Margaret Capel Volume Ii Part 6

She coloured a little; but she reflected that there was nothing to wonder at in his memory being worse than her own. He had seen many pretty children; she had seen but one Sir Philip d'Eyncourt.

"Do you think Bessy like Hubert?" asked Captain Gage, who seemed resolved not to let Sir Philip alone on the subject of his daughter.

Sir Philip did not see the likeness.

"Now that vexes me, Sir Philip," said Elizabeth, looking up with her usual candour. "I am very fond of being considered like Hubert."

Sir Philip smiled, but made no reply.

"You think so, do you not?" asked Captain Gage of Margaret, with a mischievous smile.

This was rather hard upon her; she blushed very deeply, and a.s.sented.

Captain Gage enjoyed her confusion. He was as kind to her as ever: he would have liked her to marry Hubert, because his son had set his heart upon it; and he was very well pleased that it had come to nothing, because he thought the boy a great deal too young to think of settling.

It would, indeed, have been difficult to disturb his equanimity. In the days of George's extravagance, he paid his bills with a composure that made that gentleman's intimate friends wish that Heaven had provided them with fathers exactly on the same pattern; and he took all Hubert's perverseness, after the first irritation, with the greatest forbearance; only begging that he might be informed when it was his pleasure to go to sea again, as he did not wish a second time to exert his influence for nothing.

Dinner was announced; Captain Gage took possession of Margaret, and Elizabeth knowing that Sir Philip must offer her his arm, with a slight colour, a slight embarra.s.sment that became her infinitely, went towards him to save him the exertion of crossing to her side of the room. He met her with a smile that seemed at once to comprehend, and to be grateful for her consideration.

The thing that Captain Gage most ardently desired on earth was the marriage of Elizabeth with Sir Philip; but this wish he very prudently kept to himself. He was very glad to see that she had on her cameos and her white silk, and that her hair was dressed to admiration; for the rest, it might, he thought, be safely left to time.

"I should like you to see Creswick," said Captain Gage, "it is for sale; if you would buy it, we should be sure of a pleasant neighbour. I will drive you over there to-morrow."

"Thank you," said Sir Philip, "it would be an inducement; but I believe I must content myself with Sherleigh."

"Sherleigh, is magnificent I know;" said Captain Gage, "but Creswick would be just the thing for a shooting-box. Are you fond of shooting?

Oh! I recollect having many a day's sport with you in Antigua."

"Parrot shooting;" said Sir Philip, "there was no great skill required there. No; I have outlived my taste for field sports."

"You had only to fire into a tree, and they came down like c.o.c.k-chaffers," said Captain Gage, turning to Margaret. "Why Bessy, what makes you in such a hurry?" Elizabeth rose to leave the room; and when her father joined her in the drawing-room, he brought a civil message from Sir Philip, that he regretted not seeing Miss Gage again, but that his physician had enjoined him to retire early.

CHAPTER V.

But good with ill, and pleasure still with pain Like Heaven's revolving signs, alternate reign.

TRACHINIA.

Life of my love--throne where my glories sit, I ride in triumph on a silver cloud When I but see thee.

SUN'S DARLING.

A few days after their return home, the weather, always so unsettled in our climate, became suddenly cold, and Aveline's illness immediately a.s.sumed a more serious form. Mr. Lindsay looked grave; and to Mrs.

Fitzpatrick's repeated entreaties that he would be perfectly open with her respecting her daughter's state; he at length reluctantly owned that he entertained a very slight hope of her ever being restored to health.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick bore the news with more firmness than he had expected.

Although her fears had often suggested as much to her own mind, she only half believed it. If Aveline seemed languid or out of spirits; if her cheek was more flushed, or her appet.i.te failed, then Mrs. Fitzpatrick's heart died within her; and she echoed the doctor's unfavourable sentence. But if she rallied for a time, if she turned to her usual occupations for an hour, or if, owing to the return of the fine weather, she enjoyed a temporary respite from her harra.s.sing attacks of cough, then Mrs. Fitzpatrick's spirits and confidence rose again; no one understood she was sure, her daughter's case. Aveline was certain to recover.

It was a mild sunny morning. There had been rain, and it had dispelled the sharp wind so prevalent in our early summer. The sea lay glittering, and breaking into small crested waves. Aveline wrapped in shawls with a heavy cloak laid over her feet, sat reading upon the beach. Her mother had walked back to the house to give some forgotten order to the servants, and Aveline, as soon as Mrs. Fitzpatrick was out of sight, dropped her book, and clasping her hands on her knee, sat long gazing upon the moving line of water. It had become an exertion to her to read of late. The lines swam before her eyes, if she directed her attention to them for any length of time. Her appet.i.te had declined; her spirits failed her; and her large eyes now filled with tears, as she remained listless, and quiet; gazing vacantly upon the slowly advancing waves.

Two or three merry peasant children were playing on the beach--urging each other closer and closer to the rippling water, and running back with shouts and laughter as the foam broke over their feet. When they came nearer to Aveline, their voices sank; they whispered to each other that it was the sick lady, and stole quietly one by one along the sand.

But Aveline caught sight of them as they were pa.s.sing, and beckoned them to her side.

"Come to me, Jane," said she "I wish to speak to you, I want to hear how your mother does?"

"Mother is better, Ma'am, thank you," said the girl. "Mother ate all the chicken broth," said a younger child pressing forward.

"I am glad to hear it," said Aveline, "does she sleep better, than she used?"

"Much better, Ma'am," said the girl, "the doctor says she may leave off taking the stuff at night."

"That is a good sign; and I hope you are very good children, and do nothing that might vex your mother; and that you try to help her as much as you can. It is so sad to be ill," said poor Aveline.

"Yes, Ma'am," said all the children together.

"It is such a comfort to her to have good little quiet children about her," said Aveline, in her gentle voice, "and it will be such a comfort to you to know that you have done all in your power to make her better."

Her earnest manner struck the children; they stood silent, looking stedfastly at her. At last Jane, the eldest, said timidly, "And you, Ma'am, are you getting better?"

"No," said Aveline with a faint smile "no, I do not feel much better yet. I think I must wait until the weather is warmer."

And she drew her shawl closer round her.

"Mother will be sorry for that," said the little girl sadly; "mother said she did not look to see you ever better in this world."

"And mother cried when she said so," added the boy fixing his round blue eyes on Aveline.

Aveline made no answer, when the children had done speaking, and they stood by her side, constrained and silent for some minutes.

At last she looked up, and said quietly. "Well now, you can go on playing. Jane will be very careful of her two brothers. It is quite like a woman to be trusted--is it not Jane?"

The children stole gently away hand in hand; and Aveline, after a pause, during which she struggled in vain to calm her feelings, burst into a pa.s.sion of tears and convulsive sobs. Her mother had so carefully concealed from her all suspicions of her danger; so scrupulously hidden her fears of the result of her illness; that Aveline always looked forward to the warm weather as the infallible cure for her cough, and ascribed to accidental causes the different symptoms which revealed too well to others the nature of her complaint. To die. The thought was so new--so terrible. To leave the world--she was so full of genius, of intellectual life, she had done so much, she had so much to do, (the feeling of all those who have done much), and to leave her mother--who had no one--no single thing in life to supply her place. Could it be?

Could nothing really save her? Was her fate so plainly indicated, that the poor peasant woman, whom she visited and relieved, could not fail to read it? Her agitation shook her from head to foot. And yet another thought would intrude itself; a memory and a hope that she had banished, yet clung to in spite of reason, for very long. "If I die," she exclaimed, clasping her hands in agony, "I shall never see him again!"

After a while she collected herself; she would not distress her mother by appearing conscious of her perilous state. And her mother was suppressing all that she feared and felt, from the same kind but mistaken motive; for both would have been relieved and strengthened had they opened their hearts, and wept together instead of in secret.

"Well, Aveline, are you tired," asked Mrs. Fitzpatrick, as she returned to her daughter.

"Rather tired, mamma, of sitting," said Aveline in that unequal voice that betrays recent tears; "if you will give me your arm, I will walk a little way along the beach."

"There is not much sand left," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, as they strolled along, "the sea is a sad encroacher, Aveline, and stays for you no more than for King Knute."

But Aveline was weeping silently, and made no reply.

"Aveline, dearest, what is it?" asked Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and her heart trembled within her, for of all things she most dreaded her daughter's suspecting her danger; she knew the rapid inroads of imagination upon a delicate frame.