As some lone bird at day's departing hourSings in the sunbeam of the transient shower,Forgetful though its wings are wet the while.
As some lone bird at day's departing hourSings in the sunbeam of the transient shower,Forgetful though its wings are wet the while.
Bowles.
Bowles.
Happily possessed with the notion that there was some hidden mystery in Fleda's movements, Mrs. Pritchard said not a word about her having gone out, and only spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which she had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to have a carriage ordered to take her to the boat in the morning, the good housekeeper could not hold any longer.
"Miss Fleda," said she with a look of very serious remonstrance,--"I don't know what you're thinking of, butIknow you're fixing to kill yourself. You are no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were to be out till seven o'clock this evening; and if you saw yourself you wouldn't want me to say any more. There is not the least morsel of colour in your face, and you look as if you had a mind to get rid of your body altogether as fast as you can! You want to be in bed for two days running, now this minute."
"Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda smiling; "you are very careful of me; but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards."
The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence, and then said, "Don't, dear Miss Fleda!"--with an energy of entreaty which brought the tears into Fleda's eyes. But she persisted in desiring the carriage; and Mrs. Pritchard was silenced, observing however that she shouldn't wonder if she wasn't able to go after all. Fleda herself was not without a doubt on the subject before the evening was over. The reaction, complete now, began to make itself felt; and morning settled the question. She was not able even to rise from her bed.
The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling,--the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."
The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming up the stairs and pattering along the entry to her room; and with little ceremony in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.
"You horrid little creature!" said Constance,--"why didn't you come straight to our house? just think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed us to!--to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."
Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her incredulous curiosity.
"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.
"We should never have known a breath about your being here," Constance went on. "We were sitting last night in peaceful unconsciousness of there being any neglected calls upon our friendship in the vicinity, when Mr. Carleton came in and asked for you. Imagine our horror!--we said you had gone out early in the afternoon and had not returned."
"You didn't say that!" said Fleda colouring.
"And he remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons--he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition,--whom their friends ought not to lose sight of."
"But what brought you to town again, Fleda?" said the elder sister.
"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.
"I haven't told you the half!" said Constance demurely. "And then mamma excused herself as well as she could, and Mr. Carleton said very seriously that he knew there was a great element of head-strongness in your character--he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr. Stackpole."
"Constance, be quiet!" said her sister. "Willyou tell me, Fleda, what you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity."
"Then it's inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear," said Fleda smiling.
"Tell me!"
"I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended to at a distance."
"Who did you come with?"
"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York."
"Wasn't your uncle at home?"
"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring."
"But was there nobody else to do it but you?"
"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post--Fort Hamilton, is it?--I forget which fort--he is fast there."
"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and then in Broadway shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence's worsted-work--(I've made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda)--or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that,--I don't know which,--and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or somewhere, to prosecute enquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him--she says he is wearing himself out."
The mixture of amusement, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.
"But where is your other cousin,--Hugh?" said Florence.
"He was not well."
"Where is your uncle?"
"He will be at home to-day I expect; and so should I have been--I meant to be there as soon as he was,--but I found this morning that I was not well enough,--to my sorrow."
"You were not going alone!"
"O no--a friend of ours was going to-day."
"I never saw anybody with so many friends!" said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"
"O by to-morrow," said Fleda smiling;--"but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here--I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity."
"But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you," said Constance. "I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits, and if we were to leave you here in an empty house to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?"
What would he think!--Oh world! Is this it?
But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared that nature would take more revenge than a day's sleep for the rough handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the next morning; and instead of that a kind of nondescript nervous fever set in; nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was nevertheless extremely glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience and quietness, thankful for everything after the anxiety and the relief she had just before known.
Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her indeed what she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "Business," seemed to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask her furthermore what had made her get sick; but this time he was satisfied more easily still, with a very curious sweet smile which was the utmost reply Fleda's wits at the moment could frame. "Well, get well," said he kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I won't quarrel with you about it."
The getting well however promised to be a leisurely affair. Dr. Gregory staid two or three days, and then went on to Boston, leaving Fleda in no want of him.
Mrs. Pritchard was the tenderest and carefullest of nurres. The Evelyns did everythingbutnurse her. They sat by her, talked to her, made her laugh, and not seldom made her look sober too, with their wild tales of the world and the world's doings. But they were indeed very affectionate and kind, and Fleda loved them for it. If they wearied her sometimes with their talk, it was a change from the weariness of fever and silence that on the whole was useful.
She was quieting herself one morning, as well as she could, in the midst of both, lying with shut eyes against her pillow, and trying to fix her mind on pleasant things, when she heard Mrs. Pritchard open the door and come in. She knew it was Mrs. Pritchard, so she didn't move nor look. But in a moment, the knowledge that Mrs. Pritchard's feet had stopped just by the bed, and a strange sensation of something delicious saluting her made her open her eyes; when they lighted upon a huge bunch of violets, just before them and in most friendly neighbourhood to her nose. Fleda started up, and her "Oh!" fairly made the housekeeper laugh; it was the very quintessence of gratification.
"Where did you get them?"
"I didn't get them indeed, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper gravely, with an immense amount of delighted satisfaction.
"Delicious!--Where did they come from?"
"Well they must have come from a greenhouse, or hot-house, or something of that kind, Miss Fleda,--these things don't grow nowhere out o' doors at this time."
Mrs. Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How kind!" was upon the end of Fleda's tongue, but it never got any further. Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.
"They must be put in water," said Fleda,--"I must have a dish for them--Dear Mrs. Pritchard, will you get me one?"
The housekeeper went smiling to herself. The dish was brought, the violets placed in it, and a little table at Fleda's request was set by the side of the bed close to her pillow, for them to stand upon. And Fleda lay on her pillow and looked at them.
There never were purer-breathed flowers than those. All the pleasant associations of Fleda's life seemed to hang about them, from the time when her childish eyes had first made acquaintance with violets, to the conversation in the library a few days ago; and painful things stood aloof; they had no part. The freshness of youth, and the sweetness of spring-time, and all the kindly influences which had ever joined with both to bless her, came back with their blessing in the violets' reminding breath. Fleda shut her eyes and she felt it; she opened her eyes, and the little double blue things smiled at her good humouredly and said, "Here we are--you may shut them again." And it was curious how often Fleda gave them a smile back as she did so.
Mrs. Pritchard thought Fleda lived upon the violets that day rather than upon food and medicine; or at least, she said, they agreed remarkably well together. And the next day it was much the same.
"What will you do when they are withered?" she said that evening. "I shall have to see and get some more for you."
"Oh they will last a great while," said Fleda smiling.
But the next morning Mrs. Pritchard came into her room with a great bunch of roses, the very like of the one Fleda had had at the Evelyns'. She delivered them with a sort of silent triumph, and then as before stood by to enjoy Fleda and the flowers together. But the degree of Fleda's wonderment, pleasure, and gratitude, made her reception of them, outwardly at least, this time rather grave.
"You may throw the others away now, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper smiling.
"Indeed I shall not!--"
"The violets, I suppose, is all gone," Mrs. Pritchard went on;--but I neverdidsee such a bunch of roses as that since I lived anywhere.--They have made a rose of you, Miss Fleda."
"How beautiful!--" was Fleda's answer.
"Somebody--he didn't say who--desired to know particularly how Miss Ringgan was to-day."
"Somebody isverykind!" said Fleda from the bottom of her heart. "But dear Mrs. Pritchard, I shall want another dish."
Somebody was kind, she thought more and more; for there came every day or two the most delicious bouquets, every day different. They wereat leastequal in their soothing and refreshing influences to all the efforts of all the Evelyns and Mrs. Pritchard put together. There never came any name with them, and there never was any need. Those bunches of flowers certainly had a physiognomy; and to Fleda were (not the flowers but the choosing, cutting, and putting of them together) the embodiment of an amount of grace, refined feeling, generosity, and kindness, that her imagination never thought of in connection with but one person. And his kindness was answered, perhaps Mrs. Pritchard better than Fleda guessed how well, from the delighted colour and sparkle of the eye with which every fresh arrival was greeted as it walked into her room. By Fleda's order the bouquets were invariably put out of sight before the Evelyns made their first visit in the morning, and not brought out again till all danger of seeing them any more for the day was past. The regular coming of these floral messengers confirmed Mrs. Pritchard in her mysterious surmises about Fleda, which were still further strengthened by this incomprehensible order; and at last she got so into the spirit of the thing that if she heard an untimely ring at the door she would catch up a glass of flowers and run as if they had been contraband, without a word from anybody.
The Evelyns wrote to Mrs. Rossitur, by Fleda's desire, so as not to alarm her; merely saying that Fleda was not quite well, and that they meant to keep her a little while to recruit herself; and that Mrs. Rossitur must send her some clothes. This last clause was tha particular addition of Constance.
The fever lasted a fortnight, and then went off by degrees, leaving her with a very small portion of her ordinary strength. Fleda was to go to the Evelyns as soon as she could bear it; at present she was only able to come down to the little back parlour and sit in the doctor's arm chair, and eat jelly, and sleep, and look at Constance, and when Constance was not there look at her flowers. She could hardly bear a book as yet. She hadn't a bit of colour in her face, Mrs. Pritchard said, but she looked better than when she came to town; and to herself the good housekeeper added, that she looked happier too. No doubt that was true. Fleda's principal feeling, ever since she lay down in her bed, had been thankfulness; and now that the ease of returning health was joined to this feeling, her face with all its subdued gravity was as untroubled in its expression as the faces of her flowers.
She was disagreeably surprised one day, after she had been two or three days down stairs, by a visit from Mrs. Thorn. In her well-grounded dread of seeing one person Fleda had given strict orders that nogentlemanshould be admitted; she had not counted upon this invasion. Mrs. Thorn had always been extremely kind to her, but though Fleda gave her credit for thorough good-heartedness, and a true liking for herself, she could not disconnect her attentions from another thought, and therefore always wished them away; and never had her kind face been more thoroughly disagreeable to Fleda than when it made its appearance in the doctor's little back parlour on this occasion. With even more than her usual fondness, or Pleda's excited imagination fancied so, Mrs. Thorn lavished caresses upon her, and finally besought her to go out and take the air in her carriage. Fleda tried most earnestly to get rid of this invitation, and was gently unpersuadable, till the lady at last was brought to promise that she should see no creature during the drive but herself. An ominous promise! but Fleda did not know any longer how, to refuse without hurting a person for whom she had really a grateful regard. So she went. And doubted afterwards exceedingly whether she had done well.
She took special good care to see nobody again till she went to the Evelyns. But then precautions were at an end. It was no longer possible to keep herself shut up. She had cause, poor child, the very first night of her coming, to wish herself back again.
This first evening she would fain have pleaded weakness as her excuse and gone to her room, but Constance laid violent hands on her and insisted that she should stay at least a little while with them. And she seemed fated to see all her friends in a bevy. First came Charlton; then followed the Decaturs, whom she knew and liked very well, and engrossed her, happily before her cousin had time to make any enquiries; then came Mr. Carleton; then Mr. Stackpole. Then Mr. Thorn, in expectation of whom Fleda's breath had been coming and going painfully all the evening. She could not meet him without a strange mixture of embarrassment and confusion with the gratitude she wished to express, an embarrassment not at all lessened by the air of happy confidence with which he came forward to her. It carried an intimation that almost took away the little strength she had. And if anything could have made his presence more intolerable, it was the feeling she could not get rid of that it was the cause why Mr. Carleton did not come near her again; though she prolonged her stay in the drawing-room in the hope that he would. It proved to be for Mr. Thorn's benefit alone.
"Well you staid all the evening after all," said Constance as they were going up stairs.
"Yes--I wish I hadn't," said Fleda. "I wonder when I shall be likely to find a chance of getting back to Queechy."
"You're not fit yet, so you needn't trouble yourself about it," said Constance. "We'll find you plenty of chances."
Fleda could not think of Mr. Thorn without trembling. His manner meant--so much more than it had any right, or than she had counted upon. He seemed--she pressed her hands upon her face to get rid of the impression--he seemed to take for granted precisely that which she had refused to admit; he seemed to reckon as paid for that which she had declined to set a price upon. Her uncle's words and manner came up in her memory. She could see nothing best to do but to get home as fast as possible. She had no one here to fall back upon. Again that vision of father and mother and grandfather flitted across her fancy; and though Fleda's heart ended by resting down on that foundation to which it always recurred, it rested with a great many tears.
For several days she denied herself absolutely to morning visitors of every kind. But she could not entirely absent herself from the drawing-room in the evening; and whenever the family were at home there was a regular levee. Mr. Thorn could not be avoided then. He was always there, and always with that same look and manner of satisfied confidence. Fleda was as grave, as silent, as reserved, as she could possibly be and not be rude; but he seemed to take it in excellent good part, as being half indisposition and half timidity. Fleda set her face earnestly towards home, and pressed Mrs. Evelyn to find her an opportunity, weak or strong, of going there; but for those days as yet none presented itself.
Mr. Carleton was at the house almost as often as Mr. Thorn, seldom staying so long however, and never having any more to do with Fleda than he had that first evening. Whenever he did come in contact with her, he was, she thought, as grave as he was graceful. That was to be sure his common manner in company, yet she could not help thinking there was some difference since the walk they had taken together, and it grieved her.
The beat-laid schemes o' mice and menGang aft agley.
The beat-laid schemes o' mice and menGang aft agley.
Burns.
Burns.
After a few days Charlton verified what Constance had said about his not being veryfastat Fort Hamilton, by coming again to see them one morning. Fleda asked him if he could not get another furlough to go with her home, but he declared he was just spending one which was near out; and he could not hope for a third in some time; he must be back at his post by the day after to-morrow.
"When do you want to go, coz?"
"I would to-morrow, if I had anybody to go with me," said Fleda sighing.
"No you wouldn't," said Constance,--"you are well enough to go out now, and you forget we are all to make Mrs. Thorn happy to-morrow night."
"I am not," said Fleda.
"Not? you can't help yourself; you must; you said you would."
"I did not indeed."
"Well then I said it for you, and that will do just as well. Why my dear, if you don't--just think!--the Thorns will be in a state--I should prefer to go through a hedge of any description rather than meet the trying demonstrations which will encounter me on every side."
"I am going to Mrs. Decatur's," said Fleda;--"she invited me first, and I owe it to her, she has asked me so often and so kindly."
"I shouldn't think you'd enjoy yourself there," said Florence; "they don't talk a bit of English these nights. If I was going, my dear, I would act as your interpreter, but my destiny lies in another direction."
"If I cannot make anybody understand my French I will get somebody to condescend to my English," said Fleda.
"Why do you talk French?" was the instant question from both mouths.
"Unless she has forgotten herself strangely," said Charlton. "Talk! she will talk to anybody's satisfaction--that happens to differ from her; and I think her tongue cares very little which language it wags in. There is no danger about Fleda's enjoying herself, where people are talking."
Fleda laughed at him, and the Evelyns rather stared at them both.
"But we are all going to Mrs. Thorn's? you can't go alone?"
"I will make Charlton take me," said Fleda,--"or rather I will take him, if he will let me. Will you, Charlton? will you take care of me to Mrs. Decatur's to-morrow night?"
"With the greatest pleasure, my dear coz, but I have another engagement in the course of the evening."
"Oh that is nothing," said Fleda;--"if you will only go with me, that is all I care for. You needn't stay but ten minutes. And you can call for me," she added, turning to the Evelyns,--"as you come back from Mrs. Thorn's."
To this no objection could be made, and the ensuing raillery Fleda bore with steadiness at least if not with coolness; for Charlton heard it, and she was distressed.
She went to Mrs. Decatur's the next evening in greater elation of spirits than she had known since she left her uncle's; delighted to be missing from the party at Mrs. Thorn's, and hoping that Mr. Lewis would be satisfied with this very plain hint of her mind. A little pleased too to feel quite free, alone from too friendly eyes, and ears that had too lively a concern in her sayings and doings. She did not in the least care about going to Mrs. Decatur's; her joy was that she was not at the other place. But there never was elation so outwardly quiet. Nobody would have suspected its existence.
The evening was near half over when Mr. Carleton came in. Fleda had half hoped he would be there, and now immediately hoped she might have a chance to see him alone and to thank him for his flowers; she had not been able to do that yet. He presently came up to speak to her just as Charlton, who had found attraction enough to keep him so long, came to tell he was going.
"You are looking better," said the former, as gravely as ever, but with an eye of serious interest that made the word something.
"I am better," said Fleda gratefully.
"So much better that she is in a hurry to make herself worse," said her cousin. "Mr. Carleton, you are a professor of medicine, I believe,--I have an indistinct impression of your having once prescribed a ride on horseback for somebody;--wouldn't you recommend some measure of prudence to her consideration?"
"In general," Mr. Carleton answered gravely; "but in the present case I could not venture upon any special prescription, Capt. Rossitur."
"As for instance, that she should remain in New York till she is fit to leave it?--By the way, what brought you here again in such a hurry, Fleda? I haven't heard that yet."
The question was rather sudden. Fleda was a little taken by surprise; her face shewed some pain and confusion both. Mr. Carleton prevented her answer, she could not tell whether with design.
"What imprudence do you charge your cousin with, Capt. Rossitur?"
"Why she is in a great hurry to get back to Queechy, before she is able to go anywhere--begging me to find an escort for her. It is lucky I can't. I didn't know I ever should be glad to be 'posted up' in this fashion, but I am."
"You have not sought very far, Capt. Rossitur," said the voice of Thorn behind him. "Here is one that will be very happy to attend Miss Fleda, whenever she pleases."
Fleda's shocked start and change of countenance was seen by more eyes than one pair. Thorn's fell, and a shade crossed his countenance too, for an instant, that Fleda's vision was too dazzled to see. Mr. Carleton moved away.
"Why areyougoing to Queechy?" said Charlton astonished.
His friend was silent a moment, perhaps for want of power to speak. Fleda dared not look at him.
"It is not impossible,--unless this lady forbid me. I am not a fixture."
"But what brought you here, man, to offer your services?" said Charlton;--"most ungallantly leaving so many pairs of bright eyes to shine upon your absence."
"Mr. Thorn will not find himself in darkness here, Capt. Rossitur," said Mrs. Decatur.
"It's my opinion he ought, ma'am," said Charlton.
"It is my opinion every man ought, who makes his dependance on gleams of sunshine," said Mr. Thorn rather cynically. "I cannot say I was thinking of brightness before or behind me."
"I should think not," said Charlton;--"you don't look as if you had seen any in a good while."
"A light goes out every now and then," said Thorn, "and it takes one's eyes some time to get accustomed to it. What a singular world we live in, Mrs. Decatur!"
"That is so new an idea," said the lady laughing, "that I must request an explanation."
"What new experience of its singularity has your wisdom made?" sid his friend. "I thought you and the world knew each other's faces pretty well before."
"Then you have not heard the news?"
"What news?"
"Hum--I suppose it is not about yet," said Thorn composedly. "No--you haven't heard it."
"But what, man?" said Charlton,--"let's hear your news, for I must be off."
"Why--but it is no more than rumour yet--but it is said that strange things are coming to light about a name that used to be held in very high respect."
"In this city?"
"In this city?--yes--it is said proceedings are afoot against one of our oldest citizens, on charge of a very grave offence."
"Who?--and what offence? what do you mean?"
"Is it a secret, Mr. Thorn?" said Mrs. Decatur.
"If you have not heard, perhaps it is as well not to mention names too soon;--if it comes out it will be all over directly; possibly the family may hush it up, and in that case the less said the better; but those have it in hand that will not let it slip through their fingers."
Mrs. Decatur turned away, saying "how shocking such things were;" and Thorn, with a smile which did not however light up his face, said,
"You may be off, Charlton, with no concern for the bright eyes you leave behind you--I will endeavour to atone for my negligence elsewhere, by my mindfulness of them."
"Don't excuse you," said Charlton;--but his eye catching at the moment another attraction opposite in the form of man or woman, instead of quitting the room he leisurely crossed it to speak to the new-comer; and Thorn with an entire change of look and manner pressed forward and offered his arm to Fleda, who was looking perfectly white. If his words had needed any commentary it was given by his eye as it met hers in speaking the last sentence to Mrs. Decatur. No one was near whom she knew and Mr. Thorn led her out to a little back room where the gentlemen had thrown off their cloaks, where the air was fresher, and placing her on a seat stood waiting before her till she could speak to him.
"What do you mean, Mr. Thorn?" Fleda looked as much as said, when she could meet his face.
"I may rather ask you whatyoumean, Miss Fleda," he answered gravely.
Fleda drew breath painfully.
"I mean nothing," she said lowering her head again,--"I have done nothing--"
"Did you think I meant nothing when I agreed to do all you wished?"
"I thought you said you would do it freely," she said, with a tone of voice that might have touched anybody, there was such a sinking of heart in it.
"Didn't you understand me?"
"And is it all over now?" said Fleda after a pause.
"Not yet--but it soon may be. A weak hand may stop it now,--it will soon be beyond the power of the strongest."
"And what becomes of your promise that it should no more be heard of?" said Fleda, looking up at him with a colourless face but eyes that put the question forcibly nevertheless.
"Is any promise bound to stand without its conditions?"
"I made no conditions," said Fleda quickly.
"Forgive me,--but did you not permit me to understand them?"
"No!--or if I did I could not help it."
"Did you say that you wished to help it?" said he gently.
"I must say so now, then, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda withdrawing the hand he had taken;--"I did not mean or wish you to think so, but I was too ill to speak--almost to know what I did--It was not my fault--"
"You do not make it mine, that I chose such a time, selfishly, I grant, to draw from your lips the words that are more to me than life?"
"Cannot you be generous?"--for once, she was very near saying.
"Where you are concerned, I do not know how."
Fleda was silent a moment, and then bowed her face in her hands.
"May I not ask that question of you?" said he, bending down and endeavouring to remove them;--"will you not say--or look--that word that will make others happy beside me?"
"I cannot, sir."
"Not for their sakes?" he said calmly.
"Can you ask me to do for theirs what I would not for my own?"
"Yes--for mine," he said, with a meaning deliberateness.
Fleda was silent, with a face of white determination.
"It will be beyondeluding, as beyond recall, the second time. I may seem selfish--I am selfish--but dear Miss Ringgan you do not see all,--you who make me so can make me anything else with a touch of your hand--it is selfishness that would be bound to your happiness, if you did but entrust it to me."
Fleda neither spoke nor looked at him and rose up from her chair.
"Is thisyourgenerosity?" he said, pointedly though gently.
"That is not the question now, sir," said Fleda, who was trembling painfully. "I cannot do evil that good may come."
"Butevil?" said he detaining her,--"what evil do I ask of you?--toremoveevil, I do."
Fleda clasped her hands, but answered calmly,
"I cannot make any pretences, sir;--I cannot promise to give what is not in my power."
"In whose power then?" said he quickly.
A feeling of indignation came to Fleda's aid, and she turned away. But he stopped her still.
"Do you think I do not understand?" he said with a covert sneer that had the keenness and hardness, and the brightness, of steel.
"Ido not, sir," said Fleda.
"Do you think I do not know whom you came here to meet?"
Fleda's glance of reproach was a most innocent one, but it did not check him.
"Has that fellow renewed his old admiration of you?" he went on in the same tone.
"Do not make me desire his old protection," said Fleda, her gentle face roused to a flush of displeasure.
"Protection!" said Charlton coming in,--"who wants protection? here it is--protection from what? my old friend Lewis? what the deuce does this lady want of protection, Mr. Thorn?"
It was plain enough that Fleda wanted it, from the way she was drooping upon his arm.
"You may ask the lady herself," said Thorn, in the same tone he had before used,--"I have not the honour to be her spokesman."
"She don't need one," said Charlton,--"I addressed myself to you--speak for yourself, man."
"I am not sure that it would be her pleasure I should," said Thorn. "Shall I tell this gentleman, Miss Ringgan, who needs protection, and from what?--"
Fleda raised her head, and putting her hand on his arm looked a concentration of entreaty--lips were sealed.
"Will you give me," said he gently taking the hand in his own, "your sign manual for Capt. Rossitur's security? It is not too late.--Ask it of her, sir!"
"What does this mean?" said Charlton looking from his cousin to his friend.
"You shall have the pleasure of knowing, sir, just so soon as I find it convenient."
"I will have a few words with you on this subject, my fine fellow," said Capt. Rossitur, as the other was preparing to leave the room.
"You had better speak to somebody else," said Thorn. "But I am ready."
Charlton muttered an imprecation upon his absurdity, and turned his attention to Fleda, who needed it. And yet desired anything else. For a moment she had an excuse for not answering his questions in her inability; and then opportunely Mrs. Decatur came in to look after her; and she was followed by her daughter. Fleda roused all her powers to conceal and command her feelings; rallied herself; said she had been a little weak and faint; drank water, and declared herself able to go back into the drawing-room. To go home would have been her utmost desire, but at the instant her energies were all bent to the one point of putting back thought and keeping off suspicion. And in the first hurry and bewilderment of distress the dread of finding herself alone with Charlton till she had had time to collect her thoughts would of itself have been enough to prevent her accepting the proposal.
She entered the drawing-room again on Mrs. Decatur's arm, and had stood a few minutes talking or listening, with that same concentration of all her faculties upon the effort to bear up outwardly, when Charlton came up to ask if he should leave her. Fleda made no objection, and he was out of her sight, far enough to be beyond reach or recall, when it suddenly struck her that she ought not to have let him go without speaking to him,--without entreating him to see her in the morning before he saw Thorn. The sickness of this new apprehension was too much for poor Fleda's power of keeping up. She quietly drew her arm from Mrs. Decatur's, saying that she would sit down; and sought out a place for herself apart from the rest by an engraving stand; where for a little while, not to seem unoccupied, she turned over print after print that she did not see. Even that effort failed at last; and she sat gazing at one of Sir Thomas Lawrence's bright-faced children, and feeling as if in herself the tides of life were setting back upon their fountain preparatory to being still forever. She became sensible that some one was standing beside the engravings, and looked up at Mr. Carleton.
"Are you ill?" he said, very gently and tenderly.
The answer was a quick motion of Fleda's hand to her head, speaking sudden pain, and perhaps sudden difficulty of self-command. She did not speak.
"Will you have anything?"
A whispered "no."
"Would you like to return to Mrs. Evelyn's?--I have a carriage here."
With a look of relief that seemed to welcome him as her good angel, Pleda instantly rose up, and took the arm he offered her. She would have hastened from the room then, but he gently checked her pace; and Fleda was immediately grateful for the quiet and perfect shielding from observation that his manner secured her. He went with her up the stairs, and to the very door of the dressing-room. There Fleda hurried on her shoes and mufflers in trembling fear that some one might come and find her, gained Mr. Carleton's arm again, and was placed in the carriage.
The drive was in perfect silence, and Fleda's agony deepened and strengthened with every minute. She had freedom to think, and thought did but carry a torch into chamber after chamber of misery. There seemed nothing to be done. She could not get hold of Charlton; and if she could?--Nothing could be less amenable than his passions to her gentle restraints. Mr. Thorn was still less approachable or manageable, except in one way, that she did not even think of. His insinuations about Mr. Carleton did not leave even a tinge of embarrassment upon her mind; they were cast from her as insulting absurdities, which she could not think of a second time without shame.
The carriage rolled on with them a long time without a word being said. Mr. Carleton knew that she was not weeping nor faint. But as the light of the lamps was now and then cast within the carriage he saw that her face looked ghastly; and he saw too that its expression was not of a quiet sinking under sorrow, nor of an endeavour to bear up against it, but a wild searching gaze into the darkness ofpossibilities. They had near reached Mrs. Evelyn's.
"I cannot see you so," he said, gently touching the hand which lay listlessly beside him. "You are ill!"
Again the same motion of the other hand to her face, the quick token of great pain suddenly stirred.
"For the sake of old times, let me ask," said he, "can nothing be done?"
Those very gentle and delicate tones of sympathy and kindness Were too much to bear. The hand was snatched away to be pressed to her face. Oh that those old times were back again, and she a child that could ask his protection!--No one to give it now.
He was silent a moment. Fleda's head bowed beneath the mental pressure.
"Has Dr. Gregory returned?"
The negative answer was followed by a half-uttered exclamation of longing,--checked midway, but sufficiently expressive of her want.
"Do you trust me?" he said after another second of pausing.
"Perfectly!" said Fleda amidst her tears, too much excited to know what she was saying, and in her simplicity half forgetting that she was not a child still;--"more than any one in the world!"
The few words he had spoken, and the manner of them, had curiously borne her back years in a minute; she seemed to be under his care more than for the drive home. He did not speak again for a minute; when he did his tone was very quiet and lower than before.
"Give me what a friendcanhave in charge to do for you, and it shall be done."
Fleda raised her head and looked out of the window in a silence of doubt. The carriage stopped at Mrs. Evelyn's.
"Not now," said Mr. Carleton, as the servant was about to open the door;--"drive round the square--till I speak to you."
Fleda was motionless and almost breathless with uncertainty. If Charlton could be hindered from meeting Mr. Thorn--But how, could Mr. Carleton effect it?--But there was that in him or in his manner which invariably created confidence in his ability, or fear of it, even in strangers; and how much more in her who had a childish but very clear recollection of several points in his character which confirmed the feeling. And might not something be done, through his means, to facilitate her uncle's escape? of whom she seemed to herself now the betrayer.--But to tell him the story I--a person of his high nice notions of character--what a distance it would put even between his friendship and her,--but that thought was banished instantly, with one glance at Mr. Thorn's imputation of ungenerousness. To sacrifice herself tohimwould not have been generosity,--to lower herself in the esteem of a different character, she felt, called for it. There was time even then too for one swift thought of the needlessness and bitter fruits of wrong-doing. But here they were;--should she make them known?--and trouble Mr. Carleton, friend though he were, with these miserable matters in which he had no concern?--She sat with a beating heart and a very troubled brow, but a brow as easy to read as a child's. It was the trouble of anxious questioning. Mr. Carleton watched it for a little while,--undecided as ever, and more pained.
"You said you trusted me," he said quietly, taking her hand again.
"But--I don't know what you could do, Mr. Carleton," Fleda said with a trembling voice.
"Will you let me be the judge of that?"
"I cannot bear to trouble you with these miserable things--"
"You cannot," said he with that same quiet tone, "but by thinking and saying so. I can have no greater pleasure than to take pains for you."
Fleda heard these words precisely and with the same simplicity as a child would have heard them, and answered with a very frank burst of tears,--soon, as soon as possible, according to her custom, driven back; though even in the act of quieting herself they broke forth again as uncontrollably as at first. But Mr. Carleton had not long to wait. She raised her head again after a short struggle, with the wonted look of patience sitting upon her brow, and wiping away her tears paused merely for breath and voice. He was perfectly silent.
"Mr. Carleton, I will tell you," she began;--"I hardly know whether I ought or ought not,--" and her hand went to her forehead for a moment,--"but I cannot think to-night--and I have not a friend to apply to--"
She hesitated; and then went on, with a voice that trembled and quavered sadly.
"Mr. Thorn has a secret--of my uncle's--in his power--which he promised--without conditions--to keep faithfully; and now insists that he will not--but upon conditions--"
"And cannot the conditions be met?"
"No--and--O I may as well tell you at once?" said Fleda in bitter sorrow,--"it is a crime that he committed--"
"Mr. Thorn?"
"No--oh no!" said Fleda weeping bitterly,--"not he--"
Her agitation was excessive for a moment; then she threw it off, and spoke more collectedly, though with exceeding depression of manner.
"It was long ago--when he was in trouble--he put Mr. Thorn's name to a note, and never was able to take it up;--and nothing was ever heard about it till lately; and last week he was going to leave the country, and Mr. Thorn promised that the proceedings should be entirely given up; and that was why I came to town, to find uncle Rolf and bring him home; and I did, and he is gone; and now Mr. Thorn says it is all going on again and that he will not escape this time;--and I have done it!--"
Fleda writhed again in distress.
"Thorn promised without conditions?"
"Certainly--he promised freely--and now he insists upon them; and you see uncle Rolf would have been safe out of the country now, if it hadn't been for me--"
"I think I can undo this snarl," said Mr. Carleton calmly.
"But that is not all," said Fleda, a little quieted;--"Charlton came in this evening when we were talking, and he was surprised to find me so, and Mr. Thorn was in a very ill humour, and some words passed between them; and Charlton threatened to see him again; and Oh if he does!" said poor Fleda,--"that will finish our difficulties!--for Charlton is very hot, and I know how it will end--how it must end--"
"Where is your cousin to be found?"
"I don't know where he lodges when he is in town."
"You did not leave him at Mrs. Decatur's. Do you know where he is this evening?"
"Yes!" said Fleda, wondering that she should have heard and remembered,--"he said he was going to meet a party of his brother officers at Mme. Fouché's--a sister-in-law of his Colonel, I believe."
"I know her. This note--was it the name of the young Mr. Thorn, or of his father that was used?"
"Of his father!--"
"Hasheappeared at all in this business?"
"No," said Fleda, feeling for the first time that there was something notable about it.
"What sort of person do you take him to be?"
"Very kind--very pleasant, always, he has been to me, and I should think to everybody,--very unlike the son"
Mr. Carleton had ordered the coachman back to Mrs. Evelyn's.
"Do you know the amount of the note? It may be desirable that I should not appear uninformed."
"It was for four thousand dollars" Fleda said in the low voice of shame.
"And when given?"
"I don't know exactly--but six years ago--some time in the winter of '43, it must have been."
He said no more till the carriage stopped; and then before handing her out of it, lifted her hand to his lips. That carried all the promise Fleda wanted from him. How oddly, how curiously, her hand kept the feeling of that kiss upon it all night.