No one could be allowed to come even to the door who had not nerve to endure the sight of severer anguish than most of them had ever deemed possible. Clement and Angela were doing their utmost under Dr. May's directions, but Mr. Audley found himself less needed there than by poor Cherry, whom he let loose from Bernard's grip, and after sending the boy for a cordial for her, gave them both a clearer explanation of the state of the case than they had yet understood. At first she felt it hard to have been in ignorance all this time, but when Mr. Audley had helped them both to pray, she fastened upon the hope that the very suddenness and violence of the attack proved that the evil would the sooner be over and leave no ill effect.
A report was circulated that Dr. May had given some such hope, and therewith that there was some respite in the paroxysms of suffering. There was a little movement among the crushed and dismayed party who had at first straggled up to the hall and drawing-room, and sat, or stood about, as if a thunderbolt had descended among them.
Alda was the first to make any sort of move, impelled by the fear of her husband's impatience, and recollecting the guests. Sir Robert and his daughter-in-law were stiff and uncomfortable, wondering that things should have been allowed to go so far, and wishing themselves away. Alda looked about for her sisters, but could only find Robina, who assisted in proposing that the strangers should come and eat. Sir Robert, on this, uttered polite condolences, begging that his carriage might be sent for, but consenting to come into the dining-room.
Where were the bridal pair? Poor young things, they were found in one of the hall window seats, where they could catch sounds from the sick room, all crushed up together, his arms round her, and her head, with wreath and veil pushed aside, on his shoulder, as if she were passively submitting to such support as he strove to afford.
'My dear children,' began Sir Robert, as they stood up startled, 'it is indeed a mournful turn that this festive occasion has taken, but I am relieved to hear that the patient is somewhat relieved, and you will, as Lady Vanderkist suggests, assume your places at the table. Or perhaps our bride will first change her dress, as it may be better to hasten your departure.'
'I can't go away.'
But Sir Robert with his conventionalities, Mrs. Audley with her proprieties, nay the Captain with his morbid horror of everything painful, all came round, declaring that Charlie was bound to take his bride away; they need not go far; they might wait where their rooms were engaged, but go they must; and appeals were made to both Vanderkists on the necessity.
There however quiet, gentle Stella became wild, nay almost frantic. She broke away from her husband, whose 'You shall do exactly as you please' was drowned in the authoritative commands of his grandfather. 'No! No!' she cried,' I will not go! No one can take me, while my brother is so ill,' and she burst into an irrepressible passion of weeping, leaning against the tall post of balusters, and pushing Charlie away when he would have taken her hand. 'No, no, don't, I don't want any one. I won't go away from my brother,' and she flung her arm round the post as if she fancied she would be forcibly dragged away, and not so much as hearing, 'This is very amiable feeling,' from Sir Robert, or if she did, it distracted her the more, while Charlie stood in utter perplexity, for it was of no use to protest that he did not mean to take her away, when it only on the one side made his grandfather order him the more decidedly, and Stella cling the more desperately whenever he tried to approach, scarcely restraining her screams as her agitation became uncontrollable. 'No, no, let me alone, trouble only comes with me—I want no one but my brother!'
A step on the stairs startled her into breathless silence. It was Clement. 'Hush, Stella,' he said, sternly and shortly. 'Felix wants you and Charlie.'
'He heard,' some one said reproachfully.
'Yes. Don't detain her,' he added, as Alda would have modified her dishevelment by removing the wreath and veil. 'I don't know how long this interval may last.'
Stella, instantly controlled by the home voice, and ashamed and grieved at having disturbed her brother, made no resistance to Charlie's taking her trembling hand as Clement preceded them to the room, all silent now save for the constrained breathing which showed the interval to be far from painless. The ashy face of suppressed suffering recalled to Stella her watch by that same spot during the suspense about Theodore, and she dropped on her knees, trying to hide her tears and stifle her sobs in the bed-clothes. Felix after laying his hand on the poor little head held it out to Charlie, and evidently commanding his voice with great difficulty said, 'I did not thinkthiswould have come till you had her safe away, Charlie.'
'I am very sorry,' was all the poor bridegroom could say.
'I am very sorry,' repeated Felix, his hand resting on her hair again, 'but as it can't be helped, I think it will come harder to her if she is taken away just now. This can't go on long as it is now. Ask Dr. May. And when you see—'
He paused from inability to achieve a steady tone, and Charlie answered, 'I never meant to go. I'll stay till you are better, as long as ever she likes, indeed I will, my sweet—' but again she seemed to shiver away from him with a sort of repugnance, which Felix perceived. More faintly he said, 'You'll be his happy gift, my child, I'm so glad to leave you to—Oh! go now!'
The fingers grew rigid and seemed to push her away. Wilmet half lifted, half thrust her into Charlie's arms. He almost carried her, pressing her face against him that she might not catch a glimpse of those spasms and uncontrollable writhings of anguish that were returning. The door was shut, and the young creatures cowered in the gallery in one another's arms, catching the sad sounds that neither patience nor resolute will could prevent. Stella slid down on her knees, and Charlie was fain to do the same, thankful that she let him hold her in his arm instead of repelling him.
'There! it is all quiet. He must be better again,' he whispered after a time, and this was confirmed by Angela coming to send out a prescription of the doctor's. The chill look of her white dress suggested to Charlie to say, 'You will be as cold as ice in that whiteness, my Star. Suppose you took it off, while I go and tell Sir Robert that nothing shall move us till he is all right again. You couldn't think me such a brute.'
Poor little Stella held up her tear-stained face for a kiss with a vague sense of having been naughty and wanting forgiveness.
'You'll come back to me when you have dressed! I'll come and wait up here again.'
'Do. I'll be quick. They can't send us away, can they?'
'I'll see them shot first,' then repenting the schoolboy defiance of the words: 'No, Stella, I'm your husband, you know, and can guard you. I had no intention of going, not a bit. Only they can't see when one is a man, and they frightened you with the noise, poor little thing! If I tell themhewishes it, no one can say a word. Don't be long.'
He nearly walked over a pair sitting on the stairs, too dejected to heed anything, namely, Lance and Gertrude, drawn together by the fellow feeling of being both too unhappy to speak or be spoken to, yet finding a sort of companionship in wretchedness as they listened and caught fragmentary tidings from above.
Charlie showed his manhood in quiet self-assertion. He told his grandfather that it would not be right to take his wife away, and that her brother wished them to stay; and though this was viewed as very ill-judged, there was no gainsaying it, especially as his uncle had come down decidedly of the same opinion.
Geraldine had likewise descended. The sanguine view she had contrived to take up had given her strength to take up her necessary part as mistress of the house making farewells and excuses. Marilda had, she found, swept off all the children to the Harewoods' house, including Gerald, who had allowed Ferdinand to carry him away, and in the present state of things she could only be thankful he was beyond hearing and questioning.
As the hours passed, and winter twilight gave way to early night, there was something of a lull. The alleviations had not been entirely without effect, and Dr. May felt obliged to go home, promising that he or his son, or both, would come early on the morrow. When Felix understood this, he asked whether Gertrude were still in the house, and hearing that she was, begged for her presence for a moment.
'Most certainly,' said her father. 'Where is she?'
'She has been sitting on the stairs all day with Lance,' Angela answered.
'With Lance?' Felix nearly smiled.
Dark as were the stairs, there they still were. Lance had executed numerous errands, and had made Gertrude swallow some tea, but they had not spoken ten words to one another. There Dr. May found his daughter, and, with a word or two of warning and preparation, led her in. She could not see much, for the light was shielded from the face, and only threw up the shadow of the cross and the angel's hovering wings on the ceiling above. The hand that lay on the sheet, curved, but not with repose, closed on hers with a 'krampfhaft' pressure. 'You have been comforting Lance,' said Felix. 'Thank you.'
'I couldn't,' she faltered, more overcome by voice than look, it was so thin and weak.
'You prayed! You will pray! "Each on his cross still let us hang awhile." Pray that I may not let go. "Suffer us not at our last hour,"' his lips moved on—'Pray that for me.'
'Indeed! indeed I will!'
'Thank you; it will be your greatest kindness. And one day remember that wish—that one wish. I wanted to wish you good-bye. God bless you. Kiss me once, mysisterGertrude.'
She could not have staid a moment longer than to give and receive that kiss. She almost fled into the room where her wraps were, and there cried as if her heart would break, feeling scarcely able to bear it when Robina came to see whether she had warm things enough.
But Gertrude had a twelve miles' drive with her father, and in it she experienced as never before, the depths of his tenderness and delicacy of his sympathy, and he found what were his once wilful petted child's yearnings towards that lofty noble character just out of reach, yearnings by his own forbearance just not stirred into active conscious love, such as would have left her heart entirely widowed. For in reply to the questions she scarce durst utter, the Doctor declared plainly that his own hope was small, though there still remained the possibility of a turn for the better, and Tom's more modern science might have further resources.
This was what he had left with the family, and most of them turned 'not hopeless' into hopeful, more especially as the most distressing form of suffering had not recurred, though even now Felix begged that Cherry might not see him, and feebly tried to send Wilmet home, but nothing would induce her to leave him. Her whole self seemed bound up in the single thought of ministering to him, and she was almost incapable of attending to remonstrance from husband or doctor on the special risks in her case, as if her strong will had mastered her very understanding, and they feared that to insist might do her more harm than to let her have her way. Clement kept equally close at hand, resolved that she should never be alone with the patient to bear the first brunt of those appalling attacks of suffering, and Angela was never further off than the next room, with the door open.
Those downstairs achieved a conventional cheerfulness. Stella was there in her ordinary black dress, and it was not easy to realize that she was Mrs. Audley, while Charley hung over her, petting her, though very anxious to be useful.
The chief use to which Geraldine wanted to put him or any one else, was to entertain Adrian, who looked as if he thought the illness of the master of the house a special injury and act of inhospitality to himself, and was, besides, much disposed to be rude to Ferdinand.
'Can't you take him into the long room and play billiards?' she asked Bernard.
'You'd hear the balls up in Felix's room. I never saw such a selfish brute.'
Bernard had found his Helot at last. 'Best way would be to get Fulbert to take him somewhere to smoke. I don't suppose he'll go for me.'
The somewhere was Sibby's sitting-room, and when Sir Adrian was carried off, Alda, Geraldine, Ferdinand, and Marilda had rather a comfortable talk over old St Oswald's Buildings days, in which Mr. Audley presently joined them.
The calm lasted, so that every one except the three actual nurses went to bed peacefully; but before the morning broke there was worse distress than ever. The worst attacks there had been at all set in, lasting longer, and with far less power of mitigation from the remedial measures, which seemed to be losing more effect every time, till the watchers scarcely durst wish to see the sufferer begin to revive only to undergo fresh torture.
That terrible morning broke Wilmet down. She had gone through all with unremitting energy and unflinching courage, but when Professor May had arrived, and brought some new anæsthetic, so that there was some relief and the strain slackened, she just crept into the next room with Angela and fainted away, only reviving to swoon again as soon as she tried to move.
The doctors were unanimous in sending her away, even while scarcely yet conscious, to her own house, and she was too faint to make any resistance or remonstrance. About an hour later, Ferdinand and Marilda, who were waiting in the billiard-room for the report of Professor May's opinion, were auditors of the following conversation, evidently the end of something that had been going on all the way from Major Harewood's house:
'Adrian! it is absolute cruelty! Why cannot you go alone, and send home the children?'
'Oh I daresay, and leave you to sentiment with that nigger fellow.'
'You need not have insulted me;' and her silk rustled upstairs, his steps following.
Marilda's eyes flashed and gave utterance to a fierce whisper. 'The cowardly ruffian! Can't you horsewhip him?' clenching her fist as she spoke.
But Ferdinand's dark face had indeed reddened, and his nostrils quivered, though not at the personal offence, as he muttered under his breath: 'To shoot him were the only cure for her! God forgive me for the thought, but to think of any woman in such hands, and to be the person most entirely unable to defend her!'
'I forgot! Of course you could only make it worse, but poor dear Alda!—It drives one out of one's senses;' and tears of anger were in her eyes.
'It stirs the devil within, and makes me wish I had never forgiven him,' said Ferdinand between his teeth.
'You need not forgive him this!Idon't.'
After a few moments' pause Fernan said, 'The only service I can do her is to go away. Would that make him consent to her remaining?'
'Oh! we can't spare you. What shall I do with Gerald without you or Mary Vanderkist? He is always whining for Cherry!'
'Of course I can't bear to be away, but if I excite this idiotical jealousy, what can I do but take myself off? I'll go to London, and you can telegraph every hour. Go up and tell Alda—Lady Vanderkist, I mean. Casually ask what I can do for her.'
'That would stir him up again. And I don't think it would be of any use. He doesn't want to stay here, and means spite.'
'Then she could insist on staying.'
'She would be afraid. You see when people have used one another as they used you, it can't help rankling.'
'I ought not to have come here, but of course I thought the whole thing as utterly gone by with them as with myself.'
Marilda looked up with a curious expression of blushing gladness that made him exclaim,' How like you are to what you were when first I saw you!'
She blushed still more.
'That time!' he said, musing. 'Did you ever think I used you wrongly?' he suddenly added.
'Inever did. I knew the difference between myself and Alda.'
'Nay, let me tell you, I never should have seen how beautiful she was, unless—I suppose it wasn't true, now—'
'What wasn't true?'
'That you and Felix—'
'Felix! No indeed! He is far too independent and disinterested. Who could have told you? You won't say? Not Edgar?'
'No. It was that poor lady herself.'
'Well,' said Marilda, infinitely shocked, 'I do call that wicked!' and as her mind glanced back to all the pain of those two years, she added, 'What did she say? Don't mind telling me. I'm old enough now.'
'Are you?' he said, with a quick glance of his dark eyes that made her glow again, and he continued: 'She gave me to understand that there was an old inclination between you and him, and that your father had such a regard for him as to be likely to yield if nothing more advantageous came in his way.'
'If you had only asked poor Edgar! Well! perhaps she flattered herself it was so! Yet, what could have put it into her head.'
'You know the rest, and how I was dazzled both by her beauty and the charm of her connection, but for years past the sense of my huge mistake has been upon me; yet till Felix came into possession here, I still thought it was his punctilious feeling alone that kept you apart.'
'As if he had ever cared for me except in a cousinly, brotherly sort of way! Did you think that was what made me hush up poor Edgar's affair, though indeed I never felt so thankful to any one as to you for having saved that secret.'
'Do you know what your generosity made me wish, though I never durst speak it before? That you would forget all these mistakes and forgive me, and come back to what things were before that misunderstanding.'
'Oh!' cried Marilda, with a long breath, 'you can't really mean it.'
'What else should I mean? If you will only forgive and overlook.'
'Don't talk in that way,' cried Marilda. 'Why I never cared for anyone else, and always have—but'—breaking off in the midst—'hark, there are wheels. That poor thing will be gone.'
'You had better go up and tell her.'
'Notthis—I can't. It would only make him more savage; besides at such a time.'
'True. No—only let them know I'll go. I'm gone. No, I can't leave the place till I've heard his opinion—but I'll go over to Ewmouth. I'll see you again and settle—only don't let her be dragged away.'
Marilda was obliged to go up, with the vaguest ideas as to what to say, in a case that even she felt to be delicate, but on coming to the scene of action, she found that the words she had overheard amounted to no more than an ebullition of temper. Sir Adrian did not wish to leave behind him a character for brutality, and since he could plead an appointment and escape from the house of mourning, he could endure leaving his wife to it; and an excuse for yielding was afforded by the maid who, coming up with the two little girls, brought word that Mrs. Harewood was asking for my Lady.
So Mary and Sophy were sent back to Ironbeam, their father went to meet his pheasants, and their mother hurried back to her twin, all that old tenderness reviving instinctively so as to render the sisterly contact the greatest comfort then possible to either. Ferdinand had taken care to inform the departing Sir Adrian that he was about to leave Vale Leston, and was in fact only waiting for the opinion of the London doctor who had seen Felix before, and for whom, with Tom May's sanction, he had telegraphed.
Gratitude to him for having devised this, and trust to further advice buoyed Cherry up, as she watched in the painting-room, giving orders, answering inquiries, and never swerving from hope and that intense prayer for her brother's restoration, which no one could discourage, nor even qualify in vehemence. Why should not a life so valuable be given back to her entreaties and those of many another suppliant? Yet Mr. Audley, going backwards and forwards between her and the patient, could not but be struck by observing that Felix himself rather allowed than demanded the supplications for recovery, and though extremity of pain often wrung from him cries for relief and sobs for mercy, yet in the calmer periods these became sighs for the power of enduring his cross better, and of not loosening his hold on his Saviour, and sometimes even the moan had more of praise than of plaint. He was still quite sensible, but the intervals between the paroxysms were so far from painless that he never showed any wish to see or speak to any but those immediately about him, namely, Clement and Angela, with Lance and Robina as supplementary helpers, and Mr. Audley, when he could bear it.
Tom May waited all day, doing his best till his London friend came, and could do nothing but confirm his treatment, and agree that the shadow of hope was not yet absolutely impossible, though human means were unavailing. However, between exhaustion and a fresh form of anodyne, a sort of stupor was induced towards the evening, and this was again a relief, at least to those who durst call it sleep.
Ferdinand profited by it to tear himself away according to his promise, and Marilda betook herself and her much aggrieved maid to the Rood, carrying the children with her, to spend the day, though there was no room to lodge them at night; poor Gerald submitting passively, as the fresh misfortune of losing both Fernan and Mary Vanderkist fell on him. Marilda's quarters were left to Sister Constance, who arrived at the appointed time, to find herself less needed at the Priory than the cottage, where the greeting she received from the sorrowful and anxious Lady Vanderkist was no small contrast to the manner in which Alda Underwood had requited her services.
The beneficent torpor lasted far into the night, and in some way or other all, save Clement and Angela, consented to take a certain amount of rest. Even Angela, though refusing to lie down, must have dozed in her chair by the fire, for as her perception gradually returned to her, she heard broken tones from Felix, and saw Clement standing over him. The first words that fully met her ear were the conclusion of what had gone before. 'There! stained, weak, failing, erring, more than I can say—more than I can recollect—I can only trust all to the washing in my Saviour's precious blood. Let me hear His message.'
The deep, thankful intensity of the gaze, looking far beyond Clement standing over him and pronouncing the Absolution, impressed Angela with strange awe.
Full of the past, all shuddering twilight,Man waits his hour with upward eye,The golden keys in love are brought,That he may hold by them and die.
It was a face of love, eagerness, absorption, that no one could ever forget, as the voice of pardon was listened to with folded hands.
She dared not move till there was again need of her assistance. When she could utter a word to Clement, it was: 'Is not he better?' but Clement shook his head. Still the last doctor's advice had enabled the worst part of the suffering to be so far kept in abeyance, that before that morning's dawn the Feast could be held in the sick chamber, among those whom Clement ventured to call together for it. The greater calm much encouraged Cherry, and she went away cheered by the face that could still give her a smile, declaring that Felix did not look worse than when he was bloodless after the accident.
Both she and Bernard hugged their hope. Even when, before the day was out, all the family knew of Tom May's verdict that those symptoms had set in which extinguished all chance of recovery without a miracle; still those two upheld one another in shutting their eyes to the inference, and continued to rejoice in the comparative relief from the heartrending spasms of the previous days, while others knew but too well that this was only the token that the struggle of the constitution was over.
Other forms of suffering had set in, but attention was sometimes free. Ferdinand and Marilda, though ashamed of having fallen into their engagement at such a time, could not help believing that to him at least it would give pleasure, and it had been breathed into Mr. Audley's ear. In one of these pauses of tranquillity Felix was told of it, and said with a smile, 'That is well. God is giving me every wish of my heart—"Grant thee thy heart's desire—"'
For his words had a tendency to flow into psalms and prayers, which the others took up and finished; but he was generally quite sensible, though sometimes restless and sometimes torpid. He asked for Wilmet, and hearing she had gone home, and that Alda was with her, seemed satisfied. He murmured something about Sir Adrian, and on learning his departure, said, 'I meant to have spoken to him—I don't suppose I could—some one tell him—he must be kind to Alda and the little ones—poor Alda!'
The day passed in this manner, and when at its close the familiar sounds indicated shutting up for the night, he showed an expectation of good nights. Geraldine came, and was charmed with the calmed, soothed countenance; she kissed him and told him he was better, and would sleep. He answered, 'Thank God, yes; thank God for you, my Chérie.'
Clement was afraid to let her agitate herself or him, and led her away to her own door, appealing to him all the way whether the worst were not over. He trusted that it was.
To Stella Felix gave only a blessing and good-night, but he thanked Charlie again for letting her remain, and to Bernard he said what the lad at the moment thought wandering, 'You'll swim for yourself now your plank is gone.'
There were no such positive farewells to those immediately about him. He depended most for aid both bodily and spiritual on Clement, but he took the most notice of Angela, often thanking her, with some tender name, even while he seemed continually drifting further and further out of reach.
Life is strongly bound into a frame scarcely at the midway of age, and the change came so slowly that Cherry had begun to say that when the Epiphany was past, the day of his father's death, she was sure the corner would be turned. He was very weak, but he had been as weak before.
Weak? Yes. The mind was failing now, not the soul. The ears still opened to prayer, the lips joined in it, the speech was of another world. "The hours of the cross—when will it be over?" Or the wedding might guide the thought to "the Bride prepared." "The white array"—"the diamonds—the jewels He will make up—the emerald rainbow round about the Throne."
Falterings very feeble ensued, as if he were talking to his father: 'Indeed I tried. I think they are all coming. Father, may I come now? Isn't it done?'
That was the last word they caught distinctly, except fragments of prayer, before the long hour when he lay on Clement's breast, each long labouring breath heaving up as though the last. Lance had fetched Cherry, telling her Felix was going. He had had to change the word to dying, actually dying, before she could understand its force. Then she stood, gripping his arm, at the foot of the bed, while nothing was heard but those gasps, and the continued prayer of Mr. Audley, until the moment came when he bade the Christian soul depart into the hands of the Father of Spirits.
That was just as the winter night was darkening on the Saturday evening.
'The heart which like a staff was one,For mine to lean and rest upon,The strongest on the longest day,With steadfast love, is caught away,And yet my days go on, go on.'E. Barrett Browning.
In the darkness before the winter dawn, William slowly put the little skiff across the river, and went up to the Priory, where only one or two upper windows showed a pale light behind the blinds. All was intensely still, as the garden-door yielded to his hand, and he crossed the dark hall, then mounted the stairs, which creaked under his tread, and, pausing in the gallery, seemed drawn irresistibly to the door of the room which had been the centre of all their thoughts and cares.
His cautious touch of the lock was responded to from within. There was enough light in the room to show the carved Angel, and beneath it the silent face that seemed to be watching in hope for the trumpet.
Not much less white and set was Clement's face as, laying a cold set of fingers on William's arm, he drew him into his own room where they stood for some minutes, neither knowing how to speak, till the church clock striking broke the silence, and Will said:
'Clement, I have taken upon me to silence the knell—on Wilmet's account. John would not let you hear how alarmed we were last night, thinking you had gone through enough, but they say such a shock as that bell would be, might do all the harm imaginable. Sister Constance thinks she will pull through, but she has been fancying Felix was calling her, and poor John was quite overpowered.'
'Our other pillar!' said Clement, dreamily.
'She is better,' repeated Will. 'Sister Constance would not let her give way—told her not to fancy. She only wanted to prevent that sound.'
'Right,' murmured Clement in the same tone.
'And I will take the service.'
'Thank you, I am coming, but I don't know whether I have voice.'
'You ought to be in bed. Have you had any sleep?' For Clement had never attempted to rest from that Wednesday morning to Saturday night.
'I don't know,' he answered, passing his hand over his face. 'I've been a great many hours in bed, but there's no getting away from the sense for a moment,' said he, thawing under Will's sympathy, shown more in gesture than word. 'I don't seem able to care at this moment even for poor Wilmet and John. Everything seems swallowed up in this one. I've known these six months it was coming, and discussed it with himself, yet it comes to me as stupendous and appalling as if I had never thought of it before. The one that there was no doing, no living without! There seems no standing up against it.'
'You have stood more bravely than any, and you will.'
'Imust,' said Clement. 'Of course it is faithless selfishness, and one cannot but rejoice that all that torture is over, and rest begun, but consternation and helplessness will come foremost, without him, brother, father, everything for all these eighteen years. Poor Cherry! what is to become of her!'
'How is she?'
'There it is! I don't know. I staid to help Sibby, and by that time I was so done up, that it seems a perfect blank. I must have frightened Sibby, for I remember her scared eyes, and then I fancy Fulbert and Lance were dosing me with soup, or wine, or something, and I went to bed; but what they said about any one, I can't recollect. I'll ask Lance.'
Lance sat up in bed, after a sleep he had fallen into towards the morning. Poor Cherry! he said, he had led her back to her room perfectly passive, and put her in her chair, but she seemed turned to stone. Mr. Audley had come and taken her hand, but it lay passively; she did not seem to hear his words, and her eyes had a stony mechanical glare like paralysis. The suddenness was practically as great to her as if Felix had been drowned at once. Mr. Audley had advised them to give her time to recover from her stunned condition, and she had been left to Stella, who had last reported that her stupefaction had passed into heavy slumber as soon as her head was on the pillow.
Robina had been entirely taken up with Angela, whose fatigue was almost as great as Clement's, and who had besides caught a bad cold and toothache on the wedding-day. Her prostration had taken the form of violent weeping, which Lance had heard half the night, and now, though all was quiet, the brothers durst not run the risk of waking her.
Indeed, when Mr. Page looked in with a somewhat more cheery account of Mrs. Harewood, he advised that no attempt should be made to disturb either sister, but that, in especial, Geraldine's room should be darkened, and she should be allowed to lie and doze, without being roused, under peril of mischief to brain or nerves.
As to Angela, she awoke soon enough, and then nothing would keep her from getting up and wandering about in restless misery and much bodily discomfort, almost engrossing Robina, while Stella guarded Cherry. Very thankful were all for the presence and aid of that little bride, whose names, the gift of her dying father, had never fitted her better, for she was the household star, the happy gift through those mournful hours. The loss to her was as of a parent, and no father could have been more beloved than her "Brother," but the change in her life had made it just not the utter desolation it was to the home sisters, and the strength of the new bond, and the soothing bliss of her husband's caresses, lifted her up enough to make her sympathy a support. She had never been a childish girl, and the last remnant of childishness seemed to have passed away in that struggle on the stairs. Her brightness had always been pensive and subdued, and in the time of distress there was a kind of lamp-light lustre in her looks, words, and ways that relieved dejection wherever she went, while either her powers were greatly developed or only had full scope when she and Robina had to share all the feminine cares of the stricken family.
That leaden state of Geraldine's continued the next morning, though she rang her bell mechanically for Sibby at her usual hour, came down, poured out breakfast, and ordered dinner as usual, then returned to her painting-room. If addressed, she gave a vacant look and a brief matter-of-fact reply, and volunteered nothing, nor attempted any employment. She seemed neither to care nor comprehend when told that Wilmet had had a quiet night, sat mazed and unhearing when Clement read, Angela roamed in and out like an unquiet spirit, as her brothers and sisters consulted in her presence, all feeling what it was to see her for the first time devoid of her own peculiar comforter.
Stella watched over her incessantly, and sat writing letters in the painting-room. Poor little bride—what letters they were to bear the date of her eighteenth birthday and her first Stella Eudora Audley's! About one o'clock, however, there was a shuffling sound of feet, a rattling of the lock, and little Gerald came breathlessly stumbling into the room, and in a moment was clasping his arms round Geraldine, 'Chérie, Chérie! you aren't gone too. Keep me, keep me!'
'My Gerald, my boy, my own!' He was on her lap, in her arms, and they were kissing each other with passionate fervour. 'Oh! Chérie, my back does ache so. I came all the way and up the stairs. Oh! my back.'
'My dear little man! There,' and Stella helped to place him on his couch, where she hung over him, the dumb spell broken by force of the little hands that clutched her fast.
'Don't let them have me again.'
'No, no, never, never,' cried Cherry, 'you are mine! my own all that is dearest, my boy, his boy.'
'Oh! please don't cry, Chérie, please,' and he stroked her face, while Stella was only too glad to see the tears. 'My back is better now, and I don't care, if you won't go away like my Daddy.'
'Not now, my child, don't be afraid.'
Then in an undertone 'Ishe?' and at her look and gesture, he again clung to her, burying his face on her neck, 'O Chérie, Chérie, why do people die? I wish it had been Kester.'
'O hush, Gerry,' and just then manly steps came along the gallery, causing the child almost to choke her in his grasp, as trembling all over, he implored her not to let him be taken away.
'Is Gerald here?' asked Clement, opening the door, 'ah! yes, John, here he is!'
'No, no one is going to take you! Oh! Clem! John, is this a fit! my darling! Speak to him.'
'My dear,' said John, 'no one wants to take you away, I am only thankful you are here! Don't be afraid.'
The grasp, which had for a moment had something convulsive in it, slackened, but the poor child panted out 'Hold me! hold me, don't let me go.'
'No indeed, Gerald,' said Clement in his sweet voice, as he smoothed the tumbled hair, and as the boy did not recoil, took him on his strong arm and knee, 'no one can take you from us. You are our child, Chérie's and mine, the treasure trusted to us.'
Cherry looked up to her brother with an exquisite pathos of gratitude, and the child lay back, long shudderings still heaving up through his little frame, and drawing deep sobbing breaths, but his brown eyes showing his exceeding repose and confidence in his tall uncle's arms, and with Chérie's hand in his.
'I am most glad to have found him here,' said Major Harewood. 'Gerald, dear boy, I fear you have been very miserable. Marilda undertook the care of the children at the Rood, but she could not get on with them. Was that why you came home, Gerald?'
'It was all so horrible when Mary and Sophy were gone,' said Gerald.
'I am afraid Kester and Edward have been very naughty,' said John. 'Gerald, what have they been doing to you?'
The child hid his face on his uncle's breast. Timid and nervous as he was, he was precocious enough to be too honourable for personal accusations, and Major Harewood respected him. 'No, my dear, I will not vex you with questions. I am exceedingly grieved at the treatment you have had in my house. I must go, for there is much alarm.'
'Not Wilmet?'
'O no, poor dear, she takes their voices for those of her own little brothers, and asks them not to wake your father. Alda seems to have carried her back to her old days, but she is really better this morning and quite calm. I must hasten back.'
He was very pale and worn, but had a look of relief, as he wrung Cherry's hand without trusting himself to another word. Clement followed him to exchange a few more sentences on the blessing the child's return had been in rousing Cherry, but he was thoroughly angered and vexed at the usage his sons had evidently inflicted on their guest.
Poor child, he would have been far better off taking his chance amid all the home distress than dragged off to the tender mercies of his natural enemies. Marilda had received him as a sort of prey of her own, and resolved to win his heart while doing a real service by undertaking the care of the children, but the three boys were all of genera new to her. Kester openly defied her and led his little brother, and she grated on Gerald just as she had once grated on his aunt. As she had seized him officiously without asking counsel, she had not been cautioned on the peculiar treatment he required, and Ferdinand never thought of her not understanding it by sympathy like the aunts. However, as long as the kind almost motherly Mary Vanderkist was there, the child was tolerably happy, but when she was gone, and Fernan in his voluntary exile, he had no protector, and matters became far worse when Marilda had removed to the Rood, intending the children to spend the days there with her.
The first day had disgusted Kester and Edward with her parlour and her babyish games, and they refused to go thither again, or else rushed home as soon as her bonbons failed. Gerald could not walk so far, and no one remembered to take him, while Marilda, hurt at her ill success with the ungrateful boys, absorbed in tidings from the Priory, and in sending them on to her mother and Fernan, and provided with a very different object of life from the adoption of Edgar's boy, was more relieved than disappointed at their non-appearance. The cottage and nursery were disorganized by the mother's illness, and the two boys exercised unlimited tyranny over their victim. Kester, two years older than Gerald, and with twice his strength, could inflict all the cruelties by which the young male animal delights to test his power. The little wretch had Harewood wit enough for the invention of horrid bugbears, frightful to the nervous temperament he deemed cowardice. Between these, and the torment of being pushed, pinched, drummed, and hunted with ruthless violence, together with a mind confused as to whether all he loved, Felix, Chérie, Lance and all, had not vanished like his father, poor Gerald had come to such misery that, on being told that cousin Marilda had sent for a great new Locomotive, named Fiery Dragon, to carry him away right in the boiler, he could bear it no longer. He had certified himself from the window that the Priory at least still existed, had struggled down that giddy horror the stairs (where indeed Kester had once already goaded him down with a broomstick), and when once alone, awakening to his prairie resources, had made his way to the road, on seeing no means of passing the river to the garden, and had crept along, sitting down to rest, till seeing a carter boy with his sleek horses on the road, he had coaxed him to give him a ride on the broad back of one, and thus had arrived at the garden gate, made his way in, again achieved the staircase, and found his refuge at last in his Chérie's arms, not, however, till his system had received shocks enough to throw him sadly back. He was stiff in every limb, and wearied to excess, but slightly fevered, and haunted with terrors none the less miserable because imaginary. Nothing soothed him, but to have his aunt hanging over him caressing, talking, reading, nay even playing with him with a lump like lead in her heart, but her child's necessities preventing it from rising up to crush her.
Major Harewood might permit licence, but he was thoroughly master, and presently he brought up his culprits, shame-faced and tear-stained after their first castigation, and dictated their sobbing but sullen apology. The benefit to them, and to all whom they might have bullied in the future, might be great, but the scene was dreadful to the sufferer, who shook from head to foot, and when bidden to shake hands, held out his little white fingers with tremor that grieved more than it surprised the Major after the confession he had extorted, of hair pulled to make the scar bleed, of ambushes in dark corners, of the stimulus of the gig whip to quicken the steps.
He sent Mr. Page to inspect the victim, who was pronounced to be on the verge of nervous fever, so that Cherry and Lance had to devote their whole selves to him for the next few days, watching even when he dozed, since he would sometimes scream himself awake in a renewal of the real or imaginary horrors.
Was it a burthen? It might seem one, but such anxiety was the best distraction, the child's improvement the best earthly solace of which the sick and laden heart was susceptible.
The unmarried woman seldom escapes a widowhood of the spirit There is sure to be some one, parent, brother, sister, friend, more comfortable to her than the day, with whom her life is so entwined that the wrench of parting leaves a torn void never entirely healed or filled, and this is above all the case when the separation is untimely, and the desolation is where lifelong hopes and dependence have been gathered up.
Thus it was with Geraldine. Her brother had been the medium through which earth had love, joy, or interest for her. He was gone, and after her first annihilation, she mourned less externally than some of the others, because she knew she should mourn for life.
She did not weep nor bewail herself, but when not engrossed by her boy, she sat silent, inert, crushed. However she responded to all kindness, sadly but gratefully, and Mr. Audley soon found that the fittest way to cheer her was to lead her to the dear reminiscences of her brother's past life, of which happily Gerald was pleased to hear. He might not enter into all, but he would lie gazing with his soft dark eyes, and sleepily listening, soothed by the low calm voices in which the dear old days were called up, and Mr. Audley was told the details of Felix's doings and sayings in the years of his absence. And out of such memories seemed to rise upon the sister strength, serenity, and a sense of unbroken love, as though Felix were still her chief comforter, even as when he used to rock his baby. The sorrow was unappeasable, and external words even of the highest comfort fell cold on her ear, though she tried to accept them, but to recall the thoughts and promises through her brother's value for them gave them life, and quickened her into the endeavour to attend to all he would have wished to be done for the others.
Angela, unwell with a heavy feverish cold and pain in the face, could by no means be kept still, wandering about like a perturbed spirit, trying all sorts of occupations, but never pursuing them for five minutes together. When her Hepburn friends came to see her, she sent down for answer a fierce impatient 'I can't,' which Robina of course translated more civilly. The good ladies were greatly moved and full of sympathy, eager to tell of the exceeding sorrow of the whole parish, and in the midst, Angela, in her aimless changes of purpose, came into the room. Miss Isabella's kind arms were held out, but she backed out of them, and when after some more kind expressions the visitor added, 'certainly, whatever differences existed, we all feel that your dear brother was truly one of the elect,' Angela startled her with a sort of shriek—'Miss Isa, don't go on! I won't have it! You don't know what a ten thousand times better Christian than any of us you are patronizing. You and your—your—your (Robina was afraid she said cant) have gone and set up a barrier between me and the very dearest of brothers. Oh! my brother. Oh!'
She fled in a passion of tears, Miss Isabella looked inexpressibly shocked, and Robina tried to plead ungovernable grief that knew not what it uttered. The kind ladies excused readily, only begging to be sent for in case her mind should turn towards them, a contingency just now most unlikely; for of all names poor Angela seemed to loathe none so much as Hepburn, and she absolutely gave way to a fretful fit of scolding when Clement gratefully mentioned their consideration in undertaking some of the parish Christmas business.
For several days Sister Constance had never ventured to leave Wilmet, but on the last evening when it was possible to look on Felix's face, Major Harewood released her from the bedside, and bade his brother ferry her over to spend an hour at the Priory.
After a solemn interval spent in the infinite peace of the Oratory, William conducted her to the painting-room. It was twilight, Geraldine was sitting by the fire with little Gerald on her lap, murmuring some story to him, and Robina was stamping a pile of black-edged letters, while notes of the organ, Lance's chief solace, came ever and anon in from the church. As the Sister advanced something long and black reared itself out of a dark corner, and clasped her round the waist, crying out, 'Sister Constance! Sister, take me! Why was not I always with you! Oh! I must come.'
It was enough to startle any timid person, sobbed out as the words were. 'Gently, Angel, gently,' said Cherry, and Robina was prepared to unfasten her like a wild creature, but Sister Constance, tenderly kissing the hot forehead, said, 'Softly, my poor child, we will see about it.'
'Don't see about it!' cried Angela, in the childish phrase of impatience. 'It is my only refuge! I'm not fit to be in the world.'
'Let go, Angela,' said Robina, 'you don't know what you are doing!'
'Promise! promise!' repeated Angela, only the more passionately.
'I have no power to promise,' said the voice, so soothing in its authority. 'You know you have given up your claim.'
'Oh! I was misled! I was blind! I did not know! I was mad; but you'll forgive—you will let me come.'
'Only our Mother Superior and the chaplain can judge whether you can be taken back. Nothing can be done in this sudden way. We will talk it over quietly by-and-by. Now, my dear, let me speak to your sisters.'
Subdued by her tone, Angela stood aside, and after the greeting, Robina collected her letters and went away to her Willie.
Sister Constance was little changed since she had come in among the desolate children eighteen years ago. That which had taken away her youth and sunshine had been long previous, and there was little noticeable alteration except that each year which carried her further from the agitation of grief confirmed her habits, strengthened her hope, and added to her serenity and sweetness. As she sat down, Angela dropped on the floor, leaning against her black serge dress, while her gentle stroking hand on the coils of hair must have been almost magnetic, for it was long since the girl had spent so many minutes in tranquillity, as while the Sister and Cherry talked over her head.
First as to Wilmet, who was rallying the forces of her sound health and constitution. Throughout, Sister Constance said the presence of her twin sister had done more good than anything else. When nothing was so needed as quiet and sleep, Alda had lain down by her side and stroked and fondled her, and she had forgotten all that had passed since the two fair heads had last rested beside one another, laid the invincible weight of sorrow on her, to the account of the earliest sorrow of her life, and when disturbed by her boys' voices, called them by the names of her brothers, and yet she had never failed in recognition of her husband. She was now quite herself, only so weak that she shrank from thought or speech, and merely rested in Alda's presence. Cherry had hardly hitherto comprehended how nearly both their pillars of the house had gone together, and she could now feel thankful, though more for John's sake than with the sense that any loss could make much difference to herself, and much more did she care to hear Sister Constance express her admiration of the calm victorious beauty of the brow she had first seen on that dark confused winter evening when the task was just beginning which was at last laid down. She had been struck by the identity of the countenance. The man of four-and-thirty had lost none of the candour and purity of the boy; the lad of sixteen had already much of the grave steadfast sweetness of the man. She thought they would know him in the Resurrection by that look.
The talk came only too soon to an end. With the precision of a woman living under discipline, the Sister watched the clock, and rose up five minutes before it struck, saying that her time would be up by the time she was put across the river. Geraldine kissed her in acquiescence, but Angela pursued her into the gallery, and tried to drag her to her own room, 'I must talk to you, I want to tell you how I came to send back my medal!'
'My dear, I cannot stay. Major Harewood must be set free to go to his dinner.'
'Only five seconds, to beg you to manage! I must confess to Father Willoughby.'
'Angela, you know enough of us to know that it is not allowable to linger over an appointed time.'
'Oh! I know I am undisciplined.'
'Submit to discipline, then.'
'I wanted to explain,' following her downstairs.
'Hush!' said the Sister, gravely signing towards the curtains that hung over the archway leading to the long room and the oratory beyond. Awed by this ruthless silencing, she could only follow spaniel-like to the drawing-room, where William had told Sister Constance she would find him, and he was standing over the fire talking to Robina.
Allowing them a moment for their farewells, Sister Constance put her arm round Angela. 'Poor child,' she said, 'when I can, we will talk. Meantime this is the best I can say to you: "Commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, and be still."'
Poor Angel! The religion that had consisted partly in music, flowers, and excitement, and the rest in mechanical party-spirit, had been totally unreal and unpractical, though with a sound theology and fitful aspirations for better things when she should have had her swing.
When religionsuch as she had made itproved wholly inadequate to her need, her friend's influence led her to the central Verity where alone rest could be found. Then having brought herself to the sense of individual pardon through faith, she discarded all besides, hotly revenging herself on what she took for impediments, and striving to stir up that assurance of forgiveness which was all feeling by all external means. The discovery of the inconsistency of her guides, and the knowledge of Felix's condition had come upon her at the same time, and the latter had blotted out everything else. During the ensuing weeks everything was lost in the sight of her brother's fatal suffering, all through her own ungovernable levity. The sting she had smothered in the vagueen masserepentance which made an unsorted heap of her sins, and lavished hard names on it, now came forth with a barb of poisoned acuteness. For those two months devoted attendance on her brother had been her whole religion, but there was that about him which always made the endeavour to please him no small training, how much more when he was on the verge of the River.
He did not preach or argue, he was simply himself, and the constant endeavour to ascertain his doings and understand his expression revealed to her much of his mind, all the more perhaps because she never spoke, she hardly thought, she only received impressions. And above all, that upward look with which he met that last full absolution, that expression of intense acceptance and gratitude of sight rather than faith, had dwelt on her ever since, not merely casting out the memory of the pain-wrung features, but even overmastering the image of the grand monumental placidity which had settled down on the countenance at rest from its labours.
That absolution! She had heard it before, perhaps too early, certainly too much as a matter of course, for actions whose faultiness was visible enough, but which involved no true contrition. So little had it touched her innermost soul, or so little innermost was there to be touched, that its familiarity had made her spurn it as an empty insufficient delusion in her despair in the summer, and catch at the notion which condemned its utterance by a mere man as vain and presumptuous. Her careless touch had turned the Golden Key to lead, and only when she saw it held to the faithful did the gold shine out once more.
There was no pause to think till the mortal struggle was over, but then came the revulsion, and the peace she had seen so real in her brother brought her back to the wildest longing to experience the same, through the same means, and yet the reluctance to turn to the ordinary helps before her still made her hang back from her brother Clement, or Mr. Fulmort. They would look, if not say, 'So here you are at last.' If their principles were right, as Felix's acceptance proved, of course it was their own fault that she had not been more good. They shared in her intolerable loathing for whatever was around her, her madness to be out of sight of everything and everybody, and wretched feeling of impatience. The sight of Sister Constance suddenly gave this longing an object. Her old love of St Faith's revived, and therewith the desire to find a spiritual healer in Mr. Willoughby, the chaplain, who was comparatively a stranger to her, though Mr. Audley had left Cherry under his care, and he had of late become a good deal noted as a director. This was what she wanted to say! Could she but have talked to Sister Constance, and shown the peculiarity of her case, the insufficiency of her guides, the really tragic nature of her troubles, shemusthave obtained the object she had become set upon in these few minutes, namely, leaving the dreariness of home by hurrying to St Faith's and Mr. Willoughby, when Lance should return to his business on Monday.
Cruel Sister, to have postponed such misery to John Harewood's dinner! 'Commune with your own heart.' A fine way of refusing confidence! Yet Angela was nurse enough to know the need of punctuality in relieving guard, and Sister Constance could not have been spared much longer. Wilmet knew it was Alda's last evening, and must not be allowed to dwell on the thought. For poor Alda durst not ask for a respite. She must go away with her husband as soon as the funeral was over, for she believed Ferdinand Travis was still at hand, and durst not inquire. She was still conscious. Nay, most poignant grief of all was the sense that the dark noble countenance was dearer to her than when she had raved about its beauty, and that it could still make her heart throb wildly. It was a humiliating, involuntary sin, the outcome of the voluntary sin of past years, of those blind heartless manoeuvres to which she looked back in amazement as she contrasted her actual life with that which she had thrown away, while watching unconscious manifestations of devoted conjugal affection, such as she had never before missed because she had never conceived them. Avoidance was all that was possible to her. Her little girls must be her refuge! Was not the man still single, and could she help feeling a certain satisfaction in the thought?
Poor Alda! She was up in her sister's room that afternoon when Marilda and Miss Martha Hepburn encountered one another on their daily visit of inquiry in the cottage drawing-room, and Miss Martha had ventured on congratulating Miss Underwood.
'Who told you?' bluntly exclaimed Marilda.
'I beg your pardon! Indeed—I thought—We heard it on good authority—Shall we contradict it?'
'Say nothing about it! We particularly wish it not to be mentioned,' almost growled the heiress, 'I would have given anything that it should not have been known at such a time.'
Miss Martha was dismayed, and retreated amid showers of promises of secrecy, but with the elation of having confirmed the fact.
Marilda exclaimed, 'How horrid! Who can have gossiped? Now, John, do me a kindness! You tell Alda! I can't!'
'I am afraid I must ask the other half——'
'Can't you tell? No wonder. He is so much too good for me.'
'That's uncle Bill,' broke out the unsuspected Eddie, with his mouth full of her chocolate creams. 'He's worth ever so much more than you.'
'I have a better guess,' said his father, unable to help laughing, 'Travis? I heartily congratulate you. Never was there a nobler fellow!'
'It ought not to have beennow,' said Marilda, 'but we could not help it. It had all been one long, long misunderstanding, and it came right of itself as soon as we began to talk to one another. Fernan says poor Edgar wished it, and dear Felix knew it, and sent us a blessing through Mr. Audley, but we meant no one to know for a month, or till I had gone home. It seems so unfeeling.'
'I do not think it will seem so here,' said John. 'You know Charlie's proposal rose almost out of Stella's grief for Theodore,' and as Marilda was trying to guess who had spread the report, he added, 'Never mind. Of course we know such things are in the very air.'
'It is Alda that concerns me,' said she, her face on fire, 'I would not have her hear it indirectly.'
So John, who had first known Alda and Fernan as the senior lovers, while he was still in suspense, undertook the communication and made it when Alda was pouring out his tea that evening. Her hand was steady, but her lips drew together as she said, 'Riches to riches.'
'True, but hardly just.'
'No.Shelikes him,' and the emphasis was bitter. 'Can a woman be fair towards the man who once loved her?' thought John, but restrained his speech.
'How long has this been?' asked Alda, presently.
'I cannot tell. Quite recently, no doubt, but long enough to give pleasure to your dear brother.'
'Felix knew?'
'So she says.'
He did not understand her look of pain as she thought of Felix's cry of indignation on her light avowal of the insinuation which had parted those two, securing the one for herself and casting the other over to him, but her womanly instinct strove to hide the pang or excuse it with a half truth.
'I can't help thinking of my husband's disappointment. He reckoned on her as the benevolent genius of our family.'
'I have little faith in benevolent genii.'
'Not equal to three per cents, as he would say. You are wealthy enough to be shocked at the worldliness of those who have to live up to a position. However, there is no reason to regret it! They have more in common than appears at first sight.'
And she soon escaped. Three lines of truly kind congratulation lay on Marilda's toilette table the next morning. Alda attempted no more—hers was a grief that would not brook the light.
So morning dawned on the day when the Church was to give the brothers and sisters voice for their farewells to that beloved and honoured head of their orphaned home.
So far as depended on them, and by Felix's own express written desire, all was far plainer than in the case of their parents, when he had been in bondage to Thomas Underwood's views of propriety. Now—so far from the seventy-five yards of black cloth bedecking the church, it had not lost one holly wreath, one ivy streamer: the scarlet and white flowers were fresh, the star of Bethlehem in pale bright everlasting flowers still stood prominent, and in letters of golden straw the Epiphany promise:
'The sun shall no more be thy light by day,Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee,But the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light,And thy God thy glory.'
No pauper funeral there was simpler, for the same purple velvet pall with the red cross stretching its arms over the coffin in protection was used for the poorest; the plain oak only bore the name and date, and the brothers and friends bedizened themselves with no foolish gloomy streamers or scarfs, as they drew together to follow the farm-labourers who bore what remained of Felix from the steps of the hall door where, four years and a half before, he had spoken forth his purpose to live there to the glory of God and the good of his neighbour.
So he passed from the home he had never coveted, though he had loved it better than aught save the home beyond.
The Bishop of the diocese had desired to testify his esteem by welcoming him to the Rest of those who die in the Lord, and Clement was thus one of the eight brothers and sisters who followed first. The nearest of all was tacitly allowed to be Geraldine, upon his arm, while he led Gerald. Not only was the child his uncle's heir and head of the name, but Cherry and Lance found that to see and know all was best for him. Poor Edgar's wish that people could be sublimated away had been in a measure fulfilled in his case as regarded his little son, and the consequence had been a vague horror and mystery that had haunted him till he was led to gaze at and kiss his uncle's calm white face, and then, after long dreamy thought, he had said in a voice of comfort, 'Then Daddy was like that.' Kester was there, too, in his father's hand, awed but sharply observant. And besides these, and the nearest connections and friends, there was all the parish, farmers, tenants, labourers and all! Scarcely a cottage but rang with the lament, 'We, shall never have such another Squire;' almost every woman was sobbing with the infectious agitation of that class; the big lads, whom he had taught on many a Sunday and winter evening, were even more unrestrained in their grief, and many a rugged old labourer echoed the elegy, 'Well now I did reckon never to have seen the last of he, but the likes of him was too good for we. I never had a beast out of the ordinar but it was sure to go the first!'
Not only Vale Leston was there but almost all the gentry and fellow-magistrates, Sir Vesey Hammond's white head conspicuously, also a whole company of familiar Bexley faces. They had given no notice lest the family should put themselves to inconvenience, but there they all were, the Mayor, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Jones, Mr. Prothero, and many another also come with old Mr. Harewood and Ernest Lamb, who, poor fellow, looked as if the foundations of the earth had given way with him. The late Rector had written his excuses on the score of health, but Doctor Ryder was present, and Mr. Audley had been called out to speak to his old colleague Mowbray Smith, who had come many miles to testify his gratitude to 'the best friend and truest I ever met, though I was such a fool as not to know it at the time.' Of course the Vicar of St Matthew's had come early enough to join the family in the morning Sacrifice of thanksgiving, and as Robina moved on in the confused maze of sorrowful faces, she recognised the familiar head of Lord Ernest. It was as if Felix had left such a mark on all who came in contact with him, that none could abstain from testifying honour and gratitude, and yet it had been a very simple life. As he had said himself, he had done nothing but what he felt obliged to do. There was nothing however to which he had set his hand that was not in a better state than when he had taken it up.
So 'his works did follow him,' so had he 'served God in his generation'—as happy a fate as man can have, and those who were older than the bereaved brothers and sisters had learnt that however sad it seems to be cut off in the prime of life, with schemes of good all unfulfilled, yet it is like a general dying in the moment of victory, with the cup of tedium, failure, disappointment, and decadence all untasted.
It was a long procession that was met by the Bishop and his clergy, with the present Rector of Bexley and Mr. Colman of Ewmouth, and not only the Vale Leston choir, but many of those from St Oswald's. Well might Felix thus be greeted. Very few were the Sundays, since his father first had robed him in his little surplice and told him of Samuel, that he had not sung his part, he had not even had any long interval of broken voice, and had been retained during that time for the sake of his influence. Like everything else, his musical talent had been used primarily for the glory of his Maker.
What with the sweet sounds, the evergreen wreaths, the festal colouring, and the flowery crosses and wreaths carried by so many, there was more of grave joy than of grief and wailing apparent after the service once began. Sorrow without hope it could not be, solemn as it was when, as Felix himself had bidden, looking up to his Angel with the trumpet, it was the awfulDies Iraethat heralded his way to the open grave beside his little Theodore, under the leafless willow-tree, which recalled the effort that had cost them all so dear.
Yes, Felix had laid down his charge, and gone to rest from his labours, and as 'Safe home' finally closed the service, did not Geraldine think of her fleet of boats and long for safety in the haven, whither her flag-ship had now attained? Yearningly she bent forward, aided by Clement, for her last sight of the coffin and the dear name 'Felix Chester Underwood,' never again to be a household call. She hung so long over it that Clement would fain have drawn her back, and as she resisted, was trying to find voice to bid her remember that 'he is not here,' when little Gerald, struck perhaps by the words of the hymn, and connecting it with the earth he had seen and heard dropping in, reached out of Lance's arms, where he had been lifted, touched her and said, 'Was not that baptizing him again for the Resurrection of the dead?'
She heard, and her boy was her best comforter again, bringing back the trust to see 'that countenance pure again,' and to look up instead of down.
So her brothers led her away, but there was no quiet time yet The Bishop had considerately refused to come to the house, but Clement must of course go and speak to him, thank him, and bear the expression of his warm feeling for the family and reverence and gratitude to the man who had so changed his parish.
Geraldine had to go to the drawing-room with her sisters, Marilda, and Gertrude May, whose right to be present all had felt. Her eyes were dim, her colouring paled, she looked as if she had been weeping ever since they had last met, and she only tried to avoid obtruding her presence or her grief. Her father soon came for her. He took Cherry's hand, saying, 'My dear, trust an old man. You can't feel it now, but our jewels become dearer in the diadem, and when our hearts go after them, there is rest.'
Cherry tried to smile thanks but was too sad to take home the comfort. She wanted her jewel now!
Food must be eaten, for Marilda and the two married sisters were going away, but before the move to depart, Clement said, 'There are so many of us that we think all should hear about the property together before there is any break-up.'
So Major Harewood, with a draft of the will in his hand, explained. Land, house, furniture, everything at Vale Leston of course, descended to Gerald Felix Underwood under the trusteeship of Clement, John Harewood, and Ferdinand Travis. The personal guardianship was reserved to Geraldine with £500 a year until the heir should be of age. If he should die without children, the succession would of course go to Clement, and after him it was entailed on the brothers, or their heirs in due order. Besides this the estate was charged with £500 a year, as an income for each of the sisters who might remain single. On her marriage each would have £500 down, the annuity of the others remaining untouched, unless one entered a sisterhood, when £50 per annum should be paid for her. To Lancelot was left unreservedly the whole of the acquisitions at Bexley, house, shares in the business, stock, and Pursuivant. There was an annuity of £30 to Sybilla Macnamara, a legacy to Martha, and to the old foreman, and that was all. John and Lancelot were executors.
The first feeling was of surprise that Bernard was only mentioned as last in the entail. Cherry and Lance both turned to him. 'It shall be all the same, Bernard; he means us to do it.'
'No, he doesn't,' gruffly answered Bernard.
'Of course we can manage for you,' added Clement; 'as long as you work, there can be no difficulty.'
No thanks, no reply, indeed, followed, and Sir Adrian bade Alda hasten if she wished to take leave of her sister. Major Harewood would take her across at once, and she would be called for at the cottage on the way to the station. Wilmet was reported to have lain very still, shedding a good many soft tears, but not seeming the worse.
Alda held Geraldine closer than she had ever done before, and entreated, 'Write often, and let me know about you all. I wish we had been more together.'
Marilda was going to London with her, Sir Adrian was still in ignorance of the coming blow, and there was nothing in the farewell to Ferdinand to make him expect it, so his scowl at his wife's hand-shake was on the old score. Poor Alda, at least she had her children.
Their sweet Princess Fair Star! Yes, she must go! Captain Audley was waiting to drive the young couple to meet the express. They were to take a fortnight's quiet in the Isle of Wight, and then enter on their new world. It was time Charlie should have his wife to himself after all the patience, unselfishness, consideration, and helpfulness that had sealed him as a true brother, and endeared him the more from the contrast not only to Alda's husband but to his own father.