was apt to recur.There she sat one afternoon, somewhat weary, but not dreaming of going home. There lay the three sick creatures still. The woman was likely to recover; the boy lingered, and seemed waiting for his father to go with him. Platt had sunk very rapidly, and this day had made a great change. Margaret had taken the moaning and restless child on her lap, for the ease of change of posture: and she was now shading from his eyes with her shawl, the last level rays of the sun which shone in upon her from the window. She was unwilling to change her seat, for it seemed as if the slightest movement would quench the lingering life of the child: and there was no one to draw the window-curtain, the old woman having gone to buy food in the village. Mrs Platt slept almost all the day and night through, and she was asleep now: so Margaret sat quite still, holding up her shawl before the pallid face which looked already dead. Nothing broke the silence but the twitter of the young birds in the thatch, and the mutterings of the sick man, whom Margaret imagined to be somewhat disturbed by the unusual light that was in the room. It had not been the custom of the sun to shine into any houses of late; and the place full of yellow light, did not look like itself. She knew that in a few minutes the sun would have set; and she hoped that then poor Platt would be still. Meantime she appeared to take no notice, but sat with her eyes fixed on the boy’s face, marking that each sigh was fainter than the last. At length a louder sound than she had yet heard from the sick man, made her look towards him; and the instant throb of her heart seemed to be felt by the child, for he moved his head slightly. Platt was trying to support himself upon his elbow, while in the other shaking hand, he held towards her her turquoise ring. She remembered her charge, and did not spring to seize it; but there was something in her countenance that strongly excited the sick man. He struggled to rise from his bed, and his face was fierce. Margaret spoke gently—as calmly as she could—told him she would come presently—that there was no hurry, and urged him to lie down till she could put the child off her lap; but her voice failed her, in spite of herself; for now, at last, she recognised in Platt the tall woman. This was the look which had perplexed her more than once.“Patience! a little further patience!” she said to herself, as she saw the ring still trembling in the sick man’s hand, and felt one more sigh from the little fellow on her lap. No more patience was needed. This was the boy’s last breath. His head fell back, and the sunlight, which streamed in upon his half-closed eyes, could now disturb them no more. Margaret gently closed them and laid the body on its little bed in the corner, straightening and covering the limbs before she turned away.She then gently approached the bed, and took her ring into a hand which trembled little less than the sick man’s own. She spoke calmly, however. She strove earnestly to learn something of the facts: she tried to understand the mutterings amidst which only a word here and there sounded like speech. She thought, from the earnestness with which Platt seized and pressed her hand, that he was seeking pardon from her; and she spoke as if it were so. It grew very distressing—the earnestness of the man, and the uncertainty whether his mind was wandering or not. She wished the old woman would come back. She went to the door to look for her. The old woman was coming down the lane. Margaret put on her ring, and drew on her gloves, and determined to say nothing about it at present.“Mr Platt has been talking almost ever since you went,” said Margaret; “and I can make out nothing that he says. Do try if you can understand him. I am sure there is something he wishes me to hear. There is no time to lose, I am afraid. Do try.”The woman coaxed him to lie down, and then turning round, said she thought he wanted to know what o’clock it was.“Is that all? Tell him that the sun is now setting. But if you have a watch, that will show more exactly. Are you sure you have no watch in the house?”The old woman looked suspiciously at her, and asked her what made her suppose that poor folks had watches, when some gentlefolks had none? Margaret inquired whether a watch was not a possession handed down from father to son, and sometimes found in the poorest cottages. She believed she had seen such at Deerbrook. The old woman replied by saying, she believed Margaret might have understood some few things among the many the poor sick creature had been saying. Not one, Margaret declared; but it was so plain that she was not believed, that she had little doubt of Hester’s watch having been harboured in this very house, if it was not there still.The poor boy, who had had little care from his natural guardians while alive from the hour of his being doomed by the fortune-teller, was now loudly mourned as dead. Yet the mourning was strangely mixed with exultation at the fortune-teller having been right in the end. The mother, suddenly awakened, groaned and screamed, so that it was fearful to hear her. All efforts to restore quiet were in vain. Margaret was moved, shocked, terrified. She could not keep her own calmness in such a scene of confusion: but, while her cheeks were covered with tears, while her voice trembled as she implored silence, she never took off her glove. In the midst of the tumult, Platt sank back and died. The renewed cries had the effect of bringing some neighbours from the end of the lane. While they were there, Margaret could be of no further use. She promised to send coffins immediately—that stage of pestilence being now reached when coffins were the first consideration—and then slipped out from the door into the darkness, and ran till she had turned the corner of the long lane. She usually considered herself safe abroad, even in times like these, as she carried no property of value about with her: but now that she was wearing her precious ring again, she felt too rich to be walking alone in the dark.She did not slacken her pace till she approached lights and people; and then she was glad to stop for breath. She could not resist going first to Maria, to show her the recovered treasure; and this caused her to direct her steps through the churchyard. It was there that she came in view of lights and people; and under the limes it was that she stopped for breath. The churchyard was now the most frequented spot in the village. The path by the turnstile was indeed grown over with grass: but the great gate was almost always open, and the ground near it was trodden bare by the feet of many mourners. Funeral trains—trains which daily grew shorter, till each coffin was now followed only by two or by three—were passing in from early morning, at intervals, till sunset, and now might be often seen by torchlight far into the night. The villager passing the churchyard wall might hear, in the night air, the deep voice of the clergyman announcing the farewell to some brother or sister, committing “ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.” There was no disturbance now from boys leaping over the graves, or from little children, eager to renew their noisy play. Such of the young villagers as remained above ground appeared to be silenced and subdued by the privation, the dreariness, the neglect, of these awful days: they looked on from afar, or avoided the spot. Instead of such, the observer of the two funerals which were now in the churchyard, was a person quite at the other extremity of life. Margaret saw the man of a hundred years, Jem Bird, the pride of the village in his way, seated on the bench under the spreading tree, which was youthful in comparison with himself. He was listlessly watching the black figures which moved about in the light of a solitary torch, by an open grave, while waiting for the clergyman who was engaged with the group beyond.“You are late abroad, Mr Bird,” said Margaret. “I should not have looked for you here so far on in the evening.”“What’s your will?” said the old man.“Grandfather won’t go home ever, till they have done here,” said a great-grandchild of the old man, running up from his amusement of hooting to the owls in the church tower. “They’ll soon have done with these two, and then grandfather and I shall go home. Won’t we, granny?”“Does it not make you sad to see so many funerals?” said Margaret, sitting down on the bench beside him.“Ay.”“Had you not better stay at home than see so many that you knew laid in the ground?”“Does he understand?” she asked aside of the boy. “Does he never answer but in this way?”“Oh! he talks fast enough sometimes. It is just as you happen to take him.”Margaret was curious to know what were the meditations among the tombs of one so aged as this man: so she spoke again.“I have heard that you knew this place before anybody lived in it: and now you seem likely to see it empty again.”“It was a wild place enough in my young time,” said Jem, speaking now very fluently. “There was nothing of it but the church; and that was never used, because it had had its roof pulled off in the wars. There was only a footpath to it through the fields then, and few people went nigh it—except a few gentry that came a-pleasuring here, into the woods. The owls and I knew it as well then as we do to-day, and nobody else that is now living. The owls and I.”And the old man laughed the chuckling laugh which was all he had strength for.“The woods!” said Margaret. “Did the Verdon woods spread as far as this church in those days? And were they not private property then?”“It was all forest hereabouts, except a clear space round the church tower. It might be thin sprinkled, but it was called forest. The place where I was born had thorns all about it; and when I could scarce walk alone, I used to scramble among the blossoms that made the ground white all under those thorns. The birds that lived by the haws in winter were prodigious. That cottage stood, as near as I can tell, where Grey and Rowland’s great granary is now. There used to be much swine in the woods then; and many’s the time they have thrown me down when I was a young thing getting acorns. That was about the time of my hearing the first music I ever heard—unless you call the singing of the birds music (we had plenty of that), and the bells on the breeze from a distance, when the wind was south. The first music (so to call it) that I heard was from a blind fiddler that came to us. What brought him, I don’t know—whether he lost his way, or what; but he lost his way after he left us. His dog seems to have been in fault: but he got into a pool in the middle of the wood, and there he lay drowned, with one foot up on the bank, when I went to see what the harking of the dog could be about. He clutched his fiddle in drowning; and I remember I tried to get the music out of it as it lay wet and broken on the bank, while father was saying the poor soul must have been under the water now two days. So I have reason to remember the first music I heard.”“You have got him talking now,” said the grandchild, running off; and presently the owls were heard hooting again.“Whereabouts was this pool?” asked Margaret.“It is a deep part of the brook, that in hot summers is left a pond. It is there that the chief of the sliding goes on in winter now, in the meadow. It is meadow now; but then the deer used to come down through the wood to drink at the brook there. That is how the village got its name.”“So you remember the time when the deer came down to drink at the brook! How many things have happened since then! You have heard a great deal of music since those days.”“Ay, there has been a good deal of fiddling at our weddings since that. And we have had recruiting parties through in war times.”“And many a mother singing to her baby; and the psalm in the church for so many years! Yes, the place has been full of music for long; but it seems likely to be silent enough now.”“I began to think I should be left the last, as I was the first,” said the old man: “but they say the sickness is abating now, and that several are beginning to recover. Pray God it may be so! First, after the wood was somewhat cleared, there was a labourer’s cottage or two—now standing empty, and the folk that lived in them lying yonder. Then there was the farmhouse; and then a carpenter came, and a wheeler. Then there was a shop wanted; and the church was roofed in and used: and some gentry came and sat down by the river side; and the place grew to what it is. They say now, it is not near its end yet: but it is strange to me to see the churchyard the fullest place near, so that I have to come here for company.”And the old man chuckled again. As she rose to go, Margaret asked whether he knew the Platts, who lived in the cottage in the lane.“I know him to see to. Is he down?”“He is dead and his child: but his wife is recovering.”“Ay, there’s many recovering now, they say.”“Indeed! who?”“Why, a many. But the fever has got into Rowland’s house, they say.” Margaret’s heart turned sick at hearing these words, and she hastily pursued her way. It was not Philip, however, who was seized. He was in the churchyard at this moment. She saw him walking quickly along the turnstile path, slackening his pace only for a moment, as he passed the funeral group. The light from the torch shone full upon his face—the face settled and composed, as she knew it would not be if he were aware who was within a few paces of him. She felt the strongest impulse to show him her ring—the strongest desire for his sympathy in its recovery: but an instant showed her the absurdity of the thought, and she hung down her blushing head in the darkness.From Maria she had sympathy, such as it was—sympathy without any faith in Philip. She had from her also good news of the state of the village. There were recoveries talked of; and there would be more, now that those who were seized would no longer consider death inevitable. Mrs Howell was ill; and poor Miss Nares was down with the fever, which no one could wonder at: but Mr Jones and his son John were both out of danger, and the little Tuckers were likely to do well. Mr James was already talking of sending for his wife and sister-in-law home again, as the worst days of the disease seemed to be past, and so many families had not been attacked at all. It was too true that Matilda Rowland was unwell to-day; but Mr Walcot hoped it was only a slight feverish attack, which would be thought nothing of under any other circumstances.—On the whole, Maria thought the neighbours she had seen to-day in better spirits than at any time since the fever made its appearance.Margaret found more good news at home. In the first place, the door was opened to her by Morris. Hester stood behind to witness the meeting. She had her bonnet on: she was going with her husband to see Mrs Howell, and make some provision for her comfort: but she had waited a little while, in hopes that Margaret would return, and be duly astonished to see Morris.“You must make tea for each other, and be comfortable while we are away,” said Hester. “We will go now directly, that we may be back as early as we can.”“I have several things to tell you,” said Margaret, “when you return: and one now, brother, which must not be delayed. Platt and his child are dead, and coffins must be sent. The sooner the better, or we shall lose the poor woman too.”Hope promised to speak to the undertaker as he went by.“We have become very familiar with death, Morris, since you went away,” said Margaret, as she obliged her old friend to sit down by the fire, and prepared to make tea for both.“That is why you see me here, Miss Margaret. Every piece of news I could get of this place was worse than the last; and I could perceive from your last letter, that you had sickness all about you; and I could not persuade myself but that it was my duty to come and be useful, and to take care of you, my dear, if I may say so.”“And now you are here, I trust you may stay—I trust we may be justified in keeping you. We have meat every day now, Morris,—at least when we have time to cook it. Since my brother has been attending so many of Mr Jones’s family, we have had meat almost every day.”“Indeed, my dear, I don’t know how you could keep up without it, so busy as I find you are among the sick;—busy night and day, my mistress tells me, till the people have got to call you ‘the good lady.’ You do not look as if you had lost much of your natural rest: but I know how the mind keeps the body up. Yours is an earnest mind, Margaret, that will always keep you up: but, my dear, I do hope it has been an easy mind too. You will excuse my saying so.”Margaret more than excused it, but she could not immediately answer. The tears trembled in her eyes, and her lip quivered when she would have spoken. Morris stroked her hair, and kissed her forehead, as if she had been still a child, and whispered that all things ended well in God’s own time.“Oh, yes! I know,” said Margaret. “Has Hester told you how prosperous we are growing? I do not mean only about money. We are likely to have enough of that too, for my brother’s old patients have almost all sent for him again: but we care the less about that from having discovered that we were as happy with little money as with much. But it is a satisfaction and pleasure to find my brother regarded more and more as he ought to be: and yet greater to see how nobly he deserves the best that can be thought of him.”“He forgives his enemies, no doubt, heaping coals of fire on their heads.”“You will witness it Morris. You will see him among them, and it will make your heart glow. Poor creatures! I have heard some of them own to him, from their sick beds, with dread and tears, that they broke his windows, and slandered his name. Then you should see him smile when he tells them that is all over now, and that they will not mistake him so much again.”“No, never. He has shown himself now what he is.”“He sat up two nights with one poor boy who is now likely to get through; and in the middle of the second night, the boy’s father got up from his sick bed in the next room, and came to my brother, to say that he felt that ill luck would be upon them all, if he did not confess that he put that very boy behind the hedge, with stones in his hand, to throw at Edward, the day he was mobbed at the almshouses. He was deluded by the neighbours, he said, into thinking that my brother meant ill by the poor.”“They have learned to the contrary now, my dear. And what does Sir William Hunter say of my master, now-a-days? Do you know?”“There is very little heard of Sir William and Lady Hunter at present—shut up at home as they are. But Dr Levitt, who loves to make peace, you know, and tell what is pleasant, declares that Sir William Hunter has certainly said that, after all, it does not so much signify which way a man votes at an election, if he shows a kind heart to his neighbours in troublesome times.”“Sir William Hunter has learned his lesson then, it seems, from this affliction. I suppose he sees that one who does his duty as my master does at a season like this, is just the one to vote according to his conscience at an election. But, my dear, what sort of a heart have these Hunters got, that they shut themselves up as you say?”“They give their money freely: and that is all that we can expect from them. If they have always been brought up and accustomed to fear sickness, and danger, and death, we cannot expect that they should lose their fear at a time like this. We must be thankful for what they give; and their money has been of great service, though there is no doubt that their example would have been of more.”“One would like to look into their minds, and see how they regard my master there.”“They regard him, no doubt, so far rightly as to consider him quite a different sort of person from themselves, and no rule for them. So far they are right. They do not comprehend his satisfactions and ease of mind; and it is very likely that they have pleasures of their own which we do not understand.”“And they are quite welcome, I am sure, my dear, as long as they do not meddle with my master’s name. That is, as he says, all over now. After this, however, the people in Deerbrook will be more ready to trust in my master’s skill and kindness than in Sir William Hunter’s grandeur and money, which can do little to save them in time of need.”Margaret explained how ignorantly the poor in the neighbourhood had relied on the fortune-tellers, who had only duped them; how that which would have been religion in them if they had been early taught, and which would have enabled them to rely on the only power which really can save, had been degraded by ignorance into a foolish and pernicious superstition. Morris hoped that this also was over now. She had met some of these conjurors on the Blickley road; and seen others breaking up their establishment in the lanes, and turning their backs upon Deerbrook. Whether they were scared away by the mortality of the place, or had found the tide of fortune-telling beginning to turn, mattered nothing as long as they were gone.The tea-table was cleared, and Morris and Margaret were admiring the baby as he slept, when Hester and her husband returned. Mrs Howell was very unwell, and likely to be worse. All attempts to bring Miss Miskin to reason, and induce her to enter her friend’s room, were in vain. She bestowed abundance of tears, tremors, and foreboding on Mrs Howell’s state and prospects, but shut herself up in a fumigated apartment, where she promised to pray for a good result, and to await it. The maid was a hearty lass, who would sit up willingly, under Hester’s promise that she should be relieved in the morning. The girl’s fear was of not being able to satisfy her mistress, whom it was not so easy to nurse as it might have been, from her insisting on having everything arranged precisely as it was in her poor dear Howell’s last illness. As Miss Miskin had refused to enter the chamber, Hester had been obliged to search a chest of drawers for Mr Howell’s last dressing-gown, which Miss Miskin had promised should be mended and aired, and ready for wear by the morning.“Margaret!” cried Hester, as her sister was lighting her candle. The exclamation made Edward turn round, and brought back Morris into the parlour after saying ‘Good-night.’ “Margaret! your ring?”There was as much joy as shame in Margaret’s crimson blush. She let her sister examine the turquoise, and said:“Yes, this is the boon of to-day.”“Edward’s hundred pounds has come,” said Hester: “but that is nothing to this.”Margaret’s eyes thanked her. She just explained that poor Platt had been the thief, and had restored it to her before he died, and that she could get no explanation, no tidings of Hester’s watch; and she was gone.“Dr Levitt’s early stir about this ring prevented its being disposed of, I have no doubt,” said Edward. “If so, it is yet possible that we may recover your watch. I will speak to Dr Levitt in the morning.”“Dear Margaret!” said Hester. “She is now drinking in the hue of that turquoise, and blessing it for being unchanged. She regards this recovery of it as a good omen, I see; and far be it from us to mock at such a superstition!”As usual, when she was upon this subject, Hester looked up into her husband’s face: and as usual, when she spoke on this subject, he made no reply.
Several days passed, and there was no direct news of Enderby. Maria never spoke of him, though many little intervals in Margaret’s busy life occurred when the friends were together, and Maria ought have taken occasion to say anything she wished. It was clear that she chose to avoid the subject. Her talk was almost entirely about the sick, for whom she laboured as strenuously as her strength would permit. She could not go about among them, nor sit up with the sufferers: but she cooked good things over her fire for them, all day long; and she took to her home many children who were too young to be useful, and old enough to be troublesome in a sick house. Between her cooking, teaching, and playing with the children, she was as fully occupied as her friends in the corner-house, and perhaps might not really know anything about Mr Enderby.
Each one of the family had caught glimpses of him at one time or another. There was reason to think that he was active among Mr Walcot’s poor patients; and Hope had encountered him more than once in the course of his rounds, when a few words on the business of the moment were exchanged, and nothing more happened. Margaret saw him twice: once on horseback, when he turned suddenly down a lane to avoid her; and at the Rowlands’ dining-room window, with Ned in his arms. She never now passed that house when she could help it: but this once it was necessary; and she was glad that Philip had certainly not seen her. His back was half-turned to the window at the moment, as if some one within was speaking to him. Each time, his image was so stamped in upon her mind, that, amidst all the trials of such near neighbourhood without intercourse, his presence in Deerbrook was, on the whole, certainly a luxury. She had gained something to compensate for all her restlessness, in the three glimpses of him with which she had now been favoured. A thought sometimes occurred to her, of which she was so ashamed that she made every endeavour to banish it. She asked herself now and then, whether, if she had been able to sit at home, or take her accustomed walks, she should not have beheld Philip oftener:—whether she was not sadly out of the way of seeing him at the cottage in the lane, and the other sordid places where her presence was necessary. Not for this occasional question did she stay away one moment longer than she would otherwise have done from the cottage in the lane; but while she was there, it was apt to recur.
There she sat one afternoon, somewhat weary, but not dreaming of going home. There lay the three sick creatures still. The woman was likely to recover; the boy lingered, and seemed waiting for his father to go with him. Platt had sunk very rapidly, and this day had made a great change. Margaret had taken the moaning and restless child on her lap, for the ease of change of posture: and she was now shading from his eyes with her shawl, the last level rays of the sun which shone in upon her from the window. She was unwilling to change her seat, for it seemed as if the slightest movement would quench the lingering life of the child: and there was no one to draw the window-curtain, the old woman having gone to buy food in the village. Mrs Platt slept almost all the day and night through, and she was asleep now: so Margaret sat quite still, holding up her shawl before the pallid face which looked already dead. Nothing broke the silence but the twitter of the young birds in the thatch, and the mutterings of the sick man, whom Margaret imagined to be somewhat disturbed by the unusual light that was in the room. It had not been the custom of the sun to shine into any houses of late; and the place full of yellow light, did not look like itself. She knew that in a few minutes the sun would have set; and she hoped that then poor Platt would be still. Meantime she appeared to take no notice, but sat with her eyes fixed on the boy’s face, marking that each sigh was fainter than the last. At length a louder sound than she had yet heard from the sick man, made her look towards him; and the instant throb of her heart seemed to be felt by the child, for he moved his head slightly. Platt was trying to support himself upon his elbow, while in the other shaking hand, he held towards her her turquoise ring. She remembered her charge, and did not spring to seize it; but there was something in her countenance that strongly excited the sick man. He struggled to rise from his bed, and his face was fierce. Margaret spoke gently—as calmly as she could—told him she would come presently—that there was no hurry, and urged him to lie down till she could put the child off her lap; but her voice failed her, in spite of herself; for now, at last, she recognised in Platt the tall woman. This was the look which had perplexed her more than once.
“Patience! a little further patience!” she said to herself, as she saw the ring still trembling in the sick man’s hand, and felt one more sigh from the little fellow on her lap. No more patience was needed. This was the boy’s last breath. His head fell back, and the sunlight, which streamed in upon his half-closed eyes, could now disturb them no more. Margaret gently closed them and laid the body on its little bed in the corner, straightening and covering the limbs before she turned away.
She then gently approached the bed, and took her ring into a hand which trembled little less than the sick man’s own. She spoke calmly, however. She strove earnestly to learn something of the facts: she tried to understand the mutterings amidst which only a word here and there sounded like speech. She thought, from the earnestness with which Platt seized and pressed her hand, that he was seeking pardon from her; and she spoke as if it were so. It grew very distressing—the earnestness of the man, and the uncertainty whether his mind was wandering or not. She wished the old woman would come back. She went to the door to look for her. The old woman was coming down the lane. Margaret put on her ring, and drew on her gloves, and determined to say nothing about it at present.
“Mr Platt has been talking almost ever since you went,” said Margaret; “and I can make out nothing that he says. Do try if you can understand him. I am sure there is something he wishes me to hear. There is no time to lose, I am afraid. Do try.”
The woman coaxed him to lie down, and then turning round, said she thought he wanted to know what o’clock it was.
“Is that all? Tell him that the sun is now setting. But if you have a watch, that will show more exactly. Are you sure you have no watch in the house?”
The old woman looked suspiciously at her, and asked her what made her suppose that poor folks had watches, when some gentlefolks had none? Margaret inquired whether a watch was not a possession handed down from father to son, and sometimes found in the poorest cottages. She believed she had seen such at Deerbrook. The old woman replied by saying, she believed Margaret might have understood some few things among the many the poor sick creature had been saying. Not one, Margaret declared; but it was so plain that she was not believed, that she had little doubt of Hester’s watch having been harboured in this very house, if it was not there still.
The poor boy, who had had little care from his natural guardians while alive from the hour of his being doomed by the fortune-teller, was now loudly mourned as dead. Yet the mourning was strangely mixed with exultation at the fortune-teller having been right in the end. The mother, suddenly awakened, groaned and screamed, so that it was fearful to hear her. All efforts to restore quiet were in vain. Margaret was moved, shocked, terrified. She could not keep her own calmness in such a scene of confusion: but, while her cheeks were covered with tears, while her voice trembled as she implored silence, she never took off her glove. In the midst of the tumult, Platt sank back and died. The renewed cries had the effect of bringing some neighbours from the end of the lane. While they were there, Margaret could be of no further use. She promised to send coffins immediately—that stage of pestilence being now reached when coffins were the first consideration—and then slipped out from the door into the darkness, and ran till she had turned the corner of the long lane. She usually considered herself safe abroad, even in times like these, as she carried no property of value about with her: but now that she was wearing her precious ring again, she felt too rich to be walking alone in the dark.
She did not slacken her pace till she approached lights and people; and then she was glad to stop for breath. She could not resist going first to Maria, to show her the recovered treasure; and this caused her to direct her steps through the churchyard. It was there that she came in view of lights and people; and under the limes it was that she stopped for breath. The churchyard was now the most frequented spot in the village. The path by the turnstile was indeed grown over with grass: but the great gate was almost always open, and the ground near it was trodden bare by the feet of many mourners. Funeral trains—trains which daily grew shorter, till each coffin was now followed only by two or by three—were passing in from early morning, at intervals, till sunset, and now might be often seen by torchlight far into the night. The villager passing the churchyard wall might hear, in the night air, the deep voice of the clergyman announcing the farewell to some brother or sister, committing “ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.” There was no disturbance now from boys leaping over the graves, or from little children, eager to renew their noisy play. Such of the young villagers as remained above ground appeared to be silenced and subdued by the privation, the dreariness, the neglect, of these awful days: they looked on from afar, or avoided the spot. Instead of such, the observer of the two funerals which were now in the churchyard, was a person quite at the other extremity of life. Margaret saw the man of a hundred years, Jem Bird, the pride of the village in his way, seated on the bench under the spreading tree, which was youthful in comparison with himself. He was listlessly watching the black figures which moved about in the light of a solitary torch, by an open grave, while waiting for the clergyman who was engaged with the group beyond.
“You are late abroad, Mr Bird,” said Margaret. “I should not have looked for you here so far on in the evening.”
“What’s your will?” said the old man.
“Grandfather won’t go home ever, till they have done here,” said a great-grandchild of the old man, running up from his amusement of hooting to the owls in the church tower. “They’ll soon have done with these two, and then grandfather and I shall go home. Won’t we, granny?”
“Does it not make you sad to see so many funerals?” said Margaret, sitting down on the bench beside him.
“Ay.”
“Had you not better stay at home than see so many that you knew laid in the ground?”
“Does he understand?” she asked aside of the boy. “Does he never answer but in this way?”
“Oh! he talks fast enough sometimes. It is just as you happen to take him.”
Margaret was curious to know what were the meditations among the tombs of one so aged as this man: so she spoke again.
“I have heard that you knew this place before anybody lived in it: and now you seem likely to see it empty again.”
“It was a wild place enough in my young time,” said Jem, speaking now very fluently. “There was nothing of it but the church; and that was never used, because it had had its roof pulled off in the wars. There was only a footpath to it through the fields then, and few people went nigh it—except a few gentry that came a-pleasuring here, into the woods. The owls and I knew it as well then as we do to-day, and nobody else that is now living. The owls and I.”
And the old man laughed the chuckling laugh which was all he had strength for.
“The woods!” said Margaret. “Did the Verdon woods spread as far as this church in those days? And were they not private property then?”
“It was all forest hereabouts, except a clear space round the church tower. It might be thin sprinkled, but it was called forest. The place where I was born had thorns all about it; and when I could scarce walk alone, I used to scramble among the blossoms that made the ground white all under those thorns. The birds that lived by the haws in winter were prodigious. That cottage stood, as near as I can tell, where Grey and Rowland’s great granary is now. There used to be much swine in the woods then; and many’s the time they have thrown me down when I was a young thing getting acorns. That was about the time of my hearing the first music I ever heard—unless you call the singing of the birds music (we had plenty of that), and the bells on the breeze from a distance, when the wind was south. The first music (so to call it) that I heard was from a blind fiddler that came to us. What brought him, I don’t know—whether he lost his way, or what; but he lost his way after he left us. His dog seems to have been in fault: but he got into a pool in the middle of the wood, and there he lay drowned, with one foot up on the bank, when I went to see what the harking of the dog could be about. He clutched his fiddle in drowning; and I remember I tried to get the music out of it as it lay wet and broken on the bank, while father was saying the poor soul must have been under the water now two days. So I have reason to remember the first music I heard.”
“You have got him talking now,” said the grandchild, running off; and presently the owls were heard hooting again.
“Whereabouts was this pool?” asked Margaret.
“It is a deep part of the brook, that in hot summers is left a pond. It is there that the chief of the sliding goes on in winter now, in the meadow. It is meadow now; but then the deer used to come down through the wood to drink at the brook there. That is how the village got its name.”
“So you remember the time when the deer came down to drink at the brook! How many things have happened since then! You have heard a great deal of music since those days.”
“Ay, there has been a good deal of fiddling at our weddings since that. And we have had recruiting parties through in war times.”
“And many a mother singing to her baby; and the psalm in the church for so many years! Yes, the place has been full of music for long; but it seems likely to be silent enough now.”
“I began to think I should be left the last, as I was the first,” said the old man: “but they say the sickness is abating now, and that several are beginning to recover. Pray God it may be so! First, after the wood was somewhat cleared, there was a labourer’s cottage or two—now standing empty, and the folk that lived in them lying yonder. Then there was the farmhouse; and then a carpenter came, and a wheeler. Then there was a shop wanted; and the church was roofed in and used: and some gentry came and sat down by the river side; and the place grew to what it is. They say now, it is not near its end yet: but it is strange to me to see the churchyard the fullest place near, so that I have to come here for company.”
And the old man chuckled again. As she rose to go, Margaret asked whether he knew the Platts, who lived in the cottage in the lane.
“I know him to see to. Is he down?”
“He is dead and his child: but his wife is recovering.”
“Ay, there’s many recovering now, they say.”
“Indeed! who?”
“Why, a many. But the fever has got into Rowland’s house, they say.” Margaret’s heart turned sick at hearing these words, and she hastily pursued her way. It was not Philip, however, who was seized. He was in the churchyard at this moment. She saw him walking quickly along the turnstile path, slackening his pace only for a moment, as he passed the funeral group. The light from the torch shone full upon his face—the face settled and composed, as she knew it would not be if he were aware who was within a few paces of him. She felt the strongest impulse to show him her ring—the strongest desire for his sympathy in its recovery: but an instant showed her the absurdity of the thought, and she hung down her blushing head in the darkness.
From Maria she had sympathy, such as it was—sympathy without any faith in Philip. She had from her also good news of the state of the village. There were recoveries talked of; and there would be more, now that those who were seized would no longer consider death inevitable. Mrs Howell was ill; and poor Miss Nares was down with the fever, which no one could wonder at: but Mr Jones and his son John were both out of danger, and the little Tuckers were likely to do well. Mr James was already talking of sending for his wife and sister-in-law home again, as the worst days of the disease seemed to be past, and so many families had not been attacked at all. It was too true that Matilda Rowland was unwell to-day; but Mr Walcot hoped it was only a slight feverish attack, which would be thought nothing of under any other circumstances.—On the whole, Maria thought the neighbours she had seen to-day in better spirits than at any time since the fever made its appearance.
Margaret found more good news at home. In the first place, the door was opened to her by Morris. Hester stood behind to witness the meeting. She had her bonnet on: she was going with her husband to see Mrs Howell, and make some provision for her comfort: but she had waited a little while, in hopes that Margaret would return, and be duly astonished to see Morris.
“You must make tea for each other, and be comfortable while we are away,” said Hester. “We will go now directly, that we may be back as early as we can.”
“I have several things to tell you,” said Margaret, “when you return: and one now, brother, which must not be delayed. Platt and his child are dead, and coffins must be sent. The sooner the better, or we shall lose the poor woman too.”
Hope promised to speak to the undertaker as he went by.
“We have become very familiar with death, Morris, since you went away,” said Margaret, as she obliged her old friend to sit down by the fire, and prepared to make tea for both.
“That is why you see me here, Miss Margaret. Every piece of news I could get of this place was worse than the last; and I could perceive from your last letter, that you had sickness all about you; and I could not persuade myself but that it was my duty to come and be useful, and to take care of you, my dear, if I may say so.”
“And now you are here, I trust you may stay—I trust we may be justified in keeping you. We have meat every day now, Morris,—at least when we have time to cook it. Since my brother has been attending so many of Mr Jones’s family, we have had meat almost every day.”
“Indeed, my dear, I don’t know how you could keep up without it, so busy as I find you are among the sick;—busy night and day, my mistress tells me, till the people have got to call you ‘the good lady.’ You do not look as if you had lost much of your natural rest: but I know how the mind keeps the body up. Yours is an earnest mind, Margaret, that will always keep you up: but, my dear, I do hope it has been an easy mind too. You will excuse my saying so.”
Margaret more than excused it, but she could not immediately answer. The tears trembled in her eyes, and her lip quivered when she would have spoken. Morris stroked her hair, and kissed her forehead, as if she had been still a child, and whispered that all things ended well in God’s own time.
“Oh, yes! I know,” said Margaret. “Has Hester told you how prosperous we are growing? I do not mean only about money. We are likely to have enough of that too, for my brother’s old patients have almost all sent for him again: but we care the less about that from having discovered that we were as happy with little money as with much. But it is a satisfaction and pleasure to find my brother regarded more and more as he ought to be: and yet greater to see how nobly he deserves the best that can be thought of him.”
“He forgives his enemies, no doubt, heaping coals of fire on their heads.”
“You will witness it Morris. You will see him among them, and it will make your heart glow. Poor creatures! I have heard some of them own to him, from their sick beds, with dread and tears, that they broke his windows, and slandered his name. Then you should see him smile when he tells them that is all over now, and that they will not mistake him so much again.”
“No, never. He has shown himself now what he is.”
“He sat up two nights with one poor boy who is now likely to get through; and in the middle of the second night, the boy’s father got up from his sick bed in the next room, and came to my brother, to say that he felt that ill luck would be upon them all, if he did not confess that he put that very boy behind the hedge, with stones in his hand, to throw at Edward, the day he was mobbed at the almshouses. He was deluded by the neighbours, he said, into thinking that my brother meant ill by the poor.”
“They have learned to the contrary now, my dear. And what does Sir William Hunter say of my master, now-a-days? Do you know?”
“There is very little heard of Sir William and Lady Hunter at present—shut up at home as they are. But Dr Levitt, who loves to make peace, you know, and tell what is pleasant, declares that Sir William Hunter has certainly said that, after all, it does not so much signify which way a man votes at an election, if he shows a kind heart to his neighbours in troublesome times.”
“Sir William Hunter has learned his lesson then, it seems, from this affliction. I suppose he sees that one who does his duty as my master does at a season like this, is just the one to vote according to his conscience at an election. But, my dear, what sort of a heart have these Hunters got, that they shut themselves up as you say?”
“They give their money freely: and that is all that we can expect from them. If they have always been brought up and accustomed to fear sickness, and danger, and death, we cannot expect that they should lose their fear at a time like this. We must be thankful for what they give; and their money has been of great service, though there is no doubt that their example would have been of more.”
“One would like to look into their minds, and see how they regard my master there.”
“They regard him, no doubt, so far rightly as to consider him quite a different sort of person from themselves, and no rule for them. So far they are right. They do not comprehend his satisfactions and ease of mind; and it is very likely that they have pleasures of their own which we do not understand.”
“And they are quite welcome, I am sure, my dear, as long as they do not meddle with my master’s name. That is, as he says, all over now. After this, however, the people in Deerbrook will be more ready to trust in my master’s skill and kindness than in Sir William Hunter’s grandeur and money, which can do little to save them in time of need.”
Margaret explained how ignorantly the poor in the neighbourhood had relied on the fortune-tellers, who had only duped them; how that which would have been religion in them if they had been early taught, and which would have enabled them to rely on the only power which really can save, had been degraded by ignorance into a foolish and pernicious superstition. Morris hoped that this also was over now. She had met some of these conjurors on the Blickley road; and seen others breaking up their establishment in the lanes, and turning their backs upon Deerbrook. Whether they were scared away by the mortality of the place, or had found the tide of fortune-telling beginning to turn, mattered nothing as long as they were gone.
The tea-table was cleared, and Morris and Margaret were admiring the baby as he slept, when Hester and her husband returned. Mrs Howell was very unwell, and likely to be worse. All attempts to bring Miss Miskin to reason, and induce her to enter her friend’s room, were in vain. She bestowed abundance of tears, tremors, and foreboding on Mrs Howell’s state and prospects, but shut herself up in a fumigated apartment, where she promised to pray for a good result, and to await it. The maid was a hearty lass, who would sit up willingly, under Hester’s promise that she should be relieved in the morning. The girl’s fear was of not being able to satisfy her mistress, whom it was not so easy to nurse as it might have been, from her insisting on having everything arranged precisely as it was in her poor dear Howell’s last illness. As Miss Miskin had refused to enter the chamber, Hester had been obliged to search a chest of drawers for Mr Howell’s last dressing-gown, which Miss Miskin had promised should be mended and aired, and ready for wear by the morning.
“Margaret!” cried Hester, as her sister was lighting her candle. The exclamation made Edward turn round, and brought back Morris into the parlour after saying ‘Good-night.’ “Margaret! your ring?”
There was as much joy as shame in Margaret’s crimson blush. She let her sister examine the turquoise, and said:
“Yes, this is the boon of to-day.”
“Edward’s hundred pounds has come,” said Hester: “but that is nothing to this.”
Margaret’s eyes thanked her. She just explained that poor Platt had been the thief, and had restored it to her before he died, and that she could get no explanation, no tidings of Hester’s watch; and she was gone.
“Dr Levitt’s early stir about this ring prevented its being disposed of, I have no doubt,” said Edward. “If so, it is yet possible that we may recover your watch. I will speak to Dr Levitt in the morning.”
“Dear Margaret!” said Hester. “She is now drinking in the hue of that turquoise, and blessing it for being unchanged. She regards this recovery of it as a good omen, I see; and far be it from us to mock at such a superstition!”
As usual, when she was upon this subject, Hester looked up into her husband’s face: and as usual, when she spoke on this subject, he made no reply.
Chapter Forty Four.Late Religion.A few days after Morris’s return, she told Margaret that the tidings in the village of Miss Rowland’s illness were not good. Mrs Rowland was quite as sure as ever that, if anybody could cure Matilda, it was Mr Walcot; but Mr Walcot himself looked anxious; and a bed had been put up for him in the room next to the sick child. Margaret wondered why Mr Rowland did not send to Blickley for further advice: but Morris thought that Mrs Rowland would not give up her perfect faith in Mr Walcot, if all her children should die before her face.When Morris had left the room, Margaret was absorbed in speculations, as she played with her sister’s infant—speculations on the little life of children, and on their death. Her memory followed Matilda through every circumstance in which she had seen her. The poor little girl’s very attitude, voice, and words—words full, alas! of folly and vanity—rose again upon her eye and ear, in immediate contrast with the image of death, and the solemnity of the life to come. In the midst of these thoughts came tears of shame and self-reproach; for another thought (how low! how selfish!) thrust itself in among them—that she was secure for the present from Philip’s departure—that he would not leave Deerbrook while Matilda was in a critical state. As these tears rolled down her cheeks, the baby looked full in her face, and caught the infection of grief.He hung his little lip, and looked so woe-begone, that Margaret dashed away the signs of her sorrow, and spoke gaily to him; and, as the sun shone in at the moment upon the lustres on the mantelpiece, she set the glass-drops in motion, and let the baby try to catch the bright colours that danced upon the walls and ceiling. At this moment, Hester burst in with a countenance of dismay.“Margaret, my husband has a headache!”A headache was no trifle in these days.“Anything more than a headache?” asked Margaret. “No other feeling of illness? There is nothing to wonder at in a mere headache. It is very surprising that he has not had it before, with all his toil and want of sleep.”“He declares it is a trifle,” said Hester: “but I see he can hardly hold up. What shall I do?”“Make him lie down and rest, and let me go to Mrs Howell instead of you. She will be a little disappointed; but that cannot be helped. She must put up with my services to-day. Now, do not frighten yourself, as if no one ever had a headache without having a fever.”“I shall desire Morris to let no one in; and to bring no messages to her master while his headache lasts.”“Very right. I will tell her as I go for my bonnet. One more kiss before I go, baby. Do not wait tea for me, Hester. I cannot say when I shall be back.”Margaret had been gone to Mrs Howell’s about an hour and a half, when there was a loud and hasty knock at the door of the corner-house. It roused Hope from a doze into which he had just fallen, and provoked Hester accordingly. There was a parley between Morris and somebody in the hall; and presently a voice was heard calling loudly upon Mr Hope. Hester could not prevent her husband from springing from the bed, and going out upon the stairs. Mr Rowland was already half-way up, looking almost beside himself with grief.“You must excuse me, Mr Hope—you must not judge me hardly;—if you are ill, I am sorry... sir; but sir, my child is dying. We fear she is dying, sir; and you must come, and see if anything can save her. I shall never forgive myself for going on as we have been doing. She has been sacrificed—fairly sacrificed, I fear.”“Nay, Mr Rowland, I must comfort you there,” said Hope, as they walked rapidly along the street. “I have had occasion to see a great deal of Mr Walcot and his professional conduct, in the course of the last few weeks; and I am certain that he has a very competent knowledge of his business. I assure you he shows more talent, more power altogether, in his professional than his unprofessional conduct; and in this particular disease he has now had much experience.”“God bless you for saying so, my dear sir! It is like you—always generous, always just and kind! You must forgive us, Mr Hope. At a time like this, you must overlook all causes of offence. They are very great, I know; but you will not visit them upon us now.”“We have only to do with the present now,” said Hope. “Not a word about the past, I entreat you.”Mrs Rowland, to-day reckless of everything but her child, was standing out on the steps, watching, as for the last hope for her Matilda.“She is much worse, Mr Hope; suddenly and alarmingly worse. This way: follow me.”Hope would speak with Mr Walcot first. As he entered the study, to await Mr Walcot, Philip passed out. They did not speak.“Oh, Philip! speak to Mr Hope!” cried Mrs Rowland. “For God’s sake do not do anything to offend him now!”“I will do everything in my power, madam, to save your child,” said Hope. “Do not fear that the conduct of her relations will be allowed to injure her.”“My love,” said Mr Rowland, “Mr Hope came from a sick bed to help us. Do not distrust him. Indeed he deserves better from us.”“Pray forgive me,” said the miserable mother. “I do not well know what I am saying. But I will atone for all if you save my child.”“Priscilla!” cried her brother, from the doorway, against which he was leaning. His tone of wonder was lost as Walcot entered, and the study was left for the conference of the medical men.As the gentlemen went upstairs to Matilda’s room, they saw one child here, and another there, peeping about, in silence and dismay. As Hope put his hand on the head of one in passing, Mr Rowland said:“There is a carriage coming for them presently, to take them away. Anna and George are now with Miss Young, and she will take them all away. She is very good: but I knew we might depend upon her—upon her heart, and her forgiveness. Ah! you hear the poor child’s voice. That shows you the way.”Matilda was wandering, and, for the moment, talking very loud. Something about grandmamma seeing her dance, and “When I am married,” struck the ear as Hope entered her chamber, and entirely overset the mother. Matilda was soon in a stupor again.It was impossible to hold out much prospect of her recovery. It was painful to every one to hear how Mrs Rowland attempted to bribe Mr Hope, by promises of doing him justice, to exert himself to the utmost in Matilda’s behalf. He turned away from her, again and again, with a disgust which his compassion could scarcely restrain. Philip was so far roused by the few words which had been let drop below-stairs, as to choose to hear what passed now, in the antechamber to the patient’s room. It was he who decidedly interposed at last. He sent his brother-in-law to Matilda’s bedside, dismissed Mr Walcot from the room, and then said—“A very few minutes will suffice, I believe, sister, to relieve your mind: and they will be well spent. Tell us what you mean by what you have been saying so often within this quarter of an hour. As you hope in Heaven—as you dare to ask God to spare your child, tell us the extent to which you feel that you have injured Mr Hope.”Hope sank down into the window-seat by which he had been standing. He thought the whole story of his love was now coming out. He waited for the first words as for a thunderclap. The first words were—“Oh, Philip! I am the most wretched woman living! I never saw it so strongly before; I believe I did it with an idea of good to you; but I burned a letter of Margaret’s to you.”“What letter? When?”“The day you left us last—the day you were in the shrubbery all the morning—the day the children found the shavings burnt.”“What was in the letter? Did you read it?”“No; I dared not.”“What made you burn it?”“I was afraid you would go to her, and that your engagement would come on again.”“Then what you told me—what made me break it off—could not have been true.”“No, it was not—not all true.”“What was true, and what was not?”Mrs Rowland did not answer, but looked timidly at Mr Hope. Now was the moment for him to speak.“It was true,” said he, “that, at the very beginning of my acquaintance with Hester and Margaret, I preferred Margaret—and that my family discerned that I did—as true as that Hester has long been the beloved of my heart—beloved as—but I cannot speak of my wife, of my home, in the hearing of one who has endeavoured to profane both. All I need say is that neither Hester nor Margaret ever knew where my first transient fancy lighted, while they both know—know as they know their own hearts—where it has fixed. It is not true that Margaret ever loved any one but you, Enderby; and Mrs Rowland cannot truly say that she ever did.”“What was it then that Margaret confided to my mother?” asked Enderby, turning to his sister.“I cannot tell what possessed me at the time to say so, but that I thought I was doing the best for your happiness—but—but, Philip, I really believe now, that Margaret never did love any one but you. I know nothing to the contrary.”“But my mother?”“She knew very little of any troubles in Mr Hope’s family; and—and what she did hear was all from me.”“Do you mean that all you told me of Margaret’s confidences to my mother was false?”There was no answer; but Mrs Rowland’s pale cheeks grew paler.“Oh God! what can Margaret have thought of me all this time?” cried Philip.“I can tell you what she has thought, I believe,” said Hope. “Her brother and sister have read her innocent mind, as you yourself might have done, if your faith in her had been what she deserved. She has believed that you loved her, and that you love her still. She has believed that some one—that Mrs Rowland traduced her to you: and in her generosity, she blames you for nothing but that you would not see and hear her—that you went away on the receipt of her letter—of that letter which it now appears you never saw.”“Where is she?” cried Enderby, striding to the door.“She is not at home. You cannot find her at this moment: and if you could, you must hear me first. You remember the caution I gave you when we last conversed—in the abbey, and again in the meadows.”“I do; and I will observe it now.”“You remember that she is unaware—”“That you ever—that that interview with Mrs Grey ever took place? She shall never learn it from me. It is one of those facts which have ceased to exist—which is absolutely dead, and should be buried in oblivion. You hear, Priscilla?”She bowed her head.“You believe that—.”“Say no more, brother. Do not humble me further. I will make what reparation I can—indeed I will—and then perhaps God will spare my child.”Hope’s passing reflection was, “How alike is the superstition of the ignorant and of the wicked! My poor neighbours stealing to the conjuror’s tent in the lane, and this wretched lady, hope alike to bribe Heaven in their extremity—they by gifts and rites, she by remorse and reparation.—How different from the faith which say; ‘Not as I will, but as thou wilt!’”“WhereisMargaret? Will you tell me?” asked Enderby, impatiently. “But before I see her, I ought to ask forgiveness from you, Hope. You find how cruelly I have been deceived—by what incredible falsehood—. But,” glancing at his pale sister, “we will speak no more of that. If, in the midst of all this error and wretchedness, I have hurt your feelings more than my false persuasions rendered necessary... I hope you will forgive me.”“And me! Will you forgive me?” asked Mrs Rowland, faintly.“There is nothing to pardon in you,” said Hope to Philip. “Your belief in what your own sister told you in so much detail can scarcely be called a weakness; and you did and said nothing to me that was not warranted by what you believed.—And I forgive you, madam. I will do what I can to relieve your present affliction; and, as long as you attempt no further injustice towards my family, no words shall be spoken by any of us to remind you of what is past.”“You are very good, Mr Hope.”“I tell you plainly,” he resumed, “that you cannot injure us beyond a certain point. You cannot make it goodness in us to forget what is past. It is of far less consequence to us what you and others think of us than what we think of our neighbours. Our chief sorrow has been the spectacle of yourself in your dealings with us. We shall be thankful to be reminded of it no more. And now enough of this.”“WhereisMargaret?” again asked Enderby, as if in despair of an answer.“She is nursing Mrs Howell. As soon as I have seen this poor child again, I will go home, and take care that Margaret is prepared to see you. Remember how great the surprise, the mystery, must be to her.”“If the surprise were all—” said Philip.—“But will she hear me? Will she forgive me? Will she trust me?”“Was there ever a woman who really loved who would not hear, would not forgive, would not trust?” said Hope, smiling. “I must not answer for Margaret; but I think I may answer for woman in the abstract.”“I will follow you in an hour, Hope.”“Do so. Now, madam.”And Hope followed Mrs Rowland again to the bedside of her dying child.
A few days after Morris’s return, she told Margaret that the tidings in the village of Miss Rowland’s illness were not good. Mrs Rowland was quite as sure as ever that, if anybody could cure Matilda, it was Mr Walcot; but Mr Walcot himself looked anxious; and a bed had been put up for him in the room next to the sick child. Margaret wondered why Mr Rowland did not send to Blickley for further advice: but Morris thought that Mrs Rowland would not give up her perfect faith in Mr Walcot, if all her children should die before her face.
When Morris had left the room, Margaret was absorbed in speculations, as she played with her sister’s infant—speculations on the little life of children, and on their death. Her memory followed Matilda through every circumstance in which she had seen her. The poor little girl’s very attitude, voice, and words—words full, alas! of folly and vanity—rose again upon her eye and ear, in immediate contrast with the image of death, and the solemnity of the life to come. In the midst of these thoughts came tears of shame and self-reproach; for another thought (how low! how selfish!) thrust itself in among them—that she was secure for the present from Philip’s departure—that he would not leave Deerbrook while Matilda was in a critical state. As these tears rolled down her cheeks, the baby looked full in her face, and caught the infection of grief.
He hung his little lip, and looked so woe-begone, that Margaret dashed away the signs of her sorrow, and spoke gaily to him; and, as the sun shone in at the moment upon the lustres on the mantelpiece, she set the glass-drops in motion, and let the baby try to catch the bright colours that danced upon the walls and ceiling. At this moment, Hester burst in with a countenance of dismay.
“Margaret, my husband has a headache!”
A headache was no trifle in these days.
“Anything more than a headache?” asked Margaret. “No other feeling of illness? There is nothing to wonder at in a mere headache. It is very surprising that he has not had it before, with all his toil and want of sleep.”
“He declares it is a trifle,” said Hester: “but I see he can hardly hold up. What shall I do?”
“Make him lie down and rest, and let me go to Mrs Howell instead of you. She will be a little disappointed; but that cannot be helped. She must put up with my services to-day. Now, do not frighten yourself, as if no one ever had a headache without having a fever.”
“I shall desire Morris to let no one in; and to bring no messages to her master while his headache lasts.”
“Very right. I will tell her as I go for my bonnet. One more kiss before I go, baby. Do not wait tea for me, Hester. I cannot say when I shall be back.”
Margaret had been gone to Mrs Howell’s about an hour and a half, when there was a loud and hasty knock at the door of the corner-house. It roused Hope from a doze into which he had just fallen, and provoked Hester accordingly. There was a parley between Morris and somebody in the hall; and presently a voice was heard calling loudly upon Mr Hope. Hester could not prevent her husband from springing from the bed, and going out upon the stairs. Mr Rowland was already half-way up, looking almost beside himself with grief.
“You must excuse me, Mr Hope—you must not judge me hardly;—if you are ill, I am sorry... sir; but sir, my child is dying. We fear she is dying, sir; and you must come, and see if anything can save her. I shall never forgive myself for going on as we have been doing. She has been sacrificed—fairly sacrificed, I fear.”
“Nay, Mr Rowland, I must comfort you there,” said Hope, as they walked rapidly along the street. “I have had occasion to see a great deal of Mr Walcot and his professional conduct, in the course of the last few weeks; and I am certain that he has a very competent knowledge of his business. I assure you he shows more talent, more power altogether, in his professional than his unprofessional conduct; and in this particular disease he has now had much experience.”
“God bless you for saying so, my dear sir! It is like you—always generous, always just and kind! You must forgive us, Mr Hope. At a time like this, you must overlook all causes of offence. They are very great, I know; but you will not visit them upon us now.”
“We have only to do with the present now,” said Hope. “Not a word about the past, I entreat you.”
Mrs Rowland, to-day reckless of everything but her child, was standing out on the steps, watching, as for the last hope for her Matilda.
“She is much worse, Mr Hope; suddenly and alarmingly worse. This way: follow me.”
Hope would speak with Mr Walcot first. As he entered the study, to await Mr Walcot, Philip passed out. They did not speak.
“Oh, Philip! speak to Mr Hope!” cried Mrs Rowland. “For God’s sake do not do anything to offend him now!”
“I will do everything in my power, madam, to save your child,” said Hope. “Do not fear that the conduct of her relations will be allowed to injure her.”
“My love,” said Mr Rowland, “Mr Hope came from a sick bed to help us. Do not distrust him. Indeed he deserves better from us.”
“Pray forgive me,” said the miserable mother. “I do not well know what I am saying. But I will atone for all if you save my child.”
“Priscilla!” cried her brother, from the doorway, against which he was leaning. His tone of wonder was lost as Walcot entered, and the study was left for the conference of the medical men.
As the gentlemen went upstairs to Matilda’s room, they saw one child here, and another there, peeping about, in silence and dismay. As Hope put his hand on the head of one in passing, Mr Rowland said:
“There is a carriage coming for them presently, to take them away. Anna and George are now with Miss Young, and she will take them all away. She is very good: but I knew we might depend upon her—upon her heart, and her forgiveness. Ah! you hear the poor child’s voice. That shows you the way.”
Matilda was wandering, and, for the moment, talking very loud. Something about grandmamma seeing her dance, and “When I am married,” struck the ear as Hope entered her chamber, and entirely overset the mother. Matilda was soon in a stupor again.
It was impossible to hold out much prospect of her recovery. It was painful to every one to hear how Mrs Rowland attempted to bribe Mr Hope, by promises of doing him justice, to exert himself to the utmost in Matilda’s behalf. He turned away from her, again and again, with a disgust which his compassion could scarcely restrain. Philip was so far roused by the few words which had been let drop below-stairs, as to choose to hear what passed now, in the antechamber to the patient’s room. It was he who decidedly interposed at last. He sent his brother-in-law to Matilda’s bedside, dismissed Mr Walcot from the room, and then said—
“A very few minutes will suffice, I believe, sister, to relieve your mind: and they will be well spent. Tell us what you mean by what you have been saying so often within this quarter of an hour. As you hope in Heaven—as you dare to ask God to spare your child, tell us the extent to which you feel that you have injured Mr Hope.”
Hope sank down into the window-seat by which he had been standing. He thought the whole story of his love was now coming out. He waited for the first words as for a thunderclap. The first words were—
“Oh, Philip! I am the most wretched woman living! I never saw it so strongly before; I believe I did it with an idea of good to you; but I burned a letter of Margaret’s to you.”
“What letter? When?”
“The day you left us last—the day you were in the shrubbery all the morning—the day the children found the shavings burnt.”
“What was in the letter? Did you read it?”
“No; I dared not.”
“What made you burn it?”
“I was afraid you would go to her, and that your engagement would come on again.”
“Then what you told me—what made me break it off—could not have been true.”
“No, it was not—not all true.”
“What was true, and what was not?”
Mrs Rowland did not answer, but looked timidly at Mr Hope. Now was the moment for him to speak.
“It was true,” said he, “that, at the very beginning of my acquaintance with Hester and Margaret, I preferred Margaret—and that my family discerned that I did—as true as that Hester has long been the beloved of my heart—beloved as—but I cannot speak of my wife, of my home, in the hearing of one who has endeavoured to profane both. All I need say is that neither Hester nor Margaret ever knew where my first transient fancy lighted, while they both know—know as they know their own hearts—where it has fixed. It is not true that Margaret ever loved any one but you, Enderby; and Mrs Rowland cannot truly say that she ever did.”
“What was it then that Margaret confided to my mother?” asked Enderby, turning to his sister.
“I cannot tell what possessed me at the time to say so, but that I thought I was doing the best for your happiness—but—but, Philip, I really believe now, that Margaret never did love any one but you. I know nothing to the contrary.”
“But my mother?”
“She knew very little of any troubles in Mr Hope’s family; and—and what she did hear was all from me.”
“Do you mean that all you told me of Margaret’s confidences to my mother was false?”
There was no answer; but Mrs Rowland’s pale cheeks grew paler.
“Oh God! what can Margaret have thought of me all this time?” cried Philip.
“I can tell you what she has thought, I believe,” said Hope. “Her brother and sister have read her innocent mind, as you yourself might have done, if your faith in her had been what she deserved. She has believed that you loved her, and that you love her still. She has believed that some one—that Mrs Rowland traduced her to you: and in her generosity, she blames you for nothing but that you would not see and hear her—that you went away on the receipt of her letter—of that letter which it now appears you never saw.”
“Where is she?” cried Enderby, striding to the door.
“She is not at home. You cannot find her at this moment: and if you could, you must hear me first. You remember the caution I gave you when we last conversed—in the abbey, and again in the meadows.”
“I do; and I will observe it now.”
“You remember that she is unaware—”
“That you ever—that that interview with Mrs Grey ever took place? She shall never learn it from me. It is one of those facts which have ceased to exist—which is absolutely dead, and should be buried in oblivion. You hear, Priscilla?”
She bowed her head.
“You believe that—.”
“Say no more, brother. Do not humble me further. I will make what reparation I can—indeed I will—and then perhaps God will spare my child.”
Hope’s passing reflection was, “How alike is the superstition of the ignorant and of the wicked! My poor neighbours stealing to the conjuror’s tent in the lane, and this wretched lady, hope alike to bribe Heaven in their extremity—they by gifts and rites, she by remorse and reparation.—How different from the faith which say; ‘Not as I will, but as thou wilt!’”
“WhereisMargaret? Will you tell me?” asked Enderby, impatiently. “But before I see her, I ought to ask forgiveness from you, Hope. You find how cruelly I have been deceived—by what incredible falsehood—. But,” glancing at his pale sister, “we will speak no more of that. If, in the midst of all this error and wretchedness, I have hurt your feelings more than my false persuasions rendered necessary... I hope you will forgive me.”
“And me! Will you forgive me?” asked Mrs Rowland, faintly.
“There is nothing to pardon in you,” said Hope to Philip. “Your belief in what your own sister told you in so much detail can scarcely be called a weakness; and you did and said nothing to me that was not warranted by what you believed.—And I forgive you, madam. I will do what I can to relieve your present affliction; and, as long as you attempt no further injustice towards my family, no words shall be spoken by any of us to remind you of what is past.”
“You are very good, Mr Hope.”
“I tell you plainly,” he resumed, “that you cannot injure us beyond a certain point. You cannot make it goodness in us to forget what is past. It is of far less consequence to us what you and others think of us than what we think of our neighbours. Our chief sorrow has been the spectacle of yourself in your dealings with us. We shall be thankful to be reminded of it no more. And now enough of this.”
“WhereisMargaret?” again asked Enderby, as if in despair of an answer.
“She is nursing Mrs Howell. As soon as I have seen this poor child again, I will go home, and take care that Margaret is prepared to see you. Remember how great the surprise, the mystery, must be to her.”
“If the surprise were all—” said Philip.—“But will she hear me? Will she forgive me? Will she trust me?”
“Was there ever a woman who really loved who would not hear, would not forgive, would not trust?” said Hope, smiling. “I must not answer for Margaret; but I think I may answer for woman in the abstract.”
“I will follow you in an hour, Hope.”
“Do so. Now, madam.”
And Hope followed Mrs Rowland again to the bedside of her dying child.