"My grandfather was so well up to Saturday afternoon," she said mournfully; and after all, no reasoning could explain away the actual fact of a shock received. Mischief might have been brewing, but also the brewing mischief might have been hastened.
Hermione had her own bitter additional grief, but for which she would have blamed Harvey far more unreservedly. If she had followed Mr. Fitzalan's advice, and kept her grandfather at home—as she might have done, for he would always yield to his darling, if to no one else—and if she had followed Harvey's suggestions of sending for Mr. Pennant, who could say but that the fatal attack might have been warded off? This thought pressed upon her with leaden heaviness, yet she spoke of it to no one. She was very reserved, very reluctant always to admit blame to herself as due. Harvey made no allusion in her hearing to his rejected advice; such an allusion could now have been only cruel. Mr. Fitzalan said nothing of the message he had sent, which he supposed to have failed in its effect, for he would not needlessly add to Hermione's distress.
People hear grief in very different ways, and Hermione's fashion of grief-bearing was not to sink beneath it. Though so slight in appearance, she was healthy and vigorous. Where another might have been crushed, she seemed rather to be stimulated into an intense restlessness. She could not read, could not work, could not talk consecutively. No needless allusion to her loss ever passed her lips, yet when necessary she spoke of Mr. Dalrymple with outward composure, gave all needful orders, wrote countless letters, arranged everything, left no duties unperformed.
From the first she had not been known to shed a tear, and the usually smiling eyes had a dry look of fixed sadness; nevertheless she did weep when alone in her own room, and she was not utterly overwhelmed. She did not appear to be suffering in health, but only was always on the move, unable to rest, passing hither and thither incessantly, upstairs and downstairs, from one room to another, her soft step never varying in its style.
Harvey wondered at her. He was full of pity for the poor girl, and this sudden death of the kind old uncle whom he had not treated rightly came to him as a sharp blow. He would have liked to draw nearer to Hermione in her loneliness, to have shown brother-like sympathy, and to have tried to comfort her. But Hermione eluded all such attempts. She was his polite and cousinly hostess—nothing more. Any further approach drove her instantly to "letters that must be written," or "something that had to be done." Harvey acquiesced at length, taking long walks about the neighbourhood, and seeing a good deal of the Fitzalans, but holding very little intercourse with Hermione. And so the slow days wore away until the funeral.
Marjory was by far the more broken down of the two girls. From the moment of receiving the sad news she had scarcely left her couch. She could not sit up or stand without a sickening whirl of everything present. Parish work and other work had to wait. The girl seemed crushed by her friend's loss.
The two had not met as yet. Hermione kept strictly to the house, and Marjory could not go thither—the utmost she was able to accomplish being to dress herself and creep down to the drawing-room.
Harvey commonly found her there when he came in, as he did on some pretext or other once, if not twice, each day. Life at the Hall was dull for him, and he seemed glad to get out of the sombre atmosphere; and Marjory could detect a natural impatience to be with his young wife again. "I should have liked to send for her here," he said once, "but Hermione seems to disapprove; and I suppose, under the circumstances, as they are strangers—"
He looked doubtfully at Mr. Fitzalan, and the answer was, "I think you will be wise to wait." To Marjory's relief; Harvey acquiesced.
Friday came, and all the village followed the remains of the village-benefactor to the grave. Hermione was there, notwithstanding her cousin's opposition. Harvey thought that the ordeal must be too great, and would fain have had her remain at the Hall. But he needed not to have feared. Hermione was entirely composed throughout— "stoical" one person said to himself, and that person was not Harvey, for Harvey could not at all make up his mind about Hermione.