CHAPTER XXIV.
‘AND PURPLE LIGHT SHONE OVER ALL.’
Christmas was at hand, the first Christmas in Laura’s married life, and to her happy fancy it seemed the most wonderful season that had ever been marked on the calendar of the ages. How could she and John Treverton be thankful enough for the blessings Providence had given them? How could they do enough to make other people happy? About a fortnight before the sacred festival she carried Celia off to Beechampton in the pony carriage, to buy a tremendous stock of blankets and flannel petticoats for the old women, and comfortable homespun coats for the rheumatic old men.
‘Have you any idea as to the amount you are spending, Laura?’ asked the practical Celia.
‘No, dear; but I have one fixed idea, and that is that no one near Hazlehurst shall be cold and wretched this Christmas, if I can help it.’
‘I’m afraid you are encouraging pauperism,’ said Celia.
‘No, Celia; I am waging war against rheumatism.’
‘I hope you don’t expect gratitude.’
‘I only expect the blankets to keep out Jack Frost. And now for the grocer’s.’
She shook the reins gaily, and drove on to the chief grocer of Beechampton, in whose plate-glass windows a pair of tall Japanese jars announced the superior character of the trade transacted inside. Here Mrs. Treverton ordered a hundred parcels of plums, currants, sugar, spice, and candied peel, each parcel containing an ample supply for a family Christmas pudding. The shopman rejoiced as he booked the order, and was eloquent in his praise of ‘our new fruit.’
From the grocer’s they drove to the confectioner’s, and there Laura ordered such a supply of plum cake and buns, muffins and tea cakes, all to be delivered at the Manor House on Christmas Eve, that Celia began to be seriously alarmed for her friend’s sanity.
‘What can you want with all that indigestible rubbish?’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you going to open a pastrycook’s shop?’
‘No, dear. These things are for my juvenile party.’
‘A juvenile party—already! I can’t understand your motive, unless it is to get your hand in for the future. Who are you going to have? All Lady Parker’s nursery, of course—and Lady Barker’s grandchildren, and Mrs. Pendarvis’s seven boys, the Briggses, and the Dropmores, and the Seymours. You’ll want dissolving views, and a conjuror; and you might havetableaux vivants, as you don’t seem to care how much money you waste. People expect so much at juvenile parties now-a-days.’
‘I think my guests will be quite happy withouttableaux vivants, or even a conjuror.’
‘I doubt it. Those little Barkers are intensely old for their age.’
‘The little Barkers are not coming to my party.’
‘And the Pendarvis boys give themselves as many airs as undergraduates after their first term.’
‘But I have not invited the Pendarvis boys.’
‘Then what children, in goodness’ name, are to eat all those cakes?’ cried Celia.
‘My party is for the children of the cottagers. All your father’s infant school will be there.’
‘Then all I can say is, I hope you have arranged for the ventilation of your rooms; for if you expect me to spend Christmas Eve in an atmosphere at all resembling that of our infant schoolroom you are reckoning without your host.’
‘I am not reckoning without a knowledge of Celia Clare’s good nature. I shall expect you to help me with all your heart and soul. Even your brother might do something for us. He could give us a comic reading—“Mrs. Brown at the play,” or something of that kind.’
‘Picture to yourself Algernon Swinburne reading “Mrs. Brown” to a herd of charity children,’ exclaimed Celia, laughingly. ‘I assure you my brother Edward thinks himself quite as important a person as Mr. Swinburne. Would you have him lay aside hismagnum opusto study “Mrs. Brown at the play”?’
‘I am sure he won’t mind helping us,’ said Laura. ‘I shall have a Christmas tree loaded with gifts, a good many of them useful ones. I shall hire a magic lantern from London; and for the rest we can have all the old-fashioned games—Blind Man’s Buff, Oranges and Lemons, Thread my Needle—all thenoisiest, wildest romps we can think of. I am going to have the servants’ hall cleared out and decorated for the occasion; so there will be no fear of any of the dear old furniture coming to grief.’
‘If poor old Mr. Treverton could come to life again, and see such goings on!’ ejaculated Celia.
‘I am sure he would be glad to know that his wealth was employed in making other people happy. Think of all those poor little children, Celia, who hardly know the meaning of the word pleasure, as rich people understand it.’
‘All the happier for them,’ said Celia, philosophically. ‘The pleasures of the rich are dreadfully hollow; as sickly-sweet and crumbly as a meringue from an inferior pastry-cook, with the cream gone sour inside. Well, Laura, you are a good soul, and I will do my very best to help you through your juvenile muddle. I wonder if fourteen thousand a year would make me benevolent. I’m afraid my expenses would increase at such a rate that I should have no margin for charity.’
Before Christmas Eve came a shadow had fallen upon Laura’s life, which made complete happiness impossible, even for one who was bent upon giving joy to others. John Treverton fell ill of a low fever. He was not dangerously ill. Mr. Morton, the local doctor, who had attended Jasper Treverton for twenty years, and who was a general practitioner of skill and experience, made very light of the malady. The patient had got a chill riding a tired horse a long way home through the rain, after his last hunt, and the chill had resulted in slightly feverish symptoms, and Mr. Treverton was a little below par. That was all. The only remedies wanted were rest and good nursing, and for a man in John Treverton’s position both were easy.
‘Ought I to put off my children’s party?’ Laura asked, anxiously, the day before Christmas Eve. ‘I should be very sorry to disappoint the poor little things, but,’ here her voice faltered, ‘if I thought John was going to be worse——’
‘My dear Mrs. Treverton, he is not going to be worse; in fact, he is rapidly mending. Didn’t I tell you the pulse was stronger this morning? He will be well in a few days, I hope; but I shall keep him in his room to the end of the week, and I shall not allow him to take part in any Christmas festivities. As for your children’s party, if you can prevent the noise of it reaching him, there is no reason in the world why it should be postponed.’
‘The servants’ hall is quite on the other side of the house,’ said Laura. ‘I don’t think the noise can possibly reach the next room.’
This conversation between Mrs. Treverton and the doctor had taken place in John Treverton’s study—the panelled room adjoining his bedroom—the room in which he and Laura had first met.
‘Then that’s all you need care about,’ replied Mr. Morton.
Laura had been her husband’s only nurse throughout his illness. She had sat with him all day, and watched him through the night, taking snatches of slumber at intervals on the comfortable old sofa at the foot of the big old-fashioned four-post bed. In vain had John Treverton urged the danger of injury to her own health from the fatigue involved in this tender care of him. She told him she had never felt better or stronger, and never enjoyed more refreshing sleep than on the roomy old sofa.
They had been happy together, even in this time of anxiety. It was Laura’s delight to read aloud to the invalid, to write his letters, to pour out his medicine, to minister to all the trivial wants of an illness that caused at its most only a sense of languor and helplessness. Her only regret with regard to the children’s party was that for this one evening she must be for the most part absent from the sick room. Instead of reading aloud to her husband, she must give her mind to ‘Blind Man’s Buff,’ and all her energies to ‘Thread my Needle.’
The winter twilight came gently down, bringing a light snow shower with it, and at four o’clock Laura was seated at the little Chippendale table by her husband’s bed, drinking tea with him for the first time since the beginning of his illness. He had been sitting up for a few hours in the middle of the day, and was now lying outside the bed, wrapped warmly in his long fur-bordered dressing-gown.
He was intensely interested in the children’s party, and asked Laura all about her arrangements for entertaining her guests.
‘I should think the great point was to give them enough to eat,’ he said, meditatively. ‘The nearest approach to perfecthappiness I ever beheld is a child eating something it considers nice. For the moment the mind of that infant is in a state of complete beatitude. It lives in the present, and the present only. Its little life is rounded into the narrow circle of NOW. Slowly, thoughtfully, it smacks its lips, and gloats upon the savour it loves. Hardly an earthquake would disturb it from that deep and tranquil delight. With the last mouthful, its gladness departs, and the child learns that earthly pleasure is fleeting. Let your children stuff themselves all the evening and stuff their pockets before they go home, Laura, and they will realise the perfection of bliss.’
‘And to-morrow the poor little creatures would be ill and miserable. No, Jack, they shall enjoy themselves a little more rationally than you propose; and every one of them shall have something to take back to the person they love best at home, so that even a child’s idea of enjoyment shall not be utterly selfish. But I shall be so sorry to be away from you all the evening Jack.’
‘And I shall be still more sorry to lose you, love. I shall try to sleep away the hours of your absence. Could you not give me a good dose of chloral now, Laura?’
‘Not for the world, dear. I have a horror of opiates, except in extreme cases. I shall contrive to be with you for an odd half hour or two in the course of the evening. Celia is to be my lieutenant.’
‘Then I hope you will let her do a good deal of your work, and that I shall see the sweet face I love, very often. Who is coming, besides the children?’
‘Only Mr. Sampson and his sister, and Edward Clare. Edward is going to read an Ingoldsby legend. I suggested “Mrs. Brown at the play;” but he would not hear of her. I am afraid the children won’t understand Ingoldsby.’
‘You and Celia must start all the laughter.’
‘I don’t think I could laugh while you are a prisoner here.’
‘It has been a very short imprisonment and your sweet society has made it very happy.’