“What would we give to our beloved?”
—E. B. BROWNING.
“I WISH they all would not go so very fast,” said little Lena, hiding her
face against him from the whirl of cabs and omnibuses.
“They bewilder us savages,” said Angela, smiling. “Remember we are from
the wilds.”
“She shall have her tea, and a good rest,” said Marilda; “and then I have
asked her uncle and aunts to meet you at dinner, and Fernan hopes to
bring home another old friend. Whom do you think, Angel?”
“Oh! Not our Bishop?”
“Yes, the Bishop of Albertstown! He is actually in town; Fernan saw him
yesterday at the Church House.”
“Oh! that is joy!” cried Angela; and Lena raised her head, with, “Is it
mine—mine own Bishop?”
“Mine own, mine own Bishop and godfather, my sweet!” said Angela; “more
to us in our own way than any one else. Oh! it is joy! How happy
Clement will be!”
It was with much feeling, almost akin to shame, that Bessie wrote to
Angela this decision of her brother, that a London authority must be
consulted—not Dr. Brownlow, but one whom Mrs. Sam had heard highly spoken
of.
“That man!” cried Angela. “I have heard of him! He is a regular
mealy-mouthed old woman of a doctor! And she is so well just now! How
horrid to shake her up again! Oh, Bear! if I could only sail away with
her to Queensland!”
“You would if it was ten years ago,” said Bernard.
“Yes! Is it the way of the world, or learning resignation, that makes
one know one must submit? Giving up an idol is a worse thing when the
idol is made of flesh and blood.”
Bernard wanted to see Sir Ferdinand, so made it an excuse for helping his
sister on the way; and he did so effectively, for his knee and broad
breast were Lena’s great resting-place; and his stories of monkeys and
elephants were almost as good as kangaroos. Was there not a kangaroo to
be seen in London, which she apparently thought would be a place of about
the size of Albertstown?
Lady Underwood had insisted on receiving the travellers from Vale Leston
in her house in Kensington; and there was her broad, kindly face looking
out for them at the station, and her likewise broad and kindly carriage
ready to carry them from it. How natural all looked to Angela, with all
her associations of being a naughty, wild, mischievous schoolgirl, the
general plague and problem!
“But always a dear,” said Marilda, with her habit of forgetting
everybody’s faults. “Why didn’t you bring your wife, Bernard, and your
little girl for this darling’s playfellow?”
“She is her best playfellow,” said Angela; “Adela’s Joan is too rough,
and fitter for Adrian’s companion.”
“She is my playfellow,” said Bernard, holding her up. “Look out, Lena.
Here’s Father Thames to go over.”
“And Fernan is so glad,” added Marilda.
For Bishop Robert Fulmort had, when Vicar of St. Wulstan’s, been the
guide and helper of Ferdinand Travis’s time of trial and disappointment,
as well as the spiritual father of Clement Underwood; he had known and
dealt with Angela in her wayward girlhood, and aided her bitter
repentance; and in these later days in Australia had been her true
fatherly friend, counsellor and comforter in the trials and perplexities
that had befallen her. Bernard read, in her lifted head and brightened
eye, that she felt the meeting him almost a compensation for the distress
and perplexity of this journey to London.
Bernard carried the little girl up to the room and laid her down to sleep
off her fatigue, while Marilda waited on her and Angela with her wonted
bustling affection, extremely happy to have two of her best beloved
cousins under her roof.
Bernard went off to find Sir Ferdinand at his office, and quiet prevailed
till nearly dinner time, when Lena awoke and would not be denied one
sight of her godfather. So Angela dressed her in her white frock, and
smoothed her thin yellow hair, and took her down to the great stiff
handsome room that all Emilia’s efforts had never made to look liveable.
Emilia Brown was there, very fashionably attired, but eager for news of
Vale Leston, and the Merrifields soon arrived with, “Oh! here she is!”
from the Captain, “Well! she looks better than I expected!”
“Poor little dear!” observed his wife, dressed in a low dress and thin
fringe on her forehead in honour of what, to the country mind, was a
grand dinner party, at which Angela’s plain black dress and tight white
cap were an unbecoming sight. Elizabeth was there, kissing Angela with
real sympathy; and Lena, who had grown a good deal more accustomed to
strange relations, endured the various embraces without discourtesy.
But when the door opened and the grey-headed Bishop came in there was a
low half scream of “Oh! oh!” and with one leap she was in his arms, as he
knelt on one knee, and clasped her, holding out a hand to Angela, whose
eyes were full of tears of relief and trust. Marilda gave a glad
welcome, but they were startled by perceiving that the joy of meeting had
brought on a spasm of choking on Lena, who was gasping in a strange sort
of agony. Angela took her in her arms and carried her out of the room.
Marilda presently following, came back reporting that the little girl had
been relieved by a shower of tears, but was still faint and agitated, and
that Angela could not leave her, but begged that they would not wait
dinner.
“Such sensitiveness needs anxious care,” said Elizabeth.
“If it be not the effect of spoiling. Just affectation!” replied the
sister-in-law in a decided voice, which made Bessie glad that the poor
child’s home was not to be among the rough boys at Stokesley, who were
not credited with any particular feelings.
Angela’s absence gave the Bishop the opportunity of telling what she had
been during her years at Albertstown, what a wonderful power among the
natives, though not without disappointment, and she had been still more
effective among the settlers and their daughters. Carrigaboola,
Fulbert’s farm, had been an oasis of hope and rest to the few clergy of
his scanty staff, and Fulbert himself had been a tower of strength for
influence over the settlers who had fallen in his way, by his unswerving
uprightness and honour, with the deeper principles of religion, little
talked of but never belied. Even after his death, the power he had been
told over all with whom he had come in contact.
Bernard heard it with immense pleasure, as did the faithful Ferdinand and
Marilda; while Elizabeth felt more and more that Sister Angela was not to
be treated, as she feared Sam and his wife were inclined to do, as a mere
interloper in their family affairs, but as one to be not merely
considered with gratitude, but even reverenced.
Indeed, Sam began to feel it, as he saw how the other men, both practical
business men, listened, and were impressed; but it was not quite the case
with his wife, who did not particularly esteem colonial Bishops, and
still less Sisterhoods or devotion to missionary efforts, especially
among the Australian blacks, whom her old geography book had told her
were the most degraded and hopeless of natives, scarcely removed from
mere animals.
When Angela appeared half through dinner time and said that Lena was
safely asleep, and Marilda sat her down to be happy in exchange of
Carrigaboola tidings with her Bishop, Fernando greeted her with a
reverence not undeserved, though perhaps all the more from the contrast
to the mischievous little sprite who used to disturb the days of his
philandering with Alda.
How much shocked Mrs. Samuel was, when the magnificent Sir Ferdinand,
whom she regarded with awe as a millionaire, was flippantly answered by
this extraordinary Sister, “Thank you, Fernan, I should like to have a
sight of the old office. I hope you have a descendant of the old cat,
Betty. Didn’t she come from your grandmother, Marilda? Do you remember
her being found playing tricks with the nugget, just come from Victoria?”
“That was in her kitten days,” said Ferdinand.
“Is that personal, Fernan?”
“A compliment, Angel,” said the Bishop. “Kittens alter a good deal.”
“Not much for the better,” said Angela. “If you only could see Mrs.
Lamb, who used to be the very moral of a kitten, scratchiness and all!”
“I thought her very much improved,” said Lady Underwood gravely.
“Oh, yes; grown into a sleek and personable tabby, able to wave her tail
at the tip and tuck her paws—her velvet paws—well under her; and lick her
lips over the—oh, dear!—what do you call it?—your _menu_ is quite too
much for us poor savages, Marilda. A bit of damper is quite enough for
us, isn’t it, Bishop?”
“Varied with opossum and fern root,” he said smiling; “but that’s only
when we have lost our way.”
The talk drifted off to the history of a shepherd’s child, who had
strayed into the bush, and after much searching, in which the Bishop and
Fulbert had been half starved, had finally been found and carried home by
Angela’s “crack gin,” as she told it to Bernard; and as Marilda thought
the poor child was in a trap, it had to be translated into “favourite
pupil,” though Bernard carried on the joke by asking Marilda if she
thought the natives cannibals given to the snaring of mankind.
Altogether it was a thoroughly merry evening, such as comes to pass in
the meeting of old friends and comrades in too large numbers for grave
discourse, but with habits of close intercourse and associations of all
kinds. Emilia and her husband tried in all courtesy not to let the
Merrifields feel themselves neglected; and indeed Bessie was only too
glad to listen and join at times in the talk; but it all went outside
Mrs. Sam, who was on the whole scandalised at the laughter of a Bishop,
and a Sister. Indeed, it was true that Bishop Fulmort, naturally a grave
man, very much so in his early days, comported himself on this occasion
as if he realised Southey’s wish—
“That in mine age as cheerful I might be,
Like the green winter of the holly tree.”
At any rate, that evening was long a bright remembrance. Lena slept all
night, and was so fresh and well in the morning that Angela foreboded
that the examination might not detect her delicacy. They met Mrs.
Merrifield, and took her with them to the doctor’s, Lady Underwood Travis
having placed her carriages at their disposal.
It was very much as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital reputation
what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and fanciful mothers,
while perhaps he had also heard of her _fracas_ long ago at the hospital.
For he was not more courteous to her than could be helped, treating her
much as if she were only the nursery maid, and hardly looking at the
opinion which she had made Professor May write out for him.
To her mind, it was a very cursory examination that he made; and the
upshot of his opinion, triumphantly accepted by Mrs. Merrifield, was that
there was nothing seriously amiss with the child, that she only needed
care, regularity and bracing, and that the stifling, gasping spasms were
simply the effect of hysteria.
Hysteria! Angela felt as if she should run wild as she heard Mrs.
Merrifield’s complacent remarks on having always thought so, and being
sure that a few weeks of good air and good management would make an
immense difference. The need of not alarming or prejudicing the poor
little victim was all that kept Angela in any restraint; and Mrs.
Merrifield went on to say that she had promised her youngest boy, who was
with her in London, to take him to the Zoological Gardens, and it would
be a good opportunity for Magdalen to see them.
“Is that where there is a kangaroo?” asked Lena, so eagerly that Angela,
though thinking that morning’s work enough for the feeble strength, could
not withstand her. Besides, if the Merrifields were to have her wholly
in another day, what was the use of standing out for one afternoon? One
comfort was that Elizabeth, who would really have the charge of the
child, had much more good sense and knowledge of the world than her
sister-in-law.
Still Angela felt the only way of bearing it was that after setting Mrs.
Merrifield down, she stopped the carriage at a church she knew to have a
noon-tide Litany, knelt there, with the little girl beside her, and tried
to say, “Thy will be done! To Thy keeping I commit her.” Her “hours”
came to help her.
“Quench Thou the fires of hate and strife,
The wasting fever of the heart,
From perils guard her feeble life,
And to our souls Thy help impart.”
She was able to be calm, and to utter none of her rage when they came
back to luncheon; and Marilda, declaring she liked nothing so well as
seeing children at the Zoo, wished to go with the party. All, save Mrs.
Merrifield and her boy, had gone different ways in London, so there was
plenty of room in the barouche.
The boy’s mind was set on riding on the elephant, and they walked on that
way, turning aside, however, to the yard where towered the kangaroo,
tall, gentle, graceful and gracious. Lena sprang forward with a cry of
joy, and clasped her hands; but in one moment the same spasm, at first of
ecstasy then of overpowering feeling, becoming agony, came over her, and
gasping and choking, Angela held her in her arms and carried her to a
seat, holding her up, loosening her clothes; but still she did not come
round. Her aunt tried to say, “hysteric.” Some one brought water, but
it was of no use—there were still the labouring gasps, and the convulsive
motion. “Let us take her home,” Marilda said.
“Nothing but hysterics!” repeated the aunt. “I will stay with Jackie.”
Marilda found her servant and the carriage, and in the long drive, a few
drops of strong stimulant at a chemist’s brought a little relief though
scarcely consciousness; and when Angela had carried her up to her room,
there was a blueness about the lips, a coldness about the fingers, that
told much. Marilda had at once sent for Dr. Brownlow as the nearest, and
he was at home; but he could only look and do nothing, but attempt to
revive circulation, all in vain; and with Marilda standing by, with one
convulsive clutch of Angela’s hand, the true mother of her orphaned life,
little Lena sank to a peaceful rest from the tribulations that awaited
her here.