When we got home, Aunt Milly’s kind face, anxiously gazing out of the window, was the first thing I saw. She came running downstairs to take me in her arms; she seemed to think it strange I could walk in so steadily, and did not want any support. Sara was upstairs too. I have no doubt it was kind, the kindest thing possible; but I felt dreadfully fatigued, somehow, with that morning’s work. I could have liked to have been by myself a little. I went to my own room to put off my bonnet, and sat down with a kind of pang of comfort. I thought I was glad it was over; and then my eye fell on Harry’s old scarf—and somehow the silence came ringing about my ears with no “Milly, darling!” sounding through it: and I began to see it was true, and he was away.
When Aunt Milly came stealing into the room after me, she dropped down by my side where I was kneeling, and put her kind arms round my waist. “Yes, dear, cry!” said Aunt Milly, “it will do you good!” But I did not cry after that—I was better. I was glad it was over now.
We waited till we had a message by the telegraph to say the ship was just sailing out of the Mersey; for Harry had stopped with me till the very last moment. And then we went away. I remember everything so clearly that happened that day. I remember how the sun kept shining, and how they all looked at me as if I had been ill, and had to be watched and cared for at every step. It was all very new to me. In the hall, as we were going away, Luigi came up to me again. Aunt Milly had made me take her arm; not that I needed it, but she seemed to think I ought to need it. Luigi came and took my hand. “Remember!” he said, “I am your brother, at your disposition, till he comes back.” I don’t think I made him any answer; for the very sight of him made Aunt Milly tremble. He went out after us to put us into the carriage, and somehow managed to do it, though Aunt Milly was afraid of him. He put her in last of all, and kissed her hand. Aunt Milly did not say anything to me for a long time after. She kept gazing out of the carriage windows as long as she could see Luigi; and I have a kind of consciousness that he stood there, with his hat off, as long as we could be seen on the road. For the moment she had returned into her own trouble and forgotten mine. I leaned out of the other window, and felt the wind on my face. Ah, God send the winds were safe upon the sea! He was gone—really gone. I was not even to hear of him for a long time; and when I was to see him, God knew alone. I was swept out of his sight, and he out of mine, as if we did not belong to each other. There was only One now, in heaven or earth, that at the same moment could see him and me. When I thought of that it melted all my heart. Our Father, the only father we two had, saw us both, with no boundaries between us—all that time when I could neither see nor hear of Harry, God was my link to my husband. He knew. We were both in His eye if we were worlds asunder. There, we were near to each other, however else we might be separate. The impression came so strong upon me that for a moment I could not say I was less than glad. No distance in the world, though it put us for a time out of sight of each other, could ever put us out of the sight of God.
Chapter XIV.
NOBODY will be surprised when I say, that, after this, things got into their usual way very soon, and that when the event was over, everything subsided round it, and soon Aunt Milly began to forget that I was the invalid (in spirit) whom she had taken such tender care of, and brought back all her budget of perplexities and troubles to pour them into my ear; and after a day or two’s retirement in my own room, which was an ease to me, I went downstairs and about, and took a share in everything. Miss Mortimer had got better of her illness, if illness it was. She sat within the screen as usual, doing her knitting, and not taking much notice of anybody. I don’t know whether she had really suffered in her health, but it seemed to me that she got thinner, and that sometimes there was a gleam of fiery restrained excitement in her eyes, which were rather cold eyes by nature. We were told that she still had very bad nights; and I am sure, two or three times when I met poor Carson by accident, it took all my self-control to keep me from speaking to her, and begging her to deliver herself, somehow, from this dreadful yoke. I never saw exhaustion and a kind of weak despair so written upon anybody’s face. These bad nights, whatever they might be to the mistress, must have been murderous work to the poor maid.
“My dear,” said Aunt Milly, “I shall never forget that young man’s look as he put me into the carriage, and kissed my hand.” Aunt Milly held out her plump soft hand as she spoke, and looked at it. “They have a habit of doing so, these Italians. But if you will believe me, Milly, it was actually an affectionate look the poor young fellow gave me; and I have never asked you what he meant; he was your brother, he said. My dear, what did he mean? Ah, I remember how disappointed I was to find that he was not your brother, and Richard Mortimer’s son. That would have been such a happy solution of everything! but tell me why he called himself your brother? Was it only sympathy, Milly?”
“He said we were of the same blood; he said we were relations,” said I, with some hesitation.
The book she had been reading fell out of Aunt Milly’s hand. “Relations!” she cried, faltering and growing pale; “then, Milly, there can be no doubt at all about it. Milly, I tell you he must be my father’s son; how could you be relations? And indeed, indeed,” cried Aunt Milly, growing more and more agitated, “I can’t bear this any longer. Now you are with me to support me, I must take it into my own hands. I will go and write to him this moment, and ask him down here to clear it all up. Don’t say anything—I must do it; it is impossible to go on living in this way.”
“But Miss Mortimer?” said I.
“Miss Mortimer?” cried Aunt Milly, with a little scream, that was almost hysterical, “what can my sister Sarah have to do with it? It is no harder upon her than it is upon me. If he is my father’s son, how can she be mixed up in it? And how can you and he be relations unless he is my father’s son? Don’t speak to me, Milly. He shall come here and tell it all, and at least we shall know what there is to fear.”