'Louie says baby is gone up into the sky.'
Perhaps it was best so. What else can one say to a little child of four years old? Harvey Rolfe had no choice but to repeat what seemed good to Louie the nursemaid. But he could refrain from saying more.
Alma was in a fever by night-time. There followed days and days of misery; any one hour of which, as Rolfe told himself, outbalanced all the good and joy that can at best be hoped for in threescore years and ten. But Alma clung to life. Harvey had thought she would ask for her little son, and expend upon him the love called forth by her dead baby; she seemed, however, to care even less for Hughie than before. And, after all, the bitter experience had made little change in her.
CHAPTER 7
Since the removal from Pinner, Rolfe had forgotten his anxieties with regard to money. Expenses were reduced; not very greatly, but to a point which made all the difference between just exceeding his income and living just within it. He had not tried to economise, and would scarcely have known how to begin; it was the change in Alma's mode of life that brought about this fortunate result. With infinite satisfaction he dismissed from his mind the most hateful of all worries.
It looked, too, as if the business in Westminster Bridge Road might eventually give a substantial return for the money he had invested in it. Through the winter, naturally, little trade was done; but with springtime things began to look brisk and hopeful. Harvey had applied himself seriously to learning the details of the business; he was no longer a mere looker-on, but could hold practical counsel with his partner, make useful suggestions, and help in carrying them out.
In the sixth month after her father's decease, Rolfe enjoyed the privilege of becoming acquainted with Miss Winter. Morphew took him one afternoon to the house at Earl's Court, where the widow and her daughter were still living, the prospect of Henrietta's marriage having made it not worth while for them to change their abode in the interim. With much curiosity, with not a little mistrust, Harvey entered the presence of these ladies, whose names and circumstances had been so familiar to him for years. Henrietta proved to be very unlike the image he had formed of her. Anticipating weakness, conventionality, and some affectation, he was surprised to meet a lady of simple, grave manners; nervous at first, but soon perfectly self-possessed; by no means talkative, but manifesting in every word a well-informed mind and a habit of reflection. It astonished him that such a man as Cecil Morphew should have discovered his ideal in Henrietta Winter; it perplexed him yet more that Cecil's attachment should have been reciprocated.
Mrs. Winter was a very ordinary person; rather pretentious, rather too fluent of speech, inclined to fretfulness, and probably of trying temper. Having for many years lived much beyond his means (in the manner so often described by Morphew), Mr. Winter had left his family as good as unprovided for. There was money to be divided between mother and daughter, but so small a sum that it could not be regarded as a source of income. To the widow was bequeathed furniture; to Henrietta, a library of two thousand volumes; finally, the testator directed that the sum of five hundred pounds should be spent on a window of stained glass (concerning which full particulars were given), to be set up, in memory of himself, in the church he had been wont to honour with his pious attendance. This item of her husband's will had so embittered Mrs. Winter, that she hardly ever spoke of him; if obliged to do so, it was with cold severity that she uttered his name. Immediately, she withdrew all opposition to Henrietta's marriage with the man she had considered so objectionable; she would not have been sorry had her daughter chosen to be married with the least possible delay. As for the future, of course she must live in her daughter's house; together, they must make what they could of their small capital, and hope that Cecil's business would prosper.
Harvey had been acquainted with these facts since Mr. Winter's death. Bearing them in mind as he talked with Henrietta, and exerting his powers of observation to the utmost, he still found himself as far as ever from a definite opinion as to the wisdom of the coming marriage. That Mrs. Winter would be a great obstacle to happiness admitted of no doubt; but Henrietta herself might or might not prove equal to the change of circumstances. Evidently one of her characteristics was an extreme conscientiousness; it explained, perhaps, her long inability to decide between the claims of parents and lover. Her tastes in literature threw some light upon the troubles which had beset her; she was a student of George Eliot, and spoke of the ethical problems with which that author is mainly concerned, in a way suggestive of self-revelation. Conversing for the first time with Morphew's friend, and finding him sufficiently intelligent, she might desire to offer some indirect explanation of the course she had followed. Harvey could not question her sincerity, but she seemed to him a trifle morbid. It might be natural reaction, in a temper such as hers, against the monstrous egotism by which her life had been subdued and shadowed. She inclined to mystical views; mentioned Christina Rossetti as one of her favourites; cared little or nothing for the louder interests of the time. Impossible to detect the colour of her thoughts with regard to Cecil; she spoke of him gravely and gently, but without the least perceptible emotion. Harvey noticed her when Morphew was saying goodbye; her smile was sweet, and perhaps tender, but even then she seemed to be debating with herself some point of conscience. Perhaps Cecil had pressed her hand rather too fervently?