Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife Part 110

'Was Fotheringham the name?' said Lord Martindale.

'Yes, it was the name like Aunt Helen's,' said Johnnie.

'Has he been here since?'

'He called to inquire yesterday morning. I am not sure,' said the exact little boy, 'but I think he said he met papa in the steamer.'

It seemed mystery on mystery, and James could only confirm his young master's statement. After the little boy had answered all the questions in his power he slid down from his grandfather's knee, saying that it was bed-time, and wished them good night in a grave, sorrowful, yet childlike manner, that went to their hearts. He returned, in a short time, with a message that mamma thought papa a little better and ready to see them. Theodora went up first; Johnnie led her to the door, and then went away, while Violet said, almost inaudibly,

'Here is Theodora come to see you.'

Prepared as Theodora was, she was startled by the bloodlessness of the face, and the hand that lay without movement on the coverlet, while the gaze of the great black eyes met her with an almost spectral effect; and the stillness was only broken by the painful heaving of the chest, which seemed to shake even the bed-curtains. But for Violet's looks and gesture, Theodora would not have dared to go up to him, take his hand, and, on finding it feebly return her pressure, bend over and kiss his forehead.

'His breath is certainly relieved, and there is less fever,' repeated Violet; but to Theodora this seemed to make it only more shocking.

If this was better, what must it not have been? Her tongue positively refused to speak, and she only stood looking from her brother to his wife, who reclined, sunk back in her chair beside him, looking utterly spent and worn out, her cheeks perfectly white, her eyes half-closed, her whole frame as if all strength and energy were gone. That terrible hour had completely exhausted her powers; and when Theodora had recollected herself, and summoned Lord Martindale, who undertook the night watch, Violet had not voice to speak; she only hoa.r.s.ely whispered a few directions, and gave a sickly submissive smile as her thanks.

For one moment she revived, as she smoothed Arthur's bed, moistened his lips, and pressed her face to his; then she allowed Theodora almost to lift her away, and support her into the next room, where Sarah was waiting. Even thought and anxiety seemed to be gone; she sat where they placed her, and when they began to undress her, put her hand mechanically to her dress, missed the fastening, and let it drop with a vacant smile that almost overcame Theodora. They laid her in bed, and she dropped asleep, like an infant, the instant her head was on the pillow. Theodora thought it cruel to arouse her to take nourishment; but Sarah was peremptory, and vigorously administered the spoonfuls, which she swallowed in the same unconscious manner. She was only roused a little by a sound from the baby: 'Give him to me, he will be quieter so;' and Sarah held him to her, she took him in her arms, and was instantly sunk in the same dead slumber.

'My pretty lamb!' mourned the cold stern servant, as she arranged her coverings; 'this is the sorest brash we have had together yet, and I doubt whether ye'll win through with it. May He temper the blast that sends it.'

Gazing at her for a few seconds, she raised her hand to dry some large tears; and as if only now conscious of Miss Martindale's presence, curtsied, saying, in her usual manner, 'I beg your pardon, ma'am. There is the room next the nursery made ready for you.'

'I could not go, Sarah, thank you. Go to your children; I will take care of her. Pray go.'

'I will, thank you, ma'am. We will have need of all our strength before we have done.'

'How has she been before this?'

'About as well as usual at first, ma'am, till he threw her back with going off into they foreign parts, where he has been and as good as catched his death, and would have died if Mr. Fotheringham had not brought him home.'

'What! has he been abroad, Sarah?'

'Yes, ma'am. I was holding the baby when he says to Missus he was going to Bully, or Boulong--'

'Boulogne--'

'Yes, Bullying, or some such place; and bullied him they have; stripped him even of his very portmanteau, with his eight new s.h.i.+rts in it, that they have! Well, Missus, she says his cold would be worse, and he said it only wanted a change, and she need never fret, for he meant to get quit of the whole concern. But for that, I would have up and told him he didn't ought to go, and that he must stay at home and mind her, but then I thought, if he did get rid of them nasty horses, and that there Mr.

Gardner, with his great nasturtions on his face, it would be a blessed day. But I ought to have known how it would be: he is too innocent for them; and they have never been content till they have been and got his very clothes, and given him his death, and broke the heart of the bestest and most loving-heartedest lady as ever lived. That they have!'

Having eased her mind by this tirade, Sarah mended the fire, put every comfort in Miss Martindale's reach, advised her to lie down by her mistress, and walked off.

Theodora felt giddy and confounded with the shocks of that day. It was not till she had stretched herself beside Violet that she could collect her perceptions of the state of affairs; and oh! what wretchedness! Her darling brother, round whom the old pa.s.sionate ardour of affection now clung again, lying at death's door; his wife sinking under her exertions;--these were the least of the sorrows, though each cough seemed to rend her heart, and that sleeping mother was like a part of her life. The misery was in that mystery--nay, in the certainty, that up to the last moment of health Arthur had been engaged in his reckless, selfish courses! If he were repentant, there was neither s.p.a.ce nor power to express it, far less for reparation. He was s.n.a.t.c.hed at once from thoughtless pleasure and disregard of religion--nay, even of the common charities of home! And to fasten the guilt to herself were those few half-uttered words--races, debts, Gardner!

'If you once loosen the tie of home, he will go back to courses and companions that have done him harm enough already.' 'Beware of Mark Gardner!' 'Whatever comes of these races, it is your doing, not mine.'

Those warnings flashed before her eyes like letters of fire, and she turned her face to the pillow as it were to hide from them, as well as to stifle the groans that could not have been wrung from her by bodily pain. 'Oh, my sin has found me out! I thought I had been punished, but these are the very dregs! His blood is on my head! My brother! my brother! whom I loved above all! He was learning to love his home and children; she was weaning him from those pursuits! What might he not have been? I led him away! When he shrank from the temptation, I dragged him to it! I gave him back to the tempter! I, who thought I loved him--I did the devil's work! Oh! this is the heavier weight! Why should it crush others with the only guilty one? Oh! have mercy, have mercy on him! Let me bear all! Take me instead! Let me not have slain his soul!'

It was anguish beyond the power of words. She could not lie still; she knelt on the floor, and there the flood of despair fell on her more overwhelmingly; and crouching, almost cast on the ground, she poured out incoherent entreaties for mercy, for s.p.a.ce for his repentance, for his forgiveness. That agony of distracted prayer must have lasted a long time. Some sound in her brother's room alarmed her, and in starting she shook the table. Her father came to ask if anything was the matter; told her that Arthur was quiet, and begged her to lie down. It was a relief to have something to obey, and she moved back. The light gleamed on something bright. It was the setting of Helen's cross! 'Ah! I was not worthy to save it; that was for Johnnie's innocent hand! I may not call this my cross, but my rod!' Then came one thought: 'I came not for the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance.' Therewith hot tears rose up. 'With Him there is infinite mercy and redemption.' Some power of hope revived, that Mercy might give time to repent, accept the heartfelt grief that might exist, though not manifested to man! The hope, the motive, and comfort in praying, had gleamed across her again; and not with utter despair could she beseech that the sins she had almost caused might be so repented of as to receive the pardon sufficient for all iniquity.

CHAPTER 10

Thus have I seen a temper wild In yokes of strong affection bound Unto a spirit meek and mild, Till chains of good were on him found.

He, struggling in his deep distress, As in some dream of loneliness, Hath found it was an angel guest.

--Thoughts in Past Years

Five days had pa.s.sed, and no material change had taken place. There was no serious recurrence of bleeding, but the inflammation did not abate, and the suffering was grievous, though Arthur was so much enfeebled that he could not struggle under it. His extreme debility made his body pa.s.sive, but it was painfully evident that his mind was as anxious and ill at ease as ever. There was the same distrustful watch to see every letter, and know all that pa.s.sed; the constant strain of every faculty, all in absolute silence, so that his nurses, especially Theodora, felt as if it would be a positive personal relief to them if those eyes would be closed for one minute.

What would they have given to know what pa.s.sed in that sleepless mind?

But anything that could lead to speaking or agitation was forbidden; even, to the great grief of Theodora, the admission of the clergyman of the parish. Lord Martindale agreed with the doctors that it was too great a risk, and Violet allowed them to decide, whispering to Theodora that she thought he heeded Johnnie's prayers more than anything read with a direct view to himself. The cause of his anxiety remained in doubt. Lord Martindale had consulted Violet, but she knew nothing of any papers. She was aware that his accounts were mixed up with Mr.

Gardner's, and believed he had gone to Boulogne to settle them; and she conjectured that he had found himself more deeply involved than he had expected. She remembered his having said something of being undone, and his words to Johnnie seemed to bear the same interpretation.

Mr. Fotheringham's apparition was also a mystery; so strange was it that, after bringing Arthur home in such a state, he should offer no further a.s.sistance. James was desired to ask him to come in, if he should call to inquire; but he did not appear, and the father and sister began to have vague apprehensions, which they would not for the world have avowed to each other, that there must be worse than folly, for what save disgrace would have kept Percy from aiding John's brother in his distress? Each morning rose on them with dread of what the day might bring forth, not merely from the disease within, but from the world without; each postman's knock was listened to with alarm, caught from poor Arthur.

His wife was of course spared much of this. That worst fear could not occur to her; she had no room for any thought but for him as he was in the sight of Heaven, and each hour that his life was prolonged was to her a boon and a blessing. She trusted that there was true sorrow for the past--not merely dread of the consequences, as she traced the shades upon his face, while he listened to the hymns that she encouraged Johnnie to repeat. In that clear, sweet enunciation, and simple, reverent manner, they evidently had a great effect. He listened for the first time with his heart, and the caresses, at which Johnnie glowed with pleasure as a high favour, were, she knew, given with a species of wondering veneration. It was Johnnie's presence that most soothed him; his distressing, careworn expression pa.s.sed away at the first sight of the innocent, pensive face, and returned not while the child was before him, bending over a book, or watching the baby, or delighted at having some small service to perform. Johnnie, on his side, was never so well satisfied as in the room, and nothing but Violet's fears for his health prevented the chief part of his time from being spent there.

Her own strength was just sufficient for the day. She could sit by Arthur's side, comprehend his wishes by his face, and do more to relieve and sustain him than all the rest; and, though she looked wretchedly weak and worn, her power of doing all that was needed, and looking upon him with comforting refres.h.i.+ng smiles, did not desert her. The night watch she was forced to leave to be divided between his father and sister, with the a.s.sistance alternately of Sarah and the regular nurse, and she was too much exhausted when she went to bed, for Theodora to venture on disturbing her by an unnecessary word.

Theodora's longing was to be continually with her brother, but this could only be for a few hours at night; and then the sight of his suffering, and the difficulty of understanding his restlessness of mind, made her so wretched, that it took all the force of her strong resolution to conceal her unhappiness; and she marvelled the more at the calmness with which the feeble frame of Violet endured the same scene.

The day was still more trying to her, for her task was the care of the children, and little Helen was so entirely a copy of her own untamed self, as to be a burdensome charge for a desponding heart and sinking spirits.

On the fifth morning the doctors perceived a shade of improvement; but to his attendants Arthur appeared worse, from being less pa.s.sive and returning more to the struggle and manifestation of oppression and suffering. He made attempts at questions, insisting on being a.s.sured that no letter nor call had been kept from him; he even sent for the cards that had been left, and examined them, and he wanted to renew the conversation with his father; but Lord Martindale silenced him at once, and left the room. He looked so much disappointed that Violet was grieved, and thought, in spite of the doctors, that it might have been better to have run the risk of letting him speak, for the sake of setting his mind at rest.

Lord Martindale, however, saw so much peril in permitting a word to be uttered, that he deemed it safer to absent himself, and went out to try to trace out Mr. Fotheringham, and ask whether he could throw any light on Arthur's trouble.

The children were out of doors, and Theodora was profiting by the interval of quiet to write to her mother, when she heard James announce, 'Mr. Fotheringham.'

She looked up, then down. Her first thought was of her brother; the next brought the whole flood of remembrances, and she could not meet his eye.

He advanced, but there was no friendly greeting. As to a stranger, he said, 'I hope Colonel Martindale is better?'

Could it be himself? She gave a hasty glance. It was; he chose to disown her; to meet her without even a hand held out! Rallying her fort.i.tude, she made answer, 'Thank you; we hope--'

She got no further--her hand was grasped. 'Theodora! I did not know you.'

She had forgotten her altered looks! Relieved, she smiled, and said, 'Yes, I am a strange figure. They think Arthur a little better to-day, thank you.'

'How has it been?'

He listened to the details with eagerness, that dismissed from her mind the sickening apprehension of his knowing of any hidden evil; then, saying he was pressed for time, begged her to ask Mrs. Martindale to let him speak to her on a matter of such importance that he must venture on disturbing her.

Theodora beckoned to Violet at the door, hoping to elude Arthur's notice; but any attempt at secrecy made him more distrustful, and the name had hardly been whispered before she was startled by hearing--'Bring him here.'

Much frightened, the wife and sister expostulated, thus making him more determined; he almost rose on his elbow to enforce his wishes, and at last said, 'You do me more harm by preventing it.'