As some lone bird at day's departing hour
Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower,
Forgetful though its wings are wet the while.
Bowles.
Happily possessed with the notion that there was some hidden mystery in
Fleda's movements, Mrs. Pritchard said not a word about her having gone
out, and only spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which she
had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to have a carriage ordered to
take her to the boat in the morning, the good housekeeper could not
hold any longer.
"Miss Fleda," said she with a look of very serious remonstrance,--"I
don't know what you're thinking of, but _I_ know you're fixing to kill
yourself. You are no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were to
be out till seven o'clock this evening; and if you saw yourself you
wouldn't want me to say any more. There is not the least morsel of colour
in your face, and you look as if you had a mind to get rid of your body
altogether as fast as you can! You want to be in bed for two days
running, now this minute."
"Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda smiling; "you are very
careful of me; but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards."
The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence, and then said, "Don't,
dear Miss Fleda!"--with an energy of entreaty which brought the tears into
Fleda's eyes. But she persisted in desiring the carriage; and Mrs.
Pritchard was silenced, observing however that she shouldn't wonder if she
wasn't able to go after all. Fleda herself was not without a doubt on the
subject before the evening was over. The reaction, complete now, began to
make itself felt; and morning settled the question. She was not able even
to rise from her bed.
The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a
mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of
the past days had given way to an absolute quiet that seemed as if nothing
could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme
prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and
had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling,--the sweetest
baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."
The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of
footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming
up the stairs and pattering along the entry to her room; and with little
ceremony in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered
Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about
her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of
answering.
"You horrid little creature!" said Constance,--"why didn't you come
straight to our house? just think of the injurious suspicions you have
exposed us to!--to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found
ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."
Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her
incredulous curiosity.
"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.
"We should never have known a breath about your being here," Constance
went on. "We were sitting last night in peaceful unconsciousness of there
being any neglected calls upon our friendship in the vicinity, when Mr.
Carleton came in and asked for you. Imagine our horror!--we said you had
gone out early in the afternoon and had not returned."
"You didn't say that!" said Fleda colouring.
"And he remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of
young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening,
and that you in particular were one of those persons--he didn't say, but
he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition,--whom their friends
ought not to lose sight of."
"But what brought you to town again, Fleda?" said the elder sister.
"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.
"I haven't told you the half!" said Constance demurely. "And then mamma
excused herself as well as she could, and Mr. Carleton said very seriously
that he knew there was a great element of head-strongness in your
character--he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr.
Stackpole."
"Constance, be quiet!" said her sister. "_Will_ you tell me, Fleda, what
you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity."
"Then it's inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear," said
Fleda smiling.
"Tell me!"
"I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended
to at a distance."
"Who did you come with?"
"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York."
"Wasn't your uncle at home?"
"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my
stirring."
"But was there nobody else to do it but you?"
"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post--Fort
Hamilton, is it?--I forget which fort--he is fast there."
"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and
then in Broadway shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has
taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the
progress of Florence's worsted-work--(I've made over that horrid thing to
her, Fleda)--or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of
blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that,--I don't know
which,--and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or
somewhere, to prosecute enquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him--she
says he is wearing himself out."
The mixture of amusement, admiration, and affection, with which the other
sister looked at her and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.
"But where is your other cousin,--Hugh?" said Florence.
"He was not well."
"Where is your uncle?"
"He will be at home to-day I expect; and so should I have been--I meant to
be there as soon as he was,--but I found this morning that I was not well
enough,--to my sorrow."
"You were not going alone!"
"O no--a friend of ours was going to-day."
"I never saw anybody with so many friends!" said Florence. "But you are
coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"
"O by to-morrow," said Fleda smiling;--"but I had better stay where I am
the little while I shall be here--I must go home the first minute I can
find an opportunity."
"But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you," said Constance.
"I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the
loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation.
Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a
momentary succession of fainting fits, and if we were to leave you here
in an empty house to come out of them at your leisure, what would he
think of us?"
What would he think!--Oh world! Is this it?
But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared
that nature would take more revenge than a day's sleep for the rough
handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the
next morning; and instead of that a kind of nondescript nervous fever set
in; nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was nevertheless extremely
glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of
look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of
coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience
and quietness, thankful for everything after the anxiety and the relief
she had just before known.
Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and
aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But
Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her indeed what
she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "Business," seemed
to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask
her furthermore what had made her get sick; but this time he was
satisfied more easily still, with a very curious sweet smile which was
the utmost reply Fleda's wits at the moment could frame. "Well, get
well," said he kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I won't quarrel
with you about it."
The getting well however promised to be a leisurely affair. Dr. Gregory
staid two or three days, and then went on to Boston, leaving Fleda in no
want of him.
Mrs. Pritchard was the tenderest and carefullest of nurres. The Evelyns
did everything _but_ nurse her. They sat by her, talked to her, made her
laugh, and not seldom made her look sober too, with their wild tales of
the world and the world's doings. But they were indeed very affectionate
and kind, and Fleda loved them for it. If they wearied her sometimes with
their talk, it was a change from the weariness of fever and silence that
on the whole was useful.
She was quieting herself one morning, as well as she could, in the midst
of both, lying with shut eyes against her pillow, and trying to fix her
mind on pleasant things, when she heard Mrs. Pritchard open the door and
come in. She knew it was Mrs. Pritchard, so she didn't move nor look. But
in a moment, the knowledge that Mrs. Pritchard's feet had stopped just by
the bed, and a strange sensation of something delicious saluting her made
her open her eyes; when they lighted upon a huge bunch of violets, just
before them and in most friendly neighbourhood to her nose. Fleda started
up, and her "Oh!" fairly made the housekeeper laugh; it was the very
quintessence of gratification.
"Where did you get them?"
"I didn't get them indeed, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper gravely, with
an immense amount of delighted satisfaction.
"Delicious!--Where did they come from?"
"Well they must have come from a greenhouse, or hot-house, or something of
that kind, Miss Fleda,--these things don't grow nowhere out o' doors at
this time."
Mrs. Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of
colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How
kind!" was upon the end of Fleda's tongue, but it never got any further.
Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be
concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.
"They must be put in water," said Fleda,--"I must have a dish for
them--Dear Mrs. Pritchard, will you get me one?"
The housekeeper went smiling to herself. The dish was brought, the violets
placed in it, and a little table at Fleda's request was set by the side of
the bed close to her pillow, for them to stand upon. And Fleda lay on her
pillow and looked at them.
There never were purer-breathed flowers than those. All the pleasant
associations of Fleda's life seemed to hang about them, from the time when
her childish eyes had first made acquaintance with violets, to the
conversation in the library a few days ago; and painful things stood
aloof; they had no part. The freshness of youth, and the sweetness of
spring-time, and all the kindly influences which had ever joined with both
to bless her, came back with their blessing in the violets' reminding
breath. Fleda shut her eyes and she felt it; she opened her eyes, and the
little double blue things smiled at her good humouredly and said, "Here we
are--you may shut them again." And it was curious how often Fleda gave
them a smile back as she did so.
Mrs. Pritchard thought Fleda lived upon the violets that day rather than
upon food and medicine; or at least, she said, they agreed remarkably well
together. And the next day it was much the same.
"What will you do when they are withered?" she said that evening. "I shall
have to see and get some more for you."
"Oh they will last a great while," said Fleda smiling.
But the next morning Mrs. Pritchard came into her room with a great bunch
of roses, the very like of the one Fleda had had at the Evelyns'. She
delivered them with a sort of silent triumph, and then as before stood by
to enjoy Fleda and the flowers together. But the degree of Fleda's
wonderment, pleasure, and gratitude, made her reception of them, outwardly
at least, this time rather grave.
"You may throw the others away now, Miss Fleda," said the
housekeeper smiling.
"Indeed I shall not!--"
"The violets, I suppose, is all gone," Mrs. Pritchard went on;--but I
never _did_ see such a bunch of roses as that since I lived
anywhere.--They have made a rose of you, Miss Fleda."
"How beautiful!--" was Fleda's answer.
"Somebody--he didn't say who--desired to know particularly how Miss
Ringgan was to-day."
"Somebody is _very_ kind!" said Fleda from the bottom of her heart. "But
dear Mrs. Pritchard, I shall want another dish."
Somebody was kind, she thought more and more; for there came every day or
two the most delicious bouquets, every day different. They were _at least_
equal in their soothing and refreshing influences to all the efforts of
all the Evelyns and Mrs. Pritchard put together. There never came any name
with them, and there never was any need. Those bunches of flowers
certainly had a physiognomy; and to Fleda were (not the flowers but the
choosing, cutting, and putting of them together) the embodiment of an
amount of grace, refined feeling, generosity, and kindness, that her
imagination never thought of in connection with but one person. And his
kindness was answered, perhaps Mrs. Pritchard better than Fleda guessed
how well, from the delighted colour and sparkle of the eye with which
every fresh arrival was greeted as it walked into her room. By Fleda's
order the bouquets were invariably put out of sight before the Evelyns
made their first visit in the morning, and not brought out again till all
danger of seeing them any more for the day was past. The regular coming of
these floral messengers confirmed Mrs. Pritchard in her mysterious
surmises about Fleda, which were still further strengthened by this
incomprehensible order; and at last she got so into the spirit of the
thing that if she heard an untimely ring at the door she would catch up a
glass of flowers and run as if they had been contraband, without a word
from anybody.
The Evelyns wrote to Mrs. Rossitur, by Fleda's desire, so as not to alarm
her; merely saying that Fleda was not quite well, and that they meant to
keep her a little while to recruit herself; and that Mrs. Rossitur must
send her some clothes. This last clause was tha particular addition of
Constance.
The fever lasted a fortnight, and then went off by degrees, leaving her
with a very small portion of her ordinary strength. Fleda was to go to the
Evelyns as soon as she could bear it; at present she was only able to come
down to the little back parlour and sit in the doctor's arm chair, and eat
jelly, and sleep, and look at Constance, and when Constance was not there
look at her flowers. She could hardly bear a book as yet. She hadn't a bit
of colour in her face, Mrs. Pritchard said, but she looked better than
when she came to town; and to herself the good housekeeper added, that she
looked happier too. No doubt that was true. Fleda's principal feeling,
ever since she lay down in her bed, had been thankfulness; and now that
the ease of returning health was joined to this feeling, her face with all
its subdued gravity was as untroubled in its expression as the faces of
her flowers.
She was disagreeably surprised one day, after she had been two or three
days down stairs, by a visit from Mrs. Thorn. In her well-grounded dread
of seeing one person Fleda had given strict orders that no _gentleman_
should be admitted; she had not counted upon this invasion. Mrs. Thorn had
always been extremely kind to her, but though Fleda gave her credit for
thorough good-heartedness, and a true liking for herself, she could not
disconnect her attentions from another thought, and therefore always
wished them away; and never had her kind face been more thoroughly
disagreeable to Fleda than when it made its appearance in the doctor's
little back parlour on this occasion. With even more than her usual
fondness, or Pleda's excited imagination fancied so, Mrs. Thorn lavished
caresses upon her, and finally besought her to go out and take the air in
her carriage. Fleda tried most earnestly to get rid of this invitation,
and was gently unpersuadable, till the lady at last was brought to promise
that she should see no creature during the drive but herself. An ominous
promise! but Fleda did not know any longer how, to refuse without hurting
a person for whom she had really a grateful regard. So she went. And
doubted afterwards exceedingly whether she had done well.
She took special good care to see nobody again till she went to the
Evelyns. But then precautions were at an end. It was no longer possible to
keep herself shut up. She had cause, poor child, the very first night of
her coming, to wish herself back again.
This first evening she would fain have pleaded weakness as her excuse and
gone to her room, but Constance laid violent hands on her and insisted
that she should stay at least a little while with them. And she seemed
fated to see all her friends in a bevy. First came Charlton; then followed
the Decaturs, whom she knew and liked very well, and engrossed her,
happily before her cousin had time to make any enquiries; then came Mr.
Carleton; then Mr. Stackpole. Then Mr. Thorn, in expectation of whom
Fleda's breath had been coming and going painfully all the evening. She
could not meet him without a strange mixture of embarrassment and
confusion with the gratitude she wished to express, an embarrassment not
at all lessened by the air of happy confidence with which he came forward
to her. It carried an intimation that almost took away the little strength
she had. And if anything could have made his presence more intolerable, it
was the feeling she could not get rid of that it was the cause why Mr.
Carleton did not come near her again; though she prolonged her stay in the
drawing-room in the hope that he would. It proved to be for Mr. Thorn's
benefit alone.
"Well you staid all the evening after all," said Constance as they were
going up stairs.
"Yes--I wish I hadn't," said Fleda. "I wonder when I shall be likely to
find a chance of getting back to Queechy."
"You're not fit yet, so you needn't trouble yourself about it," said
Constance. "We'll find you plenty of chances."
Fleda could not think of Mr. Thorn without trembling. His manner meant--so
much more than it had any right, or than she had counted upon. He
seemed--she pressed her hands upon her face to get rid of the
impression--he seemed to take for granted precisely that which she had
refused to admit; he seemed to reckon as paid for that which she had
declined to set a price upon. Her uncle's words and manner came up in her
memory. She could see nothing best to do but to get home as fast as
possible. She had no one here to fall back upon. Again that vision of
father and mother and grandfather flitted across her fancy; and though
Fleda's heart ended by resting down on that foundation to which it always
recurred, it rested with a great many tears.
For several days she denied herself absolutely to morning visitors of
every kind. But she could not entirely absent herself from the
drawing-room in the evening; and whenever the family were at home there
was a regular levee. Mr. Thorn could not be avoided then. He was always
there, and always with that same look and manner of satisfied confidence.
Fleda was as grave, as silent, as reserved, as she could possibly be and
not be rude; but he seemed to take it in excellent good part, as being
half indisposition and half timidity. Fleda set her face earnestly towards
home, and pressed Mrs. Evelyn to find her an opportunity, weak or strong,
of going there; but for those days as yet none presented itself.
Mr. Carleton was at the house almost as often as Mr. Thorn, seldom staying
so long however, and never having any more to do with Fleda than he had
that first evening. Whenever he did come in contact with her, he was, she
thought, as grave as he was graceful. That was to be sure his common
manner in company, yet she could not help thinking there was some
difference since the walk they had taken together, and it grieved her.