“That child doesn’t look strong,” Dr. Mansfield observed meditatively, taking his cup of coffee from his sister.
“She isn’t; she’s working herself to death for no reason whatever,” Helen exclaimed.
“Ah!” he returned, raising his eyes a moment to Bridget’s empty place. He was very silent throughout the meal. She was unusually gay that evening. Her color was so brilliant that at first sight the hollowness of her cheeks was hardly observable. Dr. Mansfield watched her as she talked. The men who stood round her laughed a good deal; their admiration was almost as plainly perceptible as their amusement. Once, when the door opened, he saw her quick eyes glance in the direction; he noticed the little half-expectant turn of her head, though she did not cease speaking. She crossed the room towards him a moment afterwards, followed by the young man with whom she was talking, to make some laughing appeal for his decision in an argument. The Professor experienced a sudden pang as he looked at her smiling face. Her eyes were bright with what he fancied were unshed tears; the look in them haunted him for the rest of the evening.
“Well,” Helen said, as they parted at Bridget’s bedroom door, “I’m glad to-morrow is Sunday. You’ll be obliged to rest. Do try to moderate the size of those eyes, child; they frighten me.”
“Any one would think I was made of priceless china, to hear the way this family talks,” Bridget returned, with a laugh and a shrug of her shoulders as she kissed her.
Her smile faded when she closed the door of her room. The fire sparkled on the hearth. Drawn up beside it was a little writing-table, at which she worked. She moved towards it, and stood absently fingering the scattered papers. On the shelf above were some framed photographs. She put up her hand mechanically, and took one of them from its place. It was the reproduction of a photograph of Carey, cut from one of the illustrated papers. She held it where the firelight shone upon it, and looked at it steadily for a moment. All at once, with a hurried movement, she rose and thrust it out of sight in one of the drawers of her dressing-table. She did not sit down again, but instead, began to walk up and down the room, feverishly clasping and unclasping her hands. Presently she turned the light higher, and went to her writing-table. She resolutely gathered up the loose papers, sorting and arranging them. Her lips were tightly closed, and her hands moved restlessly from one leaf to another. She took up a pen and bent over the sheets, pushing her hair from her face with a gesture familiar to her from childhood. She wrote a line or two—then paused; two or three words followed; then all at once she thrust the paper violently from her, and buried her face in her hands with a groan. “Oh, I can’t—I can’t bear it!” she half whispered, incoherently. “I didn’t know it was like this. Why doesn’t he come?—at least—at least he might come. I should see him;—I shouldn’t be so starved.” She rose, and flung herself beside the bed, and buried her face in the pillow.
CHAPTER XIV
Spring was early, and very gracious, the year of Helen’s marriage. Day after day warm sunshine lighted up the little square where the lilacs and hawthorns were budding, and the crocuses blazed with purple and golden flames in the grass borders.
“We’ll go into the country, all of us, one day before I’m married,” Helen declared. “I want to pick primroses—don’t you want to pick primroses, Bid? It shall be my day. I will take father and you and Aunt Charlotte—and Jim, if he’s good—and Mr. Carey, if he’ll come, because he’s Jim’s friend; also because I like him. When shall we go? Next Saturday, shall we?—because it’s Bid’s holiday!”
The Professor and Miss Mansfield fell in with her whim, and the little party was arranged for the following week. Trelawney undertook to discover a place at Bushberry—their proposed destination—where they could get lunch and tea. Helen stipulated for a farmhouse.