THE MYRTLE SPRAY.
'He smiled, "Shall I complain if joy go by
With summer days and winter follow it?
If He who gave the gladness I have known,
Shall take it from me, shall I make my moan?
Nay, for it all is His, the joy, the pain,
The weeping and the mirth, the buoyant breath
Of happy toil; the mist on weary brain;
The turmoil of our life, the hush of death:
And neither life nor death—things near nor far,
Shall sever us from Him whose own we are."'
Autumn.
The Vale Leston waggonette was waiting at the Ewmouth Station to meet the express on an August afternoon, and in it sat Geraldine, her heart in her eager eyes.
Felix was coming out of the station with—oh! what a robust, brown, bronzed Ferdinand, and between them, a little fragile, shrinking figure, dragging his feet with a certain stiffness and effort. That was all she saw till he was lifted in Fernan's arms to her kiss, and passively endured it.
'Will you come by me, Travis?' asked Felix, ascending to the driving seat.
'Will you stay with your aunt, Gerald?'
'Oh, come! don't leave me!' in a plaintive voice, were the first words Cherry heard from her nephew.
'I believe I had better. He feels the jar less,' said Ferdinand, seating himself within, and lifting the child on his knee. 'Geraldine, I say,'—bending forward and indicating Felix—'is he all right?'
'O yes! quite! he only feels the strain a little now and then,' she asseverated.
'I did not know him till he spoke,' said Ferdinand. 'He is grown so much stouter and so pale.'
'We are all getting middle aged, you know,' faintly laughed Cherry.
'Not you, Geraldine, I never saw you looking so well.'
'That's the place. It has done us all good—only strains are endless worries, and he can't take as much exercise as usual. He has thought so much of your coming too—he will be much better now it is over. Little Gerald! little Gerald, our dear little boy!' said she, trying to take the small thin hand that lay on the little black knee, and to look beneath the broad grass hat.
'Take off your hat, my man,' said Ferdinand; 'let your aunt see your face.'
The child obeyed, and sat leaning against his friend, holding his hat in both hands, and gazing full at Geraldine, out of a pair of eyes, which, after what she had heard, rather disappointed her by not being of the family blue, but soft liquid brown; but the skin was delicately fair, and the features of the true Underwood cast, strangely startling her by recalling Theodore, not the mindless Tedo of daily life, but such as he had lain in the Oratory only with those great mournful eyes and a soul intensely looking out of them. The hair too was very light, of the same silkworm fineness as Theodore's, and falling in the selfsame masses of glossy waves. Ferdinand parted these aside caressingly, and showed a curved red scar that made her shudder and ask 'Is it well?'
'Quite. It did not go deep, and even the other is entirely healed now,' said Ferdinand, 'though its effects are more lasting. However, he found his legs on board ship.'
'Are you tired, my dear?' she asked, feeling as if another moment of the gaze of the big sad eyes would make her cry.
'I'm used up,' he said, piteously, but though the phrase was Yankee, the weary tone was English, and gentlemanlike.
'Poor dear little man! We shall be at home presently, and then you shall rest, and have tea.'
A smile broke out on the little face—a smile approving him truly as Edgar's son, as, glancing up through those long black eye-lashes, he asked, 'Are you Chérie?'—(not Cherry, but Edgar's own exclusive title for her).
'Chérie! To be sure I am, my own dear, dear little boy,' and the tears started while she smiled.
'Then will you tell me the rest of the stories?'
'What stories?'
'The story about the poor man that had the burthen and went the long journey, between the lions and up the hill Difficulty. When Daddy couldn't remember, he says you know it all.'
She withstood the impulse to call out to Felix, knowing that a turn to look back always hurt him, and only said, 'Yes, my dear, I'll tell you all my stories. What a traveller you are! how did you like the sea?'
'All but the womanfolk,' said the boy gravely.
'Oh! Gerald!'
'You're not womanfolk,' he answered.
'Eh! what then?' she asked, endeavouring to look into the brown eyes, but their black fringes were down now, and he nestled to his protector, into whose ear he whispered what was repeated to her in a sort of aside:
'She's just Daddy's Chérie, the darling.'
How well she knew them for Edgar's words! She longed to have him in her arms, but she saw by the manner in which Fernan held him that the strong support was needed to break the vibration of the carriage. 'Did you carry him so all across America?' she asked.
'Nearly. Even Pulleman's cars shook him, and he could bear it less then than now. The voyage did him a world of good, and every one was kind to him, but he's as bad a misogynist as ever Lance's Miles. There were but five women at Fiddler's Ranch, and only one white, and they called them all aunts. You'll have to drop that distinction! And may I keep him in my room till he has had time to get used to the strange house?'
'And the strange beings,' said Cherry. 'It will be a great blow to Sibby, who had begun to cheer up at thought of him; but as she never had Theodore at night, she may bear it better.'
'Ah! that loss must have been much felt, though no one could wish it otherwise.'
'No one has felt it so much as he,' said Cherry, glancing up to her brother. 'He had really the mother's love for the weakest. I wonder if he will see the likeness I do! I feel as if Tedo were come back, with what was lacking.'
'And Stella?'
'Oh! Stella—' she suppressed with difficulty, 'has another interest,' and changed to—'Stella has turned into a woman, and is the most helpful person about the house.'
'Whom shall I find at home?'
'The regular domestic establishment, including Bernard, but Lance comes on Saturday, and Robin—she has not been at home since September, but the De la Poers have all settled down at the baths at Töplitz, and his Lordship is coming back on business, and escorts her to London, where Lance meets her. You'll find Will Harewood too—good fellow, I know he thought Clement overtasked, so he has taken no pupils this year, except that he is coaching Bernard for Keble College, and says he is come to learn parish work, and you would never believe what an excellent clergyman old Bill makes.'
Here they reached that spot where ten years previously the charms of Vale Leston had first broken on Felix, and this time he could not help looking back to call out 'Look, Fernan! Hold Gerald up to see the place.'
Ferdinand lifted the boy to look over the empty side of the driving seat, exclaiming himself 'How lovely! There's nothing like an English village!'
'It's a ranch and not a city,' said the boy.
'It is home, Gerald, your home,' said Felix, trying to get a view of his face, which expressed more wonder than admiration.
He looked puzzled as they drove over the bridge, and when they came among the grass and trees of the park where John Harewood's fine short-horns were grazing, he asked 'Where's the store?'
'He has only heard of Bexley!' cried Cherry. 'Not here, my dear; uncle Lance takes care of that.'
'And the paper?' asked Gerald, much to her amusement, but just then they drew up at the door, where all the rest were assembled to meet them, including Wilmet and her boys, who were both dancing about, shouting at the top of their voices for a drive round to the stables. It was too much for the new-comer, he clung to Fernan with a scream, burying his face in his breast, and trembling all over, and Fernan, saying he was always frightened at any sudden outcry, asked leave to lay him at once on his bed, and let him sleep before there were any more introductions.
Felix showed the spare room, and after an interval Ferdinand rejoined them, saying the little fellow was asleep. Cherry asked if she should sit by him.
'No, thank you, he does not mind being alone, and as long as he sees my portmanteau he will know it is all right. It is numbers and noise that frighten him, I sometimes think he has never got the Indian war-whoop out of his ears. They talked of his bravery at the ranch, but that is all gone now.'
'From helplessness, very possibly,' said Felix.
'That is fast improving, but his nerves have had a shock that does not pass off. Besides, I find the poor little fellow somehow fancied he should meet his father here. I had no notion till now that he supposed he was going back to Fiddler's Ranch and the old life when he heard of home.'
'It must have been all like a long horrible dream,' said Cherry.
'I don't understand it,' said Ferdinand; 'he was scarcely sensible when I took him away, and he called me Daddy till his mind grew clearer. He seems always watching for some one. I did explain it all, and then I thought he understood, and he knows what death means, but somehow he does not realize it with regard to his father.'
'Very likely,' said Wilmet, 'his impression varies according to whether he is well, or tired and feverish.'
'I never thought of that!' said Fernan, 'I believe it is so—for when he is pretty well, he is the smartest little thing I ever saw, always asking questions, and reading! I believe he read every book on board! And he was very funny there, ready to talk to any one, provided it was not woman.'
'Has he any religious feeling?' asked Clement.
'Yes. He said his little prayers—poor Edgar had taught him that—and, and I thought you would like me to tell him what I could.'
'No one has so much right,' said Felix. 'Fernan, I have been remembering the time when I was angry with Mr. Audley for taking you into our house—as I thought to corrupt Lance.'
'Well, I did my best, or worst, to corrupt Fulbert,' he said smiling; 'and if you and Lance had not been what you were, you would have seen me in much truer colours. I had no training like what Edgar gave his boy. You will find him a wonderfully good little fellow, marvellously shielded from evil.'
'You think he may safely play with our boys?' asked Wilmet.
Fernan smiled sadly. 'Play, poor little fellow, he is a long way from their play as yet! But he is a far safer companion for them than I was for your brothers. He has hardly ever spoken to a child of his own age; I believe there was one black baby and one half-caste papoose in the Ranch, but childhood was not otherwise represented, and he was afraid of the few we had in the steamer.'
'He must have been a most incessant charge,' said Felix.
'But I don't think I ever enjoyed anything so much,' said Fernan. 'I wish you didn't want him!'
'You see how little Cherry could spare him,' said Felix. 'But you will make us a long visit, till he is quite at home.'
'I thank you; I couldn't go till he has grown happy with you—happier, I hope, than he has been with me, poor little man; but as soon as I can, I shall run up to London, and there's a matter I must go to Spain about before I return far West.'
'At any rate this is your home in England, Fernan. You know we can't thank you, but you are more than ever one of ourselves.' And Felix held out his hand for a tremulous grasp of Ferdinand's.
Gerald did seem in great need of his friend when he awoke. He recoiled in dismay at the stairs. 'Oh! those dreadful things are here too!'
For he had never seen a staircase till he was carried down that of the hotel at Sacramento, and his limbs had so far been affected by the spinal damage that he could only as yet move with difficulty on a level surface, and needed to be carried down with his eyes shut, that he might not see the giddy height. He consented to sit by Chérie at the evening meal, and was not ungracious to the other members of the family, comporting himself discreetly, gazing out of those enormous eyes at the novel scene, and fraternising with Scamp, who adopted him at once as an Underwood.
He had made up his mind as to his eldest uncle, and when they rose, crept up to him and, putting his frail little lizard's hand into his, said tentatively, 'Blunderbore!' and as Felix started, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry, he added, 'I want to see the Pursuivant,' uttering all the syllables with great clearness and deliberation.
Much delighted, Felix took him into his study, when he examined the last roll of proof with profound sagacity, and said eagerly, 'I can fix off a sheet for you,' accepting his uncle much more as editor than as squire.
The introduction to Sibby was tolerably successful, he detected that she talked like 'Kerry Micksey,' his chief playmate at the Ranch, and she was the only person he accepted as an aunt. Felix was too glad to be dubbed Blunderbore again to object to the familiarity; they taught him to term Clement the Vicar, and the others went by their unadorned names. It was remarkable that Bernard, though growing up into a fine manly beauty much resembling Edgar's, did not seem to recall any association; but on the Saturday afternoon, when Cherry was sitting with him under the cedar-tree, a low sweet whistle made him start, scramble to his feet, and as Lance came forward, he threw himself upon him with an ecstatic shout of 'Daddy, daddy.' And as Lance stooped down and gathered him into his arms tenderly, saying 'Poor little chap,' no doubt the tone and gesture kept up the delusion, for he clung in a rapture that it seemed cruel to disturb. 'What shall I do, Cherry?' said Lance, much distressed. 'Oh! my poor little fellow, if I could but change myself!'
By that time doubt had wakened, the arms were unwound from his neck, and Gerald, after a moment's contemplation, gave a sad low cry, struggled down, and hid his face on Cherry's lap, then lay passively against her while she fondled him with her hand, taking no notice in word, except by distinctly letting him hear his uncle's name. 'Lance! how came you so early, and where's Robina? Felix is gone to Ewmouth, thinking to meet you by the express.'
'We got off from town earlier than we expected; and walked from Church Ewe, and meeting Bill in the village, of course I stepped out and left them to their bliss.'
Lance looked well, and spoke as if he had attained to steady if not high spirits. In fact, though asking anxiously after Felix, he was plainly gratified by the entire trust and satisfaction shown in himself as a substitute; some of his articles in the Pursuivant had been a success in the circle that cared for them, and one on an important subject had actually been copied into a London paper, a distinction that had not so often befallen even Felix as not to make it exhilarating. What made far more difference to him, Mr. Bevan had finally resigned, and the new rector had a bright young wife, who had been a school friend of Robina's, and both had accepted Lance on terms of equality, so that he had more access to society than had ever been his lot before, and found himself treated as an important ally in all matters for the benefit of the parish. His life was evidently far more cheerful than in the previous year, and he had done what he had declared he should do—'got over' his fit of depression, i.e. resigned himself, and therefore recovered a certain power of enjoyment as well as interest in his work. Cherry reproached him with never having come home since Whitsuntide.
'No possibility of getting away,' he said.
'Not with Mutton as a pièce de resistance.'
'Mutton's Madame requires recruiting at Dearport and the frequent solace of her cosset.'
'O Lance! what a boy you are for being put upon.'
'Don't row me, Cherry, I get enough of that from Mrs. Frog. By-the-by, she's going to let Marshlands for a year to the squire while he is enlarging his house, and we are to have Prothero's rooms. The dear old Croak says she'll not have me catching my death on that nasty velocipede another winter.'
'Ah! if you had but brought her back to our old quarters! You should never have allowed the Giant to let Madame in! But tell me, Lance,' she added in a different tone, 'has she shown any feeling?'
'Lamb was in a state of mind about telling her, and wanted me to do it, which I declined, so he fetched Miss Pearson, and came down quite proud to tell me she had had hysterics. What a sheep it is, to be sure! He adores whatever she does! And then her spirits and health required the parade at Dearport.'
'You don't believe in it?'
'I only know that whenever I had to go to Dearport I always saw her best bonnets bobbing about among the ladies, or met her on the parade with Gussy and Killy looking like princes. I called to see Sister Constance one day, I thought she would like to hear about you all. And, Cherry, did you know that Angel had sent back her medal as an associate, and without a word?'
'Just what I should have expected.'
'They did not like to write about it till they knew more. Now I believe the chaplain has.'
'She has said nothing about it. In fact, she is much more with the Hepburns than at home, and they have really done her some good. She was quite meek when we fell in with all the Walshes' guests the other day. I wonder whether she will thaw to Robina! Ah! here they come!'
William and Robina were walking arm-in-arm, deeply content to be together, but grave and subdued.
'How still it all sounds!' was Robina's exclamation, and though the others smiled, it was with a sigh at the thought of the low humming that they all missed.
The hush over the house struck her more than anything. When last she had been at home the whole place seemed vocal with unrestrained life and mirth, all the brothers and some of the sisters went about whistling or singing, every one was always shouting to every one, Stella's doves cooing, the clock chiming, Theodore a continual musical-box, but now, though chimes and doves had not ceased, the soft undercurrent was gone, and so was the gay ring of mirth.
'It is as if there were something quelled,' she said, pausing for the word, when she went out for a turn with Will in the light of the broad harvest moon, rising red over the woods.
'So we are,' said he. 'There is something about the place that reminds me of going into the garden when everything is lying broken and weighed down by a storm, the sunshine making diamonds of the drops, but rain-drops still.'
'Angel is so different,' said Robin, 'and Felix's looks appal me: and yet Cherry seems easy about him.'
'So would you be if you had seen him two months ago,' said Will. 'I don't think any one is really anxious about him but Clement.'
'Oh! if it is only Clement, I don't care.'
'Working under Clement gives a very different notion of him,' said Will; 'you can't think how much I find I have to learn now I come to the real practical thing, among simple folk. It humbles me as much as it refreshes me, after the forcing-house at Oxford. I say, Robin, how long is this to go on?
'How long?' echoed Robina sadly.
'Nay, listen: Clement is going to set up a curate in the new house, as is to be, and £200 a year. I am sure of pupils.'
'Please don't ask me, Will. It is so very hard, and my better sense won't let me.'
'Then put away that better sense, as you call it, I don't.'
'I can't put away the recollection of my father dying of toil and privation. I should feel it killing you to consent.'
He felt rather than saw she was crying as she leant against him, but he tried to laugh and say, 'I am a tougher subject, Bobbie; we've neither of us been tenderly reared. Besides, here it would be different.'
'Yes, because we should prey on our families. No, Willie, I made a solemn resolution never to drag you down, and I will keep it.'
'You're far too wise for me,' he began, displeased.
'Don't be foolish, and break my heart over it! Oh! Willie, if you get angry, I can't bear it now, it is all so sad.'
The mute caress answered, but each was a little relieved to say 'Hark,' as the silence was broken by the sharp wail of Edgar's violin, which Lance was handling to ascertain in what condition it had arrived.
'Is your voice all right, Lancey?' asked Felix, as he spoke of the choral meetings.
'Just what I want to know. I've not sung to any one I could trust to tell me the sound of it. Miss Grey likes it well enough, but then she never heard it before, and I don't know whether the best high notes have not thickened.'
'What will you try? said Clement 'I'm not sure that "Chloe's disdain" did not show you off as well as any.'
'Then Angel—where is she?'
'Angel anathematises light and profane songs on the eve of the honourable sabbath,' said Bernard; 'I wish she was here to have her ears pulled.'
'No, it is not so much that,' said Cherry, 'as that she cannot bear secular music since that unlucky song. But here's Stella, the universal stop-gap, to be Chloe.'
It was a fine old seventeenth-century dialogue song, a sort of heir-loom in the family—the lady's part full of the pert coy disdain that passed for maidenliness, the swain's of a pathetic steadfast constancy, and there was a variety in the expression that had always given scope for the peculiar beauties of Lance's voice. But as he sang it now, it was not only as a musical exercise or 'crack song,' the manly melancholy stirred the depths of a sad but resolute heart that could hardly have otherwise poured itself out. So two of the hearers understood it, and Cherry, clasping Felix's hand, found the pressure returned.
It was only Clement who, as the last sweet quiver died away, was disengaged enough to say, 'You seem to me to have gained instead of lost.'
He muttered something about a German air left upstairs, and ran away.
'I'm afraid it is Philomel against the thorn,' murmured Felix in his sister's ear.
And Clement, in an undertone, uttered the two words 'whosoever hath,' and Stella, of course mentally supplying the continuation, perceived that he was thinking how the voice treated as a means of praising divine glory had survived in its purity and freshness under the same danger that had been fatal to the gift that had been the temptation and ruin of its owner—a thought better suited to Clement's stern sad nature than to his little sister; and instead of answering, she began to play Mozart's requiem.
It was long before Lance returned. 'It was that poor little Gerald,' he said. 'I wish I had thought of it—when he heard the violin, he thought his Daddy was really come at last. I nearly tumbled over the little white bundle in the gallery. Poor morsel, I suppose he was almost asleep, for when I picked him up, feeling like just nothing at all without his clothes, he firmly believed I was Edgar masquerading; and the more I coaxed him in the dark, the more he implored me, "Oh! Daddy, don't go on, be Daddy, I know you, I do! 'Tisn't play," till he almost broke one's heart—I thought I should have to call Fernan.'
'And how did you manage him, poor darling?'
'It was curious. One of those shouts that they give in the harvest when they clear the last sheaf in a field came in, and made him shudder in horror. "The Indians," he said, and then, after I had told him what it was, I said, "Yes, you heard the Indians once, didn't you?" and he answered, "Oh! yes, Daddy told me, 'Never mind, my brave boy, it can't last long. Shut your eyes, and say your prayers!' and he held me tight, tight."'
'Then that is the last recollection he has of his father! A noble one!' said Felix, with a sound of thankfulness.
'So I told him,' pursued Lance, 'that Daddy was right, and it hadn't lasted long. I just told him the real story, and how his father gave him to Mr. Travis to bring to us. I told him how poor Edgar used to teach me to play on his fiddle, and I think he really was relieved to lose the confusion about identity, and he knew me at last for the Lance who used to sing "Jim Crow." I told him all I could, and looked at the marks on his poor little back and breast. How did he live, Fernan?'
'I can hardly tell; I suppose life is very strong in a healthy child, and that torpor of benumbed nerves saved him much pain.'
'I fancy poor Edgar had told him a good many stories about us, for he asked me all manner of odd questions about home, and I am to take him there when he is well. Meantime I had to sing him to sleep—"like that," he said, poor little fellow; and he started Sibby's old croon that used to be Baby's name for her.'
'The child has adopted you, Lance,' said Felix, when he saw Gerald riding down to breakfast in the new uncle's arms, with an arm round his neck and his head on his shoulder. 'Should you not like him to be your godfather, Gerald?'
'No, Gerald, that can only belong to Mr. Travis, and your uncle Felix.'
'Travis, of course,' said Felix; 'but for me, it would be too like a parent, and—' he paused, but went on: 'You ought to have that tie—you who brought out that final saying from his father. Never let him forget it. It is so perfectly the spirit in which to meet the unavoidable.'
He certainly had a power of transmuting into comfort all he heard of this beloved brother. It had been decided that the boy should be admitted into the church on this, his first Sunday. Ferdinand was anxious that it should be, like his own baptism, his first sight of the interior of a church, and had been preparing him for it all the way home, so that he knew a good deal more than had yet been made to adhere to his cousin Kester, and his replies had a flavour of St. Matthew's that delighted Clement. It did not seem right that the thing should be done in a corner, and in the first strangeness numbers would make less difference than after he had learnt to know the faces round him; so they resolved to face the full congregation at once, large as it was apt to be in the afternoon; for there had of late arisen among the young men of Ewmouth a fashion of walking out to church at Vale Leston, attracted partly by the choir and partly by the preaching.
It was too long for Gerald's feeble limbs to be kept standing, and though he was tall for his age, Ferdinand Travis took him in his arms where the questions and replies startled the unprepared. 'Who baptized this child?' when the answer, 'I did,' came from the jet-black beard of the great American merchant, more like a Spanish grandee than ever; and 'With what matter was this child baptized?' was responded to 'With water'—there was a thought of the blood that had oozed forth and mingled with the 'lucid flood,' and Clement's voice trembled with emotion as he certified that all was well done, and as he signed the cross, it was where, in anticipation, Ferdinand had marked the rood, and as Geraldine's eye traced the little coronal that the cruel knife had scored, her whole heart went into the thought.
'Thus outwardly and visibly
We seal thee for His own;
And may the brow that bears the cross
Hereafter bear the crown.'
Strange was the entry in the parish register regarding the child whom his uncle treated as heir of his house and name, but at whom every one looked with compassionate misgiving, so weird were his great pensive dark eyes, so thin his cheeks, so feeble his movements, so complete the contrast to his sturdy cousin Christopher, the one all mind and the other all body.
Felix wished for London advice for him, and, as there was to be a clerical meeting on Tuesday at Richard May's, proposed to drive with Clement as far as Stoneborough to ask the two physicians what they would recommend. Lancelot only discovered this intention just as he was stepping into the boat in which Bernard was going to take him to Ewmouth to meet the train—probably he fancied his face quite impassive, but it was far too transparent for him, and there was a curious gust of expression passing over it when Felix asked whether he had any commands for Stoneborough. 'N-not—at least, my—my—remember me to them. That's all! good-bye.'
Then he expended his energies on the oars, and snubbed Bernard into silent smoking, meanwhile he was calculating the increase of means that had accrued to Felix, and would surely render marriage possible.
Felix found his call happily timed, for Dr. May received him with, 'That's right. Just as the last patient has made his exit. Nay—not the last. I fear your side does not seem to have mended.'
'Not much, thank you.'
'So I see, but wait a bit. You are Tom's concern, and I shall get into disgrace if I go into it without him. You can stay?'
'Yes, I ventured to think you would house me while Clement is sitting in council.'
'That is well. I need not go out till after dinner. Gertrude is at home, but Ethel is gone to Cocksmoor to see after feeding the divines. Don't you find that an uncommon excitement to the clergywomen? Well, have you got the poor little boy?'
'Yes, a sweet little fellow, but in an anxious state. The spine seems affected still, and I want to know to whom you would advise me to show him—I must get some one while Travis is with us to tell what the American surgeons said.'
'That's another matter for Tom. He knows the present leading men better than I do. I'll send up word to him to look in when he gets back from the hospital.'
'There is a third matter,' said Felix, with a blushing smile, when the message had been despatched, 'not so professional.'
'Eh?' said the doctor with arrested attention.
'It is this,' said Felix in the deliberate manner of one who had long conned his part. 'Should you regard it as intolerable presumption in my brother Lancelot to raise his eyes to your daughter Gertrude?'
'Your brother!!!'
'Yes, sir. Lancelot. I could release him from the retail business and make over the Pursuivant to him. He would have rather more than £500 a year, and if—'
'Lance!' again exclaimed the doctor. 'So it is Lance! I beg your pardon, I had been hoping it was yourself.'
'You will hardly hope that long, sir.'
'What do you mean? That hurt? What has been——'
'That will wait. Do not let me lose this opportunity,' said Felix, rather breathlessly. 'It is not only my health. For all essentials, whatever you are kind enough to think of me, Lance is that and a great deal more, and he is deeply smitten, poor fellow, and needs affection and happiness so much,' he continued, a little hurt at the smile that played on the doctor's features, and broadened into a laugh.
'Well, I've no right to complain after setting the lad on.'
'You, sir?'
'Ay. When he was brooding and moping in the winter, fancying no girl would look at him, I told him, by way of shaking him up, that I should be ashamed of one who stuck at his occupation. It is like giving a boy a gun, and wondering when he brings down your tame jackdaw. One ought to have experience by the time it comes to one's youngest, but I suppose I should never get it if I were the father of the fifty Danaides.'
'May I gather that you would not think the disadvantages insurmountable? I know it does not sound well, but Lance is in a better position than mine was. He is a good deal thought of in the town; is intimate at the Rectory; and if he lived in the country, and dropped the retail, I can answer for it that there would be plenty of society such as your daughter would care to have. If I foresaw mortification, it would not be right to expose her to it.'
'Somehow my girls care rather too little than too much about society,' said the doctor. 'I shall be the sufferer. How I shall catch it from Tom and the rest!'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Not so fast. Stay a bit. How far has it gone? The boy has not spoken to her?'
'Not in so many words. He does not dare, and I could not venture to encourage him till I knew what you thought. Indeed he has been chained to Bexley ever since I have been laid up.'
'He is a thoroughly nice fellow,' allowed the doctor; 'he let out a good deal of his inner self to me last winter. If worth were to have it——'
'He would stand first,' said Felix eagerly. 'To tell you what he has been to all of us these——'
'Hush, here comes our professor. He was fuming like quicklime at Daisy's escapade the morning after your accident. A wholesome preparation.'
About an hour later the dinner bell brought down Gertrude and her nephew Dickie. She started, and a thrill of colour passed over her face as she met Mr. Underwood at the table, and, laughing rather nervously, begged him to excuse deficiencies, as Ethel, the cook, the parlour-maid, and all the best knives and forks were gone to Cocksmoor.
It struck her that her father was grave and silent, but her heart was, as usual, full of Vale Leston and Cherry, and she catechised him next on all the ins and outs with which her visit had made her familiar, he replying in detail with his natural quiet humour, though whenever Lance's name came up, he could not help colouring a little. He delighted and excited Dickie with Bernard's cricketing feats, and the doctor waked into interest from his abstraction. He had to go out directly after, taking with him Dickie, who now held the holiday privilege of being his charioteer.
'You had better take a rest after your drive,' said the doctor to Felix. 'Nobody will disturb you in the drawing-room.'
Felix willingly reclined in the great easy chair, only begging Gertrude not to think it necessary to leave him, and as she wished nothing better than to stay, she took her work and sat down. At first all was still; he had put his head back, with closed eyes, in the relaxation of complete lassitude, but his countenance did not give the impression of sleep. It was weary and exhausted, though placid, and gradually an expression of reflection came over it, deepening into anxiety and perplexity, until after about twenty minutes he opened his eyes, and looked at her with a pleasant smile.
'I hope you are rested,' she said.
'A good deal, thank you;' then, after a pause, 'Did I tell you that Lance has quite recovered his voice?'
'I am glad; I have never heard him.'
'You must, then. Cherry shall manage it next time he comes home. He has been kept much too close this summer, but we must make a different arrangement.'
'Not your changing places!' cried Gertrude, 'you don't look fit!'
'I am afraid not,' he answered with weary acquiescence. 'Your father and brother have been overhauling me, and I believe my effective days are over for some time.'
'Oh!' she started, and said in an imploring tone, 'Cherry said the sprain was almost gone.'
'The sprain is,' said Felix, 'but there's something beyond. It may go on for some time, but the result is very doubtful.'
She rested her chin on her hand, her eyes dilated by the shock.
'So, you see,' he proceeded, 'I am anxious to lose no time in getting matters into order, both as regards Vale Leston and Bexley.'
'Oh!' she burst out with a cry; 'don't, don't, don't go on like that—just as if it were somebody else.'
The sound of misery convinced him that he was acting for the best in killing at once any embryo aspiration directed towards himself; more especially as he felt her more capable than any one he had met since Alice Knevett of stirring what he was resolved never to allow to be stirred. Never would he have risked this tête-à-tête but for his recent interview with the two physicians; and her sorrow touched and warmed the inmost recesses of his heart. He leant forward, saying, 'There is so little actual suffering that perhaps I feel as if it were somebody else. I have been expecting this, and there have been a weight and weariness about me which make the thought of rest not unwelcome.'
'Oh, no, no! You are quite young. Papa and Tom couldn't have said it was so bad. There can't be no hope.'
'No, there is just a chance of things taking a different turn.'
'Oh! they will! I know they will! Please don't give yourself up. That's the worst thing for any one.'
'I don't do that;' and as she came and stood by him he looked up in her face, saying, 'there is so much kindness in the world that one would gladly not leave it, if only not to grieve one's friends.'
'I wish,' with a half-angry sob, 'you wouldn't talk in that horrid resigned way.'
'This will not do, indeed, my dear.' Her weeping made the word slip out as in reasoning with one of his sisters, but it brought her colour, and the tint was reflected in his own as he said, 'I beg your pardon.'
'Oh! please, I do like it so.'
He found himself on perilous ground, for he was exceedingly drawn towards the girl, whose warmth gave him a greater sense of sweetness than ever had Alice's most gracious moments; and it was with strong effort that he preserved a sort of fatherly tone.
'Sit down again; there is a great deal I should like to tell you, if you have patience to listen.'
Patience! She would fain have listened for ever. He told her the more slowly, in order to give time to rally, the history of the family struggles, dwelling at each turn on Lance's manful part in them, and resolute sacrifice of taste and ambition, and coming down to his own inheritance at Vale Leston, with all that it had involved. The fact was that it was needful to let her perceive that he had never had it in his power to marry, and never intended it; that the only mode in which he could both do his duty by his brothers and sisters, and make restitution of the church property, was by continuing his business, being economical, and raising up no fresh claims on the estate.
Probably she did not at the moment take in the idea of this affecting any relations with her, for she exclaimed, with that hot petulance which in her was never unbecoming, 'I see, it's too late; you've spent everything on everybody else, and lived for everyone but yourself.'
'I wish I had.'
'I don't think it fair!' she passionately exclaimed. 'Why should everything come on you?'
'Perhaps, when one's forefathers have done a great wrong—ignorantly, may be—it must come on some one. I have been struck by seeing how seldom the lay rectory has gone in the direct line, and I am glad to prevent it from being bound about that poor child's unconscious neck.'
'I was wrong,' she whispered under her breath, in a sudden change of mood, as the simple-heartedness of his manner impressed her. 'You are as devoted as any of those old people.'
'Not I,' he answered. 'I have had a particularly prosaic, prosperous, comfortable life of it;' and then, thinking the scene had lasted long enough, he said, 'I should like to call on Mrs. Thomas May. Is it permissible to go through the garden?'
'How can you?' she exclaimed.
'Thank you, I am quite rested' (he might have said, as much as he ever was).
'I meant, how can you go and make trumpery trivial calls.'
'It did not answer in the year one thousand to sow no corn, in expectation of the end of the world,' he answered. 'Spiritually, as little as materially.'
He tried for his dry gentle manner, but was too much moved by her grief to make it natural.
'I'll come with you,' said Gertrude, leaping up.
He took his hat, and she a parasol, and they crossed the garden in silence till, almost at Tom's door, she exclaimed, with a choking gasp:
'Oh dear! oh dear! if there were anything I could do for you!'
'Thank you,' he answered affectionately, with a smiling trembling lip. 'One wish is very strong with me. Things may not be prepared for its fulfilment while I am here—but when it comes before you—you will remember what you say, and I think it will be granted.'
She turned, half petulantly, and plucked off the myrtle leaves.
'Are you going to give me a piece of that?' he said, smiling.
She broke off a spray in full flower.
'Thank you,' as he put it in his buttonhole. 'Perhaps some day you will see this again. Then remember.'