Vivian's Lesson

by Elizabeth W. Grierson

‘No, no, not Lucy!’ cried Vivian in alarm. ‘Just leave me alone, Ronald; you can’t help me.’

And Ronald, who by this time was shivering with cold, crept into his own little bed at the other side of the room, feeling sorely perplexed. He lay and strained his ears for any sign of his father’s return, intending when he heard his step to creep downstairs and tell him what a funny state Vivian was in; but he must have fallen asleep, for when he was awakened by hearing Vivian moving on the other side of the room, he fancied that it was morning.

‘Whatever are you doing, Vivian?’ he asked, all his fears about his brother returning. ‘It is not time to get up yet; it is quite dark, and I don’t hear any one stirring in the house.’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Vivian, and there was a determined ring in his voice which reassured Ronald. Anyhow it was quite clear that his brother knew what he was doing. ‘Father has just come in, and I’m going down to tell him all that I have done. Perhaps none of you will speak to me again when you know, and perhaps I’ll be sent to prison; but I can’t stand this any longer, and perhaps God will spare Isobel.’

There was a glimmer of light from the passage as he opened the door, and the next moment he was gone, leaving Ronald sitting up in his bed in astonishment. Either Vivian was going to be ill—and the thought crossed his mind that what had been so fatal to Isobel might have hurt Vivian more than any one had supposed—or there was some great ugly mystery which had yet to be explained; and as he remembered one or two little things which had troubled him at Eversley, but which he had forgotten—the muddy indoor shoes, the wet coat, and Vivian’s evening excursion out into the rain, and his fright when he heard of Monarch’s death—he felt sick with apprehension as to what new trouble might be coming to mar the happiness of their pleasant family-life.

‘Eh, what?’ said Dr Armitage, looking in perplexity at the little white-robed, white-faced figure which stood just inside his study door. He had returned from his late visit to Widow Dallas’s granddaughter, and had been gathering up his papers and putting out the lamps, when the sound of Vivian’s voice arrested him, and, turning round, he saw the startling apparition.

‘My dear, are you ill? You should have sent Ronald down,’ he said in alarm, and crossing the room, he would have taken the little boy on his knee, but Vivian pushed his arm away and shrank back against the wall.

‘You won’t touch me when you know, father,’ he began, and his voice did not seem as if it belonged to him at all, ‘for I’m a thief, and a liar, and a murderer, or at least as good as one, for it is all my fault that Isobel is dying; and I thought—I thought—if I told all about it, God might make her better.’

Here he stopped to moisten his lips, for they were so dry he could not go on.

‘My dear, you do not know what you are saying!’ said his father starting forward, greatly alarmed, fearing, like Ronald, that the excitement of the past day had affected the little fellow’s brain.