Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife Part 121

'You heard it at the time,' said Violet.

Recollections came across Arthur, and he turned away his head, self-convicted of having thought the women made a tedious history, and that he could not be bored by attending. Percy's way of listening, meanwhile, was with his foot on the fender, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting on his hand, his bright gray eyes fixed full on Violet, with a beaming look of gladness, and now and then a nod of a.s.sent, as if no heroism on Theodora's part could surpa.s.s his expectations, for he could have told it all beforehand. However, his turn came, when Violet described her last expedition after the chess-board, and the injury it had entailed.

'Now, now, you don't say so!' said he, stammering with eagerness, and starting up.

'Poor dear, she hardly knew what she did,' said Violet.

'I remember,' said Arthur. 'That was the time of the delusion that Percy had taken up with his present cousin-in-law.'

Violet blushed. She was too much ashamed of ever having had the idea to bear to recall it; and when Arthur explained, Percy shuddered, and exclaimed, 'No, I thank you, Violet! you knew enough against me; but you need not have thought me quite come to that!'

On the morrow, Percy came in as the children's lessons were concluded.

He studied Theodora's face tenderly, and hoped that she had rested. She laughed, and called herself perfectly well; and, indeed, her eyes were as large and as bright as they ought to me, and she had discovered, that morning, that her black locks would make a much more respectable show if properly managed. He would not have mistaken her if she had looked as she did now three weeks ago.

After they had talked for some time, Theodora said, 'We must not talk away the whole morning; I must write to papa.'

'Yes,' said Percy, 'I came to speak of that. Theodora, perhaps it was wrong to say what I did last night.'

'How?' said she, frightened.

'You ought to have been told how much worse my position is than before.'

'Oh! is that all?'

'It is a very serious all,' he answered. 'When I spoke before, and was cool enough to treat it as if I was conferring a favour on you, it was wonderful that your father consented. Now, you see, Worthbourne is gone--'

'How can you care for that?'

'I did not, till I began to look at it from your father's point of view.

Besides, I ought to tell you, that there is no chance even of a legacy. I find that Mrs. Fotheringham rules the house, and has tried to prejudice my uncle against me. On the marriage, there were fresh arrangements; my uncle was to alter his will, and it was on that occasion that Sir Antony sent for me to keep up the balance, and save him from her influence. Mrs. Martindale was right about her. What a mischief-maker she is! My delay gave great offence.'

'Your delay on Arthur's account?'

'Yes, she managed to turn it against me. Imagine her having persuaded them that I reckoned on Pelham's being set aside to make room for me.

She says it was named in this house!'

'Yes, by Jane herself.'

'She represented me as so disgusted at the marriage that I would pay no attention to Sir Antony. I saw how it was when she received me, purring and coaxing, and seeming to be making my peace with my uncle. By and by, Pelham, when we grew intimate again, blundered out the whole,--that his father wished to have settled something on me; but that Jane had persuaded him that the whole might be wanted as a provision for their family. I cared not one rush then, but it makes a difference now. As for my former line, I am forgotten or worse. I have said blunt things that there was no call for me to say. No one chooses to have me for an underling, and there is no more chance of my getting an appointment than of being made Khan of Tartary. Authors.h.i.+p is all that is left to me.'

'You have done great things in that way,' said Theodora.

'I had made something, but I was obliged to advance it the other day to get Arthur out of this sc.r.a.pe, and there is no chance of his being able to pay it, poor fellow!'

'Oh, Percy! thank you more for this than for all. If the pressure had come, I believe it would have killed him. If you had seen the misery of those days!'

'And now,' continued Percy, 'poor Arthur is most anxious it should be paid; but I ought not to consent. If he were to sell out now, he would be almost dest.i.tute. I have persuaded him to let all rest in silence till John comes.'

'I am glad you have,' said Theodora. 'I am afraid papa is a good deal pressed for money. The rents have had to be reduced; and John wants all the Barbuda income to spend on the estate there. Even before the fire, papa talked of bringing John home to cut off the entail, and sell some land; and the house was insured far short of its value. He wants to get rid of Armstrong and all the finery of the garden; but he is afraid of vexing mamma, and in the meantime he is very glad that we are living more cheaply in the cottage. I really do not think he could conveniently pay such a sum; and just at present, too, I had rather poor Arthur's faults were not brought before him.'

'It comes to this, then;--Is it for your happiness to enter upon an indefinite engagement, and wait for the chance of my working myself up into such a competency as may make our marriage not too imprudent? It cannot, as far as I can see, be for years; it may be never.'

'When I thought you would not have me, I meant to be an old maid,' said Theodora; 'and, Percy, this time you shall not think I do not care for you. If we have to wait for our whole lives, let it be with the knowledge that we belong to each other. I could not give up that now, and'--as he pressed her hand--'mind, I am old enough to be trusted to choose poverty. I know I can live on a little: I trust to you to tell me whenever there is enough.'

'And your father?'

'He will not object--he will rejoice. The way I regarded that dear father was one of the worst sins of that time! It is better it should be as it is. Mamma could not well do without me now; I should be in doubt about leaving her, even if the rest were plain. So that is trouble saved,' she added with a smile.

'If they will see it in the same light! If they will forgive as readily as you do one of the greatest injuries to a young lady.'

'Hush--nonsense. Papa always considered that it served me right.

And really this is such perfect content, that I do not know how to understand it. You had always the power of reconciliation in your hands; but, you know, I had not; and, apart from all other feelings, the mere craving for pardon was so painful! It was only yesterday morning that I was thinking it might, at least, come in the other world.'

'The pardon I was begging Violet to seek for me!--I trusted to obtain that, though I little hoped--'

'But indeed, Percy, we must write our letters, or the children will be upon us again.'

Her letter was more easily written than Percy's. He wrote, and tore up, and considered, and talked to her, and wished John was at home, and said that Lord Martindale would be perfectly justified in withdrawing his consent, and declaring him a presumptuous wretch.

'What! when you have rescued his son? No, indeed, papa knows you too well! I have no fears: for though he is not aware of the cost of what you did for Arthur, he is most grateful for what he does know of; he thinks you saved his life, and even without that, he is too kind to me to do what--I could not bear.'

'I will try to believe you.'

'I was thinking that this is just retribution on me, that whereas I led Arthur into temptation, this debt should be the obstacle.'

Perhaps nothing gratified him more than to hear her speak of the loan as if she partic.i.p.ated in the loss, not as if she viewed it from the Martindale side of the question, and felt it too much of an obligation.

His letter was not written till just in time for the post, and it travelled in the same cover with hers. Till the answer arrived he was very anxious, came little to the house, and only put on his cheerful air before Arthur, whose spirits could not afford to be lowered.

Theodora was secure. She knew that she deserved that there should be difficulties; but at the same time she had the sense that the tide had turned. Pardon had come, and with it hope; and though she tried to school herself to submit to disappointment, she could not expect it. She knew she might trust to her father's kind unworldly temper and sense of justice, now that he was left to himself. And when the letter came, Percy brought it in triumph under the shade of the old green umbrella, which hitherto he had not dared to produce.

Lord Martindale said everything affectionate and cordial. If he grieved at the unpromising prospect, he was wise enough to know it was too late to try to thwart an attachment which had survived such shocks; and he only dwelt on his rejoicing that, after all her trials, his daughter should have merited the restoration of the affection of one whom he esteemed so highly.

He fully forgave the former rejection, and declared that it was with far more hope and confidence of their happiness that he now accorded his sanction than when last it had been asked; and the terms in which he spoke of his daughter seemed to deepen her humility by the strength of their commendation.

Happy days succeeded; the lodgings in Piccadilly were nearly deserted, Percy was always either nursing Arthur, playing with the children, or bringing sheets of Byzantine history for revision; and he was much slower in looking over Theodora's copies of them than in writing them himself. There was much grave quiet talk between the lovers when alone together. They were much altered since the time when their chief satisfaction seemed to lie in teasing and triumphing over one another; past troubles and vague prospects had a sobering influence; and they felt that while they enjoyed their present union as an unlooked-for blessing, it might be only a resting point before a long period of trial, separation, and disappointment. It gave a resigned tone to their happiness, even while its uncertainty rendered it more precious.

All mirthfulness, except what the children called forth, was reserved for Arthur's room; but he thought Percy as gay and light-hearted as ever, and his sister not much less so. Percy would not bring their anxieties to depress the fluctuating spirits, which, wearied with the sameness of a sick-room, varied with every change of weather, every sensation of the hour.

Theodora almost wondered at Percy's talking away every desponding fit of Arthur's, whether about his health, his money matters, or their hopes.

She said, though it was most trying to hear him talk of never coming down again, of not living to see the children grow up, and never allowing that he felt better, that she thought, considering how much depended on the impression now made, it might be false kindness to talk away his low spirits. Were they not repentance? Perhaps Percy was right, but she should not have dared to do so.

'Theodora, you do not know the difference between reflection and dejection. Arthur's repentance is too deep a thing for surface talk. It does not depend on my making him laugh or not.'

'If anxiety about himself keeps it up--'

'If I let him believe that I do not think he will recover, for the sake of encouraging his repentance, I should be leaving him in a delusion, and that I have no right to do. Better let him feel himself repenting as having to redeem what is past, than merely out of terror, thinking the temptations have given him up, not that he gives them up. Why, when he told me to sell his saddle-horses the other day, and that he should never ride again, it was nothing, and I only roused him up to hope to be out in the spring. Then he began to lament over his beautiful mare,--but when it came to his saying he had sacrificed Violet's drives for her, and that he had been a selfish wretch, who never deserved to mount a horse again, and ending with a deep sigh, and "Let her go, I ought to give her up," there was reality and sincerity, and I acted on it. No, if Arthur comes out of his room a changed character, it must be by strengthening his resolution, not by weakening his mind, by letting him give way to the mere depression of illness.'

'You believe the change real? Oh, you don't know what the doubt is to me! after my share in the evil, the anxiety is doubly intense! and I cannot see much demonstration except in his sadness, which you call bodily weakness.'