Chapter XLVII: The Task Over (2)

'I am very sorry,' repeated Felix, his hand resting on her hair again, 'but as it can't be helped, I think it will come harder to her if she is taken away just now. This can't go on long as it is now. Ask Dr. May. And when you see--'

He paused from inability to achieve a steady tone, and Charlie answered, 'I never meant to go. I'll stay till you are better, as long as ever she likes, indeed I will, my sweet--' but again she seemed to shiver away from him with a sort of repugnance, which Felix perceived. More faintly he said, 'You'll be his happy gift, my child, I'm so glad to leave you to--Oh! go now!'

The fingers grew rigid and seemed to push her away. Wilmet half lifted, half thrust her into Charlie's arms. He almost carried her, pressing her face against him that she might not catch a glimpse of those spasms and uncontrollable writhings of anguish that were returning. The door was shut, and the young creatures cowered in the gallery in one another's arms, catching the sad sounds that neither patience nor resolute will could prevent. Stella slid down on her knees, and Charlie was fain to do the same, thankful that she let him hold her in his arm instead of repelling him.

'There! it is all quiet. He must be better again,' he whispered after a time, and this was confirmed by Angela coming to send out a prescription of the doctor's. The chill look of her white dress suggested to Charlie to say, 'You will be as cold as ice in that whiteness, my Star. Suppose you took it off, while I go and tell Sir Robert that nothing shall move us till he is all right again. You couldn't think me such a brute.'

Poor little Stella held up her tear-stained face for a kiss with a vague sense of having been naughty and wanting forgiveness.

'You'll come back to me when you have dressed! I'll come and wait up here again.'

'Do. I'll be quick. They can't send us away, can they?'

'I'll see them shot first,' then repenting the schoolboy defiance of the words: 'No, Stella, I'm your husband, you know, and can guard you. I had no intention of going, not a bit. Only they can't see when one is a man, and they frightened you with the noise, poor little thing! If I tell them _he_ wishes it, no one can say a word. Don't be long.'

He nearly walked over a pair sitting on the stairs, too dejected to heed anything, namely, Lance and Gertrude, drawn together by the fellow feeling of being both too unhappy to speak or be spoken to, yet finding a sort of companionship in wretchedness as they listened and caught fragmentary tidings from above.

Charlie showed his manhood in quiet self-assertion. He told his grandfather that it would not be right to take his wife away, and that her brother wished them to stay; and though this was viewed as very ill-judged, there was no gainsaying it, especially as his uncle had come down decidedly of the same opinion.

Geraldine had likewise descended. The sanguine view she had contrived to take up had given her strength to take up her necessary part as mistress of the house making farewells and excuses. Marilda had, she found, swept off all the children to the Harewoods' house, including Gerald, who had allowed Ferdinand to carry him away, and in the present state of things she could only be thankful he was beyond hearing and questioning.

As the hours passed, and winter twilight gave way to early night, there was something of a lull. The alleviations had not been entirely without effect, and Dr. May felt obliged to go home, promising that he or his son, or both, would come early on the morrow. When Felix understood this, he asked whether Gertrude were still in the house, and hearing that she was, begged for her presence for a moment.

'Most certainly,' said her father. 'Where is she?'

'She has been sitting on the stairs all day with Lance,' Angela answered.

'With Lance?' Felix nearly smiled.

Dark as were the stairs, there they still were. Lance had executed numerous errands, and had made Gertrude swallow some tea, but they had not spoken ten words to one another. There Dr. May found his daughter, and, with a word or two of warning and preparation, led her in. She could not see much, for the light was shielded from the face, and only threw up the shadow of the cross and the angel's hovering wings on the ceiling above. The hand that lay on the sheet, curved, but not with repose, closed on hers with a '_krampfhaft_' pressure. 'You have been comforting Lance,' said Felix. 'Thank you.'

'I couldn't,' she faltered, more overcome by voice than look, it was so thin and weak.

'You prayed! You will pray! "Each on his cross still let us hang awhile." Pray that I may not let go. "Suffer us not at our last hour,"' his lips moved on--'Pray that for me.'

'Indeed! indeed I will!'

'Thank you; it will be your greatest kindness. And one day remember that wish--that one wish. I wanted to wish you good-bye. God bless you. Kiss me once, my _sister_ Gertrude.'

She could not have staid a moment longer than to give and receive that kiss. She almost fled into the room where her wraps were, and there cried as if her heart would break, feeling scarcely able to bear it when Robina came to see whether she had warm things enough.

But Gertrude had a twelve miles' drive with her father, and in it she experienced as never before, the depths of his tenderness and delicacy of his sympathy, and he found what were his once wilful petted child's yearnings towards that lofty noble character just out of reach, yearnings by his own forbearance just not stirred into active conscious love, such as would have left her heart entirely widowed. For in reply to the questions she scarce durst utter, the Doctor declared plainly that his own hope was small, though there still remained the possibility of a turn for the better, and Tom's more modern science might have further resources.

This was what he had left with the family, and most of them turned 'not hopeless' into hopeful, more especially as the most distressing form of suffering had not recurred, though even now Felix begged that Cherry might not see him, and feebly tried to send Wilmet home, but nothing would induce her to leave him. Her whole self seemed bound up in the single thought of ministering to him, and she was almost incapable of attending to remonstrance from husband or doctor on the special risks in her case, as if her strong will had mastered her very understanding, and they feared that to insist might do her more harm than to let her have her way. Clement kept equally close at hand, resolved that she should never be alone with the patient to bear the first brunt of those appalling attacks of suffering, and Angela was never further off than the next room, with the door open.

Those downstairs achieved a conventional cheerfulness. Stella was there in her ordinary black dress, and it was not easy to realize that she was Mrs. Audley, while Charley hung over her, petting her, though very anxious to be useful.

The chief use to which Geraldine wanted to put him or any one else, was to entertain Adrian, who looked as if he thought the illness of the master of the house a special injury and act of inhospitality to himself, and was, besides, much disposed to be rude to Ferdinand.

'Can't you take him into the long room and play billiards?' she asked Bernard.

'You'd hear the balls up in Felix's room. I never saw such a selfish brute.'

Bernard had found his Helot at last. 'Best way would be to get Fulbert to take him somewhere to smoke. I don't suppose he'll go for me.'

The somewhere was Sibby's sitting-room, and when Sir Adrian was carried off, Alda, Geraldine, Ferdinand, and Marilda had rather a comfortable talk over old St Oswald's Buildings days, in which Mr. Audley presently joined them.

The calm lasted, so that every one except the three actual nurses went to bed peacefully; but before the morning broke there was worse distress than ever. The worst attacks there had been at all set in, lasting longer, and with far less power of mitigation from the remedial measures, which seemed to be losing more effect every time, till the watchers scarcely durst wish to see the sufferer begin to revive only to undergo fresh torture.

That terrible morning broke Wilmet down. She had gone through all with unremitting energy and unflinching courage, but when Professor May had arrived, and brought some new anæsthetic, so that there was some relief and the strain slackened, she just crept into the next room with Angela and fainted away, only reviving to swoon again as soon as she tried to move.

The doctors were unanimous in sending her away, even while scarcely yet conscious, to her own house, and she was too faint to make any resistance or remonstrance. About an hour later, Ferdinand and Marilda, who were waiting in the billiard-room for the report of Professor May's opinion, were auditors of the following conversation, evidently the end of something that had been going on all the way from Major Harewood's house:

'Adrian! it is absolute cruelty! Why cannot you go alone, and send home the children?'

'Oh I daresay, and leave you to sentiment with that nigger fellow.'

'You need not have insulted me;' and her silk rustled upstairs, his steps following.

Marilda's eyes flashed and gave utterance to a fierce whisper. 'The cowardly ruffian! Can't you horsewhip him?' clenching her fist as she spoke.

But Ferdinand's dark face had indeed reddened, and his nostrils quivered, though not at the personal offence, as he muttered under his breath: 'To shoot him were the only cure for her! God forgive me for the thought, but to think of any woman in such hands, and to be the person most entirely unable to defend her!'

'I forgot! Of course you could only make it worse, but poor dear Alda!--It drives one out of one's senses;' and tears of anger were in her eyes.

'It stirs the devil within, and makes me wish I had never forgiven him,' said Ferdinand between his teeth.

'You need not forgive him this! _I_ don't.'

After a few moments' pause Fernan said, 'The only service I can do her is to go away. Would that make him consent to her remaining?'

'Oh! we can't spare you. What shall I do with Gerald without you or Mary Vanderkist? He is always whining for Cherry!'

'Of course I can't bear to be away, but if I excite this idiotical jealousy, what can I do but take myself off? I'll go to London, and you can telegraph every hour. Go up and tell Alda--Lady Vanderkist, I mean. Casually ask what I can do for her.'

'That would stir him up again. And I don't think it would be of any use. He doesn't want to stay here, and means spite.'

'Then she could insist on staying.'

'She would be afraid. You see when people have used one another as they used you, it can't help rankling.'

'I ought not to have come here, but of course I thought the whole thing as utterly gone by with them as with myself.'

Marilda looked up with a curious expression of blushing gladness that made him exclaim,' How like you are to what you were when first I saw you!'

She blushed still more.

'That time!' he said, musing. 'Did you ever think I used you wrongly?' he suddenly added.

'_I_ never did. I knew the difference between myself and Alda.'

'Nay, let me tell you, I never should have seen how beautiful she was, unless--I suppose it wasn't true, now--'

'What wasn't true?'

'That you and Felix--'

'Felix! No indeed! He is far too independent and disinterested. Who could have told you? You won't say? Not Edgar?'

'No. It was that poor lady herself.'

'Well,' said Marilda, infinitely shocked, 'I do call that wicked!' and as her mind glanced back to all the pain of those two years, she added, 'What did she say? Don't mind telling me. I'm old enough now.'

'Are you?' he said, with a quick glance of his dark eyes that made her glow again, and he continued: 'She gave me to understand that there was an old inclination between you and him, and that your father had such a regard for him as to be likely to yield if nothing more advantageous came in his way.'

'If you had only asked poor Edgar! Well! perhaps she flattered herself it was so! Yet, what could have put it into her head.'

'You know the rest, and how I was dazzled both by her beauty and the charm of her connection, but for years past the sense of my huge mistake has been upon me; yet till Felix came into possession here, I still thought it was his punctilious feeling alone that kept you apart.'

'As if he had ever cared for me except in a cousinly, brotherly sort of way! Did you think that was what made me hush up poor Edgar's affair, though indeed I never felt so thankful to any one as to you for having saved that secret.'

'Do you know what your generosity made me wish, though I never durst speak it before? That you would forget all these mistakes and forgive me, and come back to what things were before that misunderstanding.'

'Oh!' cried Marilda, with a long breath, 'you can't really mean it.'

'What else should I mean? If you will only forgive and overlook.'

'Don't talk in that way,' cried Marilda. 'Why I never cared for anyone else, and always have--but'--breaking off in the midst--'hark, there are wheels. That poor thing will be gone.'

'You had better go up and tell her.'

'Not _this_--I can't. It would only make him more savage; besides at such a time.'

'True. No--only let them know I'll go. I'm gone. No, I can't leave the place till I've heard his opinion--but I'll go over to Ewmouth. I'll see you again and settle--only don't let her be dragged away.'

Marilda was obliged to go up, with the vaguest ideas as to what to say, in a case that even she felt to be delicate, but on coming to the scene of action, she found that the words she had overheard amounted to no more than an ebullition of temper. Sir Adrian did not wish to leave behind him a character for brutality, and since he could plead an appointment and escape from the house of mourning, he could endure leaving his wife to it; and an excuse for yielding was afforded by the maid who, coming up with the two little girls, brought word that Mrs. Harewood was asking for my Lady.

So Mary and Sophy were sent back to Ironbeam, their father went to meet his pheasants, and their mother hurried back to her twin, all that old tenderness reviving instinctively so as to render the sisterly contact the greatest comfort then possible to either. Ferdinand had taken care to inform the departing Sir Adrian that he was about to leave Vale Leston, and was in fact only waiting for the opinion of the London doctor who had seen Felix before, and for whom, with Tom May's sanction, he had telegraphed.

Gratitude to him for having devised this, and trust to further advice buoyed Cherry up, as she watched in the painting-room, giving orders, answering inquiries, and never swerving from hope and that intense prayer for her brother's restoration, which no one could discourage, nor even qualify in vehemence. Why should not a life so valuable be given back to her entreaties and those of many another suppliant? Yet Mr. Audley, going backwards and forwards between her and the patient, could not but be struck by observing that Felix himself rather allowed than demanded the supplications for recovery, and though extremity of pain often wrung from him cries for relief and sobs for mercy, yet in the calmer periods these became sighs for the power of enduring his cross better, and of not loosening his hold on his Saviour, and sometimes even the moan had more of praise than of plaint. He was still quite sensible, but the intervals between the paroxysms were so far from painless that he never showed any wish to see or speak to any but those immediately about him, namely, Clement and Angela, with Lance and Robina as supplementary helpers, and Mr. Audley, when he could bear it.

Tom May waited all day, doing his best till his London friend came, and could do nothing but confirm his treatment, and agree that the shadow of hope was not yet absolutely impossible, though human means were unavailing. However, between exhaustion and a fresh form of anodyne, a sort of stupor was induced towards the evening, and this was again a relief, at least to those who durst call it sleep.

Ferdinand profited by it to tear himself away according to his promise, and Marilda betook herself and her much aggrieved maid to the Rood, carrying the children with her, to spend the day, though there was no room to lodge them at night; poor Gerald submitting passively, as the fresh misfortune of losing both Fernan and Mary Vanderkist fell on him. Marilda's quarters were left to Sister Constance, who arrived at the appointed time, to find herself less needed at the Priory than the cottage, where the greeting she received from the sorrowful and anxious Lady Vanderkist was no small contrast to the manner in which Alda Underwood had requited her services.

The beneficent torpor lasted far into the night, and in some way or other all, save Clement and Angela, consented to take a certain amount of rest. Even Angela, though refusing to lie down, must have dozed in her chair by the fire, for as her perception gradually returned to her, she heard broken tones from Felix, and saw Clement standing over him. The first words that fully met her ear were the conclusion of what had gone before. 'There! stained, weak, failing, erring, more than I can say--more than I can recollect--I can only trust all to the washing in my Saviour's precious blood. Let me hear His message.'

The deep, thankful intensity of the gaze, looking far beyond Clement standing over him and pronouncing the Absolution, impressed Angela with strange awe.

Full of the past, all shuddering twilight,
Man waits his hour with upward eye,
The golden keys in love are brought,
That he may hold by them and die.

It was a face of love, eagerness, absorption, that no one could ever forget, as the voice of pardon was listened to with folded hands.

She dared not move till there was again need of her assistance. When she could utter a word to Clement, it was: 'Is not he better?' but Clement shook his head. Still the last doctor's advice had enabled the worst part of the suffering to be so far kept in abeyance, that before that morning's dawn the Feast could be held in the sick chamber, among those whom Clement ventured to call together for it. The greater calm much encouraged Cherry, and she went away cheered by the face that could still give her a smile, declaring that Felix did not look worse than when he was bloodless after the accident.

Both she and Bernard hugged their hope. Even when, before the day was out, all the family knew of Tom May's verdict that those symptoms had set in which extinguished all chance of recovery without a miracle; still those two upheld one another in shutting their eyes to the inference, and continued to rejoice in the comparative relief from the heartrending spasms of the previous days, while others knew but too well that this was only the token that the struggle of the constitution was over.

Other forms of suffering had set in, but attention was sometimes free. Ferdinand and Marilda, though ashamed of having fallen into their engagement at such a time, could not help believing that to him at least it would give pleasure, and it had been breathed into Mr. Audley's ear. In one of these pauses of tranquillity Felix was told of it, and said with a smile, 'That is well. God is giving me every wish of my heart--"Grant thee thy heart's desire--"'

For his words had a tendency to flow into psalms and prayers, which the others took up and finished; but he was generally quite sensible, though sometimes restless and sometimes torpid. He asked for Wilmet, and hearing she had gone home, and that Alda was with her, seemed satisfied. He murmured something about Sir Adrian, and on learning his departure, said, 'I meant to have spoken to him--I don't suppose I could--some one tell him--he must be kind to Alda and the little ones--poor Alda!'

The day passed in this manner, and when at its close the familiar sounds indicated shutting up for the night, he showed an expectation of good nights. Geraldine came, and was charmed with the calmed, soothed countenance; she kissed him and told him he was better, and would sleep. He answered, 'Thank God, yes; thank God for you, my Chérie.'

Clement was afraid to let her agitate herself or him, and led her away to her own door, appealing to him all the way whether the worst were not over. He trusted that it was.

To Stella Felix gave only a blessing and good-night, but he thanked Charlie again for letting her remain, and to Bernard he said what the lad at the moment thought wandering, 'You'll swim for yourself now your plank is gone.'

There were no such positive farewells to those immediately about him. He depended most for aid both bodily and spiritual on Clement, but he took the most notice of Angela, often thanking her, with some tender name, even while he seemed continually drifting further and further out of reach.

Life is strongly bound into a frame scarcely at the midway of age, and the change came so slowly that Cherry had begun to say that when the Epiphany was past, the day of his father's death, she was sure the corner would be turned. He was very weak, but he had been as weak before.

Weak? Yes. The mind was failing now, not the soul. The ears still opened to prayer, the lips joined in it, the speech was of another world. "The hours of the cross--when will it be over?" Or the wedding might guide the thought to "the Bride prepared." "The white array"--"the diamonds--the jewels He will make up--the emerald rainbow round about the Throne."

Falterings very feeble ensued, as if he were talking to his father: 'Indeed I tried. I think they are all coming. Father, may I come now? Isn't it done?'

That was the last word they caught distinctly, except fragments of prayer, before the long hour when he lay on Clement's breast, each long labouring breath heaving up as though the last. Lance had fetched Cherry, telling her Felix was going. He had had to change the word to dying, actually dying, before she could understand its force. Then she stood, gripping his arm, at the foot of the bed, while nothing was heard but those gasps, and the continued prayer of Mr. Audley, until the moment came when he bade the Christian soul depart into the hands of the Father of Spirits.

That was just as the winter night was darkening on the Saturday evening.