Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and
methought I had,--But man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say
what methought I had.--Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mrs. Evelyn drove down to the boat with Fleda and did not leave her till
she was safely put in charge of Mrs. Renney. Fleda immediately retreated
to the innermost depths of the ladies' cabin, hoping to find some rest for
the body at least if not forgetfulness for the mind.
The latter was not to be. Mrs. Renney was exceeding glad to see her and
bent upon knowing what had become of her since those days when they used
to know each other.
"You're just the same, Miss Fleda, that you used to be--you're very little
altered--I can see that--though you're looking a good deal more thin and
pale--you had very pretty roses in your cheeks in those times.--Yes, I
know, I understood Mrs. Evelyn to say you had not been well; but allowing
for that I can see you are just yourself still--I'm glad of it. Do you
recollect, Miss Fleda, what a little thing you was then?"
"I recollect, very well," said Fleda.
"I'm sure of another thing--you're just as good as you used to be," said
the housekeeper looking at her complacently. "Do you remember how you used
to come into my room to see me make jelly? I see it as well as if it was
yesterday;--and you used to beg me to let you squeeze the lemons; and I
never could refuse you, because you never did anything I didn't want you
to; and do you mind how I used to tie you up in a big towel for fear you
would stain your dress with the acid, and I'd stand and watch to see you
putting all your strength to squeeze 'em clean, and be afraid that Mrs.
Rossitur would be angry with me for letting you spoil your hands, but you
used to look up and smile at me so, I couldn't help myself but let you do
just whatever you had a mind. You don't look quite so light and bright as
you did in those times; but to be sure, you ain't feeling well! See
here--just let me pull some of these things onto this settee, and you put
yourself down there and rest--pillows--let's have another pillow,--there,
how's that?"
Oh if Fleda might have silenced her! She thought it was rather hard that
she should have two talkative companions on this journey of all others.
The housekeeper paused no longer than to arrange her couch and see her
comfortably laid down.
"And then Mr. Hugh would come in to find you and carry you away--he never
could bear to be long from you. How is Mr. Hugh, Miss Fleda? he used to
be always a very delicate looking child. I remember you and him used to
be always together--he was a very sweet boy! I have often said I never
saw such another pair of children. How does Mr. Hugh have his health,
Miss Fleda?"
"Not very well, just now," said Fleda gently, and shutting her eyes that
they might reveal less.
There was need; for the housekeeper went on to ask particularly after
every member of the family, and where they had been living, and as much
as she conveniently could about how they had been living. She was very
kind through it all, or she tried to be; but Fleda felt there was a
difference since the time when her aunt kept house in State street and
Mrs. Renney made jellies for her. When her neighbours' affairs were
exhausted Mrs. Renney fell back upon her own, and gave Fleda a very
circumstantial account of the occurrences that were drawing her westward;
how so many years ago her brother had married and removed thither; how
lately his wife had died; what in general was the character of his wife,
and what, in particular, the story of her decease; how many children were
left without care, and the state of her brother's business which demanded
a great deal; and how finally, she, Mrs. Renney, had received and
accepted an invitation to go on to Belle Rivière and be housekeeper de
son chef. And as Fleda's pale worn face had for some time given her no
sign of attention the housekeeper then hoped she was asleep, and placed
herself so as to screen her and have herself a good view of everything
that was going on in the cabin.
But poor Fleda was not asleep, much as she rejoiced in being thought so.
Mind and body could get no repose, sadly as the condition of both called
for it. Too worn to sleep, perhaps;--too down-hearted to rest. She blamed
herself for it, and told over to herself the causes, the recent causes,
she had of joy and gratitude; but it would not do. Grateful she could be
and was; but tears that were not the distillation of joy came with her
gratitude; came from under the closed eyelid in spite of her; the pillow
was wet with them. She excused herself, or tried to, with thinking that
she was weak and not very well, and that her nerves had gone through so
much for a few days past it was no wonder if a reaction left her without
her usual strength of mind. And she could not help thinking there had been
a want of kindness in the Evelyns to let her come away to-day to make such
a journey, at such a season, under such guardianship. But it was not all
that; she knew it was not. The journey was a small matter; only a little
piece of disagreeableness that was well in keeping with her other
meditations. She was going home and home had lost all its fair-seeming;
its honours were withered. It would be pleasant indeed to be there again
to nurse Hugh; but nurse him for what?--life or death?--she did not like
to think; and beyond that she could fix upon nothing at all that looked
bright in the prospect; she almost thought herself wicked, but she could
not. If she might hope that her uncle would take hold of his farm like a
man, and redeem his character and his family's happiness on the old
place,--that would have been something; but he had declared a different
purpose, and Fleda knew him too well to hope that he would be better than
his word. Then they must leave the old homestead, where at least the
associations of happiness clung, and go to a strange land. It looked
desolate to Fleda, wherever it might be. Leave Queechy!--that she loved
unspeakably beyond any other place in the world; where the very hills had
been the friends of her childhood, and where she had seen the maples grow
green and grow red through as many-coloured changes of her own fortunes;
the woods where the shade of her grandfather walked with her and where the
presence even of her father could be brought back by memory; where the air
was sweeter and the sunlight brighter, by far, than in any other place,
for both had some strange kindred with the sunny days of long ago. Poor
Fleda turned her face from Mrs. Renney, and leaving doubtful prospects and
withering comforts for a while as it were out of sight, she wept the fair
outlines and the red maples of Queechy as if they had been all she had to
regret. They had never disappointed her. Their countenance had comforted
her many a time, under many a sorrow. After all, it was only fancy
choosing at which shrine the whole offering of sorrow should be made. She
knew that many of the tears that fell were due to some other. It was in
vain to tell herself they were selfish; mind and body were in no condition
to struggle with anything.
It had fallen dark some time, and she had wept and sorrowed herself into a
half-dozing state, when a few words spoken near aroused her.
"It is snowing,"--was said by several voices.
"Going very slow, ain't we?" said Fleda's friend in a suppressed voice.
"Yes, 'cause it's so dark, you see; the Captain dursn't let her run."
Some poor witticism followed from a third party about the 'Butterfly's'
having run herself off her legs the first time she ever ran at all; and
then Mrs. Renney went on.
"Is the storm so bad, Hannah?"
"Pretty thick--can't see far ahead--I hope we'll make out to find our way
in--that's all _I_ care for."
"How far are we?"
"Not half way yet--I don't know--depends on what headway we make, you
know;--there ain't much wind yet, that's a good thing."
"There ain't any danger, is there?"
This of course the chambermaid denied, and a whispered colloquy followed
which Fleda did not try to catch. A new feeling came upon her weary
heart,--a feeling of fear. There was a sad twinge of a wish that she were
out of the boat and safe back again with the Evelyns, and a fresh sense of
the unkindness of letting her come away that afternoon so attended. And
then with that sickness of heart the forlorn feeling of being alone, of
wanting some one at hand to depend upon, to look to. It is true that in
case of real danger none such could be a real protection,--and yet not so
neither, for strength and decision can live and make live where a moment's
faltering will kill, and weakness must often falter of necessity. "All
the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth" to his people; she thought of
that, and yet she feared, for his ways are often what we do not like. A
few moments of sick-heartedness and trembling,--and then Fleda mentally
folded her arms about a few other words of the Bible and laid her head
down in quiet again.--"_The Lord is my refuge and my fortress; my God; in
him will I trust_."
And then what comes after,--"_He shall cover thee with his feathers, and
under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and
buckler_."
Fleda lay quiet till she was called to tea.
"Bless me, how pale you are!" said the housekeeper, as Fleda raised
herself up at this summons,--"do you feel very bad, Miss Fleda?"
Fleda said no.
"Are you frighted?" said the housekeeper;--"there's no need of
that--Hannah says there's no need--we'll be in by and by."
"No, Mrs. Renney," said Fleda smiling. "I believe I am not very
strong yet."
The housekeeper and Hannah both looked at her with strangely touched
faces, and again begged her to try the refreshment of tea. But Fleda
would not go down, so they served her up there with great zeal and
tenderness. And then she waited patiently and watched the people in the
cabin, as they sat gossiping in groups or stupefying in solitude; and
thought how miserable a thing is existence where religion and refinement
have not taught the mind to live in somewhat beyond and above its
every-day concern.
Late at night the boat arrived safe at Bridgeport. Mrs. Renney and Fleda
had resolved to stay on board till morning, when the former promised to
take her to the house of a sister she had living in the town; as the cars
would not leave the place till near eleven o'clock. Kest was not to be
hoped for meantime in the boat, on the miserable couch which was the best
the cabin could furnish; but Fleda was so thankful to have finished the
voyage in safety that she took thankfully everything else, even lying
awake. It was a wild night. The wind rose soon after they reached
Bridgeport, and swept furiously over the boat, rattling the tiller chains
and making Fleda so nervously alive to possibilities that she got up two
or three times to see if the boat were fast to her moorings. It was very
dark, and only by a fortunately placed lantern she could see a bit of the
dark wharf and one of the posts belonging to it, from which the lantern
never budged; so at last, quieted or tired out, nature had her rights, and
she slept.
It was not refreshing rest after all, and Fleda was very glad that Mrs.
Renney's impatience for something comfortable made her willing to be astir
as early as there was any chance of finding people up in the town. Few
were abroad when they left the boat, they two. Not a foot had printed the
deep layer of snow that covered the wharf. It had fallen thick during the
night. Just then it was not snowing; the clouds seemed to have taken a
recess, for they hung threatening yet; one uniform leaden canopy was over
the whole horizon.
"The snow ain't done yet," said Mrs. Renney.
"No, but the worst of our journey is over," said Fleda. "I am glad to be
on the land."
"I hope we'll get something to eat here," said Mrs. Renney as they stepped
along over the wharf. "They ought to be ashamed to give people such a
mess, when it's just as easy to have things decent. My! how it has snowed.
I declare, if I'd ha' known I'd ha' waited till somebody had tracked a
path for us. But I guess it's just as well we didn't,--you look as like a
ghost as you can, Miss Fleda. You'll be better when you get some
breakfast. You'd better catch on to my arm--I'll waken up the seven
sleepers but what I'll have something to put life into you directly."
Fleda thanked her but declined the proffered accommodation, and followed
her companion in the narrow beaten path a few travellers had made in the
street, feeling enough like a ghost, if want of flesh and blood reality
were enough. It seemed a dream that she was walking through the grey light
and the empty streets of the little town; everything looked and felt so
wild and strange.
If it was a dream she was soon waked out of it. In the house where they
were presently received and established in sufficient comfort, there was
such a little specimen of masculine humanity as never shewed his face in
dream land yet; a little bit of reality enough to bring any dreamer to his
senses. He seemed to have been brought up on stove heat, for he was ail
glowing yet from a very warm bed he had just tumbled out of somewhere, and
he looked at the pale thin stranger by his mother's fireplace as if she
were an anomaly in the comfortable world. If he could have contented
himself with looking!--but he planted himself firmly on the rug just two
feet from Fleda, and with a laudable and most persistent desire to examine
into the causes of what he could not understand he commenced inquiring,
"Are you cold?--say! Are you cold?--say!"--in a tone most provokingly made
up of wonder and dulness. In vain Fleda answered him, that she was not
very cold and would soon not be cold at all by that good fire;--the
question came again, apparently in all its freshness, from the
interrogator's mind,--"Are you cold?--say!--"
And silence and words, looking grave and laughing, were alike thrown away.
Fleda shut her eyes at length and used the small remnant of her patience
to keep herself quiet till she was called to breakfast. After breakfast
she accepted the offer of her hostess to go up stairs and lie down till
the cars were ready; and there got some real and much needed refreshment
of sleep and rest.
It lasted longer than she bad counted upon. For the cars were not ready
at eleven o'clock; the snow last night had occasioned some perplexing
delays. It was not till near three o'clock that the often-despatched
messenger to the dépôt brought back word that they might go as soon as
they pleased. It pleased Mrs. Renney to be in a great hurry, for her
baggage was in the cars she said, and it would be dreadful if she and it
went different ways; so Fleda and her companion hastened down to the
station house and choose their places some time before anybody else
thought of coming. They had a long, very tiresome waiting to go through,
and room for some uneasy speculations about being belated and a night
journey. But Fleda was stronger now, and bore it all with her usual
patient submission. At length, by degrees the people dropped in and
filled the cars, and they get off.
"How early do you suppose we shall reach Greenfield?" said Fleda.
"Why we ought to get there between nine and ten o'clock, I should think,"
said her companion. "I hope the snow will hold up till we get there,"
Fleda thought it a hope very unlikely to be fulfilled. There were as yet
no snow-flakes to be seen near by, but at a little distance the low
clouds seemed already to enshroud every clump of trees and put a mist
about every hill. They surely would descend more palpably soon.
It was pleasant to be moving swiftly on again towards the end of their
journey, if Fleda could have rid herself of some qualms about the possible
storm and the certain darkness; they might not reach Greenfield by ten
o'clock; and she disliked travelling in the night at any time. But she
could do nothing, and she resigned herself anew to the comfort and trust
she had built upon last night. She had the seat next the window, and with
a very sober kind of pleasure watched the pretty landscape they were
flitting by--misty as her own prospects,--darkening as they?--no, she
would not allow that thought. "'Surely I know that it shall be well with
them that fear God;' and I can trust him." And she found a strange
sweetness in that naked trust and clinging of faith, that faith never
tried never knows. But the breath of daylight was already gone, though the
universal spread of snow gave the eye a fair range yet, white, white, as
far as the view could reach, with that light misty drapery round
everything in the distance and merging into the soft grey sky; and every
now and then as the wind served, a thick wreath of white vapour came by
from the engine and hid all, eddying past the windows and then skimming
off away over the snowy ground from which it would not lift; a more
palpable veil for a moment of the distant things,--and then broken,
scattered, fragmentary, lovely in its frailty and evanishing. It was a
pretty afternoon, but a sober; and the bare black solitary trees near hand
which the cars flew by, looked to Fleda constantly like finger-posts of
the past; and back at their bidding her thoughts and her spirits went,
back and forward, comparing, in her own mental view, what had once been so
gay and genial with its present bleak and chill condition. And from this,
in sudden contrast, came a strangely fair and bright image of Heaven--its
exchange of peace for all this turmoil,--of rest for all this weary
bearing up of mind and body against the ills that beset both,--of its
quiet home for this unstable strange world where nothing is at a
stand-still--of perfect and pure society for the unsatisfactory and
wearying friendships that the most are here. The thought came to Fleda
like one of those unearthly clear Northwestern skies from which a storm
cloud has rolled away, that seem almost to mock Earth with their distance
from its defilement and agitations. "Truly I know that it shall be well
with them that fear God!"--She could remember Hugh,--she could not think
of the words without him,--and yet say them with the full bounding
assurance. And in that weary and uneasy afternoon her mind rested and
delighted itself with two lines of George Herbert, that only a Christian
can well understand,--
"Thy power and love,--my love and trust,
Make one place everywhere."
But the night fell, and Fleda at last could see nothing but the dim rail
fences they were flying by, and the reflection from some stationary
lantern on the engine or one of the forward cars, that always threw a
bright spot of light on the snow. Still she kept her eyes fastened out of
the window; anything but the view _inboard_. They were going slowly now,
and frequently stopping; for they were out of time, and some other trains
were to be looked out for. Nervous work; and whenever they stopped the
voices which at other times were happily drowned in the rolling of the
car-wheels, rose and jarred in discords far less endurable. Fleda shut
her ears to the words, but it was easy enough without words to understand
the indications of coarse and disagreeable natures in whose neighbourhood
she disliked to find herself; of whose neighbourhood she exceedingly
disliked to be reminded. The muttered oath, the more than muttered jest,
the various laughs that tell so much of head or heart emptiness,--the
shadowy but sure tokens of that in human nature which one would not
realize and which one strives to forget;--Fleda shrank within herself and
would gladly have stopped her ears; did sometimes covertly. Oh if home
could be but reached, and she out of this atmosphere! how well she
resolved that never another time, by any motive, of delicacy or
otherwise, she would be tempted to trust herself in the like again
without more than womanly protection. The hours rolled wearily on; they
heard nothing of Greenfield yet.
They came at length to a more obstinate stop than usual. Fleda took her
hands from her ears to ask what was the matter.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Renney. "I hope they won't keep us a great while
waiting here."
The door swung open and the red comforter and tarpaulin hat of one of the
brakemen shewed itself a moment. Presently after "Can't get on"--was
repeated by several voices in the various tones of assertion,
interrogation, and impatience. The women folks, having nobody to ask
questions of, had nothing for it but to be quiet and use their ears.
"Can't get on!" said another man coming in,--"there's nothing but snow out
o' doors--track's all foul."
A number of people instantly rushed out to see.
"Can't get on any further to-night?" asked a quiet old gentleman of the
news-bringer.
"Not another inch, sir;--worse off than old Dobbs was in the
mill-pond,--we've got half way but we can't turn and go back."
"And what are we going to do?" said an unhappy wight not quick in drawing
conclusions.
"I s'pose we'll all be stiff by the morning," answered the other
gravely,--"unless the wood holds out, which ain't likely."
How much there is in even a cheery tone of voice, Fleda was sorry when
this man took his away with him. There was a most uncheering confusion of
tongues for a few minutes among the people he had left, and then the car
was near deserted; everybody went out to bring his own wits to bear upon
the obstacles in the way of their progress. Mrs. Renney observed that she
might as well warm her feet while she could, and went to the stove for
the purpose.
Poor Fleda felt as if she had no heart left. She sat still in her place
and leaned her head upon the back of the deserted chair before her, in
utter inability to keep it up. The night journey was bad enough, but
_this_ was more than she had counted upon. Danger, to be sure, there might
be none in standing still there all night, unless perhaps the danger of
death from the cold;--she had heard of such things;--but to sit there till
morning among all those people and obliged to hear their unloosed
tongues,--Fleda felt almost that she could not bear it,--a most forlorn
feeling, with which came anew a keen reflection upon the Evelyns for
having permitted her to run even the hazard of such trouble. And in the
morning, if well it came, who would take care of them in all the
subsequent annoyance and difficulty of getting out of the snow?--
It must have taken very little time for these thoughts to run through her
head, for half a minute had not flown when the vacant seat beside her was
occupied and a hand softly touched one of hers which lay in her lap.
Fleda started up in terror,--to have the hand taken and her eye met by
Mr. Carleton.
"Mr. Carleton!--O sir, how glad I am to see you!"--was said by eye and
cheek as unmistakably as by word.
"Have you come from the clouds?"
"I might rather ask that question of you," said he smiling.
"You have been invisible ever since the night when I had the honour of
playing the part of your physician."
"I could not help it, sir,--I was sure you would believe it. I wanted
exceedingly to see you and to thank you--as well as I could--but I was
obliged to leave it--"
She could hardly say so much. Her swimming eye gave him more thanks than
he wanted. But she scolded herself vigorously and after a few minutes was
able to look and speak again.
"I hoped you would not think me ungrateful, sir, but in case you might, I
wrote to let you know that you were mistaken."
"You wrote to me!" said he.
"Yes, sir--yesterday morning--at least it was put in the post
yesterday morning."
"It was more unnecessary than you are aware off," he said with a smile and
turning one of his deep looks away from her.
"Are we fast here for all night, Mr. Carleton?" she said presently.
"I am afraid so--I believe so--I have been out to examine and the storm is
very thick."
"You need not look so about it for me," said Fleda;--"I don't care for it
at all now."
And a long-drawn breath half told how much she had cared for it, and what
a burden was gone.
"You look very little like breasting hardships," said Mr. Carleton,
bending on her so exactly the look of affectionate care that she had
often had from him when she was a child, that Fleda was very near
overcome again.
"O you know," she said, speaking by dint of great force upon
herself,--"You know the will is everything, and mine is very good--"
But he looked extremely unconvinced and unsatisfied.
"I am so comforted to see you sitting there, sir," Fleda went on
gratefully,--"that I am sure I can bear patiently all the rest."
His eye turned away and she did not know what to make of his gravity. But
a moment after he looked again and spoke with his usual manner.
"That business you entrusted to me," he said in a lower tone,--"I believe
you will have no more trouble with it."
"So I thought!--so I gathered--the other night,--" said Fleda, her heart
and her face suddenly full of many things.
"The note was given up--I saw it burned."
Fleda's two hands clasped each other mutely.
"And will he be silent?"
"I think he will choose to be so--for his own sake."
The only sake that would avail in that quarter, Fleda knew. How had Mr.
Carleton ever managed it!
"And Charlton?" she said after a few minutes' tearful musing.
"I had the pleasure of Capt. Rossitur's company to breakfast, the next
morning,--and I am happy to report that there is no danger of any trouble
arising there."
"How shall I ever thank you, sir!" said Fleda with trembling lips.
His smile was so peculiar she almost thought he was going to tell her. But
just then Mrs. Renney having accomplished the desirable temperature of her
feet, came back to warm her ears, and placed herself on the next seat;
happily not the one behind but the one before them, where her eyes were
thrown away; and the lines of Mr. Carleton's mouth came back to their
usual quiet expression.
"You were in particular haste to reach home?" he asked.
Fleda said no, not in the abstract; it made no difference whether to-day
or to-morrow.
"You had heard no ill news of your cousin?"
"Not at all, but it is difficult to find an opportunity of making the
journey, and I thought I ought to come yesterday."
He was silent again; and the baffled seekers after ways and means who had
gone out to try arguments upon the storm, began to come pouring back into
the car. And bringing with them not only their loud and coarse voices with
every shade of disagreeableness aggravated by ill-humour, but also an
average amount of snow upon their hats and shoulders, the place was soon
full of a reeking atmosphere of great coats. Fleda was trying to put up
her window, but Mr. Carleton gently stopped her and began bargaining with
a neighbouring fellow-traveller for the opening of his.
"Well, sir, I'll open it if you wish it," said the man civilly, "but
they say we sha'n't have nothing to make fires with more than an hour
or two longer;--so maybe you'll think we can't afford to let any too
much cold in."
The gentleman however persisting in his wish and the wish being moreover
backed with those arguments to which every grade of human reason is
accessible, the window was opened. At first the rush of fresh air was a
great relief; but it was not very long before the raw snowy atmosphere
which made its way in was felt to be more dangerous, if it was more
endurable, than the close pent-up one it displaced. Mr. Carleton ordered
the window closed again; and Fleda's glance of meek grateful patience was
enough to pay any reasonable man for his share of the suffering. _Her_
share of it was another matter. Perhaps Mr. Carleton thought so, for he
immediately bent himself to reward her and to avert the evil, and for that
purpose brought into play every talent of manner and conversation that
could beguile the time and make her forget what she was among. If success
were his reward he had it. He withdrew her attention completely from all
that was around her, and without tasking it; she could not have borne
that. He did not seem to task himself; but without making any exertion he
held her eye and ear and guarded both from communication with things
disagreeable. He knew it. There was not a change in her eye's happy
interest, till in the course of the conversation Fleda happened to mention
Hugh, and he noticed the saddening of the eye immediately afterwards.
"Is he ill?" said Mr. Carleton.
"I don't know," said Fleda faltering a little,--"he was not--very,--but a
few weeks ago--"
Her eye explained the broken sentences which there in the neighbourhood of
other ears she dared not finish.
"He will be better after he has seen you," said Mr. Carleton gently.
"Yes--"
A very sorrowful and uncertain "yes," with an "if" in the speaker's mind
which she did not bring out.
"Can you sing your old song yet,--" said Mr. Carleton softly,--
"'Yet one thing secures us.
Whatever betide?'"
But Fleda burst into tears.
"Forgive me," he whispered earnestly,--"for reminding you of that,--you
did not need it, and I have only troubled you."
"No sir, you have not," said Fleda,--"it did not trouble me--and Hugh
knows it better than I do. I cannot bear anything to-night, I believe--"
"So you have remembered that, Mr. Carleton?" she said a minute after.
"Do you remember that?" said he, putting her old little Bible into her
hand.
Fleda seized it, but she could hardly bear the throng of images that
started up around it. The smooth worn cover brought so back the childish
happy days when it had been her constant companion--the shadows of the
Queechy of old, and Cynthia and her grandfather; and the very atmosphere
of those times when she had led a light-hearted strange wild life all
alone with them, reading the Encyclopædia and hunting out the
wood-springs. She opened the book and slowly turned over the leaves where
her father's hand had drawn those lines, of remark and affection, round
many a passage,--the very look of them she knew; but she could not see it
now, for her eyes were dim and tears were dropping fast into her
lap,--she hoped Mr. Carleton did not see them, but she could not help it;
she could only keep the book out of the way of being blotted. And there
were other and later associations she had with it too,--how dear!--how
tender!--how grateful!
Mr. Carleton was quite silent for a good while--till the tears had ceased;
then he bent towards her so as to be heard no further off.
"It has been for many years my best friend and companion," he said in
a low tone.
Fleda could make no answer, even by look.
"At first," he went on softly, "I had a strong association of you with it;
but the time came when I lost that entirely, and itself quite swallowed up
the thought of the giver."
A quick glance and smile told how well Fleda understood, how heartily she
was pleased with that. But she instantly looked away again.
"And now," said Mr. Carleton after a pause,--"for some time past, I have
got the association again; and I do not choose to have it so. I have come
to the resolution to put the book back into your hands and not receive it
again, unless the giver go with the gift."
Fleda looked up, a startled look of wonder, into his face, but the dark
eye left no doubt of the meaning of his words; and in unbounded confusion
she turned her own and her attention, ostensibly, to the book in her hand,
though sight and sense were almost equally out of her power. For a few
minutes poor Fleda felt as if all sensation had retreated to her
finger-ends. She turned the leaves over and over, as if willing to cheat
herself or her companion into the belief that she had something to think
of there, while associations and images of the past were gone with a
vengeance, swallowed up in a tremendous reality of the present; and the
book, which a minute ago was her father's Bible, was now--what was
it?--something of Mr. Carleton's which she must give back to him. But
still she held it and looked at it--conscious of no one distinct idea but
that, and a faint one besides that he might like to be repossessed of his
property in some reasonable time--time like everything else was in a
whirl; the only steady thing in creation seemed to be that perfectly still
and moveless figure by her side--till her trembling fingers admonished her
they would not be able to hold anything much longer; and gently and
slowly, without looking, her hand put the book back towards Mr. Carleton.
That both were detained together she knew but hardly felt;--the thing was
that she had given it!--
There was no other answer; and there was no further need that Mr. Carleton
should make any efforts for diverting her from the scene and the
circumstances where they were. Probably he knew that, for he made none. He
was perfectly silent for a long time, and Fleda was deaf to any other
voice that could be raised, near or far. She could not even think.
Mrs. Renney was happily snoring, and most of the other people had
descended into their coat collars, or figuratively speaking had lowered
their blinds, by tilting over their hats in some uncomfortable position
that signified sleep; and comparative quiet had blessed the place for some
time; as little noticed indeed by Fleda as noise would have been. The sole
thing that she clearly recognized in connection with the exterior world
was that clasp in which one of her hands lay. She did not know that the
car had grown quiet, and that only an occasional grunt of ill-humour, or
waking-up colloquy, testified that it was the unwonted domicile of a
number of human beings who were harbouring there in a disturbed state of
mind. But this state of things could not last. The time came that had been
threatened, when their last supply of extrinsic warmth was at an end.
Despite shut windows, the darkening of the stove was presently followed by
a very sensible and fast-increasing change of temperature; and this
addition to their causes of discomfort roused every one of the company
from his temporary lethargy. The growl of dissatisfied voices awoke again,
more gruff than before; the spirit of jesting had long languished and now
died outright, and in its stead came some low and deep and bitter-spoken
curses. Poor Mrs. Renney shook off her somnolency and shook her shoulders,
a little business shake, admonitory to herself to keep cool; and Fleda
came to the consciousness that some very disagreeable chills were making
their way over her.
"Are you warm enough?" said Mr. Carleton suddenly, turning to her.
"Not quite," said Fleda hesitating,--"I feel the cold a little. Please
don't, Mr. Carleton!--" she added earnestly as she saw him preparing to
throw off his cloak, the identical black fox which Constance had described
with so much vivacity;--"pray do not! I am not very cold--I can bear a
little--I am not so tender as you think me; I do not need it, and you
would feel the want very much after wearing it.--I won't put it on."
But he smilingly bade her "stand up," stooping down and taking one of her
hands to enforce his words, and giving her at the same time the benefit of
one of those looks of good humoured wilfulness to which his mother always
yielded, and to which Fleda yielded instantly, though with a colour
considerably heightened at the slight touch of peremptoriness in his tone.
"You are not offended with me, Elfie?" he said in another manner, when she
had sat down again and he was arranging the heavy folds of the cloak.
Offended!--A glance answered.
"You shall have everything your own way," he whispered gently, as he
stooped down to bring the cloak under her feet,--"_except yourself_."
What good care should be taken of that exception was said in the dark
eye at which Fleda hardly ventured half a glance. She had much ado to
command herself.
She was shielded again from all the sights and sounds within reach. She
was in a maze. The comfort of the fur cloak was curiously mixed with the
feeling of something else, of which that was an emblem,--a surrounding of
care and strength which would effectually be exerted for her
protection,--somewhat that Fleda had not known for many a long day,--the
making up of the old want. Fleda had it in her heart to cry like a baby.
Such a dash of sunlight had fallen at her feet that she hardly dared look
at it for fear of being dazzled; but she could not look anywhere that she
did not see the reflection.
In the mean time the earful of people settled again into sullen quietude.
The cold was not found propitious to quarrelling. Those who could subsided
anew into lethargy, those who could not gathered in their outposts to make
the best defence they might of the citadel. Most happily it was not an
extreme night; cold enough to be very disagreeable and even (without a fur
cloak) dangerous; but not enough to put even noses and ears in immediate
jeopardy. Mr. Carleton had contrived to procure a comfortable wrapper for
Mrs. Renney from a Yankee who for the sake of being "a warm man" as to his
pockets was willing to be cold otherwise for a time. The rest of the great
coats and cloaks which were so alert and erect a little while ago were
doubled up on every side in all sorts of despondent attitudes. A dull
quiet brooded over the assembly; and Mr. Carleton walked up and down the
vacant space. Once he caught an anxious glance from Fleda, and came
immediately to her side.
"You need not be troubled about me," he said with a most genial smile;--"I
am not suffering--never was further from it in my life."
Fleda could neither answer nor look.
"There are not many hours of the night to wear out," he said. "Can't you
follow your neighbour's example?"
She shook her head.
"This watching is too hard for you. You will have another headache
to-morrow."
"No--perhaps not," she said with a grateful look up.
"You do not feel the cold now, Elfie?"
"Not at all--not in the least--I am perfectly comfortable--I am doing
very well--"
He stood still, and the changing lights and shades on Fleda's cheek
grew deeper.
"Do you know where we are, Mr. Carleton?"
"Somewhere between a town the name of which I have forgotten and a place
called Quarrenton, I think; and Quarrenton, they tell me, is but a few
miles from Greenfield. Our difficulties will vanish, I hope, with the
darkness."
He walked again, and Fleda mused, and wondered at herself in the black
fox. She did not venture another look, though her eye took in nothing very
distinctly but the outlines of that figure passing up and down through the
car. He walked perseveringly; and weariness at last prevailed over
everything else with Fleda; she lost herself with her head leaning against
the bit of wood between the windows.
The rousing of the great coats, and the growing gray light, roused her
before her uneasy sleep had lasted an hour. The lamps were out, the car
was again spotted with two long rows of window-panes, through which the
light as yet came but dimly. The morning had dawned at last, and seemed to
have brought with it a fresh accession of cold, for everybody was on the
stir. Fleda put up her window to get a breath of fresh air and see how the
day looked.
A change of weather had come with the dawn. It was not fine yet. The
snowing had ceased, but the clouds hung overhead still, though not with
the leaden uniformity of yesterday; they were higher and broken into many
a soft grey fold, that promised to roll away from the sky by and by. The
snow was deep on the ground; every visible thing lapped in a thick white
covering; a still, very grave, very pretty winter landscape, but somewhat
dreary in its aspect to a trainful of people fixed in the midst of it out
of sight of human habitation. Fleda felt that, but only in the abstract;
to her it did not seem dreary; she enjoyed the wild solitary beauty of the
scene very much, with many a grateful thought of what might have been. As
it was, she left difficulties entirely to others.
As soon as it was light the various inmates of the strange dormitory
gathered themselves up and set out on foot for Quarrenton. By one of them
Mr. Carleton sent an order for a sleigh, which in as short a time as
possible arrived, and transported him and Fleda and Mrs. Renney, and one
other ill-bestead woman, safely to the little town of Quarrenton.