“Set your heart at rest.The fairyland buys not that child of me.”—“Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“Set your heart at rest.The fairyland buys not that child of me.”
—“Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Anexpedition to Minsterham finished the visit of Dolores and her faithful “Nag,” whose abilities as an assistant were highly appreciated, and who came home brilliantly happy to keep her remaining holiday with Magdalen; while Dolores repaired to Clipstone. Bernard had been obliged to go to London, to report himself to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood, but his wife and little girl were the reigning joy at Clipstone. Phyllis looked very white, much changed from the buxom girl who had gone out with her father two years ago. She had never recovered the loss of the little boy, and suffered the more from her husband’s inability to bear expression, and it was an immense comfort to her to speak freely of her little one to her mother.
The little Lilias looked frail, but was healthy, happy, and as advanced as a well-trained companion child of six could well be, and the darling of the young aunts, who expected Dolores to echo their raptures, and declare the infinite superiority of the Ceylonese to “that little cornstalk,” as Valetta said.
“There’s no difficulty as to that,” said Dolores, laughing. “The poor little cornstalk looks as if she had grown up under a blight.”
“It is a grand romance though,” said Mysie; “only I wish that Cousin Harry had had any constancy in him.”
“I wonder if Magdalen will adopt her!” was Valetta’s bold suggestion.
“Poor Magdalen has had quite adopting enough to do,” said Mysie.
“Besides,” said Dolores, “Sister Angela will never let her go. And certainly I never saw any one moretakingthan Sister Angela. She is so full of life, and of a certain unexpectedness, and one knows she has done such noble work. I want to see more of her.”
“You will,” said Mysie. “Mamma is going to ask her to come, for Phyllis says there is no one that Bernard cares for so much. She was his own companion sister.”
“Magdalen might have the little cornstalk,” said Valetta.
“Well,” said Mysie, “it is rather funny to have two—what shall I say?—willow widows, and a child that is neither of theirs! How will they settle it?”
Magdalen had heard from Agatha on the first evening of the arrival of the sister, and the probability of the identification of little Lena’s father with the Henry Merrifield of her former years, and she was deeply touched by the bestowal of her name—so much that Nag avoided saying more, but only kissed her and went to bed.
The Merrifields discussed the subject dispassionately.
Sir Jasper recollected what his brother had written to him of his anxieties and disappointment in his son Henry, and of his absconding from Manitoba, since which time all trace of him had been lost, except in the restoration to the two brothers in Canada. To the surprise and indignation of Sir Jasper, there had been no attempt to follow it up.
“If my poor brother Edgar had done anything of the kind,” said Bernard, “none of us would have rested.”
So far as they could put recollections together this act of restitution must have been made soon after the connection with Fulbert Underwood began, perhaps at the time of the wife’s death. If there had been another letter, as Sister Angela thought, it was more recent, certainly within the last two years.
Captain Samuel Merrifield, of Stokesley, had been on a voyage for four years, and had not long been at home. His wife had been charged with the forwarding of the letters that she thought of immediate interest, and there was an accumulation of those that had been left for his return, as yet not looked over.
Of course, Sir Jasper impelled him to plunge into these, and by and by one came to light, which Mrs. Merrifield had taken “for only some Australian gold mines,” and left to wait, especially as it was directed to his father instead of himself.
It was a letter full of repentance, and entreaties for forgiveness, describing in part poor Henry’s past life, and adding that the best thing that had ever befallen him was his association with “such a fellow as Underwood.”
It was to be gathered that Fulbert’s uprightness of mind had led him to the first impulse of restitution, and he went on to mention his first hasty marriage and the loss of his wife, with the kindness of the Carrigaboola Sisterhood; above all, of Sister Angela, and declaring his love and admiration for her, and his sense that she was the one person who could keep him straight now that her brother was gone.
He had more than once offered to her, but he found that her brother had solemnly charged her not to accept him till he had made all his past clear before her, and could show her that he was acknowledged by his family, and had his father’s forgiveness, and for this he humbly craved, as one deeply sensible of his own demerits.
It was piteous to think of the poor fellow waiting and hoping for an answer to such a letter as this, and dying without one, while all the time it was lying unread in the Captain’s desk, and no one even knew of the changed life and fresh hopes. Sir Jasper was much moved by it; but Sam said, “Ay, ay! poor Harry always was a plausible fellow!” and his wife was chiefly concerned to show that the suppression was not by her fault. Sir Jasper had brought the will with him, and the certificate of the child’s baptism.
Both were met with a little hesitation. So little had been said in the letter about the marriage that the Captain wanted to know more, and also whether the will had been properly proved in Australia, and whether it had force in England. In that case he was surely the right person to have the custody of his brother’s child. His wife, who had been bred up in a different school, was not by any means satisfied that she should be consigned to a member of a Sisterhood.
David came to Stokesley, saw the letter, and agreed with his brother on the expediency of obtaining full proof of the validity of the will in both Queensland and England, and put in hand the writing of inquiries for the purpose, from the legal authorities at Brisbane, for which purpose Angela had to be consulted.
She had been (having left the budgerigars to the delight of Pearl and Awdrey), in the meantime, at Vale Leston, enjoying the atmosphere of peace that prevailed wherever were Clement and Geraldine, and hailed with delight by all her old village friends, as well as Lady Vanderkist and her somewhat thinned flock.
She won Adrian’s heart by skating or golfing with him, and even, on one or two hunting days, joining in his pursuit of the chase, being altogether, as he said, ever so much better a fellow than even his youngest sister Joan, and entrancing them all with tales of kangaroos. Lena had really a tame kangaroo at Carrigaboola. Oh, why did they not bring it home as well as Ben, the polly? She quite pined for it, and had tears in her eyes when it was spoken of.
Indeed the joyous young Vanderkists were too much for the delicate little girl, and sorry as Angela was to leave Vale Leston, she was not ungrateful for an invitation to the Goyle, where there was more room for them than at Clipstone in the holidays, and with the Bernard Underwoods making it their headquarters.
Lena and she were much better and happier with “Sister” always at her service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her. Paula was in a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. “Paula is a born Sister,” said Angela, “a much truer one than I have ever been, for there does not seem to be any demon of waywardness to drive her wild.”
These talks with Magdalen, often prolonged hours after the young people had gone to bed, were a great solace to both the elders. Girls like Mysie Merrifield and Phyllis Devereux thought sitting up to converse a propensity peculiar to themselves, and to their own age, of new experiences and speculations; but the two “old girls,” whose experiences were not new, and whose speculations had a certain material foundation, they were equally fascinating.
There were no small jealousies in either of them—“willow widows”—though Mysie’s name stuck. There was nothing but comfort to Magdalen in the certainty of the ultimate “coming home” of one who had finished a delusive dream of her younger days, and been yearned after with a heartache now quenched; and Angela, who had never been the least in love with Henry Merrifield, could quite afford her interest in the scanty records of his younger days, and fill up all she knew of the measure of the latter and better days. There was another bond, for Mrs. Best’s daughter was, “as distances go,” a neighbour to Carrigaboola, and resorted thither on great occasions.
Angela’s vision began to be, to take Magdalen and her sisters out to Carrigaboola, where a superior school for colonists’ daughters was much needed, and where Paula might enter the Sisterhood. She longed all the more when she saw how much better Magdalen could deal with Lena as to teaching and restraint than she could. The child was very backward, and could hardly read words of one syllable, though she knew any amount of Scripture history and legends of Saints, and was very fairly intelligent; but though she was devoted to “Sister,” always hanging on her, and never quite happy when out of sight of her, she had hardly any notion of prompt obedience or of giving up her own way.
Angela’s visit to Vale Leston had been partly spoilt by the little girl’s fretful worry at the elder children, and by the somewhat uncalled for fears that all the Vanderkists were hard on the poor little colonial damsel; but whether it was the air of Rock Quay, or the quiet influence of Miss Prescott, Lena certainly improved in health at the Goyle, and was much more amenable, and less rudely shy. But her guardian trembled at hearing that, pending Captain Merrifield’s correspondence with Brisbane, the sisters, Susan and Elizabeth, were coming to Miss Mohun’s to see their niece, there being no room for them at Clipstone.
They came—Susan, plump, comfortable and good-natured looking, as like an apricot as ever, with an air many years more than three above her sister Bessie, who as ever was brisk and bright, scarcely middle aged in face, dress or demeanour. They arrived too late for visiting, and only dined at Clipstone to be introduced to Bernard Underwood, and see their cousin Phyllis, whom they had once met when all were small children. Dolores was much amused, as she told her Aunt Jane, to see how gratified they were at the “sanguine” colouring of Phyllis and Wilfred, quite Merrifields, they said, though Phyllis with auburn eyes and hair was far handsomer than any other of the clan had ever been; and Wilfred had simply commonplace carrots and freckles.
“The fun is,” said Jane, “to remember how some of us Mohuns have sighed at Lily’s having any yellow children, and, till we saw Stokesley specimens, wondering where the strain came from! As if it signified!”
“It does in some degree,” said Dolores; “something hereditary goes with the complexion.”
“I don’t know,” said Jane. “I believe too much is made in these days of heredity, and by those who believe least in the Bible indications on the effect, forgetting the counteracting grace.”
“Well,” said Dolores, “Wilfred was always abête noireto me—no, notnoire—in my younger days, and I can’t help being glad he is not of our strain! Though you know the likeness was the first step to identifying that poor little girl.”
“Poor child! I am afraid she will be a bone of contention.”
The two aunts were at Clipstone early; and might be satisfied with the true Merrifield tints of Magdalen Susanna, but perhaps she had been over much warned to be gracious, for the very contrary was the effect. She had been very civil to her great-aunt Lilias, and had allowed both her uncles to take her up in their arms; but she retreated upon Angela, planted an elbow on the well-known lap, turned her back, and put a skinny little finger in her mouth by way of answer to Susan’s advances, advances which had hardly ever before been repelled even by the most untamable of infants.
Angela tried to coax, lift her up and turn her round; but this only led to the shoulder being the hiding-place, and it might be suspected that there was a lurking perception that these strangers asserted a closer claim than the beloved “Sister.” She would not even respond to Susan’s doll or Bessie’s picture book; and Bessie advised leaving her alone, and turned to the window with Agatha, who was nothing loth to tell of her Bexley and Minsterham experiences.
Angela tried to talk about the voyage, or any thing that might save the child from being discussed or courted; but Susan’s heart was in the subject, and she had not enough tact or knowledge of the world to turn away from it. Regret for the past was strong within her, and she could not keep from asking how much “little Magdalen” (at full length) remembered of her father, how much she had been with him, whether he had much altered, whether there were a photograph of him, and a great deal more, with tears in her eyes and a trembling in her voice which made Angela feel much for her, even while vexed at her pertinacity, for the child was by no means the baby she looked like, but perfectly well able to listen and understand, and this consciousness made her own communications much briefer and more reserved than otherwise they would have been.
Bessie, with more perception, saw the embarrassment, turned round from Agatha, went up to the cockatoo in his cage, and asked in a pleasant voice if Magdalen would show him to her, and tell her his name. Angela was glad enough to break off poor Susan’s questioning, and come forward, with the child still clinging, to incite the bird to display the rose colour under his crest, put up a grey claw to shake hands, and show off his vocabulary, laughing herself and acting merriment as she did so, in hopes to inspire Lena.
“Come, Ben, tell how you were picked up under a gum tree, quite a baby, a little grey ball, and brought over in the shepherd’s pocket for a present to the little Boss, and how we fed you and nursed you till you turned all rose-colour and lovely! There! put up your crest and make red revelations. Can’t you speak? Fetch him a banana, Lena. That will open his mouth.”
At sight of the banana, the bird put his head on one side and croaked in a hoarse whisper, “Yo ho!”
“No, you need not be afraid of any more sailors’ language,” said Angela. “They were as careful as possible on board. I overheard once, ‘Hold hard, Tom, Polly Pink is up there, and she’s a regular lady born!”
Whereupon Polly indulged in a ridiculous chuckle, holding the banana cleverly in one foot, while Angela laughed and chattered more and more nervously, but only succeeded in disgusting the visitors by what Susan at least took for unbecoming flippancy.
“ThatSister,” said Susan, as they drove away, “does not seem to me at all the person to have the charge of Henry’s poor little girl!”
“I wish she had not thrust herself in,” said Bessie, “to prevent me from getting on with the child over the cockatoo.”
“She calls herself a Sister! I don’t understand it, for she seems to have been bent on marrying poor Henry.”
“She never took any vows.”
“Then why does she wear a ridiculous cap over all that hair?”
By and by they were met by Bernard Underwood striding along. “Holloa! have you seen Angel and her darling? She is a perfect slave to the little thing, and one only gets fragments of her.”
“She seems very fond of her,” said Bessie.
“Just kept her alive, you see. Poor old Angel! She is all for one thing at a time! Are you going up to Clipstone?”
“I think we shall find Phyllis at Beechcroft.”
“Yes, she is driving there to lunch, and Angel is to bring the little cornstalk over to make friends with our Lily! I trust the creature goes to sleep now, and I may get a word out of Angel!” Wherewith he dashed on, and the two ladies agreed that “those Underwoods seemed to be curiously impulsive.”
They were, however, much better satisfied with the Ceylonese Lily, who was a very well trained civilised specimen, conversing very prettily over one of Aunt Jane’s picture books, which Bessie looked at with her, and showing herself fully able to read the titles beneath, a feat of which Lena was quite incapable, though she was less on the defensive than she had shown herself at the Goyle, and Angela was far more at her ease than when she was conscious that “Field’s” original love was watching the introduction to his sisters. Besides, Bernard’s presence was sunshine to her, and the two expanded into bright reminiscences and merry comparisons of their two lives, absolutely delightful to themselves, and to Phyllis and her Aunt Jane, and which would have been the same to Elizabeth, if she had not been worried at Susan’s evident misunderstanding of—and displeasure at—the quips and cranks of the happy brother and sister; also she was bent on promoting an intercourse between Lily and Lena, over the doll she had brought for the former. She was a little hurt that Lena had not been accompanied by the blue-eyed article with preposterously long eyelashes that had been bestowed on her at the Goyle; but the little Australian had no opinion of dolls, and had let the one bought for her at Sydney be thrown overboard by the ship’s monkey.
“That was cruel!” said Lily, fondling her black-eyed specimen.
“She could not feel,” reasoned Lena, with contempt.
“I don’t know,” said Lily, knitting her brows. “It’s notallmake believe! I do love my Rosamunda Rowena, and she loves me, and I shall tell her not to be jealous of this dear Betsinda. For, do you know, when Rosamunda was ill in the Red Sea, father carried her up and down on deck, and made her a dear little deck chair.”
“But she is not alive. Shecouldn’tbe,” sighed Lena. “I like my Ben and my kangaroo! Oh, I do want to go back to my kangaroo!”
“And does Lily want to go back to her riki-tiki?” asked Lily’s father, lifting a little girl on each knee, so that they might bevis-à-vis, when certainly his own had the advantage in beauty, as she answered, leaning against him, “Granny’s better than riki-tiki!”
For which pretty speech some of the ladies gave her much credit; but her father, with a tender arm round her, said, “Ah! you are a sentimental little pussy-cat! Is anything here as good as Carrigaboola? Eh, Lena?”
But Lena resolutely shook her carrots; but kept silence, while Bernard turned over the leaves of a great book of natural history, till as a page was displayed with a large kangaroo under a blue-gum tree, with a yellow wattle tree beside him, her lips quivered, her face puckered, and she burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying; “Oh! I want to go home, home! Sister, Sister, take me home!”
Angela was in a minute beside her, took her within loving arms, and carried her off.
“Tender companions of our serious days,Who colour with your kisses, smiles and tears,Life’s worn web woven over wasted ways.”—Lowell.
“Tender companions of our serious days,Who colour with your kisses, smiles and tears,Life’s worn web woven over wasted ways.”
—Lowell.
Therewas a good deal of worry and anxiety for some little time, while correspondence was going on about Henry Merrifield’s will, and in the meantime Angela decided to board with Miss Prescott, since her charge was certainly much better in health there; and besides, as Mrs. Bernard Merrifield was naturally at Clipstone, it became the head quarters of her husband, though he made many excursions to his own people, and on business affairs to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood in London.
And Clipstone suited him well for his holiday. Sir Jasper had, of course, a certain amount of intercourse with the garrison at Avoncester, and the officers stationed there at present had already some acquaintance with Bernard Underwood, who was known to be a champion in Ceylon in all athletic sports, especially polo and cricket. Tall and well made, he had been devoted to all such games in his youth, and they had kept up his health in his sedentary occupation. Now, in his leisure time, his prowess did much to efface the fame of the much younger and slighter Alexis White, and, so far as might be, Angela enjoyed the games with him, keeping well within bounds, but always feeling activity a wholesome outlet for her superfluous strength, and, above all, delighting in an interval of being a child again with her Bear of old times; and her superabundant life, energy, and fun amazed all, especially by the contrast with her poor little languid charge, who seemed, as Jane Mohun said, centuries older.
The Merrifield lads were also devoted to him. Even Fergus was somewhat distracted from his allegiance to Dolores and her experiments, and in the very few days that Christmas afforded for skating, could think of nothing else.
And as to Wilfred, his whole mind seemed to be set on sports, and marble works to be only an incident thrown in. Bernard, whom he followed assiduously, and who took him to Avoncester, and introduced him to young officers, began to have doubts whether he had done wisely. Bernard had, in his time, vexed Felix’s soul by idleness and amusement, but he had been one betted upon, not himself given to betting. He loved football and cricket for their bodily excitement, not the fictitious one of a looker on, or reader of papers, and it struck him that Wilfred knew a good deal too much about this more dangerous side of races and athletics.
He said so to Angela, and she answered, “Oh, nonsense! Young men are out of it if they don’t know the winning horse. EvenPurhad to be up to the Derby.”
And Angela had her own bitter trial in the decision of the lawyers. Not only was the signature of the will unsatisfactory, from the confusion between Field and Merrifield, but the two witnesses failed to be traced, John Shepherd and George Jones were not to be identified, and though Brisbane might accept wills easily, an English court of law required more certainty. The little daughter being the only child and natural heiress, this was not felt to be doing her any injury; but the decision deprived her of the guardian her father had chosen, and Angela was in despair. She was ready to write to thePursuivant, to the Bishop of Albertstown, to the Lord Chancellor, with an exposition of the wicked injustice and hardness of heart of lawyers, and the inexpedience of taking the poor child from her earliest motherly friend, expressly chosen by her father. All Bernard’s common sense and Magdalen’s soothing were needed to make her hold her peace, when correspondence made it plain that the guardianship being assumed by the uncles, Captain Merrifield would not hear for a moment of the scheme of taking the child out to Carrigaboola. In his opinion, and his sister Susan’s, the only fit thing to be done with her was to place her with the two aunts at Coalham to be educated. He came down to Rock Quay to inspect her. It was a cold, raw day, with the moors wrapped in mist, and the poor little maid looked small, peaky and pinched. He was sure that the dry winds of the north were what she needed, wanted to carry her off immediately, and looked regardless of Angela’s opinion, though backed by Miss Prescott, that it would be highly dangerous to take the delicate child of a semi-tropical climate off in the depth of winter to a northerly town. Angela walked off to ask Dr. Dagger to inspect the child and give his opinion, while Captain Sam repaired to Clipstone to visit his relations and lunch with them.
He did not meet with all the sympathy he expected. Lady Merrifield said that Coalham had not agreed with her own son Harry, and that little Lena ought not to be taken there till after the cold winds of spring were over; and her daughters all chimed in with a declaration that Angela Underwood was perfectly devoted to the little one, and that no one else could make her happy.
“Petting her! spoiling her!” scoffed the Captain. “Why, Susan and Bessie were full of the contrast with your little girl.”
“Health,” began Phyllis.
“An Indian child too!” he went on. “Just showing what a little good sense in the training can do! No, indeed! Since I am to be her guardian, I have no notion of swerving from my duty, and letting poor Hal’s child be bred up to Sisterhoods and all that flummery.”
“It will just break Angela’s heart,” cried Valetta, with tears in her eyes, at which the Captain looked contemptuous.
“I must say,” added Bernard, “that I should think it little short of murderous to take that unlucky child from the one woman who understands her up into the bleak north at this time of year.”
“Decidedly!” added Sir Jasper. “Miss Underwood deserves every consideration in dealing with the child who has been always her sole charge.”
Wherewith he changed the conversation by a question about Stokesley; but he held to his dictum when alone with his nephew, and as he was the only person for whose opinion Captain Sam had any respect, it had its effect, though there was a sense that he might be biassed by his son-in-law and his herd of womanfolk, and that he did not partake Mrs. Samuel Merrifield’s dislike to the very name of Sister or of anything not commonplace.
Angela obtained Dr. Dagger’s opinion to reinforce her own and Lady Merrifield’s, and the Captain was obliged to give way so far as to consent to Magdalen, as he insisted on calling her, being allowed to remain at Arnscombe till after Easter, when her aunts were to fetch her to Coalham, there to send her to the kindergarten.
After Angela’s period of raging against law and lawyers and all the Stokesley family, and being on the verge of impertinence to Captain Merrifield, she submitted to the prospect more quietly than her friends had dared to hope. Lance had almost expected her to deport her charge, parrot and all, suddenly and secretly by an Australian liner, and had advised Bernard, on a fleeting meeting at Bexley, to be on his guard if she hinted at anything so preposterous; but Bernard shook his head, and said Angel was more to be trusted than her elders thought. “Waves and storms don’t go over us for nothing, I hope,” he said.
And he found himself right on his return. Angela had bowed her head to the inevitable, and was quietly trying to prepare her little charge for the change, accustoming her to more discipline and less petting. When Angela proposed to walk over to Clipstone with her brother on his return, and the whine was set up, “Let me go, Sister,” it was answered, “No, my dear, it is too far for you. You must stay and walk with Paula.”
“I want to go with Sister.”
“You must be a good child, and do as Sister tells you. No, I can’t have any fretting. Paula will show you how to drive your hoop. Keep her moving fast, Paula, don’t let her fret and get cold.”
And Angela actually detached the clinging hand, and put it into Paulina’s, and, holding up her finger, silenced the burst of weeping, though tears sprang to her own eyes as she resolutely turned away, and, after running out and shutting the back gate after her, put her arm with a clinging gesture into Bernard’s.
“That’s right!” he said, pressing her hand.
“Cruel,” she said, “but better by and by for her. Oh, Bear, if one could but learn to lie still and say, ‘Thou didst it,’ when it is human agency that takes away the desire of one’s eyes with a stroke.”
“The desire of thine eyes!” repeated Bernard. “How often I thought of that last February.”
It was the only time he had referred to the loss of his little boy. His wife had told her mother that he could not bear to mention it, and had poured out all her own feelings of sorrow and her struggle for cheerfulness and resignation alone with her or with Mysie; but he had shrunk from the least allusion to the little two year old Felix, who slept beneath a palm tree at Colombo.
Now, however, still holding his sister’s hand, he drifted into all the particulars of the little ways, the baby language, the dawning understanding, and the very sudden sharp illness carrying the beautiful boy away almost before they were aware of danger; and he took out the photograph from his breast, and showed her the little face, so recalling old fond remembrances. “Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead,” he repeated. “Yes, the boy is saved the wear and tear and heat and burthen of the day, but it is very hard to be thankful.”
“Ah, and it is all the harder if you have to leave your Lily.”
“If—yes; but Travismayso arrange that we can stay, or I make only one voyage out to settle matters and then come home for good. If you are still bent on Carrigaboola you might come as far as Frisco with me. I may have to go there about the Californian affairs.”
“That would be jolly. Yes, I think it will clench the matter, for I believe I am of more good at Carriga than anywhere else, though the heart of it is taken out of it for me; but one lives on and gets on somehow without a heart, or a heart set where I suppose it ought not to be entirely at least! And, indeed, I think that little one taught me better than ever before how to love.”
“That’s what the creatures are sent us for,” said Bernard, in a low voice. “And here are, looming in the distance, all the posse of girls to meet us.”
“Ah-h!” breathed Angela, withdrawing her arm. “Well, Bear, you have given me something to look forward to, whether it comes to anything or not. It will help me to be thankful. I know they are good people, and the child will do well when once the pining and bracing are over. They are her own people, and it is right.”
“Right you are, Angel!” said Bernard, with a fresh squeeze of the hand, as he resumed his own cheerful, resolute voice ere joining his sisters-in-law.
“What! Angela without her satellite!” cried Primrose.
“Too far,” murmured Angela; but Mysie tried to hush her sister, perceiving the weaning process, and respecting Angela for it.
And the next moment Angela was challenging Bernard to a game at golf.
“Weary soul and burthened soreLabouring with thy secret load.”—Keble.
“Weary soul and burthened soreLabouring with thy secret load.”
—Keble.
Theearly spring brought a new development. Thekla, who attended classes at the High School, came home with unmistakable tokens of measles, and Primrose did the same, in common with most of their contemporaries at Rockstone. Nor was there any chance that either Lily Underwood at Clipstone or Lena Merrifield at the Goyle would escape; indeed, they both showed an amount of discomfort that made it safer to keep them where they were, than to try to escape in the sharp east wind and frost.
No one was much dismayed at what all regarded as a trifling ailment, even if dignified as German. Angela owned that she regarded it as a relief, since infection might last till the summer, and the only person who was—as he owned—trying to laugh at himself with Angela, was Bernard, who could not keep out of his mind’s eye a little grave at Colombo. As he walked home, at the turning he saw a figure wearily toiling upwards, which proved to be Wilfred. “Holloa! you are at home early!”
“I had an intolerable headache!”
“Measles, eh?”
“No such thing! Once when I was a kid in Malta. But I say, Bear,” he added, coming up with quickened pace, “you could do me no end of a favour if you would advance me twenty pounds.”
“Whew!” Bernard whistled.
“There is Lady Day coming, and I can pay you then—most assuredly.” And an asseveration or two was beginning.
“Twenty pounds don’t fly promiscuously about the country,” muttered Bernard, chiefly for the sake of giving himself time.
“But I tell you I shall have a quarter from the works, and a quarter from my father (with his hand to his head). That’s—that’s—. Awful skinflints both of them! How is a man to do, so cramped up as that?”
“Oh! and how is a man to do if he spends it all beforehand?”
“I tell you, Bernard, I must have it, or—or it will break my mother’s heart! And as to my father, I’d—I’d cut my throat—I’d go to sea before he knew! Advance it to me, Bear! You know what it is to be in an awful scrape. Get me through this once and I’ll never—”
Bernard did not observe that the scrape of his boyhood over the drowned Stingo had hardly been of the magnitude that besought for twenty pounds. He waived the personal appeal, and asked, “What is the scrape?”
“Why, that intolerable swindler and ruffian, Hart, deceived me about Racket, and—”
“A horse at Avoncester?” said Bernard, light beginning to dawn on him.
“I made sure it was the only way out of it all, and they said Racket was as sure as death, and now the brute has come in third. Hart swears there was foul play, but what’s that to me? I’m done for unless you will help me over.”
“If it is a betting debt, the only safe way is to have it out with your father, and have done with it.”
“You don’t know what my father is! Just made of iron. You might as well put your hand under a Nasmyth’s hammer.” And as he saw that his hearer was unconvinced, “Besides, it is ever so much more than what I put upon Racket! That was only the way out of it! It is all up with me if he hears of it. You might as well pitch me over the cliff at once!”
“Well, what is it then?”
Incoherently, Wilfred stammered out what Bernard understood at last to mean that he had got into the habit of betting at the billiard table, surreptitiously kept up in Ivinghoe Terrace in a house of Richard White’s, not for any excessive sums, and with luck at first on his side than otherwise; but at last he had become involved for a sum not in itself very terrible to elder years, and his creditor was in great dread of pressure from his employers, and insisted on payment. Wilfred, who seemed to have a mortal terror of his father, beyond what Bernard could understand, had been unable to believe that the offence for so slight a sum might be forgiven if voluntarily confessed, had done the worst thing he could, he had paid the debt with a cheque which had, unfortunately, passed through his hands at the office, trusting in a few days to recover the amount by a bet upon the horse, in full security of success! And now!
Before the predicament was made clear, Wilfred reeled, and would have fallen if Bernard had not supported him, and he mumbled something about giddiness and dazzling, insisting at the same time that it was nothing but the miserable pickle, and that if Bernard would not see him out of it, he might as well let him lie there and have done with it.
Happily they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, and it was possible to get him into the hall before he entirely collapsed upon a chair; but seeming to recover fresh vigour from alarm at the sound of voices, he rushed at the stairs and dashed up rapidly the two flights to his own room, only throwing back the words, “Dead secret, mind!”
Bernard was glad to have made no promise, and, indeed, Wilfred’s physical condition chiefly occupied him at the moment, for one or two of the girls were hurrying in, asking what was the matter, and at the answer, “He is gone up to his room with a bad headache,” Valetta declared with satisfaction, “Then he has got it! We told him so! But he would go to the office! and, Bernard, so has Lily.”
“Pleasing information!” said Bernard, nettled and amused at the tone of triumph, while Mysie, throwing behind her the words, “It may be nothing,” went off to call Mrs. Halfpenny, who was in a state of importance and something very like pleasure. Bernard strode up to his wife’s room, leaving Valetta half-way in her exposition that when all the family had been laid low by measles at Malta, Wilfred had been a very young infant, and it had always been doubtful whether he had been franked or not; and how he had been reproached with looking ill in the morning, but had fiercely insisted on going down to the office, which he was usually glad to avoid on any excuse.
By the time the household met at dinner, it was plain that they had to resign themselves to being an infected family, though there were not many probable victims, and they were likely only to have the disorder favourably, with the exception of Wilfred, who had evidently got a severe chill, and could only be reported as very ill, though still he vehemently resented any suspicion of being subject to such a babyish complaint. But when the break up for the night was just over, Lady Merrifield came in search of Bernard, entreating him to come to speak to Wilfred, who was more and more feverish, almost light-headed, and insisting that he must speak to Bear, “Bear had not promised,” reiterating the summons, so that there was no choice but to comply with it.
He found Wilfred flushed with fever, and violently restless, starting up in bed as he entered, and crying out, “Bear, Bear, will you? will you? You did not promise!”
“I will see about it! Lie down now! There’s nothing to be done to-night.”
“But promise! promise! And not a word!”
All this was reiterated till Wilfred at last was exhausted for the time, and to a certain degree pacified by the reassuring voice in which Bernard soothed him and undertook to take the matter in hand, hardly knowing what he undertook, and only feeling the necessity of quieting the perilous excitement, and of helping the mother to bring a certain amount of tranquillity.
His own little girl was going on well, and quite capable of being amused in the morning by being compared to a lobster or a tiger lily; and Primrose was reported in an equally satisfactory state, ready either for sleep or continuous reading by her sisters. Only Wilfred was in the same, or a more anxious, state of fever; and as soon as Bernard had satisfied himself that there was no special use in his remaining in the house, he set out for the marble works office, having made up his mind as to one part of what he had expressed as “seeing about it.”
He had hardly turned into the Cliffe road before he met Captain Henderson walking up, and they exchanged distant inquiries and answers as to whether each might be thought dangerous to the other’s home; after which they forgathered, and compared notes as to invalids. The Captain had heard of Wilfred’s going home ill, and was coming, he said, to inquire.
“He seems very seriously ill,” was the answer. “I imagine there has been a chill, and a check. I was coming to speak to you about him.”
“He has spoken to you?”
Both could now consult freely. “It is a very anxious matter—not so much for the actual amount as for the habits that it shows.”
“The amount? Oh, I have made up that as regards the firm. I could not let it come before Sir Jasper, especially in the present state of things! I meant to give the young chap a desperate fright and rowing, but that will have to be deferred.”
“You must let me take it!”
“No, no. Remember, Sir Jasper was my commanding officer, and I and my wife owe everything to him. I could supply the amount, so that no one would guess from the accounts that anything had been amiss.”
Bernard could hardly allow himself to be thus relieved, but there was the comfort of knowing that Wilfred’s name was safe, and that the unstained family honour would not have to suffer shame. Still the other debts remained, of which Captain Henderson had been only vaguely suspicious, till the two took counsel on them. Wilfred had not given up the name of the person for whom he had meant to borrow from the office; but Captain Henderson had very little doubt who it was, and it was agreed that he should receive the amount through a cheque of Bernard on Brown and Travis Underwood, from Captain Henderson’s hands, with a scathing rebuke and peremptory assurance of exposure to Mr. White, and consequent dismissal, if anything more of the same kind among the younger men were detected. The man was a clever artist in his first youth, and had always been something of a favourite with the authorities, and had a highly respectable father; so Captain Henderson meant to spare him as much as possible, and endeavour to ascertain how far the mischief had gone among the young men connected with the marble works, also to consult Mr. White on the amount of stringency in the measures used to put a stop to it. All this, of course, passed out of Bernard Underwood’s hands and knowledge, but a sad and anxious day was before him. All the young girls were going on well, but Wilfred was increasingly ill all day, and continually calling for Bernard. Being told, “I have settled the matter” did not satisfy him. He looked eagerly about the room to find whether his mother were present, and fancying she was absent demanded, “Does he know? Do they know?” reiterating again and again. It was necessary to tell Lady Merrifield that there was an entanglement about money matters on his mind, which had been settled; but towards evening he grew worse and more light-headed, apparently under the impression that only Bernard could guard him from something unknown, or conceal, whenever he was conscious of the presence of his mother; and on his father’s entrance he hid his face in the pillows and trembled, of course to their exceeding distress and perplexity; and when he believed no one present but Bernard and Mrs. Halfpenny, he became more and more rambling, sometimes insisting that his father must not know, sometimes abusing all connected with the racing bet, and more often fancying that he was going to be arrested for robbing the firm, the enormity of the sum and of the danger increasing with the fever, and therewith his horror of his father’s knowing. It was of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying that the policeman was coming.
Bernard held him on this occasion, and told him, “Nothing will do you good, Willie, but to tell your father, and he will keep all from you. Let him know, and it will be all right.”
It only seemed to add to his misery and terror. Something that passed in his hearing, gave him the impression that he was in great danger, if not actually dying; but his cry was still for Bernard, who had not ventured to go to bed; but it was still, “Oh, Bear, save me! Don’t let me die with this upon my name! I can’t go to God!”
“There’s nothing for it, Wilfred, but to tell your father. He will pardon you. Your mother has, you see. Tell him, and when he forgives, you will know that God does. It will come right. Let me call him!”
“Let me bring him, my boy, my dear boy!” entreated his mother. “You know he will.”
Wilfred seemed as if he did not know, but still held fast by Bernard’s strong hands, as though there were support in them; and when in a few moments Sir Jasper entered the room, there was the same clinging gesture and endeavour to hide, in spite of the gentle sweetness of the tone of, “Well, my poor boy.”
It was Bernard who was obliged to say, turning the poor flushed face towards him, “Wilfred wishes to say—”
“Father,” it came with a gasp at last, “I’ve done it. I’ve disgraced us all. Forgive!”
He was repeating his own exaggerated ideas of what his crime had been, and what Sir Jasper would have said to him if all had been discovered in any other way.
“Do not think of it now, my boy. I forgive you, whatever it is.”
Thereupon Dr. Dagger entered. He turned every one out except Mrs. Halfpenny, and gave a draught, which silenced the patient and put him to sleep in a few minutes. While Bernard hastily satisfied the parents that a good deal was exaggerated feeling, and that an old soldier must have known of a good many worse things in his time, though not so near home.
There was a general sense of relief in the morning, for Wilfred’s attack had become an ordinary, though severe one, and the other cases were going on well. But Sir Jasper, who had not been able to grasp the extent of Wilfred’s delinquency, and had been persuaded by his despair that it was much more serious than it really was, called his son-in-law into council, and demanded whether the whole could have been told.
Bernard was certain that it was so, and related his transactions with Captain Henderson, much of course to the father’s relief, so far as the outer world was concerned; but what principally grieved him, besides the habits thus discovered, was his son’s abject terror of him, not only in the exaggeration of illness, but in his mode of speaking of him.
It had never been thus with any of his sons before.
Claude, the soldier, had always been satisfactory, so had Harry the clergyman, though often widely separated from the parents in their wandering life; but the bond of confidence had never been broken. Jasper had never teased any one but his sisters. Fergus, too, the youngest of all the sons, and of an individual, rather peculiar nature, was growing up in straight grooves of his own; but Wilfred, who from delicate health, had been the most at home, had never seemed to open to his father. The family discipline of the General seemed only to oppress and terrify him, and the irregularities and subterfuges that had from time to time been detected had been met with just anger, never received in such a manner as to call forth the tenderness of forgiveness. Each discovery of a misdemeanour had only been the prelude to fresh and worse concealments and hardening.
And experience of mankind did not give any decided hope that even the last day’s agony of repentance would be the turning over of a new leaf, when convalescence should bring the same surroundings and temptations, and perhaps the like disproportionate indignation and impatience in dealing with errors and constitutional weakness. “And the example of my brother’s poor son is not encouraging,” he added. “He who seems to have owed everything to your brother and sister.”
“Yet poor Fulbert and I were to our homes, perhaps not the black sheep, but at any rate the vagrant ones.”
“And what made a difference to you, may I ask?”
“Strong infusion by character and example of principle,” said Bernard thoughtfully; “then, real life, and having to be one’s own safeguard, with nothing to fall back on. As my brother told me at his last, I should swim when my plank was gone.”
“Yes, but, plainly, you were never weak,” and as Bernard did not answer at once, “Old-fashioned severity used to be the rule with lads, but it seems only to alienate them now and make them think themselves unjustly treated. What is one to do with these boys?”
A question which Bernard could not answer, though it carried him back with a strange yearning, yet resignation, to the little figure that had curled round on his knee, and the hopes connected with the hands that had caressed his cheek.
He thought over it the more the next week, when he was called to sit by Wilfred, who was getting better and anxious to talk.
“My father is very kind,” he said. “Oh, yes, very kind now; but it will be all the same when I get well. You see, Bear, how can a man be always dawdling about with a lot of girls? There’s Dolores bothering with her science, and Fergus every bit as bad; and Mysie after her disgusting schoolchildren; and Val and Prim horrid little empty chatterboxes; and if one does turn to a jolly girl for a bit of fun, their tongues all go to work, so that you would think the skies were going to fall; and if one goes in for a bit of a spree, down comes the General like a sledge-hammer! I wish you would take me out with you, Bear.”
The same idea had already been undeveloped in Bernard’s mind, and ever on his tongue when alone with his wife; but he kept it to himself, and only committed himself to, “You would not find an office in Colombo much more enlivening.”
“There would be something to see—something to do. It would not be all as dull as ditch-water—just driving one to do something to get away from the girls and their fads.”
This was nearly a fortnight from the night of crisis, when Wilfred, very weak, was still in bed; when Primrose and Lily were up and about, but threatened with whooping cough. Thekla much in the same case, and very cross; and little Lena weak, caressing and dependant, but angelically good and patient, so much so that Magdalen and Angela were quite anxious about her.
“I’ll put a girdle round the earthIn forty minutes.”—Shakespeare.
“I’ll put a girdle round the earthIn forty minutes.”
—Shakespeare.
Thevisitation had not been confined to the High School. The little cheaply-built rows for workmen and fishermen had suffered much more severely, owing chiefly to the parents’ callous indifference to infection. “Kismet,” as they think it, said Jane Mohun, and still more to their want of care. Chills were caught, fevers and diphtheria ensued, and there was an actual mortality among the children at the works and at Arnscombe. Mr. Flight begged for help from the Nursing Sisterhood at Dearport, and, to her great joy, Sister Beata was sent down to him, with another who was of the same standing as Angela, and delighted to have a glimpse of her; though Angela thought it due to her delicate charge, and the Merrifields, not to plunge into actual nursing while Lena needed her hourly attention, and was not yet in a state for the training to do without it to continue. Paulina, however, being regarded as infection proof, was permitted to be an attendant and messenger of her dear Sister Beata, to her own great joy. She was now nineteen, and her desire to devote herself to a Sisterhood had never wavered, and intercourse with Sister Angela had only strengthened it.
“Oh, Maidie!” she said, “I do not think there can be any life so good or so happy as being really given up to our Lord and His work among the sick and poor.”
“My dear, He can be served if you are in the world, provided you are notofthe world, and if you keep yourself from the evil.”
“Yes; but why should I run into the world? It is not evil, I know, so far as you and all your friends can manage; but it stirs up the evil in one’s self.”
“And so would a Sisterhood. That is a world, too.”
“I suppose it is, and that there would be temptation; but there is a great deal to help one to keep right. And, oh! to have one’s work in real good to Christ’s poor, or in missions, instead of in all these outside silly nonsensical diversions that one doubts about all the time. If you would only let me go back with dear Sister Beata and Sister Elfleda as a probationer!”
“You could not be any more yet,” said Magdalen; “but I will think about it, and talk it over with Sister Angela. You know your friend Sister Mena, as she called herself, does not mean to be a Sister, but a governess.”
“Yes; she wrote to me. She has never seen or known anything outside the Convent, and it is all new and turns her head,” said Paulina, wisely. “I know she helped me to be all the more silly about Vera and poor Hubert Delrio.”
Magdalen promised to talk the matter over with Sister Angela.
“I should call it a vocation,” said Angela. “I have watched her ever since I have been here, and I am sure her soul is set on these best things, in a steady, earnest way.”
“She has always been an exceedingly good girl ever since I have had to do with her,” said Magdalen. “I have hardly had a fault to find with her, except a little exaggeration in the direction of St. Kenelm’s.”
“A steady, not a fitful flame,” said Angela.
“But she is so young.”
“If you will believe me, Magdalen, such a home as that Dearport Sisterhood is a precious thing—I have not been worthy of it. I have been a wild colt, carried about by all manner of passing excitements. Oh, dear! love of sheer fun and daring enterprise, and amusement, in shocking every one, even my very dearest, whom I loved best. I have done things too dreadful to think of, and been utterly unreasonable and unmanageable, and proud of it; but always that Sisterhood has been like a cord drawing me! I never quite got free of it, even when I sent back my medal, and fancied it had been playing at superstition. I was there for a month as almost a baby, and the atmosphere has brought peace ever since. That, and my brother, and Sister Constance, and Bishop Fulmort, have been the saving of me, if anything has. I mean, if they will have me, to spend a little time at Dearport after all this perplexity is over, and I know how it is with Lena, and I could see how it is with Paula if you liked.”
Magdalen accepted the suggestion, perhaps the more readily because of a fleeting visit from Hubert Delrio, who had finished his frescoes at the American Vale Leston, and came for a day or two to Mr. Flight’s. She had sometimes doubted whether the supposed love of Vera had not been a good deal diffused among the young ladies, and might not so far awaken in Paulina as to render her vocation doubtful; but there were no such symptoms. Paula was quiet and cheerful, with a friendly welcome, but no excitement; but it was Thekla, now fifteen, who was all blushes whenever Hubert looked or spoke to her, all her forwardness gone; and shyness, or decidedly awkwardness, set in, resulting chiefly in giggle.
Hubert looked more manly and substantial, and he had just had an order for an important London church, which pleased him much, and involved another journey to Italy to study some of the designs in the Lombardic churches.
Not that there was any chance of meeting Vera. Mr. and Mrs. White had spent the last summer at Baden; and Vera, who had many pretty little drawing-room talents, and was always obliging, had been very acceptable there. This winter an attack of rheumatism had made them decide on trying Algiers, with a view to the Atlas marbles, and then German baths again might claim them for the summer.
In fact, the fear of infection had rendered Rock Quay a deserted place during the Easter vacation. Fergus Merrifield might not come near Primrose and Lily, and was charmed to accept an invitation from his friend and admirer, Adrian Vanderkist, to Vale Leston, where he would be able to explore the geology of Penbeacon, to say nothing of the coast; while his sister Felicia, who had been one of the victims, remained to be disinfected with Miss Mohun. Dolores was at Vale Leston Priory, and Agatha Prescott with her, so as to have a clean bill of health for her return to Oxford for her last term.
The Holy Week was calm and grave; and the two girls, with Anna Vanderkist and her little sisters, were very happy over their primroses and anemones on Easter Eve, with the beautiful Altar Cross that no one could manage like Aunt Cherry, whose work was confined to that, and to the two crosses on the graves.
Another notion soon occupied them. There was a vague idea that a sort of convalescent or children’s hospital might be established for the training of women intending to study medicine or nursing, chiefly at Miss Arthuret’s expense, and Dolores was anxious to consider the possibility of placing it in the sweet mountain air, tempered by the sea breezes of Penbeacon.
It was an idea to make Mrs. Grinstead shudder; but neither she nor her niece, Anna Vanderkist, could forget Gerald’s view that Penbeacon was not only to be the playground of Vale Leston, and they always felt as if Dolores had a certain widow’s right to influence any decision. So she cheerfully acquiesced in what, in her secret heart, seemed only a feeble echo of the past, though, to the young generations it was a very happy hopeful present when all the youthful party, under the steerage of Mary and Anna, and the escort of Sir Adrian and Fergus, started off with ponies, donkeys, cycles and sturdy feet to picnic on Penbeacon, if possible in the March winds—well out of the way of the clay works.
How Fergus divided his cares between the strata and Dolores’ kodak, how even his photography could not spoil Aunt Alda; how charming a group of sisters Dolores contrived to produce; how Adrian was the proud pioneer into a coach adorned with stalactites and antediluvian bones; how Anna collected milkwort and violets for Aunt Cherry; how a sly push sent little Joan in a headlong career down a slope that might have resulted in a terrible fall, but did only cause a tumble and great fright, and a severe reprimand from the elder sisters; how Agatha was entranced by the glorious view in the clearness of spring, how they ate their sandwiches and tried to think it was not cold; how grey east wind mist came over the distance and warned them it was time to trot down,—all this must belong to the annals of later Vale Leston; and of those years of youth which in each generation leave impressions as of sunbeams for life. And on their return, Dolores found a letter which filled her with a fresh idea. It was from her father in New Zealand, telling her that there was an opening for her to come and give a course of lectures on electricity at Canterbury, Auckland and the other towns, and proposing to her to come out with her lady assistant, when she might very probably extend her tour to Australia.
“Would you come, Naggie?” asked Dolores.
“Oh! I should like nothing half so well. If you could only wait till my turn is over, and the exam!”
“Of course! Why, we shall not have finished the correspondence till after the examination! How capital it will be! My father will like your bright face, and you will think him like Fergus grown older. Will your sister consent?”
“Oh! Magdalen will be glad enough to have me off on a career. We will write and prepare her mind. I believe I am not to go home, so as to bring a clean bill of health to St. Robert’s.”
“I really think,” added Dolores, “that Magdalen would make an admirable head matron, or whatever you call it!”
“Dear old thing! She is very fond of her Goyle.”
“True, but Sophy’s engineer husband tells us that a new line is projected to Rock Quay, through the very heart of the Goyle, Act of Parliament, compulsory sale and all.”
“Well! work might console her for being uprooted, and she is quite youthful enough to take to it with spirit.”
“Besides that she would greatly console Clement and Cherry for the profanation of their Penbeacon. I declare I will suggest it to Arthurine!”
So the two young people resolved, not without a consciousness that what was to them a fresh and inspiring gale, to the elder generation was “winds have rent thy sheltering bowers.”
“What should we give for our beloved?”—E. B.Browning.
“What should we give for our beloved?”
—E. B.Browning.
Nosooner had the visitors departed than the others now out of quarantine appeared at Vale Leston. Angela was anxious to spend a little time there, and likewise to have Lena overhauled by Tom May. The child had never really recovered, and was always weakly; and whereas on the journey, Lily, now in high health, was delighted with all she saw, though she could not compare Penbeacon to Adam’s Peak, Lena lay back in Sister Angela’s arms, almost a dead weight, hardly enduring the bustle of the train, though she tried not to whine, as long as she saw her pink Ben looking happy in his cage.
Angela was an experienced nurse, and was alarmed at some of the symptoms that others made light of. Mrs. Grinstead had thought things might be made easier to her if the Miss Merrifields came to meet her and hear the doctor’s opinion; and Elizabeth accepted her invitation, arriving to see the lovely peaceful world in the sweet blossoming of an early May, the hedges spangled with primroses, and the hawthorns showing sheets of snow; while the pear trees lifted their snowy pyramids, and Lily in her white frock darted about the lawn in joyous play with her father under the tree, and the grey cloister was gay with wisteria.
Angela was sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand, the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying on a rug, partly on her lap. Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the lawn, made Elizabeth pause.
“That’s the way they go on!” said Phyllis. “All day long Angela is reading to the child either the ‘Water Babies’ or the history of Joseph.”
“Or crooning to her the story of the Cross,” said Anna; “and as soon as one is ended she begins it again, and Lena will not let her miss or alter a single word.”
“They go on more than half the night,” added Phyllis. “Bear sat up long over his letters and accounts, and as he went up he heard the crooning, and looked in; and the very moment Angela paused, there came the little plaintive voice, ‘Go on, please.’ ‘Women are following’—”
“But is not that spoiling her?” asked Bessie.
A look of sad meaning passed between her two companions. Phyllis shook her head slightly, and, instead of answering, conducted Bessie on to the bank, when Angela looked up and made a sign that she could not move or speak, for the child was asleep. The yellow head was shaded by Angela’s parasol, the thin hair lying ruffled on the black dress, and the small face looked more pinched than when the aunt had last seen it, nearly a year previously. She had watched the decay of aged folks, but she was unused to the illnesses of children; and she recoiled with a little shock, as she looked down at the little wasted face, with a slight flush of sleep. “Recovery from measles,” she said.
Phyllis smiled a little pitifully as her own little girl, all radiant with health and joy, came skipping up, performing antics over her father’s hand. “Take care, Lily, don’t wake poor little Lena,” was murmured quietly.
“Northern breezes—” began Bessie, but the voices had broken the light slumber; and as Angela began, “See, Lena, here is Aunt Bessie,” the effect was to make her throw herself over Angela’s shoulder and hide her face; and when her protector tried to turn her round and reason her into courtesy, she began to cry in a feeble manner.
“She has had a bad night,” said motherly Phyllis; “let her alone.”
“May not I get down into the boat?” asked Lily. “I’ll be very good.”
There would have been a little hesitation, but at the voice Lena looked up and called “Lily, Lily!” Bernard lifted his small daughter down, Elizabeth was not sorry to be led away for the present, and when, after a turn in the rose garden, she came back, the two children were sitting with arms round one another, holding a conversation with Ben, the cockatoo, and making him dance on one of the benches of the boat, under Angela’s supervision, lest he should end by dancing overboard. The rich fair hair, shining dark blue eyes, and plump glowing cheeks of Lily were a contrast to the wan wasted colouring of her little cousin; but Lena was more herself now than when just awake, and let Lily lead her up and introduce her, as it might be called, to Cousin Bessie as Lily called her, a less formidable sound than “Aunt Elizabeth.” They were both kissed, and she endured it. Angela was, as her brothers and sisters said, “very good,” and scrupulously abstained from absorbing the child all the evening, letting Elizabeth show her pictures and tell her stories, to which, by Lily’s example, she listened quietly enough and with interest.
When the two children went off, hand in hand, to their beds, Elizabeth said, “Really, Magdalen is improved. If you leave Lily with her, Phyllis, I think we should get on beautifully. The bracing air will do wonders for them both.”
“Thank you,” said poor Phyllis forbearingly; “we have not made our plans about Lily yet.”
But Elizabeth thought out a beautiful scheme of discipline and study in the long light hours of the morning, and began to feel herself drawn towards her delicate little niece, feeling sure that the little thing would soon be Susan’s darling, if Susan could be brought to endure the cockatoo walking loose about the house.
Early in the day Professor May appeared, and was hailed as an old friend by all the Underwoods. He rejoiced to see Clement looking well and active; and “as to this fellow,” he said, looking at Bernard, “it shows what development will do.”
“Not quite the young Bear of Stoneborough,” said Clement, leaning affectionately on his broad shoulder; “our skittish pair are grown very sober-minded. But you have not told us of your father.”
“My father is very well. He walks down every day to sit with my wife, and visits a selection of his old patients, who are getting few enough now. This is not my patient, I suppose?”
“Unless you are ready to prescribe only laughing and good Jersey cows’ milk,” said Bernard, pulling the long silky brown hair. “Where’s mother, little one?”
“Mother sent me to say Aunt Angel is ready, if Dr. May will come up to Aunt Cherry’s room. Lena is frightened, and they did not like to leave her.”
It was a long visit, after Phyllis had come down; and, walking up and down the cloister with Bessie Merrifield, listened to her schemes of education for the little maidens. Lily she liked and admired, and she was convinced that Magdalen’s weak health and spirits were the result of the spoiling system. Phyllis trembled a little as she heard of the knocking about, out-of-doors ways that had certainly produced fine strong healthy frames and upright characters, but she forbore to say that if her little girl had to be left, it would be to her mother and Mysie.
By and by Tom came down, and finding Geraldine alone in the drawing-room, he answered her inquiry with a very grave look. “Poor little thing! You do not think well of her! Is it as Angel feared?”
“Confirmed disease, from original want of development of heart. Measles accelerated it. I doubt her lasting six months, though it may be longer or less.”
“Have you told Angel?”
“She knew it, more or less. She is ready to bear it, though one can see how her soul is wrapped up in the child, and the child in her.”
“One thing, Tom, will you tell Miss Merrifield yourself, and alone, and make her feel that it is an independent opinion? It may save both the poor child and Angel a great deal.”
“Are you prepared to keep her here?”
“Of course we are. It is Angel’s natural home. Clement and I could think of nothing else.”
“I knew you would say so. If I understand rightly there is something like a jealousy of her case in the Merrifields, prompted greatly by their wish to expiate any neglect of her father.”
“That is what I gather from what Phyllis tells me.”
“What a lovely countenance hers is in expression! No wonder Bernard has softened down. There is strength and solidity as well as sweetness in her face. Ah, there they are!”
“I will call Phyllis in. Bessie Merrifield has almost walked her to death by this time.”
So Phyllis was called and told. What she said was, “I only hope he will make her understand that it could not be helped, and it was not Angela’s fault.”
Tom May had wisdom enough to make this clear in what was a greater shock to Elizabeth than it was to Angela, who had suspected enough to be prepared for the sentence, and had besides a good deal of hospital experience, which enabled her thoroughly to understand the Professor’s explanations. So, indeed, did it seem to Elizabeth at the time he was speaking; but she had lived a good deal in London, and had a great idea that a London physician must be superior to a man who had lived in the country, and, moreover, whom all the household called Tom, and she asked Mrs. Grinstead if he were really so clever.
“Indeed, I think he is; and I have seen a great deal of his treatment. You may quite trust him. He lives down here at Stoneborough for his father’s sake, or he would be quite at the head of his profession.”
“Superior to the two Doctors Brownlow?”
“I should not say superior, but quite equal.”
“The Brownlows,” said Clement, looking up from his paper, “helped me through an ordinary malarial fever. John Lucas is a brilliant specialist in such cases, but certifying an affection of the heart. Tom May latterly has treated me better. As far as I understand the case of your little niece, I should say both that it was more in the line of Tom May, and likewise that it would be very hurtful to her to take her about and subject her to more examinations.”
“Poor little thing! no doubt it would be a terrible distress,” acquiesced Bessie; “but still, if it is bracing that she needs—northern air might make all the difference.”