Chapter XV: A Contrast

"Now, Fred, old fellow, open your eyes and turn round; here is your breakfast for you," cried Maurice cheerily, as he laid the tray with the smoking coffee and other viands on his cousin's bed.

Fred started round, and, quite unprepared for this act of kindness, uttered some hasty but most confused words of thanks.

"I knew you preferred coffee to tea, and so I brought it up without asking," continued Maurice in the same easy and genial voice. "Sit up and eat a little,--do; I am sure you will feel pounds better when you have taken something."

"I cannot eat, I am too sick," said Fred dolorously.

"I wonder what on earth can have made you sick; did you eat anything yesterday, or what?"

Fred shook his head, but made no reply.

"I should not be a bit surprised if it were the beastly smell of honey which is all through the house that has knocked you up. Some people can't stand the smell of it, you know, and the whole place is reeking like a bee-hive."

Again Fred was silent, at least his lips uttered no sound; but his face, which a moment before was even a shade whiter than the pillow, now crimsoned painfully, telling plainer than words that some painful thoughts had possession of his mind.

"Fred," said Maurice, sitting down at the foot of the bed, and keeping his eyes averted until the blush had cooled down from his cousin's face, "Fred, listen to me, and tell me the truth; it was not the blow I gave you yesterday in the store-room which has made you so ill? Do say 'No;' for ever since the thought first came into my head I have been utterly miserable."

Fred shook his head, and with his knife sliced a hot roll in two, but he durst not look up, or the tears which were in his eyes would indubitably have rolled down his face.

"If I did hurt you I'm awfully sorry," continued Maurice humbly.

"It's nothing; I'm scarcely hurt at all," replied Fred, drawing his hand suddenly across his eyes,--"but I'm such a fool;" and for further refuge he bent his head over the coffee-cup and tried to drink.

As he did so, Maurice uttered a kind of short cry and leaned forward. "Fred, you are hurt, fearfully hurt. I saw an awful cut behind your ear that time you leaned forward; I am certain now I did do it, or you would never try to hide it so."

"No, no, no, I--I--it's not really a bad hurt; please don't say anything about it. I shall be quite right very soon, I am almost well now," gasped Fred pushing aside his almost untasted breakfast, and leaning back on his pillow. "It's only when I sit up I feel so queer and donkeyish. There, please go down and take your breakfast; thinking about it at all makes me ten times as miserable."

"But please, Fred, before I go down do tell me, did you get that hurt in the store-room?"

"I don't know how I got it,--at least not exactly," hesitated Fred, in painful embarrassment.

"But was it in the store-room? I cannot go away until I know."

"It was," said Fred, anxious at any cost to get rid of his questioner; "and now you promised to go."

"O Fred, I am so awfully sorry! How can I ever forgive myself? But I have always been the same passionate, headstrong bully, ever since I can remember."

"You promised you would go down," urged Fred, "and now you are sticking there still, and killing me with things you are saying. Please go back to your breakfast; you'll know all about it soon enough."

Maurice got up from the bed where he had been seated, and looking at his cousin with remorseful eye, said gravely, "At least you'll believe I never intended to hurt you so, Fred."

"I tell you you did not hurt me; I don't know how it happened myself. If you only would do as you promised, and leave me alone. Breakfast will be over before you get back to them all."

Maurice was pained and puzzled by his cousin's manner and evident anxiety to be rid of him, and yet he could not bear to leave him without convincing him of his sorrow and concern. He lifted the tray from the bed and placed it on a table close by, and then he turned once more to pour his regret into his cousin's ear; but Fred's eyes were closed, and there was such an expression of pain upon his face that he did not venture any further remonstrance, but left the room sorrowfully, and went down to sit at the breakfast-table, though certainly not to enjoy the meal.

It must have been evident to the rest of the assembled company that something had gone very wrong in the house that morning. Harry and Kathleen sat like two ghosts at the table; Lady Brinsley appeared unusually silent and grave; while Maurice was absent the greater part of the meal, and even when he did return he said little and ate less. It was quite a relief when the meal was over and they were all free to go out into the open air to enjoy themselves as they liked; and as no particular occupation or amusement had been proposed for the day, the party broke up into groups of two and three, who sauntered about through the pleasure-grounds and held secret council with one another as to what mischance had occurred within doors, to give the air of pre-occupation and distress which was so visible on the faces of their hosts and their hosts' relations.

Harry and Kathleen also separated themselves from the rest of the party, and wandered off arm-in-arm to hold council together over their miserable plight, and to try to sketch out some plan of action by which to shield Fred from the disgrace which only too plainly lay before him.

"We must not stay too long away," whispered Kathleen, as her brother drew her on into the shade of the sycamore walk, "for we cannot tell how soon Aunt Marian will find everything out; and then if she goes up to Fred and finds him all alone, it will be terrible."

"Terrible indeed!" groaned Harry. "It certainly is the most awful thing that has ever happened to us in our lives; and if Fred has really smashed the chess-box, the harm done can never be undone. O Kathleen, if we were only safe at home with mother and father, what a glorious thing it would be!"

"Yes," murmured Kathleen; "too glorious to think of."

Then they walked on for some time without speaking, each of their minds being too full to speak, till presently Harry said, more to himself than addressing any one, "He must confess--yes, he must confess it all; there is nothing else for him."

"He will never do that," said Kathleen, hopelessly.

"We must try to make him. It will be a tough job, but there is no help for it. If he does not confess now, he can never hold up his head again."

"Yes; and only think what papa and mamma will say when they hear it all."

"I have been tormenting myself with that thought all the morning, and I am not sure whether I ought not to write to mother and tell her all, before she hears it from any one else."

"Not without speaking to Fred first."

"Oh, of course not, though I am sure Fred would give his eyes to have her here. Just to think it is only four days since we left home so jolly and in such wild spirits, with the whole midsummer holidays stretched out before us; and we thought we were going to have no end of fun and jollification;--and now here we are, breaking our hearts with misery and dread, and only dead sick with the wish to be home again. Who ever could have guessed how it would all end?"

"Maurice seems very unhappy too this morning," said Kathleen, thoughtfully.

"Yes; I cannot make him out at all. I wonder what it was that set him so dead against Fred all yesterday; and now he seems just as anxious to make friends again with him. But hush! I hear some one coming behind us. Look back--look back and see who it can be, Kathleen."

"It is Maurice."

"Maurice!"

"Yes; he is hurrying after us. Perhaps all has been found out. Let us push on as hard as we can."

"No," cried Harry; "it's awfully cowardly to try to escape in that way. I will go back, for one." And with a great effort over himself, Harry turned round and came face to face with Maurice.

Maurice was quite out of breath, he had walked so quickly, and his face was anxious and pale.

"Harry, I have been looking for you everywhere, and I only discovered a moment ago where you had gone. I wanted to say something to you."

"What?" asked Harry, with an awkward attempt to appear free from embarrassment.

"I was upstairs with Fred and saw the great cut behind his ear, and I'm in such an awful state at the thought that I did it, and the brutal way I behaved to him yesterday. I want mother to allow me to ride over to your home and tell your mother all about it, for I shall be perfectly miserable until she knows it."

Harry and Kathleen involuntarily looked at each other. The contrast between Fred's conduct and Maurice's could not but force itself upon them, and neither of them knew what to reply.

"You see," continued Maurice, "I am so hasty and reckless a fellow, I act almost without thinking; and just because Alice told me she overheard you two talking something about Fred the other day in the coal vault where she was hiding from one of the other girls for fun, I took it into my head Fred had been behaving shabbily, and then afterwards I got into a temper with him about the chess-men for no earthly reason, and you know what a fool I made of myself in the store-room afterwards; and now I am well punished for it all. But I only wanted to ask you whether you would have any objection to my riding over to your place and perhaps bringing aunt back with me; for I am afraid Fred is more hurt than any of us know."

"Oh, do bring mother back with you, if you can," cried Harry, eagerly; "there would be some chance of things coming right if she were here."

"Then you have no objection?"

"Objection!--if you only knew how Kathleen and I were longing to have her here! She is so awfully kind, and always knows what is best to be done;" and the tears rose heavily in Harry's eyes as he spoke.

At these words Maurice coloured deeply, and a look of pain passed over all his face. "I am afraid I have proved but a bad host," he said bitterly; "but all I can say is, both mother and I, and all of us, wished more than I can tell to make you all happy; and only for my unhappy temper--;" here Maurice stopped and turned away.

"Maurice, you must not say such things," cried Harry, interrupting his cousin and catching him by the coat-sleeve. "You don't understand one single thing that has happened. If you did, you would see how different everything is from what you think."

"I understand quite enough," said Maurice, hoarsely.

"No, no, you don't, because you could not; heaps and lots of things have happened since we came here; of which you know nothing at all;--haven't there, Kathleen?"

"Yes," replied Kathleen, almost inaudibly, while she continued feverishly tearing off some leaves from a young sycamore branch which she held in her hand.

"What things?" asked Maurice incredulously.

"Don't ask me to tell you just now; wait till I go in and see Fred, and then I will tell you everything--at least if he allows me. I will go in this moment and ask him, for I would like you to know everything before you see poor mother;" and Harry, without venturing to add another word, pushed past his cousin towards the Hall, while Kathleen followed closely in his wake.