Julius came up to be with Miles, and to help them through the dinner, the first which had been laid for many a long day. His enquiry for Cecil was answered: "She is progressing as favourably as there can be reason to expect, but I have not seen her. I follow the judgment of her faithful Grindstone."
"Then she still knows nothing-"
"Of her bereavement? No. Her state does not yet warrant it. In fact, I almost wish I had obeyed my original impulse, and brought down Venn to make the melancholy communication."
To every one's surprise Anne bristled up, saying, "Why, here is Julius, Mr. Charnock!"
Mr. Charnock bowed: "I understand that my Cousin Julius has been engrossed by his wife's family and by the adjoining parish, the care of which he has assumed."
Anne fairly coloured up, and exclaimed, "Julius has been our main-stay and help in everything-I can't think how he has done it. He has been here whenever we needed him, as well as at Wil'sbro', where people have been dying everywhere, the poor Vicar and all-"
"Far be it from me to discourage philanthropy," said Mr. Charnock, "only I would have it within due bounds. I am an old-fashioned squire, of a school, it may be, antiquated, an advocate of the parochial system; and I cannot help thinking that if this had been closely adhered to by hot-headed young clergymen, my poor child might not have been a childless widow at two-and-twenty."
Julius was too much tired and too sad-hearted to heed greatly what Mr. Charnock said. It was so strange to have Miles in sight, yet to feel so unable to be glad, that he scarcely heard anything. But Anne again took up the cudgels: "Mr. Charnock, you don't suppose that it was anything Julius did that brought this fever here. It was going to the town-hall among the drains."
"My dear Mrs. Miles Charnock, I am sure your husband will agree with me that sanitary arrangements and all connected with them are beyond the range of ladies, who are happily exempted from all knowledge of the subject."
Anne could not say aloud that she wished Cecil had held this opinion, but she subsided, while Mr. Charnock prosed on, asking questions about the arrangements, and seeming shocked to hear that the funeral must be early the next day, this being one of the prime injunctions of the doctors, and that the one had been asked to attend it. It made him sigh again for his poor daughter, as he handed Anne in to dinner. She did not stay half through it, for it was again the time for feeding Frank. Miles went half way up-stairs with her and returned, looking very wistful. Julius smiled at him, "Your wife is too valuable, Miles; she is every one's property."
"It must be very gratifying to you," added Mr. Charnock, "to find how example and superior society have developed the native qualities your discernment detected in the charming young lady who has just quitted us. It was a most commendable arrangement to send her to enjoy the advantages of this place."
"I sent her to be a comfort to my mother," said Miles, bluntly.
"And so she has been," said Julius, fervently, but sotto voce.
"I understand," said Mr. Charnock; "and as I was saying, my dear Cecil expressed from the first her desire to assist in forming her stranger sister-in-law, and I am happy to see the excellent effect. I should scarcely have guessed that she came from a colony."
"Indeed," Miles answered dryly.
Mr. Charnock might have it his own way, if he liked to think Anne had been a Hottentot till Cecil reclaimed her.
The two brothers did feel something like joy when a message at last informed Mr. Charnock that his daughter was awake and he might see her. They drew nearer together, and leant against one another, with absolute joy in the contact. They were singularly alike in outline, voice, and manner, in everything but colouring, and had always been one in spirit, except for the strong passion for adventure which had taken Miles to sea, to find he had chosen his profession too young to count the cost, and he held to it rather by duty than taste. Slight as had been his seniority, poor Raymond had always been on a sort of paternal pinnacle, sharing the administration with his mother, while Miles and Julius had paired on an equality.
"Poor mother!" sighed Miles. "How is she to live without him? Julius, did he leave any word for me with you?"
"Above all, that Anne is the daughter for my mother, and so she is."
"What, when this poor wife of Raymond's was said to be the superior creature?"
"You see her adoring father," said Julius. "My Rose has necessarily her own cares, but Anne has been my mother's silent aid and stay for months, and what she has been in the present need no words can say. My mother has had no power to take the direction of anything, her whole being has been absorbed, first in Raymond, now in Frank; and not only has Anne been Frank's constant nurse through these five weeks of the most frightful fever and delirium I have seen at all here, but she has had thought for all, and managed all the house and servants. We could do comparatively little, with Rose's brother ill at home, and the baby so young; besides, there have been eleven cases in the parish; and there was Wil'sbro'-but Anne has been the angel in the house."
"I knew-I knew she would be everything when once the first strangeness was over; but, poor girl, her heart is in Africa, and it has been all exile here; I could see it in every letter, though she tried to make the best of it. If there had but been a child here!"
"I think you will find sufficient attachment to mother to weigh a good deal with her. Poor Anne, she did think us all very wicked at first, and perhaps she does still, but at least this has drawn us all nearer together."
And then the brothers lowered their voices, and Miles heard the full history of Raymond's last illness, with all the details that Julius could have spoken of to none else, while the sailor's tears slowly dropped through the hands that veiled his face. It was a great deprivation to him that he might not look on Raymond's face again, but the medical edict had been decisive, and he had come home to be of use and not a burthen. As Julius told Rosamond, he only thoroughly felt the blessing of Miles's return when he bade good night and left the Hall, in peace and security that it had a sufficient aid and stay, and that he was not deserting it.
Miles had proposed to send his wife to bed and take the night watch, and he so far prevailed that she lay down in the adjoining room in her dressing gown while he sat by Frank's side. She lay where she could feast her eyes upon him, as the lamplight fell on his ruddy brown cheek, black hair, and steady dark eye, so sad indeed, but so full of quiet strength and of heedful alacrity even in stillness-a look that poor Raymond, with all his grave dignity, had never worn. That sight was all Anne wanted. She did not speak, she did not sleep; it was enough, more than enough, to have him there. She was too much tired, body and mind, after five weeks of strain, for more than the sense that God had given her back what she loved, and this was 'more than peace and more than rest.'
CHAPTER XXXI. Breaking Down
Funerals were little attended in these sad days. The living had to be regarded more than the dead, and Raymond Poynsett was only followed to the grave by his two brothers, his father-in-law, and some of the servants. Rosamond, however, weeping her soft profuse tears, could hear everything from behind the blind at Terry's open window, on that moist warm autumn day; everything, for no exception was made to the rule that coffins might not be taken into the church during this deadly sickness. She did hear a faltering and a blundering, which caused her to look anxiously at the tall white figure standing at the head of the grave, and, as she now saw, once or twice catching at the iron railing that fenced in the Poynsett tombs. Neither her husband nor his brother seemed to notice what she observed. Absorbed in the sorrow and in one another, they turned away after the service was ended and walked towards the Hall. Rosamond did not speak for a minute or two, then she turned round to Terry, who was sitting up in bed, with an awe-struck face, listening as well as he could to the low sounds, and watching her.
"Terry, dear, shall you mind my going to see after Herbert Bowater? I am sure they have let him overwork himself. If he is not fit to take Lady Tyrrell's funeral this afternoon, I shall s
end to Duddingstone on my own responsibility. I will not have Julius doing that!"
"Do you think he is ill-Bowater, I mean?" asked Terry.
"I don't like it. He seemed to totter as he went across the churchyard, and he blundered. I shall go and see."
"Oh yes, go," said Terry; "I don't want anybody. Don't hurry."
Rosamond put on her hat and sped away to Mrs. Hornblower's. As usual, the front door leading to the staircase was open, and, going up, she knocked at the sitting-room door; but the only response was such a whining and scratching that she supposed the dogs had been left prisoners there and forgotten, and so she turned the lock-but there was an obstruction; so that though Mungo and Tartar darted out and snuffed round her, only Rollo's paw and head appeared, and there was a beseeching earnestness in his looks and little moans, as if entreating her to come in. Another push, vigorously seconded by Rollo within, showed her that it was Herbert's shoulder that hindered her, and that he was lying outstretched on the floor, apparently just recalled to consciousness by the push; for as Rollo proceeded to his one remedy of licking, there was a faint murmur of "Who-what-"
"It is I! What is the matter?"
"Lady Rose! I'll-I'll try to move-oh!" His voice died away, and Rosamond thrust in her salts, and called to Mrs. Hornblower for water, but in vain. However, Herbert managed to move a little to one side. She squeezed into the doorway, hastily brought water from his bedroom within, and, kneeling down by him, bathed his face, so that he revived to say, in the same faint voice, "I'm so sorry I made such mulls. I couldn't see. I thought I knew it by heart."
"Never mind, never mind, dear Herbert! You are better. Couldn't you let me help you to the sofa?"
"Oh, presently;" and as she took his head on her lap, "Thank you; I did mean to hold out till after this day's work; but it is all right now Bindon is come."
"Come!-is he?" she joyfully exclaimed.
"Yes, I saw him from the window. I was getting up to hail him when the room turned upside down with me."
"There's his step!" now exclaimed Rosamond. "Squeeze in, Mr. Bindon; you are a very welcome sight."
Mr. Bindon did make his way in, and stood dismayed at the black mass on the floor. Rosamond and Rollo, one on each side of Herbert's great figure, in his cassock, and the rosy face deadly white, while Mungo and Tartar, who hated Mr. Bindon, both began to bark, and thus did the most for their master, whose call of 'Quiet! you brutes,' seemed to give him sudden strength. He took a grip of Rollo's curly back, and, supported by Mr. Bindon, dragged himself to the sofa and fell heavily back on it.
"Give him some brandy," said Mr. Bindon, hastily.
"There's not a drop of anything," muttered Herbert; "it's all gone- "
"To Wil'sbro'," explained Rosamond; then seeing the scared face of Dilemma at the door, she hastily gave a message, and sent her flying to the Rectory, while Mr. Bindon was explaining.
"I wish I had known. I never will go out of the reach of letters again. I saw in the Times, at Innspruck, a mention of typhoid fever here, and I came back as fast as trains would bring me; but too late, I fear."
"You are welcome, indeed," repeated Rosamond. "Herbert has broken down at last, after doing more than man could do, and I am most thankful that my husband should be saved the funerals at Wil'sbro'."
Mr. Bindon, whose face showed how shocked he was, made a few inquiries. He had learnt the main facts on his way, but had been seeking his junior to hear the details, and he looked, like the warrior who had missed Thermopylae, ashamed and grieved at his holiday.
The bottle Rosamond had sent for arrived, and there was enough vigour restored to make her say, "Here's a first service, Mr. Bindon, to help this poor fellow into bed."
"No, no!" exclaimed Herbert.
"You are not going to say there's nothing the matter with you?" said Rosamond, as a flush passed over the pale face.
"No," he said; "but I want to go home. I should have taken a fly at Wil'sbro'. Cranky will see to me without bothering anybody else. If you would send for one-"
"I don't think I can till I know whether you are fit to move," said Rosamond. "I desired Dilemma to tell them to send Dr. Worth here when he comes to Terry. Besides, is it quite right to carry this into another place?"
"I never thought of that," said Herbert. "But they would shut me up; nobody come near me but Cranky." But there a shivering fit caught him, so that the sofa shook with him, and Rosamond covered him with rugs, and again told him bed was the only place for him, and he consented at last, holding his head as he rose, dizzy with the ache.
"Look here, Lady Rose," he said, falling back into a sitting posture at the first attempt, "where's my writing-case? If I go off my head, will you give this to the Rector, and ask him if it will be any good in the matter he knows of?" and he handed her an envelope. "And this keep," he added, giving her one addressed to his father. "Don't let him have it till it's all over. You know." Then he took up a pen and a sheet of paper, and got as far, with a shaking hand, as 'Dear Crank-' but there he broke down, and laid his head on the table, groaning.
"I'll do it. What shall I say, dear Herbert?"
"Only tell her to come to me," he gasped. "Cranstoun-our old nurse. Then I'll be no trouble."
While Mr. Bindon helped Herbert into his room, Rosamond sped home to send for Mrs. Cranstoun, arrange for the care of the new patient in the intervening hours, and fetch some of those alleviations of which experience had taught the use. Mr. Bindon came to meet her on her return, carefully shutting the door, and saying, "Lady Rosamond, can he be delirious already? He is talking of being plucked for his Ordination."
"Too true," said Rosamond. "I thought it a great shame to be so hard on a man with that in him; but I believe you expected it?"
"No; I may have said he would fail, but I never expected it."
"Fail, indeed! Fancy a man being turned back who has worked night and day-night and day-doing all the very hardest services-never resting! Very likely killing himself!" cried Rosamond hotly. "May I come back to him? Terry can spare me, and if you will go to Wil'sbro' I'll stay till my husband comes, or the doctor. The Sisters will tell you what to do."
Herbert was, however, so much more comfortable for being in bed, that he was able to give Mr. Bindon directions as to the immediate cares at Wil'sbro'; but he was distressed at occupying Lady Rose, his great object being to be no trouble to anybody, though he had seen so much of the disease as to have been fully aware that it had been setting in for the last two days, yet his resolution to spare his Rector had kept him afoot till he had seen other help arrive. He declared that he wanted nobody but Rollo, who could fetch and carry, and call any one, if only the doors were open, and really the creature's wistful eyes and gentle movements justified the commendation.
"Only," said Herbert anxiously, "I suppose this is not catching for dogs. You'll make a home for him Lady Rose?" he added. "I should like you to have him, and he'll be happier with you than with any one else."
"Herbert, I can't have you talk of that."
"Very well," he said, quietly. "Only you will keep my dear old fellow-I've had him from a puppy-and he is but three years old now."
Rosamond gave all promises, from her full heart, as she fondled the soft, wise black head.
Herbert was unhappy too about Mrs. Hornblower's trouble. Harry had been one of the slighter cases, and was still in his room, a good deal subdued by the illness, and by the attention the lodger had shown him; for Herbert had spent many hours, when he had been supposed to be resting, in relieving Mrs. Hornblower, and she was now in a flood of gratitude, only longing to do everything for him herself. Had he not, as she declared, saved her son, body and soul?
The most welcome sight was Julius, who came down in dismay as soon as he could leave the Hall. "I am so glad," said the patient; "I want to talk things over while my head is clearer than it ever may be again."
"Don't begin by desponding. These fevers are much less severe now than six weeks ago."
"Ye
s; but they always go the hardest with the great big strong young fellows. I've buried twelve young men out of the whole forty-five."
"Poor lads, I doubt if their life had been such a preparation as yours."
"Don't talk of my life. A stewardship I never set myself to contemplate, and so utterly failed in. I've got nothing to carry to my God but broken vows and a wasted year."
"Nothing can be brought but repentance."
"Yes, but look at others who have tried, felt their duties, and cared for souls; while I thought only of my vows as a restraint, and tried how much pleasure I could get in spite of them. A pretty story of all the ministry I shall ever have."
"These last weeks!"
"Common humanity-nonsense! I should always have done as much; besides, I was crippled everywhere, not merely by want of power as a priest, but by having made myself such a shallow, thoughtless ass. But that was not what I wanted to say. It was about Gadley and his confession."
"O, Herbert! I am afraid I was very unkind that night. I did not think of anything but our own trouble, nor see how much it had cost you."
"Of course not-nonsense. You had enough to think of yourself, and I was only ashamed of having bored you."
"And when I think of the state of that room, I am afraid it was then you took in the poison."
"Don't say afraid. If it was for Jenny, I shall have done some good in the world. But the thing is-is it good? Will it clear Douglas? I suppose what he said to you was under seal of confession?"
"Scarcely so, technically; but when a man unburthens himself on his death-bed, and then, so far from consenting, shows terror and dismay at the notion of his words being taken down as evidence, it seems to me hardly right or honourable to make use of them-though it would right a great wrong. But what did you get from him?"
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