The news of Herbert’s second rally, and the hopeful state in which he
was, did not create so great a sensation among his relations as the
first had done. The people who were not so deeply interested as Reine,
and to whom his life or death was of secondary importance, nevertheless
shared something of her feeling. He was no longer a creature brought up
from the edge of the grave, miraculously or semi-miraculously restored
to life and hope, but a sick man fallen back again into the common
conditions of nature, varying as others vary, now better, now worse, and
probably as all had made up their mind to the worst, merely showing,
with perhaps more force than usual, the well-known uncertainty of
consumptive patients, blazing up in the socket with an effort which,
though repeated, was still a last effort, and had no real hopefulness in
it. This they all thought, from Miss Susan, who wished for his recovery,
to Mr. Farrel-Austin, whose wishes were exactly the reverse. They
wished, and they did not wish that he might get better; but they no
longer believed it as possible. Even Augustine paused in her absolute
faith, and allowed a faint wonder to cross her mind as to what was meant
by this strange dispensation. She asked to have some sign given her
whether or not to go on praying for Herbert’s restoration.
“It might be that this was a token to ask no more,” she said to Dr.
Richard, who was somewhat scandalized by the suggestion. “If it is not
intended to save him, this may be a sign that his name should be
mentioned no longer.” Dr. Richard, though he was not half so truly
confident as Augustine was in the acceptability of her bedesmen’s and
bedeswomen’s prayers, was yet deeply shocked by this idea. “So long as I
am chaplain at the alms-houses, so long shall the poor boy be commended
to God in every litany I say!” he declared with energy, firm as ever in
his duty and the Church’s laws. It was dreadful to him, Dr. Richard
said, to be thus, as it were, subordinate to a lady, liable to her
suggestions, which were contrary to every rubric, though, indeed, he
never took them. “I suffer much from having these suggestions made to
me, though I thank God I have never given in--never! and never will!”
said the old chaplain, with tremulous heroism. He bemoaned himself to
his wife, who believed in him heartily, and comforted him, and to Miss
Susan, who gave him a short answer, and to the rector, who chuckled and
was delighted. “I always said it was an odd position,” he said, “but of
course you knew when you entered upon it how you would be.” This was all
the consolation he got, except from his wife, who always entered into
his feelings, and stood by him on every occasion with her
smelling-salts. And the more Miss Augustine thought that it was
unnecessary to pray further for her nephew, the more clearly Dr. Richard
enunciated his name every time that the Litany was said. The almshouses
sided with the doctor, I am bound to add, in this, if not in the
majority of subjects; and old Mrs. Matthews was one of the chief of his
partisans, “for while there is life there is hope,” she justly said.
But while they were thus thrown back from their first hopes about
Herbert, Miss Susan was surprised one night by another piece of
information, to her as exciting as anything about him could be. She had
gone to her room one August night rather earlier than usual, though the
hours kept by the household at Whiteladies were always early. Martha had
gone to bed in the anteroom, where she slept within call of her
mistress, and all the house, except Miss Susan herself, was stilled in
slumber. Miss Susan sat wrapped in her dressing-gown, reading before she
went to bed, as it had always been her habit to do. She had a choice of
excellent books for this purpose on a little shelf at the side of her
bed, each with markers in it to keep the place. They were not all
religious literature, but good “sound reading” books, of the kind of
which a little goes a long way. She was seated with one of these
excellent volumes on her knee, perhaps because she was thinking over
what she had just read, perhaps because her attention had flagged. Her
attention, it must be allowed, had lately flagged a good deal, since she
had an absorbing subject of thought, and she had taken to novels and
other light reading, to her considerable disgust, finding that these
trifling productions had more power of distracting her from her own
contemplations than works more worth studying. She was seated thus, as I
have said, in the big easy chair, with her feet on a foot-stool, her
dressing-gown wrapping her in its large and loose folds, and her lamp
burning clearly on the little table--with her book on her lap, not
reading, but thinking--when all at once her ear was caught by the sound
of a horse galloping heavily along the somewhat heavy road. It was not
later than half-past ten when this happened, but half-past ten was a
very late hour in the parish of St. Augustine. Miss Susan knew at once,
by intuition, the moment she heard the sound, that this laborious
messenger, floundering along upon his heavy steed, was coming to her.
Her heart began to beat. Whiteladies was at some distance from a
telegraph station, and she had before now received news in this way. She
opened her window softly and looked out. It was a dark night, raining
hard, cold and comfortless. She listened to the hoofs coming steadily,
noisily along, and waited till the messenger appeared, as she felt sure
he would, at the door. Then she went downstairs quickly, and undid the
bolts and bars, and received the telegram. “Thank you; good night,” she
said to him, mechanically, not knowing what she was about, and stumbling
again up the dark, oaken staircase, which creaked under her foot, and
where a ghost was said to “walk.” Miss Susan herself, though she was not
superstitious, did not like to turn her head toward the door of the
glazed passage, which led to the old playroom and the musicians’
gallery. Her heart felt sick and faint within her: she believed that she
held the news of Herbert’s death in her hand, though she had no light to
read it, and if Herbert himself had appeared to her, standing wan and
terrible at that door, she would not have felt surprised. Her own room
was in a disorder which she could not account for when she reached it
again and shut the door, for it did not at first occur to her that she
had left the window wide open, letting in the wind, which had scattered
her little paraphernalia about, and the rain which had made a great wet
stain upon the old oak floor. She tore the envelope open, feeling more
and more sick and faint, the chill of the night going through and
through her, and a deeper chill in her heart. So deeply had one thought
taken possession of her, that when she read the words in this startling
missive, she could not at first make out what they meant. For it was not
an intimation of death, but of birth. Miss Susan stared at it first, and
then sat down in a chair and tried to understand what it meant. And this
was what she read:
“Dieu soit loué, un garçon. Né à deux heures et demi de l’après-midi ce
16 Août. Loué soit le bon Dieu.”
Miss Susan could not move; her whole being seemed seized with cruel
pain. “Praised be God. God be praised!” She gave a low cry, and fell on
her knees by her bedside. Was it to echo that ascription of praise? The
night wind blew in and blew about the flame of the lamp and of the dim
night-light in the other corner of the room, and the rain rained in,
making a larger and larger circle, like a pool of blood upon the floor.
A huge shadow of Miss Susan flickered upon the opposite wall, cast by
the waving lamp which was behind her. She lay motionless, now and then
uttering a low, painful cry, with her face hid against the bed.
But this could not last. She got up after awhile, and shut the window,
and drew the curtains as before, and picked up the handkerchief, the
letters, the little Prayer Book, which the wind had tossed about, and
put back her book on its shelf. She had no one to speak to, and she did
not, you may suppose, speak to herself, though a strong impulse moved
her to go and wake Martha; not that she could have confided in Martha,
but only to have the comfort of a human face to look at, and a voice to
say something to her, different from that “Dieu soit loué--loué soit le
bon Dieu,” which seemed to ring in her ears. But Miss Susan knew that
Martha would be cross if she were roused, and that no one in the
peaceful house would do more than stare at this information she had
received; no one would take the least interest in it for itself, and no
one, no one! could tell what it was to her. She was very cold, but she
could not go to bed; the hoofs of the horse receding into the distance
seemed to keep echoing into her ears long after they must have got out
of hearing; every creak of the oaken boards, as she walked up and down,
seemed to be some voice calling to her. And how the old boards creaked!
like so many spectators, ancestors, old honorable people of the house,
crowding round to look at the one who had brought dishonor into it. Miss
Susan had met with no punishment for her wicked plan up to this time.
It had given her excitement, nothing more, but now the deferred penalty
had come. She walked about on the creaking boards afraid of them, and
terrified at the sound, in such a restless anguish as I cannot describe.
Up to this time kind chance, or gracious Providence, might have made her
conspiracy null; but neither God nor accident (how does a woman who has
done wrong know which word to use?) had stepped in to help her. And now
it was irremediable, past her power or any one’s to annul the evil. And
the worst of all was those words which the old man in Bruges, who was
her dupe and not her accomplice, had repeated in his innocence, that the
name of the new-born might have God’s name on either side to protect it.
“Dieu soit loué!” she repeated to herself, shuddering. She seemed to
hear it repeated to all round, not piously, but mockingly, shouted at
her by eldrich voices. “Praised be God! God be praised!” for what? for
the accomplishment of a lie, a cheat, a conspiracy! Miss Susan’s limbs
trembled under her. She could not tell how it was that the vengeance of
heaven did not fall and crush the old house which had never before
sheltered such a crime. But Augustine was asleep, praying in her sleep
like an angel, under the same old roof, offering up continual
adorations, innocent worship for the expiation of some visionary sins
which nobody knew anything of; would they answer for the wiping away of
her sister’s sin which was so real? Miss Susan walked up and down all
the long night. She lay down on her bed toward morning, chiefly that no
one might see how deeply agitated she had been, and when Martha got up
at the usual hour asked for a cup of tea to restore her a little. “I
have not been feeling quite well,” said Miss Susan, to anticipate any
remarks as to her wan looks.
“So I was afraid, miss,” said Martha, “but I thought as you’d call me if
you wanted anything.” This lukewarm devotion made Miss Susan smile.
Notwithstanding all her sufferings, however, she wrote a letter to Mr.
Farrel-Austin that morning, and sent it by a private messenger,
enclosing her telegram, so undeniably genuine, with a few accompanying
words. “I am afraid you will not be exhilarated by this intelligence,”
she wrote, “though I confess for my part it gives me pleasure, as
continuing the family in the old stock. But anyhow, I feel it is my duty
to forward it to you. It is curious to think,” she added, “that but for
your kind researches, I might never have found out these Austins of
Bruges.” This letter Miss Susan sealed with her big Whiteladies seal,
and enclosed the telegram in a large envelope. And she went about all
her ordinary occupations that day, and looked and even felt very much as
usual. “I had rather a disturbed night, and could not sleep,” she said
by way of explanation of the look of exhaustion she was conscious of.
And she wrote to old Guillaume Austin of Bruges a very kind and friendly
letter, congratulating him, and hoping that, if she had the misfortune
to lose her nephew (who, however, she was very happy to tell him, was
much better), his little grandson might long and worthily fill the place
of master of Whiteladies. It was a letter which old Guillaume translated
with infinite care and some use of the dictionary, not only to his
family, but also to his principal customers, astonishing them by the
news of his good fortune. To be sure his poor Gertrude, his daughter,
was mourning the loss of her baby, born on the same day as his
daughter-in-law’s fine boy, but which had not survived its birth. She
was very sad about it, poor child; but still that was a sorrow which
would glide imperceptibly away, while this great joy and pride and honor
would remain.
I need not tell how Mr. Farrel-Austin tore his hair. He received his
cousin Susan’s intimation of the fact that it was he who had discovered
the Austins of Bruges for her with an indescribable dismay and rage, and
showed the telegram to his wife, grinding his teeth at her. “Every poor
wretch in the world--except you!” he cried, till poor Mrs. Farrel-Austin
shrank and wept. There was nothing he would not have done to show his
rage and despite, but he could do nothing except bully his wife and his
servants. His daughters were quite matches for him, and would not be
bullied. They were scarcely interested in the news of a new heir.
“Herbert being better, what does it matter?” said Kate and Sophy. “I
could understand your being in a state of mind about him. It _is_ hard,
after calculating upon the property, to have him get better in spite of
you,” said one of these young ladies, with the frankness natural to her
kind; “but what does it matter now if there were a whole regiment of
babies in the way? Isn’t a miss as good as a mile?” This philosophy did
not affect the wrathful and dissatisfied man, who had no faith in
Herbert’s recovery--but it satisfied the girls, who thought papa was
getting really too bad; yet, as they managed to get most things they
wanted, were not particularly impressed even by the loss of Whiteladies.
“What with Herbert getting better and this new baby, whoever it is, I
suppose old Susan will be in great fig,” the one sister said. “I wish
them joy of their old tumbledown hole of a place,” said the other; and
so their lament was made for their vanished hope.
Thus life passed on with all the personages involved in this history.
The only other incident that happened just then was one which concerned
the little party in Switzerland. Everard was summoned home in haste,
when he had scarcely done more than escort his cousins to their new
quarters, and so that little romance, if it had ever been likely to come
to a romance, was nipped in the bud. He had to come back about business,
which, with the unoccupied and moderately rich, means almost invariably
bad fortune. His money, not too much to start with, had been invested in
doubtful hands; and when he reached England he found that he had lost
half of it by the delinquency of a manager who had run away with his
money, and that of a great many people besides. Everard, deprived at a
blow of half his income, was fain to take the first employment that
offered, which was a mission to the West Indies, to look after property
there, partly his own, partly belonging to his fellow-sufferers, which
had been allowed to drop into that specially hopeless Slough of Despond
which seems natural to West Indian affairs. He went away, poor fellow,
feeling that life had changed totally for him, and leaving behind both
the dreams and the reality of existence. His careless days were all
over. What he had to think of now was how to save the little that
remained to him, and do his duty by the others who, on no good grounds,
only because he had been energetic and ready, had intrusted their
interests to him. Why they should have trusted him, who knew nothing of
business, and whose only qualification was that gentlemanly vagabondage
which is always ready to go off to the end of the world at a moment’s
notice, Everard could not tell; but he meant to do his best, if only to
secure some other occupation for himself when this job was done.
This was rather a sad interruption, in many ways, to the young man’s
careless life; and they all felt it as a shock. He left Herbert under
the pine-trees, weak but hopeful, looking as if any breeze might make
an end of him, so fragile was he, the soul shining through him almost
visibly, yet an air of recovery about him which gave all lookers-on a
tremulous confidence; and Reine, with moisture in her eyes which she did
not try to conceal, and an ache in her heart which she did conceal, but
poorly. Everard had taken his cousin’s privilege, and kissed her on the
forehead when he went away, trying not to think of the deep blush which
surged up to the roots of her hair. But poor Reine saw him go with a
pang which she could disclose to nobody, and which at first seemed to
fill her heart too full of pain to be kept down. She had not realized,
till he was gone, how great a place he had taken in her little world;
and the surprise was as great as the pain. How dreary the valley looked,
how lonely her life when his carriage drove away down the hill to the
world! How the Alpine heights seemed to close in, and the very sky to
contract! Only a few days before, when they arrived, everything had
looked so different. Now even the friendly tourists of the Kanderthal
would have been some relief to the dead blank of solitude which closed
over Reine. She had her brother, as always, to nurse and care for, and
watch daily and hourly on his passage back to life, and many were the
forlorn moments when she asked herself what did she want more? what had
she ever desired more? Many and many a day had Reine prayed, and pledged
herself in her prayers, to be contented with anything, if Herbert was
but spared to her; and now Herbert was spared and getting better--yet
lo! she was miserable. The poor girl had a tough battle to fight with
herself in that lonely Swiss valley, but she stood to her arms, even
when capable of little more, and kept up her courage so heroically, that
when, for the first time, Herbert wrote a little note to Everard as he
had promised, he assured the traveller that he had scarcely missed him,
Reine had been so bright and so kind. When Reine read this little
letter, she felt a pang of mingled pain and pleasure. She had not
betrayed herself. “But it is a little unkind to Everard to say I have
been so bright since his going,” she said, feeling her voice thick with
tears. “Oh, he will not mind,” said Herbert, lightly, “and you know it
is true. After all, though he was a delightful companion, there is
nothing so sweet as being by ourselves,” the sick boy added, with
undoubting confidence. “Oh, what a trickster I am!” poor Reine said to
herself; and she kissed him, and told him that she hoped he would think
so always, always! which Herbert promised in sheer lightness of heart.
And thus we leave this helpless pair, like the rest, to themselves for a
year; Herbert to get better as he could, Reine to fight her battle out,
and win it so far, and recover the calm of use and wont. Eventually the
sky widened to her, and the hills drew farther off, and the oppression
loosened from her heart. She took Herbert to Italy in October, still
mending; and wrote long and frequent letters about him to Whiteladies,
boasting of his walks and increasing strength, and promising that next
Summer he should go home. I don’t want the reader to think that Reine
had altogether lost her heart during this brief episode. It came back to
her after awhile, having been only vagrant, errant, as young hearts will
be by times. She had but learned to know, for the first time in her
life, what a difference happens in this world according to the presence
or absence of one being; how such a one can fill up the space and
pervade the atmosphere; and how, suddenly going, he seems to carry
everything away with him. Her battle and struggle and pain were half
owing to the shame and distress with which she found out that a man
could do this, and had done it, though only for a few days, to herself;
leaving her in a kind of blank despair when he was gone. But she got rid
of this feeling (or thought she did), and the world settled back into
its right proportions, and she said to herself that she was again her
own mistress. Yet there were moments when the stars were shining, when
the twilight was falling, when the moon was up--or sometimes in the very
heat of the day, when a sensible young woman has no right to give way to
folly--when Reine all at once would feel not her own mistress, and the
world again would all melt away to make room for one shadow. As the
Winter passed, however, she got the better of this sensation daily, she
was glad to think. To be sure there was no reason why she should not
think of Everard if she liked; but her main duty was to take care of
Herbert, and to feel, once more, if she could, as she had once felt, and
as she still professed to feel, poor child, in her prayers, that if
Herbert only lived she would ask for nothing more.