“Yes,” said I. Was it likely I could talk? I only rocked myself backward and forward in my chair.
“You said God would give you strength when the hour came: the hour has come, Milly. You are a soldier’s wife!” he said.
“Yes, yes!” and then I burst into an attempt to tell him what I had been doing—if I must talk let me talk of something else than this—and broke down, and fell, God help me! to crying and sobbing like a child; which was how the good Lord gave me the power of bearing what He had sent. I got better after that; I heard and listened to it all, every detail, when they would have to go, where they would sail from,—everything. And then I grew to see by degrees that Harry, but for me, was not sorry to be sent to the war; that his eye was brightening, his head raised erect. Oh me! he was a soldier; and I—I was only a foolish creature that could not follow him or be with him, that could not come between him and those bullets, that could only stay at home and pray.
But when he came and stroked my hair down with his hand, and soothed me like a child, and bent over me with such compassion in his face—sorry for me, full of pity in his affectionate tender heart for the poor girl he was leaving behind—that was more than I could bear. With a dreadful pang I thought it was his widow he saw, all lonely and desolate, with no one to comfort her; and I, his wife, thrust him away, and defied that dreadful killing thought. No! I might leap at the worst, because I could not help my hurrying, blind imagination; but he should not, no one else should—I was resolute of that. So we talked of all the things that were needful for his preparation; and he spoke of expense and economy, and I laughed and scorned his talk. Economy! expense! Perhaps I did not know, could not think where it was to come from; but where careless money can get everything, do you think careful love would fall far short? I took courage to laugh at his words.
And then I told him all my day’s trials, and that invitation for the next day, which, even after what had happened, we must still accept. We did not have baby downstairs again that night—I dared not—courage will go so far, but not further. I went upstairs to put him into his little bed, and was glad, God help me! to be out of Harry’s sight for half an hour. But still I was not free; Lizzie was about me, gliding here and there with her inquisitive sharp eyes—sharp eyes all the sharper for tears, praying and threatening me with her looks. Nobody would believe in my courage. They thought I should break down and die. Oh me! if one could die when one pleased, one might sometimes make short work of it; God does not give us that coward’s refuge. When I was all alone in my own room, I took an old regimental sash of Harry’s and bound it round me tight. I cannot tell why I did it; I think it was in my fancy somehow to bind up my heart, that it should neither yield nor fail.
PART V.
THE LADIES AT THE HALL.
(Continued)
Chapter I.
SOME weeks of quietness passed over us after these dreadful half-revelations which really disclosed nothing. I will not attempt to give you any explanation of my state of mind; I don’t think I could if I tried. I had ceased to think of insanity in respect to my sister Sarah; she was not insane—no such thing. That scrap of conversation I had overheard in her dressing-room overturned all my delusions. Some real thing, some real person, had power to drive her half mad with anxiety and fear. What she could be anxious about—what she could be afraid of—she who had lived in the deadest peace at home for nearly five-and-twenty years—was to me an inscrutable mystery. But that this Italian stranger was no stranger—that his name was given him after the name of my father—that love, supposed by Carson to be love in the heart, and admitted by Sarah to be love for the estate, had suggested that name—were facts not to be doubted. I need not say anything about the long trains of agitated and confused thinking into which these discoveries betrayed me. They ended in nothing—they could not end in anything. But for a kind of determination I had, to keep up stedfastly till some light came, and see the end of it, I don’t doubt they would have made me ill. But I kept well in spite of them. Either our bodies are not so sensitive as they are said to be, or I am a very stupid person, which I wouldn’t deny if I was taxed with it; for certainly many things that worry other people don’t trouble me very much. However, let the reason be what it might, I kept up. I could not take any comfort, as Sarah did, in knowing this young man had gone away. I can’t tell how she could have blinded herself, poor soul. I knew he would come back. She did not seem to think so; yet surely she knew all about it far better than I did. What a strange blank, unexplainable mystery it was! Judging by appearances, the young man could not be much more than born when she returned home. Yet she knew him. Incomprehensible, wild, mad idea, of which, even after all I had heard, my reason denied the possibility! She knew him! and what or who, except herself, could explain it?
The only conclusion I could come to in all my pondering was one that had glanced into my mind before, that my father had married abroad and had a son, whom Sarah had somehow stormed or threatened him into disowning. But then my father was—I grieve to say it, but one must tell the truth—a man who considered his own will and pleasure much more than anything else in the world; and I don’t think it would have broken his heart to have turned us out of our heiress-honours, especially when we grew old and did not marry. And to have left a male heir behind him! It was a very unlikely story, to be sure; but certainly Sarah and he were never friends after their return. They avoided each other, though they lived under the same roof. They treated each other with a kind of ceremonious politeness, more like mutual dislike than love. Dear, dear, to think in a quiet English family how such a dark secret could rise and grow! I set to hunting up all my father’s letters, not those he had written to me at home, for he never wrote except when he was obliged, but his own letters which he had left behind him. I could find nothing there that threw the slightest light upon the mystery. And then, if he was my father’s son, what could the young Italian mean by seeking after this fabulous lady? What had the Countess Sermoneta to do with it? On the whole, anybody will see that I ended my investigations and reasonings just where I began them. I knew nothing about it—I could discover nothing. I had only to wait for the storm that was returning—that must return. And if—oh, dear, to think of such a thing!—if it was the miserable wealth we had, that prompted Sarah to set her face against this stranger—if it were to keep possession of the estate from him who was its lawful owner, thank Heaven! we were co-heiresses. She thought she could do as she pleased with the Park, and I dare say, in right and lawful things, I might have yielded to her; but I hope Millicent Mortimer was never the woman to keep what did not belong to her. If he had a title to the estate—Heaven knows how he could—I gave up trying to imagine;—but if he had, without either resistance or struggle he should have my share.
I really could not tell how much time had passed from that day when Sara Cresswell left us. It was near the end of April, so I suppose it must have been about two months after, when the accident I am going to tell happened. One afternoon when I was in the shrubbery I saw a young lady coming up towards the gate, a young creature, pretty and fair-complexioned, not tall, but very compact and orderly in her looks, with the air of being a handy, cheerful little woman, and good for most things she required to do. That was how she struck me, at all events. I dare say many people would have said she was just a very pretty girl, evidently sobered down by an early marriage, for she had an odd nursemaid by her side, carrying a beautiful baby. This stranger caught her attention very much as I watched her through the tall evergreen bushes. There was no mystery about her, certainly. I took a liking for her all of a sudden. Somehow it flashed into my mind that if I had ever been so young and as happy I might have been just such a young woman myself. I don’t mean so pretty, but the same kind of creature. She was not rich, it was clear, for the nursemaid was not much more than a child, an odd, awkward-looking girl; and though the young mother herself was sufficiently well-dressed, her things had that indescribable home-made look which one always recognises. She was a little heated with walking, and had some very grave wrinkles of care, thoughtfulness, and even anxiety, upon her pretty smooth forehead. I saw her aiming straight at the door of the lodge, and hastened out to warn her off. She was certainly a stranger, and could never know that the hooping-cough was in the house. She took my warning very oddly, looked at me with great curiosity and with tears—I am sure I saw them coming into her eyes—and then, with some half-explanation about wishing to see the Park, hurried away after her lovely little boy. I don’t know how long I stood, like a fool, looking after them, with a great desire to call her back and ask her in to see the house. Very likely she had come out from Chester to give her baby a country walk. Pretty young soul! I had no more doubt she was a good little wife than that she was a pretty creature, and very young to be that child’s mother. I daresay she was tired and would have been much the better for a rest. But while I stood thinking of it, of course she was gone far out of the range of my voice. As for running after her, that was out of the question at my age; and perhaps, after all, it was as well not to bring that lovely baby near the lodge. Mary might have rushed out, and the mischief might have been done in a moment. As for hooping-cough itself, when children have good constitutions, I can’t say it is a thing I am very timid about; but it goes very hard with infants, and one could never excuse one’s-self for putting such a child in peril. So I went back to the house, though rather slowly. I can’t tell how it was, I am sure,—but I felt just as if I had missed a visit from a friend whom it would have been a great comfort to see.