‘Emma is a fool.’
‘Only you must not be angry with me. I would have said nothing without cause, but when it comes to this,—and he is pretending to be reformed.’
‘Well, so he might be if you would let him.’
‘But, Arthur!’ then eagerly seizing a new hope, ‘you don’t mean that he is really improving? Oh! has he given up those horses, and released you?
He turned petulantly away. ‘How can he? You have taken away any chance of it now. You have done for him, and it is of no use to go on any more about it.’
He marched off to his own abode, while she was obliged to sit down under the verandah to compose herself before Theodora should see her.
Theodora perceived that much was amiss; but was spared much anxiety by not being with the family, and able to watch her brother. The cottage was completely furnished from the wreck of Martindale; but the removal thither was deferred by her slow recovery. Though not seriously ill, she had been longer laid up than had been anticipated in a person so healthy and strong; the burns would not heal satisfactorily, and she was weak and languid. It seemed as if the unsparing fatigues she had been in the habit of undergoing; her immoderate country walks—her over late and over early hours, had told on her frame, and rendered the effects of her illness difficult to shake off. Or, thought Violet, those tidings might be the secret cause, although she never referred to them, and continued not merely patient, but full of vigour of mind, cheerful, and as independent and enterprising as submission to orders permitted. Her obedience to irksome rules was so ready and implicit, that Violet marvelled, till she perceived that it was part of her system of combat with self-will; and she took the departure of her sister in the same manner, forbearing to harass Violet with lamentations; and when her mother deplored it, made answer, ‘It is my fault. If I had not persuaded Arthur out of living at Brogden, we should be staying with them.’
As to the chance of permanent disfigurement, she treated it very coolly, listening with indifference to her mother’s frequent inquiries of the surgeon. ‘Never mind, mamma, you and Violet will keep up the beauty of the family till Helen comes out.’
The first time she was able to come down-stairs was the last evening before they were to depart. One of Arthur’s sparks of kindly feeling awoke when he beheld his once handsome, high-spirited sister, altered and wrapped up, entering the room with an invalid step and air; and though she tried to look about in a bright ‘degage’ manner, soon sinking into the cushioned chair by the window with a sigh of languor. The change was greater than he had anticipated from his brief visits to her in her bed-room; and, recollecting the cause of the injuries, he perceived the ingratitude of depriving her of Violet; but his contrition came too late, for he had already exchanged his leave of absence with another officer.
All that was in his power was to wait upon her with that engaging attention that rendered him so good a nurse. He was his pleasantest self, and she was so lively as to put every one else into good spirits. It was pretty to see the universal pleasure in her recovery—the weeding woman, going home late, and looking up at the window to see if she was there, as Miss Helen had promised, and curtseying, hardly able to speak for joy and grief together, when Theodora beckoned her to the window, and asked after her children. The dumb page, too, had watched an hour for her crossing the hall and when Arthur would have taken the tea from him, to hand to her, he gave such a beseeching glance as was quite irresistible, and the more affecting as Theodora’s hands were not yet in condition to converse with him, and she was forced to constitute Johnnie her interpreter.