But Letitia was inexorable. John was allowed to come in, morning and evening. John, who never got free from that cloud on his face, who stood at a little distance from the bed, and looked at his wife while he asked his little formula of questions. “If she had had a good night—how her pulse was—what the doctor thought.” He was anxious and unfailing in his visits, but the cloud never departed from his face. Not even the fact that she had taken the fever convinced John. It softened him, indeed, and mingled pity with the painful perplexity in which his mind was left, which was something in her favor; but it was not enough to restore the confidence which was lost.
Thus the great house presented a very curious spectacle with its two centres of illness—on one side full of brightness and hope, on the other of dark and troublous thoughts. Mar was recovering moment by moment—they could see him getting better—thriving, brightening, expanding like a flower. And the room, in which Agnes no longer attempted to cook for him, was full of the cheerfullest voices, to which his young tremulous bass—for his boyish voice had broken, and was now portentiously mannish and deep, notwithstanding his weakness—would respond now and then with a happy word, which Letty and Tiny received with delight and admiration, accepting even his jokes with acclamation in their gratitude to him for getting well. They told each other stories now of the dreadful time of his illness, and especially of that day when they had given up hope, which was the day on which Agnes had received her letter, the day which preceded the change, which had been so wonderful a change in many ways. “But I never gave up hope,” cried Tiny, “neither I nor nurse.” “Oh,” cried Letty, “you shut yourself up all the morning in your room. You would do no lessons or anything; and when I went to your door to call you, you could not hear me, for you were sobbing as if your heart would break: and nurse, though she always said there was hope, cried when she said it.” “I cried because I could not help it, but I always believed he would get better,” said the nurse. It was the cheerful nurse, she who had always hoped, who still kept partial charge of Mar, while the other one who had fallen asleep on that eventful night had gone to Mrs. Parke. This conflict of eager voices touched and amused the two ladies, who had no thought in the world but how to humor and please and strengthen Mar. Mary laid her hand on Tiny’s shoulder, and said to her sister, “It must be this child, for the other is too old.” For what was it that Letty at nineteen was too old? But Agnes was not so easily moved. She shook her head a little. She loved the children; but Letitia’s blood was in their veins, and who could tell when or how it might come out?
And the curious thing was that between Lady Frogmore and her son there was such a perfect understanding and union, as mother and child who had been all in all to each other do not always reach. Mary’s mind had never been disturbed by fears that her boy might reject her tardy love, or might have been alienated from her. It was part of the change that her illness and permanent confusion of mind had wrought in her. She who had been so humble was now troubled with no doubts of herself. From the moment when the cloud had rolled away a soft and full sunshine of revival and certainty had come into Mary’s mind. She had not felt herself guilty towards her boy, and she had never doubted that his heart would meet her’s with all the warmth of nature. It was as if she had come home from a long involuntary absense. Had she ever forgotten him, put him aside, shrank from the sight of him? She did not believe it, or rather she never thought of its rejecting every such thought and image. She never called him by the name of Mar as the others did. Some painful association, she could not tell what, was in the name. She called him “my boy” in a voice which was like that of a dove, and then with a firmer tone “Frogmore.” “It is time,” she said, “that he bore his father’s name.” And she made no allusion to the past, never a word to show that she remembered the long years of separation. Even in her conversation with her sister when they were alone together, Mary altogether avoided the subject. To say that Agnes did not try to fathom the extraordinary change, and make out how it was that such a revolution should be possible would be to suppose her strangely unlike the rest of the human race. Her mind was full of curiosity and wonder, but it was never satisfied. Lady Frogmore never seemed to remember that things had been different in the past. She spoke of Frogmore’s room at the Dower house, as if there had always been such a room. “I think we must have all the furniture renewed,” she said, “he wants a man’s surroundings now. He must have new bookcases and room for all his things.” Agnes was so overawed by her sister’s steadfast ignoring of all that was different in the past that she did not even dare to ask which was Frogmore’s room. She had to divine which room was meant, and to carry out her orders without a question more.
CHAPTER LII.
“I am very glad,” said the man of business, “to hear that everything has gone so well.” He gave John a somewhat curious look from under his eyelids. He did not doubt the honest meaning of his co-trustee; but that there should have been for so long before Mr. Parke’s eyes the prospect of such a change—the almost certainty that the delicate boy would die, and title, wealth, and importance—every advancement he had ever dreamed—should come to him; and then in a moment that the whole brilliant prospect should be wiped out, and himself and his children thrust back into the shade, was an ordeal which would try the best. It was impossible but that the thought of it must have entered John’s mind. He must have felt himself again heir presumptive; he must have believed that a few hours would restore to him all and more than he had lost. And then all had disappeared again, and by an event at which John must pronounce himself glad. It was a severe trial for any man. Mr. Blotting attributed to this the cloud upon John Parke’s face, and was sorry, but could not blame him. It was but too natural that he should feel so. His wife’s illness, too, the astute man of business could easily enough conceive to spring from the same cause. She, no doubt, had felt it still more keenly than John had done. He had seen the doctor, and was aware that Dr. Barker did not treat Mrs. Parke’s fever as very serious; and the lawyer had his own ideas of human nature, which seemed to him to account for many things. He would have treated with the supremest contempt any suggestion that either one or the other had thought a thought, much less lifted a finger to the detriment of their charge; but it could not be expected that they should in their hearts welcome the restoration to health of this young supplanter as if he had been their son.
“Blotting,” said John Parke, “I have something very serious to say to you. Do you know that Lady Frogmore has come entirely to herself? She has not only fully recognized and acknowledged her son, but she seems to have forgotten that she ever did otherwise. Barker says it is what he always hoped—that a great shock some time would bring her completely back.”
“But do you think it will last?” said the lawyer, shaking his head.
“He thinks it will last—he is a better authority than I am. Well! she was to be the guardian you know, and all we did has been done by private arrangement between ourselves to save public discussion—and may be changed in the same way?”
“I can’t think what you are driving at?” Mr. Blotting said.
“Oh, it is easy enough to understand. I don’t wish to resume the charge of the boy, Blotting, especially now when it will be full of embarrassments. His mother would always be interfering. I don’t deny her right. But it was only because she was disabled that I took it at all, don’t you know. I want to give it up now. I want to leave this house. Don’t you see it puts us in a false position living here? My children will suffer from it. They get exaggerated ideas of their own importance. They’re of no particular importance,” said John, with perhaps a faint bitterness in his tone, “and it’s very bad for them. There was all that fuss about Duke, for instance. I didn’t think of it at the time, but it was highly absurd. It was calculated to give the boy the most false idea——”