As for Nello, he took leave very cavalierly of Lilias, who cried, yet would not cry, angry at his desertion and deeply wounded by his indifference, at the door. Poor little Lilias, it was her first disappointment in life. He was not thinking of her, but a great deal of his new portmanteau and the sandwiches put up for him, and the important position as a traveller in which he stood—but neither was Nello unkind. He took pains to console his sister.
“Don’t cry,” he said, “Lily I shall come back in the holidays, and sometimes I will write you letters; and there is always the white rabbit I gave you, and little Mary Pen for you to play with.”
“I don’t want to play,” said Lilias, with a burst of tears; “is play everything? I am too old for that. But oh, Nello, you are going to leave me, and you don’t care. You do not care for Mary, or Martuccia, or any one. Me, I should not mind—but you do not love any one. You care for nobody but yourself.”
“Oh yes I do,” said Nello, “everybody,” and he cracked the coachman’s whip which was placed in readiness; “but boys have to go out and see the world; Eastwood says so. If I don’t like being at school I shall come back and stay at home, and then you will have me again; but I hope not, and I don’t think so, for school is jolly, very jolly, so Uncle Randolph says.”
“You can go with Uncle Randolph,” cried Lilias, in a blaze of sharp anger, “and I hope you will not come back. I hope you will always stay away, you cruel, cruel boy!”
This bewildered Nello for a moment, as did the hurried wiping of Lilias’ eyes and the tremulous quiver of her lip with which it was accompanied; but there was no time for more. He laughed and waved his hand to her as he was hurried into the carriage. He had scarcely ever looked so gay before. He took off his hat and waved it as he went out of sight. Hurrah! they heard his shrill little voice shouting. Lilias sat down on the ground and cried her heart out. It was not only that he was unkind—but Nello thus showed himself wanting to all the needs of the situation. No little hero of a story had ever gone away without a tribute to the misery of parting. This thought contracted her heart with a visionary pang more exquisite than the real. Nello was no hero, nothing but a little cruel, common, vulgar boy, not fit to put into any story, to go away so.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS.
While these events were going on at the Castle, Lord Stanton, for his part, had come to a standstill in the matter which he had been drawn into so inadvertently, and which had become so very serious an occupation in his life. He was young, and unacquainted with the ways of the world, and he did not know what step to take next. And he too was paralyzed by the sudden catastrophe which had happened to the Squire. Was it his fault? He could scarcely help an uneasy sense that by agitating him unduly he had helped to bring on the sudden attack, and thus he had left the Castle that evening with a heavy burden on his mind. And Geoff, with entire unconsciousness of the lingering pangs of life and the tenacity of the human frame, believed, without any doubt, that Mr. Musgrave would die, and did not know what was to be done about the exile, whose condition would thus be completely changed. In the mean time it seemed to him necessary to wait until the issue of this illness should be known. Thus his doubtfulness was supplanted by an apparent necessity, and the time went on with nothing done.
He went at first daily to inquire for the old man, and never failed to see Lilias somewhere waiting for him with serious, intent face, and eyes which questioned even when the lips did not speak. Lilias did not say much at any time. She examined his face with her eyes and said “Papa?” with a voice which trembled; but it became by degrees less easy to satisfy Lilias by telling her, as he did so often, that he had not forgotten, that he was doing everything that could be done, smoothing the way for her father’s return, or waiting till he could more successfully smooth the way. “You do not believe me, Lily,” Geoff said, with a sense of being doubted, which hurt him sadly. “Yes; but he is not your papa, Mr. Geoff, and you are grown up and don’t want any one,” Lilias said, with her lip quivering. The visionary child was deeply cast down by the condition of the house and the recollection of the melancholy rigid figure which she had seen carried past, with a pang of indescribable pain and terror. Lilias seemed to see him lying in his room, where Mary now spent almost all her time, pale with that deadly ashen paleness, his faded eyes half open, his helpless hands lying like bits of rag, all the grey fingers huddled together. Fright and sorrow together brought a sob out of her heart whenever she thought of this; not moving, not able to speak, or turn round, or look up at those who watched him; and still not dead! Lilias felt her heart stand still as she thought of her grandfather. And she had no one to take refuge with. Martuccia was frightened too, and would not go up or down stairs alone. Lilias, for her part, did all she could, out of pride, and shame of her own weakness, to conceal her terror; but oh, to have papa nigh to creep close to, to feel safe because he was there! A few tears dropped from her eyes. “You are grown up and you don’t want any one.” This went to Geoff’s heart.
“Oh Lily, don’t you think they would let you come to my mother?” he cried; “this is too sad for you, this dismal house; and if Nello goes away as you said—— ”