“My dear little Lilias,” said Mr. Pen, shaking his head mournfully, “your papa will not come to-day. Heaven knows if he will ever be able to come. You must not think it is such an easy matter. There are things which make it very difficult for him to come home; things of which you don’t know—— ”
“Yes,” said Lilias eagerly, “about the man who was killed; but papa did not do it, Mr. Pen.”
Mr. Pen shook his head again. “Who has told the child?” he said. “I hope not—I hope not, Lilias; but that is what nobody knows.”
“Yes,” she cried, “Mr. Geoff knows; he told me. He says it was another man, and that papa went away to save him. Mr. Pen, papa may come any day.”
“Who is Mr. Geoff?” said the Vicar; but he did not pay any attention to what the child was saying. There seemed to be a sound on the stairs of some one coming down. “Oh, run away, my dear! run away! Run and play, or do whatever you like. I have not time to attend to you now.”
Lilias did not say a word more, or even look at him again, but walked away with a stately tread, not condescending even to turn her head towards him. In this solemn way she went back to the hall, expecting to find ’Lizabeth; but when she found that even the old woman was gone, in whom she put a certain trust as the one person who knew everything, Lilias had a moment of black despair. What was she to do? She stood and gazed out into vacancy—her eyes intent, her mind passionately at work. It was to her after all, and not to Mary, that Nello had been intrusted, and if nobody would think of him, or attend to him, it was she who must interfere for her brother. She stood for a minute or two fixed—then turned hastily, paying no attention to Martuccia, and went to her room. Lilias, too, had a sovereign, which Mary had given her, and something more besides. She took her money out of its repository, and put on her hat and jacket. A great resolution was in her face. She had seen at last what was the only thing to do.
“I think, ma’am, there is a change,” the nurse said, as Mary noiselessly but swiftly, as long nursing teaches women to move, came into the room. The nurse was an experienced person. When Miss Brown, and even Mary herself, had seen “a change,” or fancied they had seen it, before, nurse had never said so. It was the first time she had called any one to the Squire’s room, or made the slightest movement of alarm. She led the way now to the bedside. The patient was lying in much the same attitude as before, but he was moving his hands restlessly, his lips were moving, and his head on the pillow. “He is saying something, but I cannot make out what it is,” the nurse said. Mary put her ear close to the inarticulate mouth. How dreadful was that living prison of flesh!—living, yet dead—the spirit pent up and denied all its usual modes of utterance. Mary wrung her hands with a sense of the intolerable as she tried in vain to distinguish the words, which seemed to be repeated over and over again, though they could make nothing of them. “Cannot you help us?—can you make it out? Is there nothing we can do?” she cried; “no cordial to give him strength?” but the nurse could only shake her head, and the doctor when he came was equally helpless. He told Mary it was a sign of returning consciousness—which, indeed, was evident enough—but could not even say whether this promised for or against recovery. The nurse, it was clear, did not think it a good sign. He might even recover his speech at the end, she said. And hours passed while they waited, watching closely lest any faint beginning of sound should struggle through. The whole night was passed in this way. Mary never left the bedside. It was not that he could say anything of great importance to any one but himself. The Squire was helpless as respected his estate. It was entailed, and went to his eldest son, whether he liked it or not; and his will was made long ago, and all his affairs settled. What he had to say could not much affect any one; but of all pitiful sights, it seemed to his daughter the most pitiful, to see this old man, always so entirely master of himself, trying to make some communication which all their anxiety could not decipher. Could he be himself aware of how it was that no response was made to him?—could he realise the horror of the position?—something urgent to say, and no way of getting to the ears of those concerned, notwithstanding their most anxious attention? “No, no,” the nurse said; “he’s all in a maze; he maybe don’t even know what he’s saying;” and the constant movement and evident repetition gave favour to this idea. Mary stood by him, and looked at him, however, with a pain as great as if he had been consciously labouring on one side to express himself as she was on the other to understand him, instead of lying, as was most probable, in a feverish dream, through which some broken gleam of fancy or memory struggled. When the chilly dawn broke upon the long night, that dreariest and coldest moment of a vigil, worn out with the long strain, she dropped asleep in the chair by her father’s bedside. But when she woke hurriedly, a short time after, while yet it was scarcely full day, the nurse was standing by her with a hand upon her shoulder. The woman had grasped at her to wake her. “Listen, ma’am! he says—‘the little boy,’” she said; Mary sprang up, shaking off her drowsiness in a moment. The old man’s face had recovered a little intelligence—a faint flush seemed to waver about his ashy cheeks. It was some time before, even now, she could make any meaning out of the babble that came from his lips. Then by degrees she gleaned, now one word, now another. “Little boy—little Johnny; bring the little boy.” She could scarcely imagine even now that there was meaning in the desire. Most likely it was but some pale reflection, through the dim awakening of the old man’s mind, of the last idea that was in it. It went on, however, in one long strain of mumbled repetition—“Little Johnny—little boy.” There seemed nothing else in his mind to say. The nurse laid her hand once more on Mary’s arm, as she stood by her, listening. “If you can humour the poor gentleman, ma’am, you ought to do it,” said the woman. She was a stranger, and did not know the story of the house.
What could Mary do? She sent out one of the servants to call Mr. Pen, who had stayed late on the previous night, always holding his book open with his finger at the place, but who got up now obedient at her summons, though his wife had not meant to let him be disturbed for hours. Then the feeble demand went on so continuously, that Mary in despair sent Miss Brown for Lilias, vaguely hoping that the presence of the one child, if not the other, might perhaps be of some use in the dim state of semi-consciousness in which her father seemed to be. Miss Brown went with hesitation and a doubtful look, which Mary was too much occupied to notice, but came back immediately to say that Miss Lilias had got up early and gone out. “Gone out!” Mary said, surprised; but she had no leisure to be disturbed about anything, her whole mind being pre-occupied. She went downstairs to Mr. Pen when he came. He had his prayer-book all ready. To dismiss the departing soul with all its credentials, with every solemnity that became such a departure, was what he thought of. He was altogether taken by surprise by Mary’s hasty address—
“Mr. Pen, you must go at once and bring Nello. I cannot send a servant. He would not, perhaps, be allowed to come. If you will go, you can fetch him at once—to-morrow early.”
“But, Miss Mary—— ”