“You are quite right, my dear Russell,” said I, eager to interrupt a train of thought which I saw would be too much for him. “I will manage all that for you, and you shall give me the necessary authority till you get well again yourself,” I added in a tone meant to be cheerful.
He took no notice of my remark. “I fear,” said he, “I have not been a wise counsellor to my poor sister. She had kind offers from more than one of our friends, and might have had a home more suited to her than this has been, and I allowed her to choose to sacrifice all her own prospects to mine!”
He turned his face away, and I knew that one painful thought besides was in his mind—that they had been solely dependent on her little income for his support at the University since his father’s failure.
“Russell,” said I gently, “this conversation can surely do no good; why distress yourself and me unnecessarily? Come, I shall leave you now, or your sister will scold me. Pray, for all our sakes, try to sleep; you know how desirable it is, and how much stress Dr Wilson has laid upon your being kept perfectly calm and quiet.”
“I will, Hawthorne, I will try; but oh, I have so much to think of!”
Distressed and anxious, I could only take my leave of him for the present, feeling how much there was, indeed, in his circumstances to make rest even more necessary, and more difficult to obtain, for the mind than for the body.
I had returned to the sitting-room, and was endeavouring to give as hopeful answers as I could to Miss Russell’s anxious inquiries as to what I thought of her brother, when a card was brought up, with a message that Mr Ormiston was below, and “would be very glad if he could see Miss Russell for a few moments, at any hour she would mention, in the course of the day.”
Ormiston! I started, I really did not know why. Miss Russell started also, visibly; did she know why? Her back was turned to me at the moment; she had moved, perhaps intentionally, the moment the message became intelligible, so that I had no opportunity of watching the effect it produced, which I confess I had an irrepressible anxiety to do. She was silent until I felt my position becoming awkward: I was rising to take leave, which perhaps would have made hers even more so, when, half turning round towards me, with a tone and gesture almost of command, she said, “Stay!” and then, in reply to the servant, who was still waiting, “Ask Mr Ormiston to walk up.”
I felt the few moments of expectation which ensued to be insufferably embarrassing. I tried to persuade myself it was my own folly to think them so. Why should Ormiston not call at the Russells, under such circumstances? As college tutor, he stood almost in the relation of a natural guardian to Russell; had he not at least as much right to assume the privilege of a friend of the family as I had, with the additional argument, that he was likely to be much more useful in that capacity? He had known them longer, at all events, and any little coolness between the brother and himself was not a matter, I felt persuaded, to be remembered by him at such a moment, or to induce any false punctilio which might stand in the way of his offering his sympathy and assistance when required. But the impression on my mind was strong—stronger, perhaps, than any facts within my knowledge fairly warranted—that between Ormiston and Mary Russell there either was, or had been, some feeling which, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged—whether reciprocal or on one side only—whether crushed by any of those thousand crosses to which such feelings, fragile as they are precious, are liable, or only repressed by circumstances and awaiting its development—would make their meeting under such circumstances not that of ordinary acquaintances. And once again I rose, and would have gone; but again Mary Russell’s sweet voice—and this time it was an accent of almost piteous entreaty, so melted and subdued were its tones, as if her spirit was failing her—begged me to remain—“I have something—something to consult you about—my brother.”