GLOOMY FOREBODINGS.
When Fred came back to himself again after he had, as it seemed to
him, gone through ages of time, and lived in scenes and places
remotely apart from his present uncomfortable position, he found
himself lying on some cold flagging oil-cloth in a dimly lighted
passage, with his head supported on some one's knees, and two eager,
anxious eyes, glaring into his face with a scrutiny which, though it
was awestruck and terrified, yet had no threatening or sinister
expression.
"Fred, Fred, old fellow, are you better? do say you're better," cried
a voice whose anxious tones corresponded with the anxious gaze above
him; but the dizziness was so great and the faintness so oppressive,
Fred could not respond, and closed his eyes again with a shuddering
sigh.
"I do believe he's off again; what are we to do? I say, Kathleen,
has that place stopped bleeding yet?"
"Not quite," replied a very sorrowful voice behind his head; and then
Fred felt that some one was stanching a wound behind his ear with a
handkerchief.
"If he does not come round soon, we must rouse up some one or other:
it's awful having him here, perhaps dying, all by ourselves in the
middle of the night;" and Fred heard distinctly the dry sob which
finished this hopeless remark.
"Wait a minute," he managed to say, while he tried to raise his head
a little from his sister's knee. "If you give me time I shall be all
right." A fearful remembrance was beginning to dawn on his mind, and
a rising sense of jeopardy and danger close at hand. He moaned aloud.
"There, then, don't hurry, and you'll soon be all right, old man.
There is no good trying to sit up until you are able, so lie still a
bit longer."
"But we shall have the whole place about our ears if we don't hurry?"
and Fred looked up inquiringly at his brother.
"Not a fear of it; it is only four o'clock, and there won't be a soul
stirring for another hour and a half."
Then Fred drew a deep sigh and closed his eyes, lying back heavily on
his sister's arm till they thought he had almost fallen asleep; but
by-and-by he asked, in a tremulous, anxious voice, "Harry, I suppose
I made an awful smash of it."
"Of what?"
"Of the chess-box and everything."
"To tell you the truth I don't know, for I just hauled you out the
best way I could; and precious hard work it was too, to get you over
that brutal shelf, and the whole place a mess of honey and bees-wax."
"Did you close the door after you even?"
"How could I, when I had you in my arms?"
"And you left it standing wide open for every one to know what has
happened!" and Fred covered his face with his hands in the misery of
his recollections.
"It's not too late to shut it now, if that's all you want," said
Harry, leaping to his feet.
"And cut off the ends of the string while you are about it, like a
good fellow," moaned Fred.
"What string?"
"The string fastened to the bolts."
"I have not a notion what you mean; but I suppose I shall find out."
And Harry soon disappeared round the corner of the passage which led
to the store-room door.
He was a long time away, and when he came back Fred was sitting up
and watching for him anxiously.
"There!" he cried, tossing three or four ends of cord on his
brother's knees. "It took me a good ten minutes to gnaw these
ruffians across. If they were the ropes of a four-master, they could
not be tougher or harder to break."
"Did you chink the bolts back again into their place?" asked Fred
uneasily.
"Ay did I; and one fellow squeaked like blue murder. But I say,
Fred, if you are all right now, we had better peg on, for I thought I
heard a stir in the lower regions, and the place will soon be alive
with housemaids and besoms."
Thus admonished, Fred rose from the ground, and with the assistance
of Harry and Kathleen stood straight up on his feet.
"How do you feel now?"
"Just a little shaky in the upper story. But never mind; once I am
in bed I shall be all right."
Harry blew out his candle, as the dawn was now on the increase; and
the three slowly and cautiously made their way along passages and
through doorways, until at last they stood in the main hall, with its
statues and grim warriors keeping guard at the foot of the staircase.
Fred's knees were shaking beneath him, and his heart sickened at the
sight of the numerous steps before him.
"Gather up all your courage, and you'll be there before you know
where you are," whispered Harry, whose brotherly eyes read every
thought of Fred's heart.
"I know I wish I never had come down them," murmured Fred
despondingly; and, leaning heavily on the supporting arms held out to
him, he wearily plodded on to the top, when, with one more almost
despairing effort, he staggered forward to the door of his own room,
which Harry pushed open, and Fred, stretching out his hand in the
gloom of the closely darkened room, sank helplessly on the nearest
chair, with closed eyes and a gray pallor spreading over all his face.
"Safe at last!" gasped Harry, as he felt his way over to the window,
and turned back one leaf of the shutter to admit some light. "But oh
what an awful night it has been! I would not go through it again for
twenty pounds!"
"Yes; and what will happen to us to-morrow, when Aunt Marian finds it
all out?" continued Kathleen, in a dolorous whisper--
"For goodness' sake, do stop talking!" cried Fred piteously. "Don't
you see how miserable I am already! Could not you lend me an arm one
of you to help me into bed?"
Harry instantly came forward and gave his brother his arm, assisting
him across the room, and laying him down tenderly in the bed, where
he covered him up with the clothes; and having examined the wound
behind his ear, to see that it was no longer bleeding, he moved
quietly away.
"Kathleen, go to your bed now," he said, turning round to his sister,
who stood trembling in her night-dress and bare feet in the centre of
the room. "I am afraid you will have caught your death of cold in
these passages. Roll yourself up as warmly as you can in the
blankets, and the first person I hear stirring in the house I'll send
and get you a hot cup of tea."
Kathleen lingered, however, a few minutes, just to see that Fred was
all right, and settling comfortably for sleep; and as there was no
movement, and his breathing sounded tolerably easy and regular, she
presently turned away, and with a glance cast towards Harry,
expressive of the most gloomy forebodings, she opened the door of her
own room and retired to bed.
Harry, however, could not think of rest: he drew his chair over
beside the open shutter, and looked out over the parterre beneath,
with its still sleeping flowers, on to the gray and drowsy world
beyond.
Even the crows in the rookery were not stirring yet; only the
sentinels on the outermost branches gave an occasional "caw," and
flapped their black wings ominously.
But the daylight was close at hand, for all that; and he had not sat
there long before the sun rose up behind the hills, and with it the
whole face of nature grew bright and beautiful. The birds began to
sing vigorously, and the gloom and mystery of the twilight
disappeared.
Yet somehow this glow and cheerful sunlight brought no comfort to
Harry's mind. On the contrary, in exact proportion to the increased
glory and beauty of the outside world the darkness and despair of his
heart deepened, and the consequences of the last night's adventure
assumed every moment more terrible proportions.
Oh what a jolly time they might have had if things had not gone
wrong! How beautiful and grand and splendid a place it was, with its
gardens, and fountains, and woods, and gymnasium, and every pleasure
that could be thought of! And Harry's eyes roamed over all the
demesne with an overpowering melancholy, as he thought of the
leave-taking which his heart told him only too surely was close at
hand.
And how had all this misery come about, which for the last few days
had been hedging them in closer and closer, round and round, and
which now seemed to hide out all that was peaceful and bright. It
was a subject for deep thought and consideration, and the
disentangling of all the wretchedness of the last few days was by no
means an agreeable or lively task; and Harry's sighs followed so
quickly and unconsciously one upon the other, that at length there
was a stir in the far-off bed, and Fred cried out in a voice of
anguish,--
"Harry, do stop groaning and sighing over there at the window! If
you were as miserable as I am, you might sigh till your heart burst,
and it would do you no good in the end."
"You cannot be more miserable than I am," said Harry quickly, while
he bent his head down upon his folded arm on the window-sill.
"Why, what have _you_ to be unhappy about, I'd like to know? _You_
have done nothing wrong: you have not got into a single row since you
came into the house, while I have been plunging out of one only to
fall into another twice as bad. I'd give all I have in the world
this moment to be safe at home, and awake in the morning and find the
whole thing had been a beastly nightmare. If mother had been here,
that's all: but there is no use in thinking of 'ifs;' only what a
difference it would have made! And yet," added Fred; and then
followed a long pause, during which time his face grew unusually
grave and thoughtful, and undeniable tears came up into his eyes.
"And yet what?" asked Harry timidly, for Fred did not always like
having his thoughts "fished up into the light," as he called it; but
this time he only stretched out his arms kindly towards his brother,
and said in a softened voice:--
"I remember when I was first revelling in the thought of coming here
and staying with Aunt Marian, I thought nearly the best of the whole
thing, if not quite, was, that neither father nor mother would be
with us, and that we should be able to have everything and to do
everything just as we liked ourselves; and now I feel exactly the
opposite way. If you only knew the longing I have this moment--the
actually cruel longing--for mother to come and sit beside my bed,
you'd pity me. I fell asleep a moment ago, just for a second, and
dreamt she was going over my Delectus with me outside in the dear old
verandah at home; and when I awoke, and saw the corner of the wall
paper beside my bed, and knew I was here instead of with her, I
actually writhed under the clothes with misery and wretchedness."
And as he spoke, Fred threw himself suddenly back in the bed, and
covered up his head with the clothes, and Harry could see by the
heaving of the counterpane that once more his brother was seeking in
his despair to smother down the grief which oppressed him.
At length the time came when it was necessary to think of washing and
dressing. The footman came in with hot water, and carried down their
clothes to be brushed; nor did Harry discover that he was still
partially dressed in his evening costume until John asked him
politely if he would not like his black trousers to be taken down to
be cleaned. And then he remembered with a start of horror how he had
drawn on the first pair that came to his hand the night before; and
now, as he gave them up into the man's keeping, he felt convinced
that soon the whole affair would be known and talked of downstairs,
and that these very garments, which he so reluctantly yielded, would
become, as it were, proofs of his complicity. It was impossible,
however, to defer the ordeal of breakfast and prayers; and he slowly
began to draw on his stockings and clothes, wondering all the time
whether he ought to rouse Fred, who seemed to have fallen asleep, or
at least to be in a more composed and tranquil frame of mind.
Fred, however, needed no reminder of the hour. It was only a
question of sickness and faintness which had kept him so still and
silent; and now that this was beginning to pass off he slowly raised
himself up in his bed, and began with evident effort to look matters
in the face, and make up his mind what course of conduct he ought to
pursue.
"Harry, throw me over one of my suspenders,--there's a good fellow,"
he said presently. "I must get up and dress and go down and face
them all, or they'd be suspecting something, and getting wind of the
whole affair before I've had time to think the matter out, and settle
what's best to be done. My own idea is, that the moment breakfast is
over I'll just cut and run and make the best of my way home somehow.
I don't care how, so as I can bolt before the thing is discovered,
and my name turned into a laughing-stock for the amusement of the
company at large."
"Fred, you are only humbugging; you would not really do such a
cowardly thing."
"Cowardly! how do you mean? It's not a bit cowardly. I just ask
you, now, is a fellow supposed to sit down quietly on a barrel of
gunpowder and wait till it explodes? Nonsense; of course not. 'He
who fights and runs away, will live to fight another day;' and on
that principle I shall certainly cut and run. But oh, I say, Harry,
shove us over a chair; I'm so dead sick I cannot stand. Ugh!" and
Fred sank down on the top of a portmanteau and closed his eyes, while
the deadly paleness crept again over his face.
At this moment there was a knock at the bedroom door, and Harry,
scarcely conscious of what he was saying or doing, so engrossed was
he by Fred's sudden faintness, cried out, "Come in." The door
accordingly opened, and Maurice walked in.
"Well, Fred, old fellow," he cried heartily, "I just came to look
after you, as I heard from John you weren't quite the thing--but--;"
here Maurice stood quite still in the centre of the room, aghast at
the pallor of Fred's face, and the evident distress and anxiety
depicted in his cousin's countenance. "Good gracious, Fred, what's
the matter with you? you do look ill, and no mistake."
"It's nothing, nothing in the least to signify," cried Fred
nervously, and waving back his cousin. "I don't want anything, I
assure you: please go downstairs and never mind me; I'll follow
presently."
"Nonsense, man, you must not think of coming downstairs when you're
so ill; get back into bed, and I'll bring you up a cup of coffee.
Do, that's a good fellow; indeed, you are not well enough to be up
and going about."
"Yes, do go back to bed," urged Harry. "You know you are as faint as
ever you can be; and even if you did make your way downstairs, you
would have to come up again."
Thus urged, and feeling himself too miserable to argue, Fred
consented to return to the bed; but he utterly refused to lean on
Maurice's extended arm, not through pride or vexation, but because he
feared Maurice might see the wound behind his ear, and question him
about it.
"I say, what a smell of honey there is everywhere," observed Maurice,
as he stood by the chair on which Fred had cast his socks. "I have
noticed it over the whole place ever since I got up this morning."
No one replied to this remark. Harry was assisting Fred into bed,
and pale as was Fred's face, it was well for him it was turned
towards the wall, or the shudder caused by a sudden renewal of his
fears must have been apparent even to his unsuspecting cousin.
The gong for prayers happily sounding at this moment came to the
relief of all parties, and Harry, with many promises of a speedy
return, left the room in company with Maurice, who, not understanding
the restraint and gravity of his cousin's manner, felt uneasy and
constrained.
As they went down the broad staircase, Maurice once more spoke about
the strong odour of honey through the hall and along the passages,
and expressed some curiosity and surprise about the matter; but even
these apparently innocent remarks seemed unfortunately chosen, for
Harry coloured crimson, and freeing his arm from his cousin, pushed
his way down the stairs in front of him.
Lady Brinsley greeted Harry very affectionately on his entrance; and
only thinking that Fred was a little late, made no remark on his
absence until prayers were finished, when Maurice having told her of
Fred's illness, she inquired most anxiously about him, and offered,
when breakfast was over, to go up and see him, and then, if
necessary, to send for advice to the neighbouring town.
Harry listened to her kind and thoughtful suggestions in almost total
silence; only a stray "Thank you," or, "I am sure you are very kind,
aunt," dropping from his lips like so many stones instead of words.
Not till Lady Brinsley paused and questioned him whether he was ill
himself did he rouse himself up sufficiently to give a definite
answer.
He assured her he was quite well; he had not slept much, that was
all, and that after breakfast they would both be as right as trivets.
And so anxious was he to take his place at the table, and thus avoid
further questioning, that he became entirely oblivious of Fred and
his breakfast, and unobservant of the fact that Maurice had already
poured out the coffee and carried the tray up to his cousin's room.