POOR SOPHY!
The next morning Mills, in giving Sophy a letter from Lady Montfort, gave
her also one for Waife, and she recognised Lionel Haughton's handwriting
on the address. She went straight to Waife's sitting-room, for the old
man had now resumed his early habits, and was up and dressed. She placed
the letter in his hands without a word, and stood by his side while he
opened it, with a certain still firmness in the expression of her face,
as if she were making up her mind to some great effort. The letter was
ostensibly one of congratulation. Lionel had seen Darrell the day
before, after the latter had left the Home Secretary's office, and had
learned that all which Justice could do to repair the wrong inflicted had
been done. Here Lionel's words, though brief, were cordial, and almost
joyous; but then came a few sentences steeped in gloom. There was an
allusion, vague and delicate in itself, to the eventful conversation with
Waife in reference to Sophy--a sombre, solemn farewell conveyed to her
and to hope--a passionate prayer for her happiness--and then an abrupt
wrench, as it were, away from a subject too intolerably painful to
prolong--an intimation that he had succeeded in exchanging into a
regiment very shortly to be sent into active service; that he should set
out the next day to join that regiment in a distant part of the country;
and that he trusted, should his life be spared by war, that it would be
many years before he should revisit England. The sense of the letter was
the more affecting in what was concealed than in what was expressed.
Evidently Lionel desired to convey to Waife, and leave it to him to
inform Sophy, that she was henceforth to regard the writer as vanished
out of her existence--departed, as irrevocably as depart the Dead.
While Waife was reading, he had turned himself aside from Sophy; he had
risen--he had gone to the deep recess of the old mullioned window, half
screening himself beside the curtain. Noiselessly, Sophy followed; and
when he had closed the letter, she laid her hand on his arm, and said
very quietly: "Grandfather, may I read that letter?"
Waife was startled, and replied on the instant, "No, my dear."
"It is better that I should," said she, with the same quiet firmness; and
then seeing the distress in his face, she added, with her more accustomed
sweet docility, yet with a forlorn droop of the head: "But as you please,
grandfather."
Waife hesitated an instant. Was she not right?--would it not be better
to show the letter? After all, she must confront the fact that Lionel
could be nothing to her henceforth; and would not Lionel's own words
wound her less than all Waife could say? So he put the letter into her
hands, and sate down, watching her countenance.
At the opening sentences of congratulation, she looked up inquiringly.
Poor man, he had not spoken to her of what at another time it would have
been such joy to speak; and he now, in answer to her look, said almost
sadly: "Only about me, Sophy; what does that matter?" But before the
girl read, a line farther, she smiled on him, and tenderly kissed his
furrowed brow.
"Don't read on, Sophy," said he quickly. She shook her head and resumed.
His eye still upon her face, he marked it changing as the sense of the
letter grew upon her, till, as, without a word, with scarce a visible
heave of the bosom, she laid the letter on his knees, the change had
become so complete, that it seemed as if ANOTHER stood in her place. In
very young and sensitive persons, especially female (though I have seen
it even in our hard sex), a great and sudden shock or revulsion of
feeling reveals itself thus in the almost preternatural alteration of the
countenance. It is not a mere paleness-a skin-deep loss of colour: it is
as if the whole bloom of youth had rushed away; hollows never discernible
before appear in the cheek that was so round and smooth; the muscles fall
as in mortal illness; a havoc, as of years, seems to have been wrought in
a moment; flame itself does not so suddenly ravage--so suddenly alter--
leave behind it so ineffable an air of desolation and ruin. Waife sprang
forward and clasped her to his breast.
"You will bear it, Sophy! The worst is over now. Fortitude, my child!
--fortitude! The human heart is wonderfully sustained when it is not
the conscience that weighs it down-griefs, that we think at the moment
must kill us, wear themselves away. I speak the truth, for I too have
suffered!"
"Poor grandfather!" said Sophy, gently; and she said no more. But when
he would have continued to speak comfort, or exhort to patience, she
pressed his hand tightly, and laid her finger on her lip. He was hushed
in an instant.
Presently she began to move about the room, busying herself, as usual, in
those slight, scarce perceptible arrangements by which she loved to think
that she ministered to the old man's simple comforts. She placed the
armchair in his favourite nook by the window, and before it the footstool
for the poor lame foot; and drew the table near the chair, and looked
over the books that George had selected for his perusal from Darrell's
library; and chose the volume in which she saw his mark, to place nearest
to his hand, and tenderly cleared the mist from his reading-glass; and
removed one or two withered or ailing snowdrops from the little winter
nosegay she had gathered for him the day before--he watching her all the
time, silent as herself, not daring, indeed, to speak, lest his heart
should overflow.
These little tasks of love over, she came towards him a few paces, and
said: "Please, dear grandfather, tell me all about what has happened to
yourself, which should make us glad--that is, by-and-by; but nothing as
to the rest of that letter. I will just think over it by myself; but
never let us talk of it, grandy dear, never more--never more."