Chapter Eighteen.
Frederica reached home excited and breathless, and sat down to rest for a moment on the steps, before she went in.
“Miss Frederica—Thank God,” said old Dixen, coming out of the shadow where he had been waiting for the return of his young mistress in great anxiety.
“All right, Dixen—only I am so tired, I cannot tell you about it now.”
The hall door opened, and Miss Agnace came out. She, too, was watching, it seemed. Dixen fell back into the shadow again.
“My child, is it you? Where have you been? Not at Mrs Brandon’s, for she has been here. We have been in such terror for you.”
“You need not have been,” said Frederica. “Where is Selina? No, Miss Agnace, I am not going in there, for I am very tired.”
She paused a moment at the foot of the stairs, looking up. A kind, half-familiar face looked down on her from above.
“Is it Col. Bentham?” said she, going up slowly. “And papa has come. Oh! papa! papa?”
Was it her father’s face she saw? It was such a face as her father’s might have been in his youth, a nobler and better face than his had ever been to her knowledge, though no such thought came into Frederica’s mind as she gazed. And who was this beside him, looking at her with Selina’s eyes, smiling on her with Selina’s smile, and calling her sister? Frederica grew pale, and trembled more and more.
“Lena,” she faltered. “Lena, is it that I am going to be ill again? or am I dreaming?”
“Fred love,” said Selina, putting her arms around her, “it is our elder brother Edgar, who has come, and our sister Cecilia, and poor papa—”
But Frederica heard no more, for there was a mist before her eyes, and a buzzing in her ears, and by-and-by she found that Miss Agnace was bathing her face, and Selina was holding her hand, with a pale anxious face. Then she heard a strange voice say,—
“She must drink this, and go to bed at once and no one is to talk to her to-night.” And that was almost the last thing she knew, till she awoke next morning with the sunshine on her face.
It was well that the rest of the night came before the excitement of the day that awaited her. For poor Fred had yet to be told that she would never see her father on earth again. Col. Bentham told her first, and then her sister Cecilia told her about his last days; and as she listened, Frederica’s thought was—
“Now he is with mama, and nothing will ever happen to make them grieve one another any more.”
This thought softened her grief, and made her tears flow gently, as Cecilia went on to tell how sorry he had been about some things; and how he had longed to return to his children and their mother, when it was no longer possible to do so; and how unwillingly he resigned himself to the sad necessity at last.
She told them how his restlessness and impatience went away, and a great change came over him towards the end. He longed to live for his children’s sake, but he ceased to be afraid of death, nay, he welcomed the messenger of the King as he drew near.
“Papa must have known all along what mama only learned towards the last, that Jesus died to save His people,” said Selina. “Was it that which made him not afraid?”
“He learned it in a new way as he lay upon his bed,” said Cecilia. “It was that from which he took comfort at the last. Many a time he said to me, he had nothing else in which to trust.”
“And, Fred love, we must not grieve too much. Think how glad mama must be to see him there,” said Selina.
All this, and more, was told on that first Sunday morning, but Frederica was not told that day that they had brought her father’s body home. Careless as he had in the old days been about all that did not minister to his own pleasure, in the time of suffering his heart turned with longing unspeakable to those he had left behind, and strange to say, he had entreated to be taken back, to be laid by the side of the wife he had too often neglected and forgotten. And so they had brought him home.
“And did papa ask you to come and take care of us? It was very good in you to come.”
“Col. Bentham came to take care of you, and Edgar is to help him. My husband and I came because we wished so much to see you, and because we hoped we might have you home with us for a little while. But that will be decided later.”
Frederica had not spoken all this time. She was afraid if she said a word she would break into tears and sobs beyond her power to stay, as had happened once or twice before. But when their brother Edgar came in, she gave a cry, and clasped her sister’s hand.
“He is so like papa,” she uttered faintly.
“Is he?” said Selina. “I have not seen him yet.”
She took her brother’s hand, pressing her own small fingers softly and rapidly over it, and then over his face and hair. “Is he like papa?” asked she doubtingly.
“Like, and yet not like,” said Cecilia, and Frederica said the same. But neither of them said that the likeness was of features only, or of expression.
“Are you better?” asked he of Frederica. “Do you know that it was I who prescribed for you last night?”
“Are you a physician?” asked she.
“I hope to be one some day. Indeed, I am one already, in a way. I am going to take you into my special care, till you are the rosy little girl we used to hear of long ago.”
Frederica shook her head sadly. “I am quite changed. I never used to know what it was to be tired. Now I can do nothing, and I am so foolish, that the least thing makes me cry. I am quite ashamed.”
“But all that is to be changed now that I am come to take care of you. You will soon be well and strong again.”
And so they talked on, till they were on friendly and familiar terms with each other; and Frederica, reassured and comparatively cheerful, was able without undue excitement to make the acquaintance of Cecilia’s husband, when later he and Col. Bentham came in together.
“Fred love,” said Selina, “tell them about Charlie and Hubert.”
“Ought I, Selina? must I? I am afraid everybody will think I have been very foolish—perhaps wrong.”
“We were alone, and frightened,” said Selina. “And there was no one to tell us what we ought to do.”
“Of course, if we had known that you were all coming to take care of us, it would not have mattered. We could have waited; but we did not know,” said Fred deprecatingly.
And then the story was told, partly by one, and partly by the other, how startled they had been when Selina had heard Charlie’s voice calling to her in the street. They told of their visit to the school out of which the long procession of boys had come, with Madame Precoe and Father Jerome, and how the people there had been so polite and kind, and how they had put all thoughts of the boys being there out of their minds, till Dixen had told them yesterday that he had seen one of them in the long procession of boys again going up the street.
“Was it yesterday, Lena? It seems a long time ago, since Dixen spoke to us in the garden.”
“And the foolish part of the matter is yet to be told,” said her brother.
“Then Fred ran away to tell Caroline. But she did not go there, and I only know that she told Dixen it was ‘all right,’” said Selina.
“It was foolish, I suppose, but then I did not know what else to do.”
They listened to the account she gave them of little Hubert’s ‘rescue,’ with mingled astonishment and amusement, at a loss, when all was told, to decide whether Fred had been very brave or very foolish—inclined rather to agree with the child himself, that no “rescue” had been needed, yet admiring the courage which had accomplished it, and the modesty which deprecated blame rather than claimed admiration for what she had done.
“I daresay Hubert thinks himself a prisoner now, and that he needs to be rescued much more than he did before,” said she doubtfully.
“But, indeed, if you knew how anxious and unhappy we had sometimes been about some things, you would not call us altogether foolish,” said Selina.
“And it came so suddenly upon us. First we heard that Tessie had been to the convent, and then Dixen told us he had seen Charlie, and then I went away.”
“But who has taken the ordering of all these matters?” said Col. Bentham. “Where is the responsibility? Mr St. Cyr must have known the wishes of your father and mother with regard to these children.”
“It was not Mr St. Cyr,” said Frederica eagerly. “At least, I don’t think it was he. That was worst of all when we thought that he had turned against mama’s wishes, because he had always been so kind to us before. But last night I went to see him.”
“What! more adventures!” said Edgar. “You went to beard another lion in his den?”
“Oh! I have been there before. But he has been very ill this winter, and they would not let us in. But last night I did not ask leave. I ran upstairs and into the room where he was sitting.”
“And was he glad to see you?” asked Selina eagerly, “and did you tell him about Tessie and the boys?”
“No, Lena. He looked so changed and weak, I could not ask him. Was I very foolish? But then I am quite sure he knew nothing about them. And, Lena, he did not know about mama, though it was so long ago—Mr Jerome had not told him.”
“And was he very kind still?”
“Very kind, and he asked about papa, and said he hoped he would come home soon. And he asked about mama—and by-and-by I saw that Mr Jerome had come in, and then I came home.”
“And now it does not matter since you have all come to take care of us,” said Selina.
That their coming would put an end to all cause for apprehension in the settlement of these children’s affairs, did not seem by any means certain to those who listened. However, nothing was said to lessen their confidence. Nothing could be certainly known till Col. Bentham should see Mr St. Cyr, and as the arrangements for Mr Vane’s burial must be made at once, he determined to lose no time in visiting him, and Edgar Vane went with him.
The interview was necessarily short, but it made Edgar quite sure that Mr St. Cyr knew nothing of the change of arrangements for the children after their mother’s death. He spoke as though he supposed the boys to be at a distance, and requested Mr Jerome to take the necessary steps for bringing them home. Mr Jerome assented at once, but said very little during their stay.
“I wish I could be as sure of his good faith as I am of Mr St. Cyr’s,” said Edgar, when he spoke to his sisters about it afterward. “However, it signifies little to us, as now he need have little to do with their affairs.”
“But did he say nothing about the boys being in town when you spoke of their coming home?” asked Mrs Brandon.
“Nothing—and we said nothing to him. But I cannot help wondering what he will say, when little Hubert shall not be forthcoming to-morrow.”
“I confess I should like to see that man put to confusion, if such a thing were possible,” said Mrs Brandon.
“Which is doubtful,” said her husband.
“Still, he will have to account for his non-appearance in some way, which will be rather difficult, I imagine,” said Edgar.
But Mr Jerome was not destined to be put to confusion by the non-appearance of little Hubert; for, as they were speaking, he walked in among them.
“You did not come for me, Fred, as you promised. And I thought your old woman had had enough of me, and so I came away,” said he.
Mr Jerome had no account to render to any of them. Whatever he said on the subject was said to Mr St. Cyr, not that he considered it necessary to give an account of his actions even to him. He was accountable only to a tribunal, which would acquit him of all wrong-doing in the matter. He uttered some angry and bitter words, because of his brother’s weakness and folly, where poor Mrs Vane and her children were concerned. The children were, in his opinion, in a fair way to be ruined. The only hope for them, both for this world and the next, lay in the proper choice of guardians.
“And for you to tell Colonel Bentham, even before he alluded to the subject, that he was one of the three persons charged with the responsibility of their future welfare was monstrous. If any instrument appointing him to this office exists, you should never let it see the light. I do not believe it exists. It is one of the many dreams of your illness. Why did you not produce it to-day, if it is here?”
“It will be produced at the right time. I scarcely think you know what you are counselling, my brother,” said Mr St. Cyr, gravely. “I could not, without committing a villainy, do as you bid me do in this.”
“I will take the responsibility. You are not capable of deciding such a question. Your illness has weakened your mind, as well as your body. You will be wise to let yourself be guided by me!”
“You forget we did not agree about this thing before my illness. I am weak, I know, but I am not weak enough for your purpose. And my yielding would avail nothing. The business is known to others, as well as to me.”
Mr Jerome gave him an evil look. Mr St. Cyr was much weakened by his illness, and a terrible thought, that he was not safe in his brother’s hands, came into his mind, and showed in his face.
“The business is now in other hands,” said he feebly.
“I do not believe you,” said Jerome, restraining himself with a great effort. The look of terror in his brother’s face shocked him. The tacit accusation was an awful one, but that it was not altogether unjust, he could not but acknowledge. For in his heart at that moment he was saying, “If Cyprien had died, all might have been made to go well.”
“A further discussion of this subject can do no good now. But I warn you that whatever can be done to save these children and their wealth to the Church shall be done. It is not I who say it. A power which it is impossible to defeat or circumvent, stands pledged for a successful issue. It will be wise for you to yield before a heavy hand is laid upon you.”
“An idle threat,” said Mr St. Cyr.
“No threat, my brother. That power, as you know, never yields. Its triumph is certain. It may come to-morrow, or ten years hence, or twenty, but ultimate triumph is certain.”
“An idle threat,” repeated Mr St. Cyr.
And probably it was only a threat. If anything was done to bring into the life and destiny of these children the change which Father Jerome so earnestly desired, it was done in secret, and it failed. If the “power,” with whose heavy hand he had been threatened ever touched him to his hurt, Mr St. Cyr never complained of it, or revealed it. Certainly he never yielded to it, in the matter of the trust which Mrs Vane had given him.
With more promptness and decision than he might have considered necessary had he been in perfect health, or had the circumstances been different, he transferred to the guardians whom the mother had appointed for her children, all the responsibility which their acceptance of the office involved. The responsibility was not a light one, but it was assumed cheerfully and faithfully, and successfully borne; and as yet no harm has come, either from Father Jerome, or from the power he serves, to Mrs Vane’s children.
But all this took time, and of the details they who were most interested in the matter knew nothing, and thought nothing, except that it was a happy thing for them that to Colonel Bentham, and not to Father Jerome, the arrangement of their affairs had been committed.
Tessie came home from the convent none the worse for her fortnight’s seclusion. For a little while his sisters found that the same thing could not be said of Charlie. Poor Charlie had rebelled, and had been hardly dealt with, though he said little about it for a time. Into his eyes came now and then the look, half-deprecating, half-defiant, which they have who are only learning to yield obedience to the government of a strong hand and will, which no love softens.
He had gone into the strange uncongenial world of the great school, with his heart sore with the thought of his mother’s death, and angry with the suspicion that he who had brought them there had done so less for their good than for his own pleasure; and, child though he was, he suffered terribly. Grief, and home sickness, and disgust at many things which now became part of his daily experience, made him irritable and rebellious, and would have made him difficult to manage anywhere else. There the “strong hand” touched him, and a few months longer of the discipline he underwent would doubtless, in all things, have moulded him to the will of those who taught and governed him. As it was, those at home believed that he had come back to them none too soon for his good.
As for Tessie, though she indignantly resented having been taken away without her own consent, she had nothing to complain of with regard to the treatment she had received. Indeed, she had been flattered and made much of by all with whom she had come in contact, and doubtless would, in time, have yielded with passable grace to the necessity of submission, and contented herself with her circumstances. But she was glad enough to find herself at home again, and to make the acquaintance of their elder brother and sister, whose coming was as joyful an event to her, and as unexpected as it had been to them all.