HOME AT LAST.
“The saddest birds a season find to sing.”
SOUTHWELL.
“Never to fold the robe o’er secret pain,
Never, weighed down by memory’s clouds again,
To bow thy head! Thou art gone home!”
MRS. HEMANS.
Mrs. Thornton came to see Mrs. Hale the next morning. She was much
worse. One of those sudden changes—those great visible strides towards
death, had been taken in the night, and her own family were startled by
the gray sunken look her features had assumed in that one twelve hours
of suffering. Mrs. Thornton—who had not seen her for weeks—was
softened all at once. She had come because her son asked it from her as
a personal favour, but with all the proud bitter feelings of her nature
in arms against that family of which Margaret formed one. She doubted
the reality of Mrs. Hale’s illness; she doubted any want beyond a
momentary fancy on that lady’s part, which should take her out of her
previously settled course of employment for the day. She told her son
that she wished they had never come near the place; that he had never
got acquainted with them; that there had been no such useless languages
as Latin and Greek ever invented. He bore all this pretty silently; but
when she had ended her invective against the dead languages, he quietly
returned to the short, curt, decided expression of his wish that she
should go and see Mrs. Hale at the time appointed, as most likely to be
convenient to the invalid. Mrs. Thornton submitted with as bad a grace
as she could to her son’s desire, all the time liking him the better for
having it; and exaggerating in her own mind the same notion that he had
of extraordinary goodness on his part in so perseveringly keeping up
with the Hales.
His goodness verging on weakness (as all the softer virtues did in her
mind), and her own contempt for Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and positive dislike
to Margaret, were the ideas which occupied Mrs. Thornton, till she was
struck into nothingness before the dark shadow of the wings of the angel
of death. There lay Mrs. Hale—a mother like herself—a much younger
woman than she was,—on the bed from which there was no sign of hope
that she might ever rise again. No more variety of light and shade for
her in that darkened room; no power of action, scarcely change of
movement; faint alternations of whispered sound and studious silence;
and yet that monotonous life seemed almost too much! When Mrs. Thornton,
strong and prosperous with life, came in, Mrs. Hale lay still, although
from the look on her face she was evidently conscious of who it was. But
she did not even open her eyes for a minute or two. The heavy moisture
of tears stood on her eyelashes before she looked up; then, with her
hand groping feebly over the bed-clothes, for the touch of Mrs.
Thornton’s large firm fingers, she said, scarcely above her
breath.—Mrs. Thornton had to stoop from her erectness to listen,—
“Margaret—you have a daughter—my sister is in Italy. My child will be
without a mother;—in a strange place,—if I die— will you”——
And her filmy wandering eyes fixed themselves with an intensity of
wistfulness on Mrs. Thornton’s face. For a minute there was no change in
its rigidness; it was stern and unmoved;—nay, but that the eyes of the
sick woman were growing dim with the slow-gathering tears, she might
have seen a dark cloud cross the cold features. And it was no thought of
her son, or of her living daughter Fanny, that stirred her heart at
last; but a sudden remembrance, suggested by something in the
arrangement of the room,—of a little daughter—dead in infancy—long
years ago—that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the icy crust, behind
which there was a real tender woman.
“You wish me to be a friend to Miss Hale,” said Mrs. Thornton, in her
measured voice, that would not soften with her heart, but came out
distinct and clear.
Mrs. Hale, her eyes still fixed on Mrs. Thornton’s face, pressed the
hand that lay below hers on the coverlet. She could not speak. Mrs.
Thornton sighed, “I will be a true friend, if circumstances require it.
Not a tender friend. That I cannot be,”—(“to her,” she was on the
point of adding, but she relented at the sight of that poor, anxious
face.)—“It is not my nature to show affection even where I feel it, nor
do I volunteer advice in general. Still, at your request,—if it will be
any comfort to you, I will promise you.” Then came a pause. Mrs.
Thornton was too conscientious to promise what she did not mean to
perform; and to perform anything in the way of kindness on behalf of
Margaret, more disliked at this moment than ever, was difficult; almost
impossible.
“I promise,” said she, with grave severity; which, after all, inspired
the dying woman with faith as in something more stable than life
itself,—flickering, flittering, wavering life! “I promise that in any
difficulty in which Miss Hale”——
“Call her Margaret!” gasped Mrs. Hale.
“In which she comes to me for help, I will help her with every power I
have, as if she were my own daughter. I also promise that if ever I see
her doing what I think is wrong”——
“But Margaret never does wrong—not wilfully wrong,” pleaded Mrs. Hale.
Mrs. Thornton went on as before; as if she had not heard:
“If ever I see her doing what I believe to be wrong—such wrong not
touching me or mine, in which case I might be supposed to have an
interested motive—I will tell her of it, faithfully and plainly, as I
should wish my own daughter to be told.”
There was a long pause. Mrs. Hale felt that this promise did not include
all; and yet it was much. It had reservations in it which she did not
understand: but then she was weak, dizzy, and tired. Mrs. Thornton was
reviewing all the probable cases in which she had pledged herself to
act. She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome
truths, in the shape of performance of duty. Mrs. Hale began to speak:
“I thank you. I pray God to bless you. I shall never see you again in
this world. But my last words are, I thank you for your promise of
kindness to my child.”
“Not kindness!” testified Mrs. Thornton, ungraciously truthful to the
last. But having eased her conscience by saying these words, she was not
sorry that they were not heard. She pressed Mrs. Hale’s soft languid
hand; and rose up and went her way out of the house without seeing a
creature.
During the time that Mrs. Thornton was having this interview with Mrs.
Hale, Margaret and Dixon were laying their heads together and consulting
how they should keep Frederick’s coming a profound secret to all out of
the house. A letter from him might now be expected any day; and he would
assuredly follow quickly on its heels. Martha must be sent away on her
holiday; Dixon must keep stern guard on the front door, only admitting
the few visitors that ever came to the house into Mr. Hale’s room down
stairs—Mrs. Hale’s extreme illness giving her a good excuse for this.
If Mary Higgins was required as a help to Dixon in the kitchen, she was
to hear and see as little of Frederick as possible; and he was, if
necessary, to be spoken of to her under the name of Mr. Dickinson. But
her sluggish and incurious nature was the greatest safeguard of all.
They resolved that Martha should leave them that very afternoon for this
visit to her mother. Margaret wished that she had been sent away on the
previous day, as she fancied it might be thought strange to give a
servant a holiday when her mistress’s state required so much attendance.
Poor Margaret! All that afternoon she had to act the part of a Roman
daughter, and give strength out of her own scanty stock to her father.
Mr. Hale would hope, would not despair, between the attacks of his
wife’s malady; he buoyed himself up in every respite from her pain, and
believed that it was the beginning of ultimate recovery. And so, when
the paroxysms came on, each more severe than the last, they were fresh
agonies, and greater disappointments to him. This afternoon, he sat in
the drawing-room, unable to bear the solitude of his study, or to employ
himself in any way. He buried his head in his arms, which lay folded on
the table. Margaret’s heart ached to see him; yet, as he did not speak,
she did not like to volunteer any attempt at comfort. Martha was gone.
Dixon sat with Mrs. Hale while she slept. The house was very still and
quiet, and darkness came on, without any movement to procure candles.
Margaret sat at the window, looking out at the lamps and the street, but
seeing nothing,—only alive to her father’s heavy sighs. She did not
like to go down for lights, lest the tacit restraint of her presence
being withdrawn, he might give way to more violent emotion, without her
being at hand to comfort him. Yet she was just thinking that she ought
to go and see after the well-doing of the kitchen fire, which there was
nobody but herself to attend to, when she heard the muffled door-bell
ring with so violent a pull, that the wires jingled all through the
house, though the positive sound was not great. She started up, passed
her father, who had never moved at the veiled, dull sound,—returned,
and kissed him tenderly. And still he never moved, nor took any notice
of her fond embrace. Then she went down softly, through the dark, to the
door. Dixon would have put the chain on before she opened it, but
Margaret had not a thought of fear in her pre-occupied mind. A man’s
tall figure stood between her and the luminous street. He was looking
away; but at the sound of the latch he turned quickly round.
“Is this Mr. Hale’s?” said he, in a clear, full, delicate voice.
Margaret trembled all over; at first she did not answer. In a moment she
sighed out,
“Frederick!” and stretched out both her hands to catch his, and draw him
in.
“Oh, Margaret!” said he, holding her off by her shoulders, after they
had kissed each other, as if even in that darkness he could see her
face, and read in its expression a quicker answer to his question than
words could give,—
“My mother! is she alive!”
“Yes, she is alive, dear, dear brother! She—as ill as she can be she
is; but alive! She is alive!”
“Thank God!” said he.
“Papa is utterly prostrate with this great grief.”
“You expect me, don’t you?”
“No, we have had no letter.”
“Then I have come before it. But my mother knows I am coming.”
“Oh! we all knew you would come. But wait a little! Step in here. Give
me your hand. What is this? Oh! your carpet-bag. Dixon has shut the
shutters; but this is papa’s study, and I can take you to a chair to
rest yourself for a few minutes; while I go and tell him.”
She groped her way to the taper and the lucifer matches. She suddenly
felt shy when the little feeble light made them visible. All she could
see was, that her brother’s face was unusually dark in complexion, and
she caught the stealthy look of a pair of remarkably long-cut blue eyes,
that suddenly twinkled up with a droll consciousness of their mutual
purpose of inspecting each other. But though the brother and sister had
an instant of sympathy in their reciprocal glances, they did not
exchange a word; only, Margaret felt sure that she should like her
brother as a companion as much as she already loved him as a near
relation. Her heart was wonderfully lighter as she went up stairs; the
sorrow was no less in reality, but it became less oppressive from having
some one in precisely the same relation to it as that in which she
stood. Not her father’s desponding attitude had power to damp her now.
He lay across the table, helpless as ever; but she had the spell by
which to rouse him. She used it perhaps too violently in her own great
relief.
“Papa,” said she, throwing her arms fondly round his neck; pulling his
weary head up in fact with her gentle violence, till it rested in her
arms, and she could look into his eyes, and let them gain strength and
assurance from hers.
“Papa! guess who is here!”
He looked at her; she saw the idea of the truth glimmer into their filmy
sadness, and be dismissed thence as a wild imagination.
He threw himself forward, and hid his face once more in his
stretched-out arms, resting upon the table as heretofore. She heard him
whisper; she bent tenderly down to listen. “I don’t know; don’t tell me
it is Frederick—not Frederick. I cannot bear it,—I am too weak. And
his mother is dying!”
He began to cry and wail like a child. It was so different to all which
Margaret had hoped and expected, that she turned sick with
disappointment, and was silent for an instant. Then she spoke
again—very differently—not so exultingly, far more tenderly and
carefully.
“Papa, it is Frederick! Think of mamma, how glad she will be! And oh,
for her sake, how glad we ought to be! For his sake, too,—our poor,
poor boy!”
Her father did not change his attitude, but he seemed to be trying to
understand the fact.
“Where is he?” asked he at last, his face still hidden in his prostrate
arms.
“In your study, quite alone. I lighted the taper, and ran up to tell
you. He is quite alone, and will be wondering why—”
“I will go to him,” broke in her father; and he lifted himself up and
leant on her arm as on that of a guide.
Margaret led him to the study door, but her spirits were so agitated
that she felt she could not bear to see the meeting. She turned away,
and ran up stairs, and cried most heartily. It was the first time she
had dared to allow herself this relief for days. The strain had been
terrible, as she now felt. But Frederick was come! He, the one precious
brother, was there, safe, amongst them again! She could hardly believe
it. She stopped her crying, and opened her bedroom door. She heard no
sound of voices, and almost feared she might have dreamt. She went down
stairs, and listened at the study door. She heard the buzz of voices;
and that was enough. She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire,
and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer’s refreshment. How
fortunate it was that her mother slept! She knew that she did, from the
candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door. The
traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the
meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became aware of
anything unusual.
When all was ready, Margaret opened the study door, and went in like a
serving-maiden, with a heavy tray held in her extended arms. She was
proud of serving Frederick. But he, when he saw her, sprang up in a
minute, and relieved her of her burden. It was a type, a sign, of all
the coming relief which his presence would bring. The brother and sister
arranged the table together, saying little, but their hands touching,
and their eyes speaking the natural language of expression, so
intelligible to those of the same blood. The fire had gone out; and
Margaret applied herself to light it, for the evenings had begun to be
chilly; and yet it was desirable to make all noises as distant as
possible from Mrs. Hale’s room.
“Dixon says it is a gift to light a fire; not an art to be acquired.”
“Poeta nascitur, non fit,” murmured Mr. Hale; and Margaret was glad to
hear a quotation once more, however languidly given.
“Dear old Dixon! How we shall kiss each other!” said Frederick. “She
used to kiss me, and then look in my face to be sure I was the right
person, and then set to again! But, Margaret, what a bungler you are! I
never saw such a little awkward, good-for-nothing pair of hands. Run
away, and wash them, ready to cut bread-and-butter for me, and leave the
fire. I’ll manage it. Lighting fires is one of my natural
accomplishments.”
So Margaret went away; and returned; and passed in and out of the room,
in a glad restlessness that could not be satisfied with sitting still.
The more wants Frederick had, the better she was pleased; and he
understood all this by instinct. It was a joy snatched in the house of
mourning, and the zest of it was all the more pungent, because they
knew in the depth of their hearts what irremediable sorrow awaited them.
In the middle, they heard Dixon’s foot on the stairs. Mr. Hale started
from his languid posture in his great arm-chair, from which he had been
watching his children in a dreamy way, as if they were acting some drama
of happiness, which it was pretty to look at, but which was distinct
from reality, and in which he had no part. He stood up, and faced the
door, showing such a strange, sudden anxiety to conceal Frederick from
the sight of any person entering, even though it were the faithful
Dixon, that a shiver came over Margaret’s heart: it reminded her of the
new fear in their lives. She caught at Frederick’s arm, and clutched it
tight, while a stern thought compressed her brow, and caused her to set
her teeth. And yet they knew it was only Dixon’s measured tread. They
heard her walk the length of the passage,—into the kitchen. Margaret
rose up.
“I will go to her, and tell her. And I shall hear how mamma is.” Mrs.
Hale was awake. She rambled at first; but after they had given her some
tea she was refreshed, though not disposed to talk. It was better that
the night should pass over before she was told of her son’s arrival. Dr.
Donaldson’s appointed visit would bring nervous excitement enough for
the evening; and he might tell them how to prepare her for seeing
Frederick. He was there, in the house; could be summoned at any moment.
Margaret could not sit still. It was a relief to her to aid Dixon in all
her preparations for “Master Frederick.” It seemed as though she never
could be tired again. Each glimpse into the room where he sate by his
father, conversing with him, about, she knew not what, nor cared to
know,—was increase of strength to her. Her own time for talking and
hearing would come at last, and she was too certain of this to feel in a
hurry to grasp it now. She took in his appearance and liked it. He had
delicate features, redeemed from effeminacy by the swarthiness of his
complexion, and his quick intensity of expression. His eyes were
generally merry-looking, but at times they and his mouth so suddenly
changed, and gave her such an idea of latent passion, that it almost
made her afraid. But this look was only for an instant; and had in it no
doggedness, no vindictiveness; it was rather the instantaneous ferocity
of expression that comes over the countenances of all natives of wild or
southern countries—a ferocity which enhances the charm of the childlike
softness into which such a look may melt away. Margaret might fear the
violence of the impulsive nature thus occasionally betrayed, but there
was nothing in it to make her distrust, or recoil in the least, from the
new-found brother. On the contrary, all their intercourse was peculiarly
charming to her from the very first. She knew then how much
responsibility she had had to bear, from the exquisite sensation of
relief which she felt in Frederick’s presence. He understood his father
and mother—their characters and their weaknesses, and went along with a
careless freedom, which was yet most delicately careful not to hurt or
wound any of their feelings. He seemed to know instinctively when a
little of the natural brilliancy of his manner and conversation would
not jar on the deep depression of his father, or might relieve his
mother’s pain. Whenever it would have been out of tune, and out of time,
his patient devotion and watchfulness came into play, and made him an
admirable nurse. Then Margaret was almost touched into tears by the
allusions which he often made to their childish days in the New Forest;
he had never forgotten her—or Helstone either—all the time he had been
roaming among distant countries and foreign people. She might talk to
him of the old spot, and never feared tiring him. She had been afraid of
him before he came, even while she had longed for his coming; seven or
eight years had, she felt, produced such great changes in herself that,
forgetting how much of the original Margaret was left, she had reasoned
that if her tastes and feelings had so materially altered, even in her
stay-at-home life, his wild career, with which she was but imperfectly
acquainted, must have almost substituted another Frederick for the tall
stripling in his middy’s uniform, whom she remembered looking up to with
such admiring awe. But in their absence they had grown nearer to each
other in age, as well as in many other things. And so it was that the
weight, this sorrowful time, was lightened to Margaret. Other light than
that of Frederick’s presence she had none. For a few hours, the mother
rallied on seeing her son. She sate with his hand in hers; she would not
part with it even while she slept; and Margaret had to feed him like a
baby, rather than he should disturb her mother by removing a finger.
Mrs. Hale wakened while they were thus engaged; she slowly moved her
head round on the pillow, and smiled at her children, as she understood
what they were doing, and why it was done.
“I am very selfish,” said she; “but it will not be for long.” Frederick
bent down and kissed the feeble hand that imprisoned his.
This state of tranquility could not endure for many days, nor perhaps
for many hours; so Dr. Donaldson assured Margaret. After the kind doctor
had gone away, she stole down to Frederick, who, during the visit, had
been adjured to remain quietly concealed in the back parlour, usually
Dixon’s bedroom, but now given up to him.
Margaret told him what Dr. Donaldson said.
“I don’t believe it,” he exclaimed. “She is very ill; she may be
dangerously ill, and in immediate danger, too; but I can’t imagine that
she could be as she is, if she were on the point of death. Margaret! she
should have some other advice—some London doctor. Have you never
thought of that?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, “more than once. But I don’t believe it would do
any good. And, you know, we have not the money to bring any great London
surgeon down, and I am sure Dr. Donaldson is only second in skill to the
very best,—if, indeed, he is to them.”
Frederick began to walk up and down the room impatiently.
“I have credit in Cadiz,” said he, “but none here, owing to this
wretched change of name. Why did my father leave Helstone? That was the
blunder.”
“It was no blunder,” said Margaret gloomily. “And above all possible
chances, avoid letting papa hear anything like what you have just been
saying. I can see that he is tormenting himself already with the idea
that mamma would never have been ill if we had stayed at Helstone, and
you don’t know papa’s agonising power of self-reproach!”
Frederick walked away as if he were on the quarter-deck. At last he
stopped right opposite to Margaret, and looked at her drooping and
desponding attitude for an instant.
“My little Margaret!” said he, caressing her. “Let us hope as long as we
can. Poor little woman! what! is this face all wet with tears? I will
hope. I will, in spite of a thousand doctors. Bear up, Margaret, and be
brave enough to hope!”
Margaret choked in trying to speak, and when she did it was very low.
“I must try to be meek enough to trust. Oh, Frederick! mamma was getting
to love me so! And I was getting to understand her. And now comes death
to snap us asunder!”
“Come, come, come! Let us go upstairs, and do something, rather than
waste time that may be so precious. Thinking has, many a time, made me
sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life. My theory is a sort of
parody on the maxim of ‘Get money, my son, honestly if you can; but get
money.’ My precept is, ‘Do something my sister, do good if you can; but,
at any rate, do something.’”
“Not excluding mischief,” said Margaret, smiling faintly through her
tears.
“By no means. What I do exclude is the remorse afterwards. Blot your
misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as
soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate,
where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than
wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears
had to be waited for, and a better effect at last.”
If Margaret thought Frederick’s theory rather a rough one at first, she
saw how he worked it out into continual production of kindness in fact.
After a bad night with his mother (for he insisted on taking his turn as
a sitter-up) he was busy next morning before breakfast, contriving a
leg-rest for Dixon, who was beginning to feel the fatigues of watching.
At breakfast-time, he interested Mr. Hale with vivid, graphic, rattling
accounts of the wild life he had led in Mexico, South America, and
elsewhere. Margaret would have given up the effort in despair to rouse
Mr. Hale out of his dejection; it would even have affected herself and
rendered her incapable of talking at all. But Fred, true to his theory,
did something perpetually; and talking was the only thing to be done,
besides eating, at breakfast.
Before the night of that day, Dr. Donaldson’s opinion was proved to be
too well founded. Convulsions came on; and when they ceased, Mrs. Hale
was unconscious. Her husband might lie by her shaking the bed with his
sobs; her son’s strong arms might lift her tenderly up into a
comfortable position; her daughter’s hands might bathe her face; but she
knew them not. She would never recognise them again, till they met in
Heaven.
Before the morning came all was over.
Then Margaret rose from her trembling and despondency, and became as a
strong angel of comfort to her father and brother. For Frederick had
broken down now, and all his theories were of no use to him. He cried so
violently when shut up in his little room at night, that Margaret and
Dixon came down in affright to warn him to be quiet: for the house
partitions were but thin, and the next door neighbours might easily hear
his youthful passionate sobs, so different from the slower trembling
agony of after-life, when we become inured to grief, and dare not be
rebellious against the inexorable doom, knowing who it is that decrees.
Margaret sate with her father in the room of the dead. If he had cried,
she would have been thankful. But he sate by the bed quite quietly;
only, from time to time, he uncovered the face, and stroked it gently,
making a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some
mother-animal caressing her young. He took no notice of Margaret’s
presence. Once or twice she came up to kiss him; and he submitted to it,
giving her a little push away when she had done, as if her affection
disturbed him from his absorption in the dead. He started when he heard
Frederick’s cries, and shook his head:—“Poor boy! poor boy!” he said,
and then took no more notice. Margaret’s heart ached within her. She
could not think of her own loss in thinking of her father’s case. The
night was wearing away, and the day was at hand, when, without a word of
preparation, Margaret’s voice broke upon the stillness of the room, with
a clearness of sound that startled even herself: “Let not your heart be
troubled,” it said; and she went steadily on through all that chapter of
unspeakable consolation.