Mildred Arkell Volume I Part 18

How long she thus sat she could not tell. I believe--I honestly and truly believe--that no sorrow the world knows, can be of a nature more cruel than was Mildred's that night; certainly none could be more intensely felt. "How can I bear it?" she moaned, "how can I bear it? To see them come back here in their wedded happiness, and have to witness it, and live. Perhaps--after a time, if G.o.d will help me, I shall be----"

"What on earth are you doing, Mildred?"

She started from her chair with a scream. So entirely had she believed herself secure from interruption, that in the first confused moments it seemed as if her thoughts and anguish had been laid bare. Mrs. Dan stood there in her night-dress, a candle in her hand.

"You were moaning, Mildred. Are you ill?"

"I--I am quite well, mamma," stammered Mildred, her words confused, and her face a fiery red. "Do you want anything?"

"But how is it you are not undressed? I had been in bed ever so long."

"I suppose I had fallen into a train of thought, and let the time slip away," answered Mildred, beginning to undo her hair in a heap, as if to make up for the lost time. "Why have you come out of your bed, mamma?"

"Child, I don't feel myself, and I thought I'd come and call you. It is well, as it happens, that you are not undressed, for I think I should like a cup of tea made. If I drink it very hot, it may take away the pain."

"Where is the pain?" asked Mildred, beginning to put up her hair again, as hurriedly as she had undone it.

"I scarcely know where it is; I feel ill all over. The fact is, I never ought to go to these festivities," added Mrs. Dan, hastening back to her own room. "They are sure to upset me."

Alas! it was not the festivity that had "upset" Mrs. Dan; but that her time was come. Another hour, and she was so much worse, that Peter had to be aroused from his bed, and go for their doctor. Mrs. Daniel Arkell was in danger.

It may be deemed unfeeling, in some measure, to say it, but it was the best thing that could have happened for Mildred. It took her out of her own thoughts--away from herself. There was so much to do, even in that first night, which was only the commencement; and it all fell on Mildred. Peter, with his timid heart, and unpractised hands, was utterly useless in a sick room, as book-worms in general are; and their one servant, Ann, a young, inexperienced, awkward girl, was nearly as much so. Mustard poultices had to be got, steaming hot flannels, and many other things. Before Mildred had made ready one thing, another called for her. It was well it was so!

At seven o'clock, Peter started for his uncle's, and told the news there. Mr. Arkell went up directly; Mrs. Arkell a little later. Mrs.

Dan's danger had become imminent then, and Mr. Arkell went himself, and brought back a physician.

Later in the morning, Mildred was called downstairs to the sitting-room.

Betsey Travice was standing there. The girl came forward, a pleading light in her earnest eye.

"Oh, Miss Arkell! if you will only please to let me! I have come to ask to help you."

"To help me!" mechanically repeated Mildred.

"I am so good a nurse; I am indeed! Poor papa died suddenly, but I nursed mamma all through her last long illness; there was only me to do everything, and she used to say that I was as handy as if I had learnt it in the hospitals. Let me try and help you!"

"You are very, very kind," said Mildred, feeling inclined to accept the offer as freely as it was made, for she knew that she should require a.s.sistance if the present state of things continued. "How came you to think of it?"

"When Mrs. Arkell came home to breakfast this morning, she said how everything lay upon you, and that you would never be able to do it. I believe she was thinking of sending Tring; but I took courage to tell her what a good nurse I was, and to beg her to let me come. I said--if you will not think it presuming of me, Miss Arkell--that Mrs. Daniel was my G.o.dmother, and I thought it gave me a sort of right to wait upon her."

Mildred, undemonstrative Mildred, stooped down in a sudden impulse, and kissed the gentle face. "I shall be very glad of you, Betsey. Will you stay now?"

There was no need of further words. Betsey's bonnet and shawl were off in a moment, and she stood ready in her soft, black, noiseless dress.

"Please to put me to do anything there is to do, Miss Arkell.

_Anything_, you know. I am handy in the kitchen. I do any sort of rough work as handily as I can nurse. And perhaps your servant will lend me an ap.r.o.n."

Three days only; three days of sharp, quick illness, and Mrs. Daniel Arkell's last hour arrived. Betsey Travice had not boasted unwarrantably, for a better, more patient, ay, or more skilful nurse never entered a sick chamber. She really was of the utmost use and comfort, and Mildred righteously believed that Heaven had been working out its own ends in sending her just at that time to Westerbury.

It was somewhat singular that Betsey Travice should again be brought into the presence of the young gentleman to whose eyes she had taken so unaccountable a dislike. On that last day, when the final scene was near at hand, the maid came to the dying chamber, saying that Miss Arkell was wanted below; a messenger had come over from Mr. John Carr, and was asking to see her in person.

"I cannot go down now," was Mildred's answer; "you might have known that, Ann."

"I did know it, miss, and I said it; that is, I said I didn't think you could. But he wouldn't take no denial; he said Mr. Carr had told him not."

Giving herself no trouble as to who the "he" might be, Mildred whispered to Betsey Travice to go down for her, and mention the state of things.

Excessively to Betsey's discomfiture, she found herself confronted by the gentleman of the curious eyes, who held out his hand familiarly.

His errand was nothing particular, after all; but his father had expressly ordered him to see Miss Arkell, and convey to her personally his sympathy and inquiries as to her mother's state. For the news of Mrs. Dan's danger had travelled to Squire Carr's, and urgent business at home had alone prevented John Carr's coming over in person. As it was, he sent his son Ben.

Betsey, more meek than ever, thanked him, and told him how ill Mrs.

Daniel was; that, in point of fact, another hour or two would bring the end. It was quite impossible Miss Arkell could, under the circ.u.mstances, leave the chamber.

"Of course she can't," he answered; "and I'm very sorry to hear it. My father will go on at me, I dare say, saying it was my fault, as he generally does when anything goes contrary to his orders. But he'd not have seen her any the more had he come himself. You will tell me who you are?" he suddenly continued to Betsey, without any break; "I sat by you at the breakfast, but I forget your name."

"If you please, sir, it is Betsey Travice," was the reply, and the girl quite cowered as she stood under the blaze of those black and piercing eyes.

"Betsey Travice! and a very pretty name, too. You'll please to say everything proper for us up there," jerking his head in the direction of the upper floors. "Oh! and I say, I forgot to add that my grandfather, the squire, intends to ride in to-morrow, and call."

He shook hands with her in the pa.s.sage, and vaulted out at the front door, a tall, strong, fine young fellow. And those eyes, which had so unaccountably excited the disfavour of Miss Betsey, were generally considered the handsomest of the handsome.

Betsey stole upstairs again, and whispered the message into Mildred's ear. "It was that tall, dark young man, with the black eyes, that sat by me at Charlotte's wedding breakfast."

They waited on, in the hushed chamber: Peter, Mildred, Mr. and Mrs.

Arkell, and Betsey Travice. And at two o'clock in the afternoon the shutters were put up to the windows, through which Mrs. Daniel Arkell would never look again.

CHAPTER X.

GOING OUT AS LADY'S MAID.

A week or two given to grief, and Mildred Arkell sat down to deliberate upon her plans for the future. It was impossible to conceal from herself, dutiful, loving, grieving daughter though she was, how wonderfully her mother's death had removed the one sole impediment to the wish that had for some little time lain uppermost in her heart. She wanted to leave Westerbury; it was misery to her to remain in it; but while her mother had lived, her place was there. All seemed easy now; and in the midst of her bitter grief for that mother, Mildred's heart almost leaped at the thought that there was no longer any imperative tie to bind her to her home.

She would go away from Westerbury. But how? what to do? For a governess Mildred had not been educated; and accomplishments were then getting so very general, even the daughters of the petty tradespeople learning them, that Mildred felt in that capacity she should stand but little chance of obtaining a situation. But she might be a companion to an invalid lady, might nurse her, wait upon her, and be of use to her; and that sort of situation she determined to seek.

Quietly, and after much thought, she arranged her plans in her own mind; quietly she hoped and prayed for a.s.sistance to be enabled to carry them out. n.o.body suspected this. Mildred seemed to others just as she had ever seemed, quiet, un.o.btrusive Mildred Arkell, absorbed in the domestic cares of her own home, in thought for the comfort of her not at all strong brother. Mildred went now but very little to her aunt's. Betsey Travice had returned to London, to the enjoyments of Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's household, which she had refused to abandon; and William Arkell and his bride were not yet come home.

"Peter," she said, one late evening that they were sitting together--and it was the first intimation of the project that had pa.s.sed her lips--"I have been thinking of the future."

"Yes?" replied Peter, absently, for he was as usual disputing some knotty point in his mind, having a Greek root for its basis. "What about it?"

"I am thinking of leaving home; leaving it for good."

The words awoke even Peter. He listened to her while she told her tale, listened without interrupting, he was so amazed.