“Oh, my dear!” said Miss Susan, her heart penetrated and melting, “you have a right to put confidence in your prayers, for you are as good as a child. Pray for us all, that our sins may be forgiven us. You don’t know, you could not think, what evil things come into some people’s minds.”
“I knew you were in temptation,” said Augustine gently; and she went away, asking no questions, for it was the time for her almshouses’ service, which nothing ever was permitted to disturb.
And the whole parish, which had shaken its head and doubted, yet was very ready to believe news that had a half-miraculous air, now accepted Herbert’s recovery as certain. “See what it is to be rich,” some of the people said; “if it had been one o’ our poor lads, he’d been dead years ago.” The people at the almshouses regarded it in a different way. Even the profane ones among them, like old John, who was conscious of doing very little to swell the prayers of the community, felt a certain pride in the news, as if they had something to do with the event. “We’ve prayed him back to life,” said old Mrs. Matthews, who was very anxious that some one should send an account of it to the Methodist Magazine, and had the courage to propose this step to Dr. Richard, who nearly fainted at the proposition. Almost all the old people felt a curious thrill of innocent vanity at having thus been instrumental in so important an event; but the village generally resented this view, and said it was like their impudence to believe that God Almighty would take so much notice of folks in an alms-house. Dr. Richard himself did not quite know what to say on the subject. He was not sure that it was “in good taste” to speak of it so, and he did not think the Church approved of any such practical identification of the benefit of her prayers. In a more general way, yes; but to say that Herbert’s recovery and the prayers of the almshouses were cause and effect was rather startling to him. He said to his wife that it was “Dissenterish”—a decision in which she fully agreed. “Very dissenterish, my dear, and not at all in good taste,” Mrs. Richard said.
But while the public in general, and the older persons involved, were thus affected by the news, it had its effect too, in conjunction with other circumstances, upon the young people, who were less immediately under its influence. Everard Austin, who was not the heir-presumptive, and indeed now knew himself to be another degree off from that desirable position, felt nothing but joy at his cousin’s amendment; and the girls at the Hatch were little affected by the failure of their father’s immediate hopes. But other things came in to give it a certain power over their future lives. Kate took it so seriously upon herself to advise Sophy as to her future conduct in respect to the recovered invalid, that Sophy was inspired to double efforts for the enjoyment of the present moment, which might, if she accepted her sister’s suggestion, be all that was left to her of the pleasure she enjoyed most.
“Do it myself? No; I could not do it myself,” said Kate, when they discussed the subject, “for he is younger than I am; you are just the right age for him. You will have to spend the Winters abroad,” she added, being of a prudent and forecasting mind, “so you need not say you will get no fun out of your life. Rome and those sorts of places, where he would be sure to be sent to, are great fun, when you get into a good set. You had far better make up your mind to it; for, as for Alf, he is no good, my dear; he is only amusing himself; you may take my word for that.”
“And so am I amusing myself,” Sophy said, her cheeks blazing with indignation at this uncalled-for stroke; “and, what’s more, I mean to, like you and Dropmore are doing. I can see as far into a milestone as any of you,” cried the young lady, who cared as little for grammar as for any other colloquial delicacies.
And thus it was that the fun grew faster and more furious than ever; and these two fair sisters flew about both town and country, wherever gayety was going, and were seen on the top of more drags, and had more dancing, more flirting, and more pleasuring than two girls of unblemished character are often permitted to indulge in. Poor Everard was dreadfully “out of it” in that bruyant Summer. He had no drag, nor any particular way of being useful, except by boats; and, as Kate truly said, a couple of girls cannot drag about a man with them, even though he is their cousin. I do not think he would have found much fault with their gayety had he shared in it; and though he did find fault with their slang, there is a piquancy in acting as mentor to two girls so pretty which seems to carry its own reward with it. But Everard disapproved very much when he found himself left out, and easily convinced himself that they were going a great deal too far, and that he was grieved, annoyed, and even disgusted by their total departure from womanly tranquillity. He did not know what to do with himself in his desolate and délaissé condition, hankering after them and their society, and yet disapproving of it, and despising their friends and their pleasures, as he said to himself he did. He felt dreadfully, dolefully superior, after a few days, in his water-side cottage, and as if he could never again condescend to the vulgar amusements which were popular at the Hatch; and an impulse moved him, half from a generous and friendly motive, half on his own behalf, to go to Switzerland, where there was always variety to be had, and to join his young cousins there, and help to nurse Herbert back into strength and health.
It was a very sensible reaction, though I do not think he was sensible of it, which made his mind turn with a sudden rebound to Reine, after Kate and Sophy had been unkind to him. Reine was hasty and high-spirited, and had made him feel now and then that she did not quite approve of him; but she never would have left him in the lurch, as the other girls had done; and he was very fond of Herbert, and very glad of his recovery; and he wanted change: so that all these causes together worked him to a sudden resolution, and this was how it happened that he appeared all at once, without preface or announcement, in the Kanderthal, before the little inn, like an angel sent to help her in her extremity, at Reine’s moment of greatest need.
And whether it was the general helpfulness, hopefulness, and freshness of the stranger, like a wholesome air from home, or whether it was a turning-point in the malady, I cannot tell, but Herbert began to mend from that very night. Everard infused a certain courage into them all. He relieved Reine, whose terrible disappointment had stupefied her, and who for the first time had utterly broken down under the strain which overtasked her young faculties. He roused up François, who though he went on steadily with his duty, was out of heart too, and had resigned himself to his young master’s death. “He has been as bad before, and got better,” Everard said, though he did not believe what he was saying; but he made both Reine and François believe it, and, what was still better, Herbert himself, who rallied and made a last desperate effort to get hold again of the thread of life, which was so fast slipping out of his languid fingers. “It is a relapse,” said Everard, “an accidental relapse, from the wetting; he has not really lost ground.” And to his own wonder he gradually saw this pious falsehood grow into a truth.
To the great wonder of the valley too, which took so much interest in the poor young Englishman, and which had already settled where to bury him, and held itself ready at any moment to weep over the news which everybody expected, the next bulletin was that Herbert was better; and from that moment he gradually, slowly mended again, toiling back by languid degrees to the hopeful though invalid state from which he had fallen. Madame de Mirfleur arrived two days after, when the improvement had thoroughly set in, and she never quite realized how near death her son had been. He was still ill enough, however, to justify her in blaming herself much for having left him, and in driving poor Reine frantic with the inference that only in his mother’s absence could he have been exposed to such a danger. She did not mean to blame Reine, whose devotion to her brother and admirable care for him she always boasted of, but I think she sincerely believed that under her own guardianship, in this point at least, her son would have been more safe. But the sweet bells of Reine’s nature had all been jangled out of tune by these events. The ordinary fate of those who look for miracles had befallen her: her miracle, in which she believed so firmly, had failed, and all heaven and earth had swung out of balance. Her head swam, and the world with it, swaying under her feet at every step she took. Everything was out of joint to Reine. She had tried to be angelically good, subduing every rising of temper and unkind feeling, quenching not only every word on her lips, but every thought in her heart, which was not kind and forbearing.