Henrietta's Wish

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  It was marvellous that the only two persons whose attendance he would endure could bear up under the fatigue. Even Uncle Geoffrey, one of those spare wiry men, who, without much appearance of strength are nevertheless capable of such continued exertion, was beginning to look worn and almost aged, and yet Mrs. Frederick Langford was still indefatigable, unconscious of weariness, quietly active, absorbed in the thought of her son, and yet not so absorbed as not to be full of consideration for all around. All looked forward with apprehension to the time when the consequences of such continued exertion must be felt, but in the meantime it was not in the power of any one ex- cept her brother Geoffrey to be of any assistance to her, and her relations could only wait and watch with such patience as they could command, for the period when their services might be effectual.

  Mrs. Langford was the most visibly impatient. The hasty bustling of her very quietest steps gave such torture to Frederick, as to excuse the upbraiding eyes which he turned on his poor perplexed mother whenever she entered the room; and her fresh arrangements and orders always created a disturbance, which created such positive injury, that it was the aim of the whole family to prevent her visits there. This was, as may be supposed, no easy task. Grandpapa's "You had better not, my dear," checked her for a little while, but was far from satisfying her: Uncle Geoffrey, who might have had the best chance, had not time to spare for her; and no one could persuade her how impossible, nay, how dangerous it was to attempt to reason with the patient: so she blamed the whole household for indulging his fancies, and half a dozen times a day pronounced that he would be the death of his mother. Beatrice did the best she could to tranquillise her; but two spirits so apt to clash did not accord particularly well even now, though Busy Bee was too much depressed to queen it as usual. To feel herself completely useless in the midst of the suffering she had occasioned was a severe trial; and above all, poor child, she longed for her mother, and the repose of confession and parental sympathy. She saw her father only at meal times; she was anxious and uneasy at his worn looks, and even he could not be all that her mother was. Grandpapa was kind as ever, but the fault that sat so heavy on her mind was not one for discussion with any one but a mother, and this consciousness was the cause of a little reserve with him, such as had never before existed between them.

  Alexander was more of a comfort to her than any one else, and that chiefly because he wanted her to be a comfort to him. All the strong affection and esteem which he really entertained for Frederick was now manifested, and the remembrance of old rivalries and petty contentions served but to make the reaction stronger. He kept aloof from his brothers, and spent every moment he could at the Hall, either reading in the library, or walking up and down the garden paths with Queen Bee. One of the many conversations which they held will serve as a specimen of the rest.

  "So they do not think he is much better to-day?" said Alex, walking into the library, where Beatrice was sealing some letters.

  Beatrice shook her head. "Every day that he is not worse is so much gained," said she.

  "It is very odd," meditated Alex: "I suppose the more heads have in them, the easier it is to knock them!"

  Beatrice smiled. "Thick skulls are proverbial, you know, Alex."

  "Well, I really believe it is right. Look, Bee," and he examined his own face in the glass over the chimney; "there, do you see a little bit of a scar under my eyebrow?-there! Well, that was where I was knocked over by a cricket-ball last half, pretty much harder than poor Fred could have come against the ground,-but what harm did it do me? Why everything spun round with me for five minutes or so, and I had a black eye enough to have scared you, but I was not a bit the worse otherwise. Poor Fred, he was quite frightened for me I believe; for the first thing I saw was him, looking all green and yellow, standing over me, and so I got up and laughed at him for thinking I could care about it. That was the worst of it! I wish I had not been always set against him. I would give anything now."

  "Well, but Alex, I don't understand. You were very good friends at the bottom, after all; you can't have anything really to repent of towards him."

  "Oh, haven't I though?" was the reply. "It was more the other fellows' doing than my own, to be sure, and yet, after all, it was worse, knowing all about him as I did; but somehow, every one, grandmamma and all of you, had been preaching up to me all my life that cousin Fred was to be such a friend of mine. And then when he came to school, there he was-a fellow with a pink and white face, like a girl's, and that did not even know how to shy a stone, and cried for his mamma! Well, I wish I could begin it all over again."

  "But do you mean that he was really a-a-what you call a Miss Molly?"

  "Who said so? No, not a bit of it!" said Alex. "No one thought so in reality, though it was a good joke to put him in a rage, and pretend to think that he could not do anything. Why, it took a dozen times more spirit for him to be first in everything than for me, who had been knocked about all my life. And he was up to anything, Bee, to anything. The matches at foot-ball will be good for nothing now; I am sure I shan't care if we do win."

  "And the prize," said Beatrice, "the scholarship!"

  "I have no heart to try for it now! I would not, if Uncle Geoffrey had not a right to expect it of me. Let me see: if Fred is well by the summer, why then-hurrah! Really, Queenie, he might get it all up in no time, clever fellow as he is, and be first after all. Don't you think so?"

  Queen Bee shook her head. "They say he must not read or study for a very long time," said she.

  "Yes, but six months-a whole year is an immense time," said Alex. "O yes, he must, Bee! Reading does not cost him half the trouble it does other people; and his verses, they never fail-never except when he is careless; and the sure way to prevent that is to run him up for time. That is right. Why there!" exclaimed Alex joyfully, "I do believe this is the very best thing for his success!" Beatrice could not help laughing, and Alex immediately sobered down as the remembrance crossed him, that if Fred were living a week hence, they would have great reason to be thankful.

  "Ah! they will all of them be sorry enough to hear of this," proceeded he. "There was no one so much thought of by the fellows, or the masters either."

  "The masters, perhaps," said Beatrice; "but I thought you said there was a party against him among the boys?"

  "Oh, nonsense! It was only a set of stupid louts who, just because they had pudding-heads themselves, chose to say that I did better without all his reading and Italian, and music, and stuff; and I was foolish enough to let them go on, though I knew all the time it was nothing but chaff. I shall let them all know what fools they were for their pains, as soon as I go back. Why, Queenie, you, who only know Fred at home, you have not the slightest notion what a fellow he is. I'll just tell you one story of him."

  Alexander forthwith proceeded to tell not one story alone, but many, to illustrate the numerous excellences which he ascribed to Fred, and again and again blaming himself for the species of division which had existed between them, although the fact was that he had always been the more conciliatory of the two. Little did he guess, good, simple-hearted fellow, that each word was quite as much, or more, to his credit, as to Frederick's; but Beatrice well appreciated them, and felt proud of him.

  These talks were her chief comfort, and always served to refresh her, if only by giving her the feeling that some one wanted her, and not that the only thing she could do for anybody was the sealing of the letters which her father, whose eyes were supposed to be acquiring the power of those of cats, contrived to write in the darkness of Fred's room. She thought she could have borne everything excepting Henrietta's coldness, which still continued, not from intentional unkindness or unwillingness to forgive, but simply because Henrietta was too much absorbed in her own troubles to realise to herself the feelings which she wounded. Her uncle Geoffrey had succeeded in awakening her consideration for her mother; but with her and Fred it began and ended, and when outside the sick room, she seemed not to have a thought beyond a spe
edy return to it. She seldom or never left it, except at meal-times, or when her grandfather insisted on her taking a walk with him, as he did almost daily. Then he walked between her and Beatrice, trying in vain to arouse her to talk, and she, replying as shortly as possible when obliged to speak, left her cousin to sustain the conversation.

  The two girls went to church with grandpapa on the feast of the Epiphany, and strange it was to them to see again the wreaths which their own hands had woven, looking as bright and festal as ever, the glistening leaves unfaded, and the coral berries fresh and gay. A tear began to gather in Beatrice's eye, and Henrietta hung her head, as if she could not bear the sight of those branches, so lately gathered by her brother. As they were leaving the church, both looked towards the altar at the wreath which Henrietta had once started to see, bearing a deeper and more awful meaning than she had designed. Their eyes met, and they saw that they had the same thought in their minds.

  When they were taking off their bonnets in their own room, Queen Bee stretched out a detaining hand, not in her usual commanding manner, but with a gesture that was almost timid, saying,

  "Look, Henrietta, one moment, and tell me if you were not thinking of this."

  And hastily opening the Lyra Innocentium, she pointed out the verse-

  "Such garland grave and fair,

  His church to-day adorns,

  And-mark it well-e'en there

  He wears His Crown of Thorns.

  "Should aught profane draw near,

  Full many a guardian spear

  Is set around, of power to go

  Deep in the reckless hand, and stay the grasping foe."

  "They go very deep," sighed Henrietta, raising her eyes, with a mournful complaining glance.

  Beatrice would have said more, but when she recollected her own conduct on Christmas Eve, it might well strike her that she was the "thing profane" that had then dared to draw near; and it pained her that she had even appeared for one moment to accuse her cousin. She was beginning to speak, but Henrietta cut her short by saying, "Yes, yes, but I can't stay," and was flying along the passage the next moment.

  Beatrice sighed heavily, and spent the next quarter of an hour in recalling, with all the reality of self-reproach, the circumstances of her recklessness, vanity and self-will on that day. She knelt and poured out her confession, her prayer for forgiveness, and grace to avoid the very germs of these sins for the future, before Him Who seeth in secret: and a calm energetic spirit of hope, in the midst of true repentance, began to dawn on her.

  It was good for her, but was it not selfish in Henrietta thus to leave her alone to bear her burthen? Yes, selfish it was; for Henrietta had heard the last report of Frederick since their return, and knew that her presence in his room was quite useless; and it was only for the gratification of her own feelings that she hurried thither without even stopping to recollect that her cousin might also be unhappy, and be comforted by talking to her.

  Her thought was only the repining one: "the thorns go deep!" Poor child, had they yet gone deep enough? The patient may cry out, but the skilful surgeon will nevertheless probe on, till he has reached the hidden source of the malady.

  CHAPTER XV.

  ON a soft hazy day in the beginning of February, the Knight Sutton carriage was on the road to Allonfield, and in it sat the Busy Bee and her father, both of them speaking far less than was their wont when alone together.

  Mr. Geoffrey Langford took off his hat, so as to let the moist spring breeze play round his temples and in the thin locks where the silvery threads had lately grown more perceptible, and gazed upon the dewy grass, the tiny woodbine leaf, the silver "pussycats" on the withy, and the tasselled catkin of the hazel, with the eyes of a man to whom such sights were a refreshment-a sort of holiday-after the many springs spent in close courts of law and London smoke; and now after his long attendance in a warm dark sick-room. His daughter sat by him, thinking deeply, and her heart full of a longing earnestness which seemed as if it would not let her speak. She was going to meet her mother, whom she had not seen for so long a time; but it was only to be for one evening! Her father, finding that his presence was absolutely required in London, and no longer actually indispensable at Knight Sutton, had resolved on changing places with his wife, and she was to go with him and take her mother's place in attending on Lady Susan St. Leger. They were now going to fetch Mrs. Geoffrey Langford home from the Allonfield station, and they would have one evening at Knight Sutton with her, returning themselves the next morning to Westminster.

  They arrived at Allonfield, executed various commissions with which Mrs. Langford had been delighted to entrust Geoffrey; they ordered some new books for Frederick, and called at Philip Carey's for some medicines; and then driving up to the station watched eagerly for the train.

  Soon it was there, and there at length she was; her own dear self,-the dark aquiline face, with its sweetest and brightest of all expressions; the small youthful figure, so active, yet so quiet and elegant; the dress so plain and simple, yet with that distinguished air. How happy Beatrice was that first moment of feeling herself at her side!

  "My dear! my own dear child!" Then anxiously following her husband with her eye, as he went to look for her luggage, she said, "How thin he looks, Queenie!"

  "O, he has been doing so much," said Busy Bee. "It is only for this last week he has gone to bed at all, and then only on the sofa in Fred's room. This is the first time he has been out, except last Sunday to Church, and a turn or two round the garden with grandmamma."

  He came back before Queen Bee had done speaking. "Come, Beatrice," said he to his wife, "I am in great haste to have you at home; that fresh face of yours will do us all so much good."

  "One thing is certain," said she; "I shall send home orders that you shall be allowed no strong coffee at night, and that Busy Bee shall hide half the mountain of letters in the study. But tell me honestly, Geoffrey, are you really well?"

  "Perfectly, except for a growing disposition to yawn," said her husband laughing.

  "Well, what are the last accounts of the patient?"

  "He is doing very well: the last thing I did before coming away, was to lay him down on the sofa, with Retzsch's outlines to look at: so you may guess that he is coming on quickly. I suppose you have brought down the books and prints?"

  "Such a pile, that I almost expected my goods would be over weight."

  "It is very fortunate that he has a taste for this kind of thing: only take care, they must not be at Henrietta's discretion, or his own, or he will be overwhelmed with them,-a very little oversets him, and might do great mischief."

  "You don't think the danger of inflammation over yet, then?"

  "O, no! his pulse is so very easily raised, that we are obliged to keep him very quiet, and nearly to starve him, poor fellow; and his appetite is returning so fast, that it makes it very difficult to manage him."

  "I should be afraid that now would be the time to see the effects of poor Mary's over gentleness."

  "Yes; but what greatly increases the difficulty is that Fred has some strange prejudice against Philip Carey."

  Busy Bee, who had heard nothing of this, felt her cheeks flush, while her father proceeded.

  "I do not understand it at all: Philip's manners in a sick room are particularly good-much better than I should have expected, and he has been very attentive and gentle-handed; but, from the first, Fred has shown a dislike to him, questioned all his measures, and made the most of it whenever he was obliged to give him any pain. The last time the London doctor was here, I am sure he hurt Fred a good deal more than Philip has ever done, yet the boy bore it manfully, though he shrinks and exclaims the moment Philip touches him. Then he is always talking of wishing for old Clarke at Rocksand, and I give Mary infinite credit for never having proposed to send for him. I used to think she had great faith in the old man, but I believe it was only her mother."

  "Of course it was. It is only when Mary has to act alone that you real
ly are obliged to perceive all her excellent sense and firmness; and I am very glad that you should be convinced now and then, that in nothing but her fears, poor thing, has she anything of the spoiling mamma about her."

  "As if I did not know that," said he, smiling.

  "And so she would not yield to this fancy? Very wise indeed. But I should like to know the reason of this dislike on Fred's part. Have you ever asked him?"

  "No; he is not in a fit state for argument; and, besides, I think the prejudice would only be strengthened. We have praised Philip again and again, before him, and said all we could think of to give him confidence in him, but nothing will do; in fact, I suspect Mr. Fred was sharp enough to discover that we were talking for a purpose. It has been the great trouble this whole time, though neither Mary nor I have mentioned it, for fear of annoying my mother."

  "Papa," said Busy Bee, "I am afraid I know the reason but too well. It was my foolish way of talking about the Careys; I used to tease poor Fred about Roger's having taken him for Philip, and say all sorts of things that I did not really mean."

  "Hem!" said her father. "Well, I should think it might be so; it always struck me that the prejudice must be grounded upon some absurd notion, the memory of which had passed away, while the impression remained."

  "And do you think I could do anything towards removing it? You know I am to go and wish Fred good-bye this afternoon."