“The lady has heard some good news, sure. She looks cheerful-like.”
The mother herself turned round to stare, and, for the first time, dropped a curtsey.
“I hope we shall see you look cheerful too, one day soon, if we nurse you well,” said Margaret.
“Then, Miss, don’t let them move me, to take the blankets away again.”
“You shall not be moved unless you wish it. I am going to stay with you to-night.”
Her brother did not oppose this, for he did not know of the unpleasant glances and mutterings with which Platt rewarded all Margaret’s good offices. Hope believed he should himself be out all night among his patients. He would come early in the morning, and now fairly warned Margaret that it was very possible that the child might die in the course of the night. She was not deterred by this, nor by her dread of the sick man. She had gained a new strength of soul, and this night she feared nothing. During the long hours there was much to do—three sufferers at once requiring her cares; and amidst all that she did, she was sustained by the thought that she had seen Philip, and that he was near. The abyss of nothingness was passed, and she now trod the ground of certainty of his existence, and of his remembrance. When her brother entered, letting in the first grey of the morning as he opened the cottage door, he found her almost untired, almost gay. Platt was worse, his wife much the same, and the child still living. The old woman’s heart was so far touched with the unwonted comfort of the past night, and with her having been allowed, and even encouraged, to take her rest, that she now offered her bundle of clothes for the lady to lie down upon; and when that favour was declined, readily promised not to part with any article to the fortune-teller, till she should see some of Mr Hope’s family again.
Hope thought Mrs Platt might possibly get through: and this was all that was said on the way home. Margaret lay down to rest, to sweet sleep, for a couple of hours: and when she appeared below, her brother and sister had half done breakfast, and Mr Grey and his twin daughters were with them.
Mr Grey came to say that he and all his family were to leave Deerbrook in two hours. Where they should settle for the present, they had not yet made up their minds. The first object was to get away, the epidemic being now really too frightful to be encountered any longer. They should proceed immediately to Brighton, and there determine whether to go to the Continent, or seek some healthy place nearer home, to stay in, till Deerbrook should again be habitable. They were extremely anxious to carry Hester, Margaret, and the baby, with them. They knew Mr Hope could not desert his posts: but they thought he would feel as Dr Levitt did, far happier to know that his family were out of danger, than to have them with him. Hester had firmly refused to go, from the first mention of the plan; and now Margaret was equally decided in expressing her determination to stay. Mr Grey urged the extreme danger: Fanny and Mary hung about her, and implored her to go, and to carry the baby with her. They should so like to have the baby with them for a great many weeks! and they would take care of him, and play with him all day long. Their father once more interposed for the child’s sake. Hester might go to Brighton, there wean her infant, and return to her husband; so that the little helpless creature might at least be safe. Mr Grey would not conceal that he considered this a positive duty—that the parents would have much to answer for, if anything should happen to the boy at home. The parents’ hearts swelled. They looked at each other, and felt that this was not a moment in which to perplex themselves with calculations of incalculable things—with comparisons of the dangers which threatened their infant abroad and at home. This was a decision for their hearts to make. Their hearts decided that their child’s right place was in his parents’ arms; and that their best hope now, as at all other times, was to live and die together.
Hester had heard from her husband of the apparition of the preceding evening, and she therefore knew that there was less of ‘enthusiasm,’ as Mr Grey called what some others would have named virtue, in Margaret’s determination to stay, than might appear. If Philip was here, how vain must be all attempts to remove her! Mr Grey might as well set about persuading the old church tower to go with him: and so he found.
“Oh, cousin Margaret,” said Mary, in a whisper, with a face of much sorrow, “mamma will not ask Miss Young to go with us! If she should be ill while we are gone! If she should die!”