TIDINGS.
“But rise, let us on more contend, nor blame
Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
In offices of love, how we may lighten
Each other’s burden, in our share of woe.”
MILTON.
On the eventful night which had been passed by the earl and his
companions above the clouds, the mourners in the vicarage had known but
little of repose. If oblivion came, it was in brief troubled snatches
of slumber, from which the fevered sleeper awakes with a start to feel
an icy oppression on the mind,—slumber which has in it nothing of
refreshment.
All arose very early, with a vague yearning hope that tidings might
come with the morning light, and the eager greeting when two of that
anxious household met together was always, “Have you heard?—are there any
tidings?”
Annabella would not appear at the breakfast table. Ida, pale as
sculptured marble, scarcely able to swallow the nourishment of which
she partook as a duty, sat beside her father, every sense absorbed in
anxious listening. She heard the postman’s step before she could see his
form, and eagerly sprang forward to meet him, for it was possible—just
possible—that he might be the bearer of news!
The man shook his head sadly when questioned; he had brought nothing but
a parcel for the Countess of Dashleigh with the London post-mark upon it;
and, with a sickening sense of disappointment, Ida bore it to the room of
her cousin.
A strange gleam of hope flashed in the countess’s large hollow eyes,
as, without noticing the post-mark, she tore open the little packet; it
was followed by a strange revulsion of feeling. There lay before her,
beautiful in its fanciful binding of violet and gold, its glittering
edges bright from the hand of the gilder, “_THE FAIRY LAKE, by the
COUNTESS OF DASHLEIGH_.”
There was a time when the youthful authoress would have gazed on the
volume with delight, and turned over its pages with eager curiosity
and pleasure! But now—there seemed written upon each a tale of wilful
rebellion and insolent pride! Annabella flung her first book from her
with an exclamation of anguish, for was it not connected in her mind with
the fearful fate of her husband!
Then, with a sudden resolution, she rose from her seat, and hastily
opened that desk at which she had penned her fatal article for the ——
Magazine. Annabella would make some reparation, such reparation as yet
was possible, for the deed so deeply repented of. The countess wrote,
with a hand that shook so that she could scarcely form the letters, a
note to her publisher in London, bidding him at once cancel the whole
edition of her romance, prohibiting him from selling a single copy
of the work which he had been hurrying through the press, and making
herself responsible for his losses, whatever they might be. No earthly
consideration would have induced the miserable wife to delay, even for
an hour, the act by which she crushed the bud of hope, so long eagerly
fostered, at the very moment when it burst into blossom! The young
authoress, once soaring so high in the pride of literary ambition, was
cutting the cords of her balloon!
Almost every family in the neighbourhood, whether rich or poor, called
at the vicarage that day, impelled by friendship, curiosity, or pity,
to inquire if any tidings of the lost balloon had reached the family
of the Aumerles. No visitors, however, were admitted, as soon as it
was ascertained that they had come to receive information, and not to
give it. The sound of wheels, and of frequent rings at the gate, almost
drove Annabella to distraction! Ida and her father spent much of the
time together in fervent prayer, but the miserable Countess of Dashleigh
seemed too restless—too wretched to pray!
It was now the afternoon of one of the loveliest days in the loveliest
of seasons. The soft tinkling of the distant sheep-bell, the low of the
cattle in the meadow, and the monotonous hum of the bee, came softly
blended together to the ear. The bright mantle of sunshine fell on
fruit-trees laden with blossom,—the hawthorn white with May’s perfumed
snow, the fragrant lilac, the laburnum dropping its showers of gold!
Annabella gazed from the open casement of her apartment upon a lovely and
varied prospect, but she had not the slightest perception of what lay
directly before her eye.
Another loud ring! The countess turned her head with quick impatience.
A man was standing at the gate. Was there something in his manner that
announced the eager bearer of tidings, or did the wife intuitively grasp
the fact that he brought her news of her husband? Ida seemed to have
had the same perception, for, with the breeze waving back her long dark
tresses, she was at the gate almost before the tongue of the bell ceased
to vibrate. Annabella saw her start, caught the uttered exclamation, and
springing from her room, clearing the stairs almost at a bound, in less
than a minute was at the side of her cousin. She was quickly followed by
the vicar and Mrs. Aumerle, and every member of the household.
A telegraphic message had arrived from Augustine; yes, there was the
precious little leaf, which, like the touch of a magician’s wand, changed
the face of everything around, and flooded the dry, haggard cheek of
sorrow with a torrent of grateful tears.
CLIFF COTTAGE, B——, DEVON.
“Safe, thank God! I shall send M—— home to-morrow. I remain
here with the earl, who is attacked by brain fever. I have
telegraphed to Exeter for Dr. G—— and a nurse.—A. A.”
“Brain fever!” exclaimed the countess with a gasp.
“Temporary illness, I trust,—only temporary,” said the vicar, from whose
heart the weight of a mountain seemed removed. “Augustine, thoughtful as
he ever is, has already taken every human means to insure recovery.”
“My Reginald shall be left to no nurse; no, no, none shall rob me of one
privilege,” cried Annabella. “I will be at B—— beside him to-night.”
“I will be your escort,” said Lawrence Aumerle.
“Oh, take me too!” exclaimed Ida, her dark eyes swimming in tears at the
thought of seeing her sister.
“No, no,” interrupted Mrs. Aumerle, “numbers are by no means desirable
where a man in brain fever is concerned. It is bad enough for your
father to have to undertake a long journey, without the whole family
hurrying off. You will stay here with me, my dear, and welcome back Mabel
to-morrow.”
A short time before Ida would have rebelled against a decision so much at
variance with her inclinations,—would have remonstrated, or at least have
murmured; but she had received too severe a lesson for its impression to
be speedily effaced, and reproaching herself for the sigh which alone
betrayed her disappointment, she hastened up-stairs to prepare a little
parcel of necessaries to be taken to Mabel.
As Ida was putting up, with other articles, the Bible which she knew that
her sister would especially welcome, she was unexpectedly joined by Mrs.
Aumerle.
“You may leave that business to me,” said the lady, with more real
kindness of intention than tenderness of manner; “your father says that
it would be hard not to let you make one of the party, so you had better
get ready for the journey at once.”
Joyful at the permission, Ida hastened to make her little preparations;
and Mrs. Aumerle, as she packed Mabel’s parcel, informed her
step-daughter of the arrangements which she had herself made for
the convenience of all. A messenger had been promptly despatched to
the nearest neighbour who kept a carriage, to ask the loan of the
conveyance to carry the travellers to the nearest railway station.
Nothing that could insure the comfort of the vicar was forgotten when
his carpet-bag was packed by the hands of his careful wife; Ida received
sundry injunctions to watch over the health of her father, and the good
housewife took care that the travellers should not fast on the way.
When the carriage drove away from the door of the vicarage, with its
eager, anxious occupants, Mrs. Aumerle, following it to the gate,
watched it from thence till it disappeared in a turn of the road. And
thus the woman of sense soliloquised on events, past, present, and
future:—
“How much trouble and misery has been caused by one act of selfish folly!
Because Augustine—too great a genius, I suppose, to judge like a sensible
man—fancies to roam through the clouds, and take with him a wilful,
disobedient child, while a petulant girl eggs on her husband to follow
so absurd an example, a whole family must be plunged into terror, grief,
and alarm! I felt convinced from the first that all would end happily
enough. Augustine has easily guided the balloon; it has floated quietly
down at its leisure to some quiet meadow in Devon; and but for the poor
earl’s shaken nerves, the whole affair to those most concerned has been
nothing but a party of pleasure! It is we who have had to suffer for the
senseless folly of others. There’s Ida has been looking like a spectre;
and my dear, excellent husband is first almost crushed with sorrow, and
then hurried off, at half-an-hour’s notice, to escort that half frantic
countess to a husband who will probably refuse to see her! Well, well, I
believe that of all senses common sense is the most uncommon!” and with
a soothing conviction that a portion, at least, of the rare gift had
been bestowed upon herself, Mrs. Aumerle quietly returned to her usual
avocations.
It was fortunate for Mabel that the morrow’s post brought to her
stepmother’s hands the letter which the young girl had dropped from the
balloon. Ida had left a request, that notes addressed to her might in
her absence be opened by Mrs. Aumerle, and thus it was that that lady
first became aware of some of the perils through which the travellers had
passed. Mabel’s letter had been picked up in a field and posted by the
farmer who had found it, and the touching lines of love and penitence
which she had penned in the near prospect of a terrible death, softened
in a very great degree the feelings of her step-mother towards her.
“She has had her share of suffering after all,” observed the lady, “and
we must not be severe upon the poor child. She has had punishment enough
for her fault, so I’m content to ‘let bygones be bygones.’”