Nothing could be more obliging and respectful than the lion's letter was,
in appearance; but there was death in the true intent.--L'Estrange.
The landscape had grown more dark since Fleda came up the hill,--or else
the eyes that looked at it. Both probably. It was just after sundown, and
that is a very sober time of day in winter, especially in some states of
the weather. The sun had left no largesses behind him; the scenery was
deserted to all the coming poverty of night and looked grim and threadbare
already. Not one of the colours of prosperity left. The land was in
mourning dress; all the ground and even the ice on the little mill-ponds a
uniform spread of white, while the hills were draperied with black stems,
here just veiling the snow, and there on a side view making a thick fold
of black. Every little unpainted workshop or mill shewed uncompromisingly
all its forbidding sharpness of angle and outline darkening against the
twilight. In better days perhaps some friendly tree had hung over it,
shielding part of its faults and redeeming the rest. Now nothing but the
gaunt skeleton of a friend stood there,--doubtless to bud forth again as
fairly as ever should the season smile. Still and quiet all was, as
Fleda's spirit, and in too good harmony with it; she resolved to choose
the morning to go out in future. There was as little of the light of
spring or summer in her own mind as on the hills, and it was desirable to
catch at least a cheering reflection. She could rouse herself to no bright
thoughts, try as she would; the happy voices of nature that used to speak
to her were all hushed,--or her ear was deaf; and her eye met nothing that
did not immediately fall in with the train of sad images that were passing
through her mind and swell the procession. She was fain to fall back and
stay herself upon these words, the only stand-by she could lay hold of;--
"To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and
honour, and immortality, eternal life!"--
They toned with the scene and with her spirit exactly; they suited the
darkening sky and the coming night; for "glory, honour, and immortality"
are not now. They filled Fleda's mind, after they had once entered, and
then nature's sympathy was again as readily given; each barren
stern-looking hill in its guise of present desolation and calm expectancy
seemed to echo softly, "patient continuance in well-doing." And the tears
trembled then in Fleda's eyes; she had set her face, as the old Scotchman
says, "in the right airth. [Footnote: quarter, direction]" "How sweet is
the wind that bloweth out of the airth where Christ is!"
"Well," said Hugh, who entered the kitchen with her, "you have been late
enough. Did you have a pleasant walk? You are pale, Fleda!"
"Yes, it was pleasant," said Fleda with one of her winning smiles,--"a
kind of pleasant. But have you looked at the hills? They are exactly as if
they had put on mourning--nothing but white and black--a crape-like
dressing of black tree-stems upon the snowy face of the ground, and on
every slope and edge of the hills the crape lies in folds. Do look at it
when you go out! It has a most curious effect."
"Not pleasant, I should think," said Hugh.
"You'll see it is just as I have described it. No--not pleasant
exactly--the landscape wants the sun to light it up just now--it is cold
and wilderness looking. I think I'll take the morning in future. Whither
are you bound?"
"I must go over to Queechy Run for a minute, on business--I'll be home
before supper--I should have been back by this time but Philetus has gone
to bed with a headache and I had to take care of the cows."
"Three times and out," said Barby. "I won't try again. I didn't know as
anything would be too powerful for his head; but I find as sure as he has
apple dumplin' for dinner he goes to bed for his supper and leaves the
cows without none. And then Hugh has to take it. It has saved so many
Elephants--that's one thing."
Hugh went out by one door and Fleda by another entered the breakfast-room;
the one generally used in winter for all purposes. Mrs. Rossitur sat there
alone in an easy-chair; and Fleda no sooner caught the outline of her
figure than her heart sank at once to an unknown depth,--unknown before
and unfathomable now. She was _cowering_ over the fire,--her head sunk in
her hands, so crouching, that the line of neck and shoulders instantly
conveyed to Fleda the idea of fancied or felt degradation--there was no
escaping it--how, whence, what, was all wild confusion. But the language
of mere attitude was so unmistakable,--the expression of crushing pain was
so strong, that after Fleda had fearfully made her way up beside her she
could do no more. She stood there tongue-tied, spell-bound, present to
nothing but a nameless chill of fear and heart-sinking. She was afraid to
speak--afraid to touch her aunt, and abode motionless in the grasp of that
dread for minutes. But Mrs. Rossitur did not stir a hair, and the terror
of that stillness grew to be less endurable than any other.
[Illustration: Mrs. Rossitur sat there alone.]
Fleda spoke to her,--it did not win the shadow of a reply,--again and
again. She laid her hand then upon Mrs. Rossitur's shoulder, but the very
significant answer to that was a shrinking gesture of the shoulder and
neck, away from the hand. Fleda growing desperate then implored an answer
in words--prayed for an explanation--with an intensity of distress in
voice and manner, that no one whose ears were not stopped with a stronger
feeling could have been deaf to; but Mrs. Rossitur would not raise her
head, nor slacken in the least the clasp of the fingers that supported it,
that of themselves in their relentless tension spoke what no words could.
Fleda's trembling prayers were in vain, in vain. Poor nature at last
sought a woman's relief in tears--but they were heart-breaking, not
heart-relieving tears--racking both mind and body more than they ought to
bear, but bringing no cure. Mrs. Rossitur seemed as unconscious of her
niece's mute agony as she had been of her agony of words; and it was from
Fleda's own self-recollection alone that she fought off pain and roused
herself above weakness to do what the time called for.
"Aunt Lucy," she said laying her hand upon her shoulder, and this time the
voice was steady and the hand would not be shaken off,--"Aunt Lucy,--Hugh
will be in presently--hadn't you better rouse yourself and go up
stairs--for awhile?--till you are better?--and not let him see you so?--"
How the voice was broken and quivering before it got through!
The answer this time was a low long-drawn moan, so exceeding plaintive and
full of pain that it made Fleda shake like an aspen. But after a moment
she spoke again, bearing more heavily with her hand to mark her words.
"I am afraid he will be in presently--he ought not to see you now--Aunt
Lucy, I am afraid it might do him an injury he might not get over--"
She spoke with the strength of desperation; her nerves were unstrung by
fear, and every joint weakened so that she could hardly support herself.
She had not however spoken in vain; one or two convulsive shudders passed
over her aunt, and then Mrs. Rossitur suddenly rose turning her face from
Fleda; neither would she permit her to follow her. But Fleda thought she
had seen that one or two unfolded letters or papers of some kind, they
looked like letters, were in her lap when she raised her head.
Left alone, Fleda sat down on the floor by the easy-chair and rested her
head there; waiting,--she could do nothing else,--till her extreme
excitement of body and mind should have quieted itself. She had a kind of
vague hope that time would do something for her before Hugh came in.
Perhaps it did; for though she lay in a kind of stupor, and was conscious
of no change whatever, she was able when she heard him coming to get up
and sit in the chair in an ordinary attitude. But she looked like the
wraith of herself an hour ago.
"Fleda!" Hugh exclaimed as soon as he looked from the fire to her
face,--"what is the matter?--what is the matter with you?"
"I am not very well--I don't feel very well," said Fleda speaking almost
mechanically,--"I shall have a headache to-morrow--"
"Headache! But you look shockingly! what has happened to you? what is the
matter, Fleda?"
"I am not ill--I shall be better by and by. There is nothing the matter
with me that need trouble you, dear Hugh."
"Nothing the matter with you!" said he,--and Fleda might see how she
looked in the reflection of his face,--"where's mother?"
"She is up-stairs--you mustn't go to her, Hugh!" said Fleda laying a
detaining hand upon him with more strength than she thought she had,--"I
don't want anything."
"Why mustn't I go to her?"
"I don't think she wants to be disturbed--"
"I must disturb her--"
"You musn't!--I know she don't--she isn't well--something has happened to
trouble her--"
"What?"
"I don't know."
"And is that what has troubled you too?" said Hugh, his countenance
changing as he gained more light on the subject;--"what is it, dear
Fleda?"
"I don't know," repeated Fleda, bursting into tears. Hugh was quiet enough
now, and sat down beside her, subdued and still, without even desiring to
ask a question. Fleda's tears flowed violently, for a minute,--then she
checked them, for his sake; and they sat motionless, without speaking to
one another, looking into the fire and letting it die out before them into
embers and ashes, neither stirring to put a hand to it. As the fire died
the moonlight streamed in,--how very dismal the room looked!
"What do you think about having tea?" said Barby opening the door of
the kitchen.
Neither felt it possible to answer her.
"Mr. Rossitur ain't come home, is he?"
"No," said Fleda shuddering.
"So I thought, and so I told Seth Plumfield just now--he was asking for
him--My stars! ha'n't you no fire here? what did you let it go out for?"
Barby came in and began to build it up.
"It's growing cold I can tell you, so you may as well have something in
the chimney to look at. You'll want it shortly if you don't now."
"Was Mr. Plumfield here, did you say, Barby?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't he come in?"
"I s'pose he hadn't a mind to," said Barby. "Twa'n't for want of being
asked. I did the civil thing by him if he didn't by me;--but he said he
didn't want to see anybody but Mr. Rossitur."
Did not wank to see anybody but Mr. Rossitur, when he had distinctly said
he did not wish to see him? Fleda felt sick, merely from the mysterious
dread which could fasten upon nothing and therefore took in everything.
"Well what about tea?" concluded Barby, when the fire was going according
to her wishes. "Will you have it, or will you wait longer?"
"No--we won't wait--we will have it now, Barby," said Fleda, forcing
herself to make the exertion; and she went to the window to put down
the hangings.
The moonlight was very bright, and Fleda's eye was caught in the very act
of letting down the curtain, by a figure in the road slowly passing before
the courtyard fence. It paused a moment by the horse-gate, and turning
paced slowly back till it was hid behind the rose acacias. There was a
clump of shrubbery in that corner thick enough even in winter to serve for
a screen. Fleda stood with the curtain in her hand, half let down, unable
to move, and feeling almost as if the very currents of life within her
were standing still too. She thought, she was almost sure, she knew the
figure; it was on her tongue to ask Hugh to come and look, but she checked
that. The form appeared again from behind the acacias, moving with the
same leisurely pace the other way towards the horse-gate. Fleda let down
the curtain, then the other two quietly, and then left the room and stole
noiselessly out at the front door, leaving it open that the sound of it
might not warn Hugh what she was about, and stepping like a cat down the
steps ran breathlessly over the snow to the courtyard gate. There waited,
shivering in the cold but not feeling it for the cold within,--while the
person she was watching stood still a lew moments by the horse-gate and
came again with leisurely steps towards her.
"Seth Plumfield!"--said Fleda, almost as much frightened at the sound of
her own voice as he was. He stopped immediately, with a start, and came up
to the little gate behind which she was standing. But said nothing.
"What are you doing here?"
"You oughtn't to be out without anything on," said he,--"you're fixing to
take your death."
He had good reason to say so. But she gave him no more heed than the wind.
"What are you waiting here for? What do you want?"
"I have nothing better to do with my time," said he;--"I thought I'd walk
up and down here a little. You go in!"
"Are you waiting to see uncle Rolf?" she said, with teeth chattering.
"You mustn't stay out here," said he earnestly--"you're like nothing
but a spook this minute--I'd rather see one, or a hull army of 'em. Go
in, go in!"
"Tell me if you want to see him, Seth."
"No I don't--I told you I didn't."
"Then why are you waiting for him?"
"I thought I'd see if he was coming home to-night--I had a word to say if
I could catch him before he got into the house."
"_Is_ he coming home to-night?" said Fleda.
"I don't know!" said he looking at her. "Do you?"
Fleda burst open the gate between them and putting her hands on his
implored him to tell her what was the matter. He looked singularly
disturbed; his fine eye twinkled with compassion; but his face, never a
weak one, shewed no signs of yielding now.
"The matter is," said he pressing hard both her hands, "that you are
fixing to be down sick in your bed by to-morrow. You mustn't stay
another second."
"Come in then."
"No--not to-night."
"You won't tell me!--"
"There is nothing I can tell you--Maybe there'll be nothing to tell--Run
in, run in, and keep quiet."
Fleda hurried back to the house, feeling that she had gone to the limit of
risk already. Not daring to show herself to Hugh in her chilled state of
body and mind she went into the kitchen.
"Why what on earth's come over you?" was Barby's terrified ejaculation
when she saw her.
"I have been out and got myself cold--"
"Cold!" said Barby,--"you're looking dreadful! What on earth ails
you, Fleda?"
"Don't ask me, Barby," said Fleda hiding her face in her hands and
shivering,--"I made myself very cold just now--Aunt Lucy doesn't feel very
well and I got frightened," she added presently.
"What's the matter with her?"
"I don't know--if you'll make me a cup of tea I'll take it up to
her, Barby."
"You put yourself down there," said Barby placing her with gentle force in
a chair,--"you'll do no such a thing till I see you look as if there was
some blood in you. I'll take it up myself."
But Fleda held her, though with a hand much too feeble indeed for any but
moral suasion. It was enough. Barby stood silently and very anxiously
watching her, till the fire had removed the outward chill at least. But
even that took long to do, and before it was well done Fleda again asked
for the cup of tea. Barby made it without a word, and Fleda went to her
aunt with it, taking her strength from the sheer emergency. Her knees
trembled under her as she mounted the stairs, and once a glimpse of those
words flitted across her mind,--"patient continuance in well-doing." It
was like a lightning flash in a dark night shewing the way one must go.
She could lay hold of no other stay. Her mind was full of one intense
purpose--to end the suspense.
She gently tried the door of her aunt's room; it was unfastened, and she
went in. Mrs. Rossitur was lying on the bed; but her first mood had
changed, for at Fleda's soft word and touch she half rose up and putting
both arms round her waist laid her face against her. There were no tears
still, only a succession of low moans, so inexpressibly weak and plaintive
that Fleda's nature could hardly bear them without giving way. A more
fragile support was never clung to. Yet her trembling fingers, in their
agony moved caressingly among her aunt's hair and over her brow as she
begged her--when she could, she was not able at first--to let her know the
cause that was grieving her. The straightened clasp of Mrs. Rossitur's
arms and her increased moaning gave only an answer of pain. But Fleda
repeated the question. Mrs. Rossitur still neglecting it, then made her
sit down upon the bed, so that she could lay her head higher, on Fleda's
bosom; where she hid it, with a mingling of fondness given and asked, a
poor seeking for comfort and rest, that wrung her niece's heart.
They sat so for a little time; Fleda hoping that her aunt would by degrees
come to the point herself. The tea stood cooling on the table, not even
offered; not wanted there.
"Wouldn't you feel better if you told me, dear aunt Lucy?" said Fleda,
when they had been for a little while perfectly still. Even the moaning
had ceased.
"Is your uncle come home?" whispered Mrs. Rossitur, but so low that Fleda
could but half catch the words.
"Not yet."
"What o'clock is it?"
"I don't know--not early--it must be near eight.--Why?"
"You have not heard anything of him?"
"No--nothing."
There was silence again for a little, and then Mrs. Rossitur said in a low
fearful whisper,
"Have you seen anybody round the house?"
Fleda's thoughts flew to Seth, with that nameless fear to which she
could give neither shape nor direction, and after a moment's
hesitation she said,
"What do you mean?"
"Have you?" said Mrs. Rossitur with more energy.
"Seth Plumfield was here a little while ago."
Her aunt had the clew that she had not, for with a half scream, half
exclamation, she quitted Fleda's arms and fell back upon the pillows,
turning from her and hiding her face there. Fleda prayed again for her
confidence, as well as the weakness and the strength of fear could do;
and Mrs. Rossitur presently grasping a paper that lay on the bed held
it out to her, saying only as Fleda was about quitting the room, "Bring
me a light."
Fleda left the letter there and went down to fetch one. She commanded
herself under the excitement and necessity of the moment,--all but her
face; that terrified Barby exceedingly. But she spoke with a strange
degree of calmness; told her Mrs. Rossitur was not alarmingly ill; that
she did not need Barby's services and wished to see nobody but herself
and didn't want a fire. As she was passing through the hall again Hugh
came out of the sitting-room to ask after his mother. Fleda kept the
light from her face.
"She does not want to be disturbed--I hope she will be better to-morrow."
"What is the matter, Fleda?"
"I don't know yet."
"And you are ill yourself, Fleda!--you are ill!--"
"No--I shall do very well--never mind me. Hugh, take some tea--I will be
down by and by."
He went back, and Fieda went up stairs. Mrs. Rossitur had not moved. Fleda
set down the light and herself beside it, with the paper her aunt had
given her. It was a letter.
"Queechy, _Thursday_--
"It gives me great concern, my dear madam, to be the means of bringing to
you a piece of painful information--but it cannot be long kept from your
knowledge and you may perhaps learn it better from me than by any other
channel. May I entreat you not to be too much alarmed, since I am
confident the cause will be of short duration.
"Pardon me for what I am about to say.
"There are proceedings entered into against Mr. Rossitur--there are writs
out against him--on the charge of having, some years ago, endorsed my
father's name upon a note of his own giving.--Why it has lain so long I
cannot explain. There is unhappily no doubt of the fact.
"I was in Queechy some days ago, on business of my own, when I became
aware that this was going on--my father had made no mention of it to me. I
immediately took strict measures--I am happy to say I believe with
complete success,--to have the matter kept a profound secret. I then made
my way as fast as possible to New York to confer on the subject with the
original mover of it--unfortunately I was disappointed. My father had left
for a neighbouring city, to be absent several days. Finding myself too
late to prevent, as I had hoped to do, any open steps from being taken at
Queechy, I returned hither immediately to enforce secrecy of proceedings
and to assure you, madam, that my utmost exertions shall not be wanting
to bring the whole matter to a speedy and satisfactory termination. I
entertain no doubt of being able to succeed entirely--even to the point of
having the whole transaction remain unknown and unsuspected by the world.
It is so entirely as yet, with the exception of one or two law-officers
whose silence I have means of procuring.
"May I confess that I am not entirely disinterested? May the selfishness
of human nature ask its reward, and own its moving spring? May I own that
my zeal in this cause is quickened by the unspeakable excellencies of Mr.
Rossitur's lovely niece--which I have learned to appreciate with my whole
_heart_--and be forgiven?--And may I hope for the kind offices and
intercession of the lady I have the honour of addressing, with her niece
Miss Ringgan, that my reward,--the single word of encouragement I ask
for,--may be given me?--Having that, I will promise anything--I will
guaranty the success of any enterprise, however difficult, to which she
may impel me,--and I will undertake that the matter which furnishes the
painful theme of this letter shall never more be spoken or thought of, by
the world, or my father, or by Mrs. Rossitur's
obliged, grateful, and
faithful servant,
Lewis Thorn."
Fleda felt as she read as if icicles were gathering about her heart. The
whirlwind of fear and distress of a little while ago which could take no
definite direction, seemed to have died away and given place to a dead
frost--the steady bearing down of disgrace and misery, inevitable,
unmitigable, unchangeable; no lessening, no softening of that blasting
power, no, nor ever any rising up from under it; the landscape could never
be made to smile again. It was the fall of a bright star from their home
constellation; but alas! the star was fallen long ago, and the failure of
light which they had deplored was all too easily accounted for; yet now
they knew that no restoration was to be hoped. And the mother and
son--what would become of them? And the father--what would become of him?
what further distress was in store?--_Public_ disgrace?--and Fleda bowed
her head forward on her clasped hands with the mechanical, vain endeavour
to seek rest or shelter from thought. She made nothing of Mr. Thorn's
professions; she took only the facts of his letter; the rest her eye had
glanced over as if she had no concern with it, and it hardly occurred to
her that she had any. But the sense of his words she had taken in, and
knew, better perhaps than her aunt, that there was nothing to look for
from his kind offices. The weight on her heart was too great just then for
her to suspect as she did afterwards that he was the sole mover of the
whole affair.
As the first confusion of thought cleared away, two images of distress
loomed up and filled the view,--her aunt, broken under the news, and Hugh
still unknowing to them; her own separate existence Fleda was hardly
conscious of. Hugh especially,--how was he to be told, and how could he
bear to hear? with his most sensitive conformation of both physical and
moral nature. And if an arrest should take place there that night!--Fleda
shuddered, and unable to go on thinking rose up and went to her aunt's
bedside. It had not entered her mind till the moment she read Mr. Thorn's
letter that Seth Plumfield was sheriff for the county. She was shaking
again from head to foot with fear. She could not say anything--the touch
of her lips to the throbbing temples, soft and tender as sympathy itself,
was all she ventured.
"Have you heard anything of him?" Mrs. Rossitur whispered.
"No--I doubt if we do at all to-night."
There was a half breathed "Oh!--" of indescribable pain and longing; and
with a restless change of position Mrs. Rossitur gathered herself up on
the bed and sat with her head leaning on her knees. Fleda brought a large
cloak and put it round her.
"I am in no danger," she said,--"I wish I were!"
Again Fleda's lips softly, tremblingly, touched her cheek.
Mrs. Rossitur put her arm round her and drew her down to her side, upon
the bed; and wrapped half of the big cloak about her; and they sat there
still in each other's arms, without speaking or weeping, while quarter
after quarter of an hour passed away,--nobody knew how many. And the cold
bright moonlight streamed in on the floor, mocking them.
"Go!" whispered Mrs. Rossitur at last,--"go down stairs and take care of
yourself--and Hugh."
"Won't you come?"
Mrs. Rossitur shook her head.
"Mayn't I bring you something?--do let me!"
But Mrs. Rossitur's shake of the head was decisive. Fleda crawled off the
bed, feeling as if a month's illness had been making its ravages upon her
frame and strength. She stood a moment to collect her thoughts; but alas,
thinking was impossible; there was a palsy upon her mind. She went into
her own room and for a minute kneeled down,--not to form a petition in
words, she was as much beyond that; it was only the mute attitude of
appeal, the pitiful outward token of the mind's bearing, that could not be
forborne, a silent uttering of the plea she had made her own in happy
days. There was something of comfort in the mere feeling of doing it; and
there was more in one or two words that even in that blank came to her
mind;--"_Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them
that fear him_;" and she again recollected that "Providence runneth not
upon broken wheels." Nothing could be darker than the prospect before her,
and these things did not bring light; but they gave her a sure stay to
hold on by and keep her feet; a bit of strength to preserve from utterly
fainting. Ah! the storehouse must be filled and the mind well familiarized
with what is stored in it while yet the days are bright, or it will never
be able to find what it wants in the dark.
Fleda first went into the kitchen to tell Barby to fasten the doors and
not sit up.
"I don't believe uncle Rolf will be home to-night; but if he comes I will
let him in."
Barby looked at her with absolutely a face of distress; but not daring to
ask and not knowing how to propose anything, she looked in silence.
"It must be nine o'clock now," Fleda went on.
"And how long be you going to sit up?" said Barby.
"I don't know--a while yet."
"You look proper for it!" said Barby half sorrowfully and half
indignantly;--"you look as if a straw would knock you down this minute.
There's sense into everything. You catch me a going to bed and leaving you
up! It won't do me no hurt to sit here the hull night; and I'm the only
one in the house that's fit for it, with the exception of Philetus, and
the little wit he has by day seems to forsake him at night. All the light
that ever gets into his head, _I_ believe, comes from the outside; as soon
as ever that's gone he shuts up his shutters. He's been snoozing a'ready
now this hour and a half. Go yourself off to bed, Fleda," she added with a
mixture of reproach and kindness, "and leave me alone to take care of
myself and the house too."
Fleda did not remonstrate, for Barby was as determined in her way as it
was possible for anything to be. She went into the other room without a
particle of notion what she should say or do.
Hugh was walking up and down the floor--a most unusual sign of
perturbation with him. He met and stopped her as she came in.
"Fleda, I cannot bear it. What is the matter?--Do you know?'" he said as
her eyes fell.
"Yes.----"
"What is it?"
She was silent and tried to pass on to the fire. But he stayed her.
"What is it?" he repeated.
"Oh I wish I could keep it from you!" said Fleda bursting into tears.
He was still a moment, and then bringing her to the arm-chair made her sit
down, and stood himself before her, silently waiting, perhaps because he
could not speak, perhaps from the accustomed gentle endurance of his
nature. But Fleda was speechless too.
"You are keeping me in distress," he said at length.
"I cannot end the distress, dear Hugh," said Fleda.
She saw him change colour and he stood motionless still.
"Do you remember," said Fleda, trembling even to her voice,--"what
Rutherford says about Providence 'not running on broken wheels'?"
He gave her no answer but the intent look of expectation. Its intentness
paralyzed Fleda. She did not know how to go on. She rose from her chair
and hung upon his shoulder.
"Believe it now, if you can--for oh, dear Hugh!--we have something
to try it."
"It is strange my father don't come home," said he, supporting her with
tenderness which had very little strength to help it,--"we want him
very much."
Whether or not any unacknowledged feeling prompted this remark, some
slight involuntary movement of Fleda's made him ask suddenly,
"Is it about him?"
He had grown deadly pale and Fleda answered eagerly,
"Nothing that has happened to-day--it is not anything that has happened
to-day--he is perfectly well, I trust and believe."
"But it is about him?"
Fleda's head sank, and she burst into such an agony of tears that Hugh's
distress was for a time divided.
"When did it happen, Fleda?"
"Years ago."
"And what?"
Fleda hesitated still, and then said,
"It was something he did, Hugh."
"What?"
"He put another person's name on the back of a note he gave."
She did not look up, and Hugh was silent for a moment.
"How do you know?"
"Mr. Thorn wrote it to aunt Lucy--it was Mr. Thorn's father."
Hugh sat down and leaned his head on the table. A long, long, time
passed,--unmeasured by the wild coursing of thought to and fro. Then
Fleda came and knelt down at the table beside him, and put her arm
round his neck.
"Dear Hugh," she said--and if ever love and tenderness and sympathy could
be distilled in tones, such drops were those that fell upon the mind's
ear,--"can't you look up at me?"
He did then, but he did not give her a chance to look at him. He locked
his arms about her, bringing her close to his breast; and for a few
minutes, in utter silence, they knew what strange sweetness pure affection
can mingle even in the communion of sorrow. There were tears shed in those
minutes that, bitter as they seemed at the time, Memory knew had been
largely qualified with another admixture.
"Dear Hugh," said Fleda,--"let us keep what we can--won't you go to bed
and rest?"
He looked dreadfully as if he needed it. But the usual calmness and
sweetness of his face was not altered;--it was only deepened to very great
sadness. Mentally, Fleda thought, he had borne the shock better than his
mother; for the bodily frame she trembled. He had not answered and she
spoke again.
"You need it worse than I, poor Fleda"
"I will go too presently--I do not think anybody will be here tonight."
"Is--Are there--Is this what has taken him away?" said Hugh.
Her silence and her look told him, and then laying her cheek again
alongside of his she whispered, how unsteadily, "We have only one help,
dear Hugh."
They were still and quiet again for minutes, counting the pulses of pain;
till Fleda came back to her poor wish "to keep what they could." She mixed
a restorative of wine and water, which however little desired, she felt
was necessary for both of them, and Hugh went up stairs. She staid a few
minutes to prepare another glass with particular care for her aunt. It was
just finished, and taking her candle she had bid Barby good-night, when
there came a loud rap at the front door. Fleda set down candle and glass,
from the quick inability to hold them as well as for other reasons; and
she and Barby stood and looked at each other, in such a confusion of doubt
and dread that some little time had passed before either stirred even her
eyes. Barby then threw down the tongs with which she had begun to make
preparations for covering up the fire and set off to the front.
"You mustn't open the door, Barby," cried Fleda, following her. "Come in
here and let us look out of one of the windows."
Before this could be reached however, there was another prolonged
repetition of the first thundering burst. It went through Fleda's heart,
because of the two up stairs who must hear it.
Barby threw up the sash.
"Who's there?"
"Is this Mr. Rossitur's place?" enquired a gruff voice.
"Yes, it is."
"Well will you come round and open the door?"
"Who wants it open?"
"A lady wants it open?"
"A lady!--what lady?"
"Down yonder in the carriage."
"What lady? who is she?"
"I don't know who she is--she wanted to come to Mr. Rossitur's place--will
you open the door for her?"
Barby and Fleda both now saw a carriage standing in the road.
"We must see who it is first," whispered Fleda.
"When the lady comes I'll open the door," was Barby's ultimatum.
The man withdrew to the carriage; and after a few moments of intense
watching Fleda and Barby certainly saw something in female apparel enter
the little gate of the court-yard and come up over the bright moonlit snow
towards the house, accompanied by a child; while the man with whom they
had had the interview came behind transformed into an unmistakeable
baggage-carrier.