“You do? But that is not Aunt Geoffrey.”
“O! Aunt Geoffrey is anxious, and expected her to get on faster, just like Busy Bee expecting everything to be so quick; but I am sure you could not get any more information from her than from me, and impressions—I am sure you may trust mine, used as I am to watch mamma.”
Fred asked no more; but it was observable that from that day he never lost one of his mother’s little notes, placing them as soon as read in his pocket-book, and treasuring them carefully. He also begged Henrietta to lend him a miniature of her mother, taken at the time of her marriage. It represented her in all her youthful loveliness, with the long ringlets and plaits of dark brown hair hanging on her neck, the arch suppressed smile on her lips, and the laughing light in her deep blue eye. He looked at it for a little while, and then asked Henrietta if she thought that she could find, among the things sent from Rocksand which had not yet been unpacked, another portrait, taken in the earlier months of her widowhood, when she had in some partial degree recovered from her illness, but her life seemed still to hang on a thread. Mrs. Vivian, at whose especial desire it had been taken, had been very fond of it, and had always kept it in her room, and Fred was very anxious to see it again. After a long search, with Bennet’s help, Henrietta found it, and brought it to him. Thin, wan, and in the deep black garments, there was much more general resemblance to her present appearance in this than in the portrait of the beautiful smiling bride. “And yet,” said Fred, as he compared them, “do not you think, Henrietta, that there is more of mamma in the first?”
“I see what you mean,” said Henrietta. “You know it is by a much better artist.”
“Yes,” said he, “the other is like enough in feature,—more so certainly to anything we have ever seen: but what a difference! And yet what is it? Look! Her eyes generally have something melancholy in their look, and yet I am sure those bright happy ones put me much more in mind of hers than these, looking so weighed down with sorrow. And the sweet smile, that is quite her own!”
“If you could but see her now, Fred,” said Henrietta, “I think you would indeed say so. She has now and then a beautiful little pink flush, that lights up her eyes as well as her cheeks; and when she smiles and talks about those old times with papa, she does really look just like the miniature, all but her thinness.”
“I do not half like to hear of all that talking about my father,” murmured Fred to himself as he leant back. Henrietta at first opened her eyes; then a sudden perception of his meaning flashed over her, and she began to speak of something else as fast as she could.
Uncle Geoffrey came on Saturday afternoon, and after paying a minute’s visit to Fred, had a conference of more than an hour with his sister-in-law. Fred did not seem pleased with his sister’s information that “it was on business,” and only was in a slight degree reassured by being put in mind that there was always something to settle at Lady-day. Henrietta thought her uncle looked grave; and as she was especially anxious to prevent either herself or Fred from being frightened, she would not leave him alone in Fred’s room, knowing full well that no questions would be asked except in private—none at least of the description which she dreaded.
All Fred attempted was the making his long-mediated request that he might visit his mother, and Uncle Geoffrey undertook to see whether it was possible. Numerous messages passed, and at length it was arranged that on Sunday, just before afternoon service, when the house was quiet, his uncle should help him to her room, where his aunt would read to them both.
Frederick made quite a preparation for what was to him a great undertaking. He sat counting the hours all the morning; and when at length the time arrived, his heart beat so violently, that it seemed to take away all the little strength he had. His uncle came in, but waited a few moments; then said, with some hesitation, “Fred, you must be prepared to see her a good deal altered.”