Chapter Twenty Seven.
Maria’s Deceptive Message.
“Don’t read any more, my dear,” said Ralph Elthorne gently.
Nurse Elisia looked up from her book and found that the patient was gazing at her.
“Ah,” he said, with a faint smile on his pinched lips, “I said ‘my dear.’ Yes; not the way to address one’s nurse. It was to the sweet, gentle woman who has tended me with all the patient affection of a daughter.”
“Oh, Mr Elthorne!” she cried, her eyes brimming with tears, “I have only tried to do my duty as your attendant.”
“And you have done much more,” he said, as he still gazed at her thoughtfully. “You have set me thinking a great deal, my child—a great deal, and—no, you must not talk of leaving here again for a long time—a very long time.”
She shook her head.
“I have duties in London, sir, which call me away.”
“And a duty here which keeps you,” he said, smiling. “You would not be so hard-hearted as to leave such a broken old fellow as I am—helpless.”
“But you will not be so helpless soon, sir.”
“Ah, well,” he replied, “there is time enough for that. We shall see—we shall see. Yes. Come in!” he cried querulously, for there was a tap at the door. “No, do; don’t come in. See who it is, my child. If it is Isabel, she may come. If it is my sister, tell her I cannot see her to-night, and that she must stay with her visitor.”
“And it will make her more bitter against me,” thought Elisia, as she crossed the room, to find that it was Maria Bell.
“Miss Isabel wants you in the lib’ry, nurse, in a quarter of an hour,” said the woman shortly; and she turned her back and went down.
“What is it? what is it?” said Elthorne sharply.
She told him.
“Now what can she want that she could not have come and said to you herself? In a quarter of an hour, eh?” he continued, turning his eyes to the little carriage clock standing on the table. “Yes: they will be out of the dining room then, and the gentlemen will be sitting over their claret—as I used to be over my glass of port—as I used to be over my glass of port.”
“Shall I read to you again for a while, sir?” said the nurse, to divert his thoughts from the past.
“No, not now,” he said shortly. “Hah! How little we know of what is in store for us. Such a hale, strong man as I was, nurse. And now, a helpless baby—nothing more.”
“Nothing more, sir? With mental powers such as yours?”
“Hah! yes. A good reproof, but it is impossible not to lie here and repine. Mental powers such as mine! That was not meant as flattery, eh?”
“I think you know I would not be so contemptible, sir,” she said.
“Yes, I do know. Thank you. Another reproof. Why, nurse, my accident must have done me good. I should have resented reproofs once upon a time. But I’ve paid dearly for my lesson—very dearly indeed, and there is so much more to pay—all my life. Yes, all my life.”
He closed his eyes and lay thinking for some time, not opening them till the quarter of an hour had nearly sped, when he looked sharply at the little clock.
“Time you went down,” he said sharply. “Tell Isabel to come and see me a little sooner to-night, to sit a quarter of an hour before she goes to bed.”
Elisia placed a glass close to her patient’s head; saw that the cord was within reach, in case he should want to ring; and then, conscious that he was attentively watching her every act with a satisfied look in his eyes, she passed out into the corridor, and then drew back slightly, for Aunt Anne had just passed the door, and was going on to her own chamber with her dress rustling loudly as it swung from side to side, and threatened to sweep some of the valuable ornaments from the side tables and brackets arranged here and here. Then, turning into her room, the door was closed and Elisia went on down.
As she reached the hall, voices could be heard plainly in the dining room, where she judged that the gentlemen would still be sitting over their wine. She half stopped as one voice rose louder and sounded deep and hoarse, and for the moment it seemed as if, in dread lest the door should be opened and the occupants of the room appear, she was about to retreat upstairs; but, recovering her confidence, she passed on toward the library, the softly subdued notes of a piano reaching her ear from the drawing room, so that she was in no wise surprised, on turning the handle, to find that the library was lit up but vacant.
The door swung to as she entered and glanced around the massively furnished room with its heavy bronze figures on the mantelpiece, each bearing a globe lamp which threw a subdued light around, while a broad, green shade spread a circle of light on the book covered table.
Elisia took a few steps forward into the room, rested her hand upon the back of one of the heavy leather-covered chairs, and sighed as she stood thinking. For the place, with its calm silence and softened light, evoked thought, and the disposition to recall the days when life seemed opening out before her in one long vista of joy. At that time it was as if there were no such element in existence as sorrow; and yet of late hers had been permeated by incessant grief, and a despondency so great that there were hours when she lay sleepless, thinking that death when it came would be no trouble, only a great and welcome rest.
She sighed again as she stood there crossing one hand over the other, and half resting on the great chair back. And now a smile faintly dawned upon her lip, as she began to think of her mission there, and of how long it would be before Isabel came. For it was pleasant to think of the fresh, innocent, young face, which had now grown to light up when they met, as its owner became more trusting and affectionate day by day.
Then, as she thought that the girl would come as soon as the piece she played was finished, the tears rose to her eyes. For the melody she heard, like every air that has once made its way to the heart, evoked old memories of scenes years before, when she had played that old air. It had been a favourite of hers, and used to sound bright and joyous, but now it was full of sadness.
“Why is it,” she thought, “that as time glides on, all these old airs grow more mournful in their tones?”
The answer to this has never come, but the fact remains the same; and why should they not sound more sad to us who heard them in our youth, and love them better in our riper years when they are blended with memories, and softened by time, even if the hearing of the strain does produce a mistiness of vision and a disposition to sigh?
Even as Elisia stood and listened, the tones of the piano seemed to float to her, and it was not until there was the faint sound of a closing door that she awoke to the fact that there was no other sound vibrating in the air, and that all was very still where she waited. But her heart beat more quickly, and her hand was raised to her breast in the fancy that she might stay its throbbing, for the step she heard was familiar—that hasty, decided pace, crossing the marble floor, as if bound on some important mission.
Her lips parted and there was a hunted look in her eyes as she looked sharply round for a way of retreat.
“He is coming here,” she said in a hurried whisper, and she glided toward a folding screen between her and one of the great book cases; but before she reached it the plainly heard steps ceased, and she knew that they were hushed on the thickly carpeted stairs.
“Gone to his father’s room,” she said with a sigh of relief, and walking back to the chair, she rested one elbow upon it and let her face drop down upon her hand, her tears welling forth, and one glistening between her white fingers in the soft light.
“No—no—no,” she said quietly. “It cannot be now. It is all a painful dream. All that is dead.”
She tried to picture in her mind Isabel in the drawing room playing the last chords of the familiar old air, and then leaving the music stool to join her there, but another figure forced itself to the front, and she saw the dark form of Neil Elthorne as vividly as if she were watching him from close at hand. She could picture him passing along the corridor, then opening the chamber door, to see him more plainly as the soft light from the room shone out like a golden glow, and lit up his pale, thoughtful face. Then she seemed to see him close the door, cross the room, and go to his old seat beside the couch. And how familiar that attitude had become, as he bent forward to take and hold his father’s hand.
She was mentally gazing on father and son when the scene changed, and once more there was the old man’s flushed and distorted face, with the veins starting and eyes wild with anger as he realised that his long cherished plans had been so rudely overset.
The scene was very plain to her imagination. There, too, were the handsome, masculine looking sisters, whose eyes flashed at her scornfully, as she saw herself standing there, pale and shrinking, in her plain black dress, and then meeting Ralph Elthorne’s searching gaze. She remembered her effort to be firm and yet how she had trembled in dread of the man’s fierce anger. And without cause, for from that moment he had spoken differently to her, he had grown more kind and gentle; in fact, there had been times when she had fancied in her dread and shrinking that his words even sounded fatherly.
It might be imagination, she knew, but his manner had ended in evoking thoughts which had grown stronger than ever that night, and over which she brooded now.
Minute after minute passed unnoticed as she stood in the old library, and she gave quite a start, and her hand fell to her side, as a door opened again, and this time she heard voices.
“Has Isabel forgotten me?” she said to herself, as steps crossed the marble floor again, another door was opened and closed, and she stood listening and expectant.
Then there was a quick, light step, the library door was thrust open, and she turned eagerly to greet Isabel, but started back in alarm on finding herself face to face with Alison, who quickly shut the door and advanced toward her with a meaning smile upon his countenance, which she could see was slightly flushed by the wine of which he had partaken freely.
A minute later Neil entered the room and seemed blinded by the passion which surged up in his labouring breast.