Nor was he the only mourner. The first practice of the choir-boys without him ended in a positive howl; one of them was reported to have said Master Theodore was a little angel among them; and the intimation of Stella's desire for broom blossom brought in such an accumulation of golden flowers as might have covered the whole family.
Sibby added to Clement's perplexities by announcing her intention of not going to mass any more barring at Church. She would cast in her lot with her own children, the darlin' above all that was the Lord's own lamb; and she hadn't need go further, when here was Master Clem, as good a praste as any of her own clergy that was.
Though this was precisely Master Clem's own view, he could not tell whether he were encouraging an act of schism or an act of Catholicity; and he had not much choice, for praste as she owned him, he knew that the least opposition would make him in his old nurse's eyes no more than the long white boy she had victimized and allowed to be victimized by all his brothers. He wondered whether to write to the Priest at Ewmouth, who had certainly never attended to Sibby like his brother at Bexley, nor exerted himself to encourage her weekly tramp to mass. Altogether, though touched and warmed, he was by no means so elated about his convert as Clan Hepburn would have thought proper.
Those good ladies, in spite of their belief that there was a regular chapelle ardente round poor Theodore, and that the Vicar and the Papist woman spent their time there in telling beads and sprinkling holy-water, were too kind-hearted not to come daily to inquire, and some one always went down to them. On Friday, when they were shown into the drawing-room, they found Angela kneeling by the hearth, burning some papers in the fire-place.
'Felix was better,' she said; 'he was being dressed, and was to be taken into the painting-room, it was so much cooler;' but even as she spoke, the hard silent misery of her face went to their hearts.
'You look sadly worn, my dear,' said Miss Bridget kindly. 'I hear you are the best of nurses, but you must not be overtired.'
'Oh! nothing hurts me!' with her horrid little laugh.
'Fatigue of body is a rest to pain of mind,' said Miss Isabella; 'but there is even a better rest, if you only knew your way to it, my poor child.'
'And I fear it is studiously overlaid and concealed,' sighed Miss Bridget.
Angela looked from one to the other; then exclaimed, 'There's not a bit of help or comfort in anything! It is of no use talking. Nothing—nothing will ever touch it.'