Queechy Volume Ii Part 86

"No, Sir," said Fleda ? "and ? but ?"

"What is in the way?"

But it seemed impossible for Fleda to tell him.

"May I not know?" he said, gently putting away the hair from Fleda's face, which looked distressed. "Is it only your feeling?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda ? "at least ? not the feeling you think it is ? but ? I could not do it without giving great pain."

Mr. Carleton was silent.

"Not to anybody you know, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, suddenly fearing a wrong interpretation to her words ? "I don't mean that ? I mean somebody else ? the person ? the only person you could apply to" ? she said, covering her face in utter confusion.

"Do I understand you?" said he, smiling. "Has this gentleman any reason to dislike the sight of me?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda ? "but he thinks he has."

"That only I meant," said he. "You are quite right, my dear Elfie ? I, of all men, ought to understand that."

The subject was dropped; and in a few minutes his gentle skill had wellnigh made Fleda forget what they had been talking about. Himself and his wishes seemed to be put quite out of his own view, and out of hers as far as possible, except that the very fact made Fleda recognise, with unspeakable grat.i.tude and admiration, the kindness and grace that were always exerted for her pleasure. If her goodwill could have been put into the cups of coffee she poured out for him, he might have gone, in the strength of them, all the way to England. There was strength of another kind to be gained from her face of quiet sorrow and quiet self-command, which were her very childhood's own.

"You will see me at the earliest possible moment," he said, when at last taking leave. "I hope to be free in a short time: but it may not be. Elfie, if I should be detained longer than I hope ? if I should not be able to return in a reasonable time ? will you let my mother bring you out? ? if I cannot come to you, will you come to me?"

Fleda coloured a good deal, and said, scarce intelligibly, that she hoped he would be able to come. He did not press the matter. He parted from her, and was leaving the room. Fleda suddenly sprang after him, before he had reached the door, and laid her hand on his arm.

"I did not answer your question, Mr. Carleton," she said, with cheeks that were dyed now ? "I will do whatever you please ?

whatever you think best."

His thanks were most gratefully, though silently, spoken, and he went away.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Daughter, they seem to say, Peace to thy heart!

We too, yes, daughter, Have been as thou art.

Hope-lifted, doubt-depress'd, Seeing in part ?

Tried, troubled, tempted ?

Sustain'd ? as thou art."

UNKNOWN.

Mr. Rossitur was disposed for no further delay now in leaving Queechy. The office at Jamaica, which Mr. Carleton and Dr.

Gregory had secured for him, was immediately accepted, and every arrangement pressed to hasten his going. On every account, he was impatient to be out of America, and especially since his son's death. Marion was of his mind. Mrs. Rossitur had more of a home feeling, even for the place where home had not been to her as happy as it might.

They were sad weeks of bustle and weariness that followed Hugh's death ? less sad, perhaps, for the weariness and the bustle. There was little time for musing ? no time for lingering regrets. If thought and feeling played their Aeolian measures on Fleda's harpstrings, they were listened to only by s.n.a.t.c.hes, and she rarely sat down and cried to them.

A very kind note had been received from Mrs. Carleton.

April gave place to May. One afternoon, Fleda had taken an hour or two to go and look at some of the old places on the farm that she loved, and that were not too far to reach. A last look she guessed it might be, for it was weeks since she had had a spare afternoon, and another she might not be able to find. It was a doubtful pleasure she sought too, but she must have it.

She visited the long meadow and the height that stretched along it, and even went so far as the extremity of the valley, at the foot of the twenty-acre lot, and then stood still to gather up the ends of memory. There she had gone chestnutting with Mr. Ringgan ? thither she had guided Mr. Carleton and her cousin Rossitur that day when they were going after woodc.o.c.k ?

there she had directed and overseen Earl Dougla.s.s's huge crop of corn. How many pieces of her life were connected with it!

She stood for a little while looking at the old chestnut trees, looking and thinking, and turned away soberly with the recollection, "The world pa.s.seth away, but the word of our G.o.d shall stand for ever." And though there was one thought that was a continual well of happiness in the depth of Fleda's heart, her mind pa.s.sed it now, and echoed with great joy the countersign of Abraham's privilege, ? "Thou art my portion, O Lord!" ? And in that a.s.surance every past and every hoped-for good was sweet with added sweetness. She walked home without thinking much of the long meadow.

It was a chill spring afternoon, and Fleda was in her old trim ? the black cloak, the white shawl over it, and the hood of grey silk. And in that trim she walked into the sitting-room.

A lady was there, in a travelling dress, a stranger. Fleda's eye took in her outline and feature one moment with a kind of bewilderment, the next with perfect intelligence. If the lady had been in any doubt, Fleda's cheeks alone would have announced her ident.i.ty. But she came forward without hesitation after the first moment, pulling off her hood, and stood before her visitor, blus.h.i.+ng, in a way that perhaps Mrs.

Carleton looked at as a novelty in her world. Fleda did not know how she looked at it, but she had, nevertheless, an instinctive feeling, even at the moment, that the lady wondered how her son should have fancied particularly anything that went about under such a hood.

Whatever Mrs. Carleton thought, her son's fancies, she knew, were unmanageable; and she had far too much good breeding to let her thoughts be known ? unless to one of those curious spirit thermometers that can tell a variation of temperature through every sort of medium. There might have been the slightest want of forwardness to do it, but she embraced Fleda with great cordiality.

"This is for the old time ? not for the new, dear Fleda," she said. "Do you remember me?"

"Perfectly! ? very well," said Fleda, giving Mrs. Carleton for a moment a glimpse of her eyes. ? "I do not easily forget."

"Your look promises me an advantage from that, which I do not deserve, but which I may as well use as another. I want all I can have, Fleda."

There was a half look at the speaker that seemed to deny the truth of that, but Fleda did not otherwise answer. She begged her visitor to sit down, and throwing off the white shawl and black cloak, took tongs in hand, and began to mend the fire.

Mrs. Carleton sat considering a moment the figure of the fire- maker, not much regardful of the skill she was bringing to bear upon the sticks of wood.

Fleda turned from the fire to remove her visitor's bonnet and wrappings, but the former was all Mrs. Carleton would give her. She threw off shawl and tippet on the nearest chair.

It was the same Mrs. Carleton of old ? Fleda saw while this was doing ? unaltered almost entirely. The fine figure and bearing were the same; time had made no difference; even the face had paid little tribute to the years that had pa.s.sed by it; and the hair held its own without a change. Bodily and mentally she was the same. Apparently she was thinking the like of Fleda.

"I remember you very well," she said, with kindly accent, when Fleda sat down by her. "I have never forgotten you. A dear little creature you were. I always knew that."

Fleda hoped privately the lady would see no occasion to change her mind; but for the present she was bankrupt in words.

"I was in the same room this morning at Montepoole where we used to dine, and it brought back the whole thing to me ? the time when you were sick there with us. I could think of nothing else. But I don't think I was your favourite, Fleda."

Such a rush of blood again answered her as moved Mrs.

Carleton, in common kindness, to speak of common things. She entered into a long story of her journey ? of her pa.s.sage from England ? of the steamer that brought her ? of her stay in New York ? all which Fleda heard very indifferently well. She was more distinctly conscious of the handsome travelling dress, which seemed all the while to look as its wearer had done, with some want of affinity upon the little grey hood which lay on the chair in the corner. Still she listened and responded as became her, though, for the most part, with eyes that did not venture from home. The little hood itself could never have kept its place with less presumption, nor with less flutter of self-distrust.

Mrs. Carleton came at last to a general account of the circ.u.mstances that had determined Guy to return home so suddenly, where she was more interesting. She hoped he would not be detained, but it was impossible to tell. It was just as it might happen.

"Are you acquainted with the commission I have been charged with?" she said, when her narrations had at last lapsed into silence, and Fleda's eyes had returned to the ground.

"I suppose so, Ma'am, " said Fleda, with a little smile.

"It is a very pleasant charge" said Mrs. Carleton, softly kissing her cheek. Something in the face itself must have called forth that kiss, for this time there were no requisitions of politeness.

"Do you recognise my commission, Fleda?"

Fleda did not answer. Mrs. Carleton sat a few minutes thoughtfully drawing back the curls from her forehead, Mr.

Carleton's very gesture, but not by any means with his fingers; and musing, perhaps, on the possibility of a hood's having very little to do with what it covered.

"Do you know," she said, "I have felt as if I were nearer to Guy since I have seen you."