'No indeed, Gerald,' said Clement in his sweet voice, as he smoothed the tumbled hair, and as the boy did not recoil, took him on his strong arm and knee, 'no one can take you from us. You are our child, Chérie's and mine, the treasure trusted to us.'
Cherry looked up to her brother with an exquisite pathos of gratitude, and the child lay back, long shudderings still heaving up through his little frame, and drawing deep sobbing breaths, but his brown eyes showing his exceeding repose and confidence in his tall uncle's arms, and with Chérie's hand in his.
'I am most glad to have found him here,' said Major Harewood. 'Gerald, dear boy, I fear you have been very miserable. Marilda undertook the care of the children at the Rood, but she could not get on with them. Was that why you came home, Gerald?'
'It was all so horrible when Mary and Sophy were gone,' said Gerald.
'I am afraid Kester and Edward have been very naughty,' said John. 'Gerald, what have they been doing to you?'
The child hid his face on his uncle's breast. Timid and nervous as he was, he was precocious enough to be too honourable for personal accusations, and Major Harewood respected him. 'No, my dear, I will not vex you with questions. I am exceedingly grieved at the treatment you have had in my house. I must go, for there is much alarm.'
'Not Wilmet?'
'O no, poor dear, she takes their voices for those of her own little brothers, and asks them not to wake your father. Alda seems to have carried her back to her old days, but she is really better this morning and quite calm. I must hasten back.'
He was very pale and worn, but had a look of relief, as he wrung Cherry's hand without trusting himself to another word. Clement followed him to exchange a few more sentences on the blessing the child's return had been in rousing Cherry, but he was thoroughly angered and vexed at the usage his sons had evidently inflicted on their guest.
Poor child, he would have been far better off taking his chance amid all the home distress than dragged off to the tender mercies of his natural enemies. Marilda had received him as a sort of prey of her own, and resolved to win his heart while doing a real service by undertaking the care of the children, but the three boys were all of genera new to her. Kester openly defied her and led his little brother, and she grated on Gerald just as she had once grated on his aunt. As she had seized him officiously without asking counsel, she had not been cautioned on the peculiar treatment he required, and Ferdinand never thought of her not understanding it by sympathy like the aunts. However, as long as the kind almost motherly Mary Vanderkist was there, the child was tolerably happy, but when she was gone, and Fernan in his voluntary exile, he had no protector, and matters became far worse when Marilda had removed to the Rood, intending the children to spend the days there with her.