The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte M. Yonge (good book recommendations TXT) 📖

hill. The horrible responsibility was over, the immediate terror gone, help seemed to be coming at the utmost speed, and tears of relief rushed into Rachel's eyes, tears that Lovedy must have perceived, for she spoke the first articulate words she had uttered since the night-watch had begun, "Please, ma'am, don't fret, I'm going to poor mother."

"You will be better now, Lovedy, here is the doctor," said Rachel, though conscious that this was not the right thing, and then she hastened out on the stairs to meet the gaunt old Scotsman and bring him in. He made Mrs. Kelland raise the child, examined her mouth, felt her feet and hands, which were fast becoming chill, and desired the warm flannels still to be applied to them.

"Cannot her throat be operated on?" said Rachel, a tremor within her heart. "I think we could both be depended on if you wanted us."

"She is too far gone, poor lassie," was the answer; "it would be mere cruelty to torment her. You had better go and lie down, Miss Curtis; her mother and I can do all she is like to need."

"Is she dying?"

"I doubt if she can last an hour longer. The disease is in an advanced state, and she was in too reduced a state to have battled with it, even had it been met earlier."

"As it should have been! Twice her destroyer!" sighed Rachel, with a bursting heart, and again the kind doctor would have persuaded her to leave the room, but she turned from him and came back to Lovedy, who had been roused by what had been passing, and had been murmuring something which had set her aunt off into sobs.

"She's saying she've been a bad girl to me, poor lamb, and I tell her not to think of it! She knows it was for her good, if she had not been set against her work."

Dr. Macvicar authoritatively hushed the woman, but Lovedy looked up with flushed cheeks, and the blue eyes that had been so often noticed for their beauty. The last flush of fever had come to finish the work.

"Don't fret," she said, "there's no one to beat me up there! Please, the verse about the tears."

Dr. Macvicar and the child both looked towards Rachel, but her whole memory seemed scared away, and it was the old Scotch army surgeon that repeated--

"'The Lord God shall wipe off tears from all eyes.' Ah! poor little one, you are going from a world that has been full of woe to you."

"Oh, forgive me, forgive me, my poor child," said Rachel, kneeling by her, the tears streaming down silently.

"Please, ma'am, don't cry," said the little girl feebly; "you were very good to me. Please tell me of my Saviour," she added to Rachel. It sounded like set phraseology, and she knew not how to begin; but Dr. Macvicar's answer made the lightened look come back, and the child was again heard to whisper--"Ah! I knew they scourged Him--for me."

This was the last they did hear, except the sobbing breaths, ever more convulsive. Rachel had never before been present with death, and awe and dismay seemed to paralyse her whole frame. Even the words of hope and prayer for which the child's eyes craved from both her fellow-watchers seemed to her a strange tongue, inefficient to reach the misery of this untimely mortal agony, this work of neglect and cruelty--and she the cause.

Three o'clock had struck before the last painful gasp had been drawn, and Mrs. Kelland's sobbing cry broke forth. Dr. Macvicar told Rachel that the child was at rest. She shivered from head to foot, her teeth chattered, and she murmured, "Accountable for all."

Dr. Macvicar at once made her swallow some of the cordial brought for the poor child, and then summoning the maid whom Grace had stationed in the outer room, he desired her to put her young mistress to bed without loss of time. The sole remaining desire of which she was conscious was to be alone and in the dark, and she passively submitted.


CHAPTER XX. THE SARACEN'S HEAD.


"Alas, he thought, how changed that mien,
How changed those timid looks have been,
Since years of guilt and of disguise
Have steeled her brow and armed her eyes."
Marmion.

"Are you sleepy, Rose? What a yawn!"

"Not sleepy, Aunt Ailie; only it is such a tiresome long day when the Colonel does not come in."

"Take care, Rosie; I don't know what we shall be good for at this rate."

"We? O Aunt Ermine, then you think it tiresome too. I know you do--"

"What's that, Rose!"

"It is! it is! I'll open the door for him."

The next moment Rose led her Colonel in triumph into the lamp-light. There was a bright light in his eye, and yet he looked pale, grave, and worn; and Ermine's first observation was--

"How came Tibbie to let you out at this time of night?"

"I have not ventured to encounter Tibbie at all. I drove up to your door."

"You have been at St. Norbert's all this time," exclaimed Alison.

"Do you think no one can carry on a campaign at St. Norbert's but yourself and your generalissima, Miss Ailie?" he said, stroking down Rose's brown hair.

"Then, if you have not gone home, you have had nothing to eat, and that is the reason you look so tired," said Ermine.

"Yes; I had some luncheon at the Abbey."

"Then, at any rate, you shall have some tea. Rosie, run and fetch the little kettle."

"And the Beauchamp cup and saucer," added Rose, proudly producing the single relic of a well-remembered set of olden times. "And please, please, Aunt Ermine, let me sit up to make it for him. I have not seen him all day, you know; and it is the first time he ever drank tea in our house, except make-believe with Violetta and Colinette."

"No, Rose. Your aunt says I spoil that child, and I am going to have my revenge upon you. You must see the wild beast at his meals another time; for it just happens that I have a good deal to say to your aunts, and it is not intended for your ears."

Rose showed no signs of being spoilt, for she only entreated to be allowed "just to put the tea-things in order," and then, winking very hard, she said she would go.

"Here, Rose, if you please," said Ermine, clearing the space of table before her.

"Why, Aunt Ermine, I did not know you could make tea!"

"There are such things as extraordinary occasions, Rose. Now, good night, my sweet one."

"Good night, my Lady Discretion. We will make up for it one of these days. Don't stay away, pray, Ailie," as Alison was following the child. "I have nothing to say till you come back."

"I know it is good news," said Ermine; "but it has cost you something, Colin."

Instead of answering, he received his cup from her, filled up her tea-pot, and said--

"How long is it since you poured out tea for me, Ermine?"

"Thirteen years next June, when you and Harry used to come in from the cricket field, so late and hot that you were ashamed to present yourself in civilized society at the Great House."

"As if nobody from the Parsonage ever came down to look on at the cricket."

"Yes; being summoned by all the boys to see that nothing would teach a Scotchman cricket."

"Ah! you have got the last word, for here comes Ailie."

"Of course," said Alison, coming in; "Ermine has had the pith of the story, so I had better ask at once what it is."

"That the Beauchamp Eleven beat Her Majesty's --th Foot on Midsummer Day, 1846, is the pith of what I have as yet heard," said Ermine.

"And that Beauchamp ladies are every whit as full of mischief as they used to be in those days, is the sum of what I have told," added Colin.

"Yes," said Ermine, "he has most loyally kept his word of reserving all for you. He has not even said whether Mauleverer is taken."

"My story is grave and sad enough," said Colin, laying aside all his playfulness, and a serious expression coming over his features; but, at the same time, the landlady's sandy cat, which, like all other animals, was very fond of him, and had established herself on his knee as soon as Rose had left it vacant, was receiving a certain firm, hard, caressing stroking, which resulted in vehement purrs on her part, and was evidently an outlet of suppressed exaltation.

"Is he the same?" asked Alison.

"All in due time; unless, like Miss Rachel, you wish to tell me my story yourselves. By-the-bye, how is that poor girl to-day?"

"Thoroughly knocked down. There is a sort of feverish lassitude about her that makes them very anxious. They were hoping to persuade her to see Mr. Frampton when Lady Temple heard last."

"Poor thing! it has been a sad affair for her. Well, I told you I should go over this morning and see Mr. Grey, and judge if anything could be done. I got to the Abbey at about eleven o'clock, and found the policeman had just come back after serving the summons, with the news that Mauleverer was gone."

"Gone!"

"Clean gone! Absconded from his lodgings, and left no traces behind him. But, as to the poor woman, the policeman reported that she had been left in terrible distress, with the child extremely ill, and not a penny, not a thing to eat in the house. He came back to ask Mr. Grey what was to be done; and as the suspicion of diphtheria made every one inclined to fight shy of the house, I thought I had better go down and see what was to be done. I knocked a good while in vain; but at last she looked out of window, and I told her I only wanted to know what could be done for her child, and would send a doctor. Then she told me how to open the door. Poor thing! I found her the picture of desolation, in the midst of the dreary kitchen, with the child gasping on her lap; all the pretence of widowhood gone, and her hair hanging loose about her face, which was quite white with hunger, and her great eyes looked wild, like the glare of a wild beast's in a den. I spoke to her by her own name, and she started and trembled, and said, 'Did Miss Alison tell you?' I said, 'Yes,' and explained who I was, and she caught me up half way: 'O yes, yes, my lady's nephew, that was engaged to Miss Ermine!' And she looked me full and searchingly in the face, Ermine, when I answered 'Yes.' Then she almost sobbed, 'And you are true to her;' and put her hands over her face in an agony. It was a very strange examination on one's constancy, and I put an end to it by asking if she had any friends at home that I could write to for her;