Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife Part 101

'Oh! Yes, yes--'

'She would not like her to be left so long.'

'I thought you were taking care of her.'

'Oh, yes! but I cannot be the same as you would. One always wants one's mother so much in illness.'

'She was always a mother to me!' The tears came at last, and she wept unrestrainedly; while Violet hung over her with soft caressing words of sympathy that cannot be detailed, till the first grief had had its course, and she again tried the experiment of repeating Theodora's name, and saying how much she was suffering.

Lady Martindale did not reply, but suffered Violet to put on her cloak, and gradually lead her from the room, saying at each pause something of 'poor Theodora.'

The deed was done; it might be by importunity, but it was worth achieving, even at the risk of being vexatious. Lord Martindale could hardly believe his eyes when he saw his wife on her way to the carriage, and Theodora was equally astonished when she appeared at her bedside.

It was a new thing to see one, hitherto healthy and independent, so completely prostrated; and no more was needed to awaken the natural affection so long stifled or thrust aside. Lady Martindale was greatly shocked, and, perhaps magnifying her daughter's illness, had no room for any other thought. She wished to do everything for her herself--would hardly admit Violet's a.s.sistance--and took every care, with skilfulness that was marvellous in one trained to ineffectiveness.

To Theodora her attendance was a new and exquisite repose. It was the first taste of her mother's love, and made her content to be helpless; as there she lay, murmuring thanks, and submitting to be petted with a grateful face of childlike peace, resting in her mother's affection, and made happy by the depth of warm feeling in her father's words.

'It is a good speculation to be ill,' said she, with a smile of strong feeling when they had bidden her good night, and left her to Violet, who was to sleep on a mattress on the floor.

CHAPTER 4

Will you walk into my parlour?' said a spider to a fly.

--MARY HOWITT

And where was Arthur?

Spending the day with his sporting friends, much to his own satisfaction, till in the evening, greatly against his will, he was taken out to dine with an old Mr. Randall, of Gothlands, the master of the hounds.

His nieces, the Misses Marstone, were the ladies of the house--well-dressed people, a little 'pa.s.sees', but apparently not having found it out. Arthur watched the arrivals hoping that the order of precedence might not consign him to the flow of talk, of which he had already had quite a sufficiency, when, to his surprise, two ladies, evidently at home, entered together.

One--thin, sallow, spectacled--was, as he knew, an inhabitant; but the other--small, slight, and retiring, and, in spite of clinging unfresh muslin and shrinking figure, with the unmistakable air of high breeding, was a most unexpected sight. At least, thought he, here was one lady who would not bore him, and making his way to her, he inquired for Lady Elizabeth. Emma, on the other hand, asked after Violet; and it was curious that both questions were put and answered with constraint, as if each was conscious of being something like a truant.

Another surprise. 'Mr. Gardner.' In walked Mark himself, and, after shaking hands with the elder Miss Marstone, came towards Emma and her friend, and was received with cordial familiarity. He entered into conversation with Arthur, drawing a little further from Miss Brandon at each step, till having brought him close to old Mr. Randall, and placed him under the infliction of a long prose about the hounds, he retreated, and was soon again in conversation with the two friends, Emma's face raised and lighted up with eagerness.

Colonel Martindale had no escape from the head of the table and the eldest of the Misses Marstone. Resigning himself to his fate, he made talk; and, though now broader, redder, and somewhat coa.r.s.er in feature and complexion than he had been a few years ago, he looked so gay and unenc.u.mbered, that his neighbour speculated as to whether he could be the eldest son, and resolved to discover what her sister, Sarah Theresa, knew of him.

'It is so pleasant when friends meet unexpectedly,' said she. 'I did not know you were acquainted with either of our guests.'

'Miss Brandon is a near neighbour of my father, and a great friend of Mrs. Martindale.'

Death to any incipient scheme of Miss Marstone; but she smiled on, and remarked, 'A very amiable girl, and a beautiful place, is it not, Rickworth?'

'Very pretty, a fine property,' said Arthur, talking as if in his sleep, for he had caught Mark Gardner's voice saying something about an oratory.

'My sister is often staying there,' proceeded the lady. 'You know Miss Brandon's scheme of restoring the Priory?'

'I did not know that was anything more than talk.'

'I used to think so,' said Miss Marstone; 'but both she and my sister Sarah treat it quite seriously, and Mr. Gardner is their prime counsellor.'

Arthur started, and with difficulty refrained from laughing.

'Ah! I believe he has been a little wild, but that is all over now. He has taken quite a different turn now, and given up everything of that sort--throws himself into all their views.'

'Indeed!' said Arthur, who knew to his cost that if the reform had taken place at all, it must have been of extremely recent date.

'O, yes, I a.s.sure you. He is staying with the curate, Mr. Silworth.'

'Ha! that is an old name at school.'

'Yes; he was an old schoolfellow--a very good man, to whose persuasions everything is owing.'

She pointed him out, and the first glance was a revelation to Arthur, who recognized him as the boy who, at school, had been the most easily taken in. He soon understood the state of affairs. Mark, clever, gentlemanly in appearance, and apt at catching the tone of the society around him, was making a bold stroke--had persuaded his kind-hearted, simple friend to believe him a sincere penitent, and to introduce him as such to the ladies at Gothlands, from whom he caught the talk most pleasing to them. At present it was all ecclesiastical aesthetics, and discontent with the existing system, especially as regarded penitence; by and by, when his hold should be secure, he would persuade the heiress that she had been the prime instrument in his conversion, and that she had gained his heart.

A bit of rhapsody from Miss Sarah Theresa, and poor Emma's embellished and animated countenance, were sufficient indications that they were smoothly gliding into the snare; and accustomed as Arthur was to see Mark Gardner in a very different aspect, he was astonished at his perfect performance of his part--the humility and deference befitting the sense of his errors, and conversation so entirely at home in all their peculiar language and predilections, that Arthur was obliged to feel for the betting-book in his own pocket to convince himself that he was still deeply involved with this most admirable and devoted of penitents. He could not help, as he took leave, giving a knowing look, conveying how easily he could spoil his game.

However, Arthur was in reality much annoyed. Of late years his easy temper had well-nigh surrendered itself to the ascendency of Mark Gardner; and though dissatisfied, remorseful, and anxious, he had allowed himself to be led farther and farther into extravagance. The sight of his home excited regrets, therefore he shunned it; and though weary and discontented in his chains, he was devoid of force or will to break them, and a sort of torpor seemed to make it impossible for him to resist Mark Gardner. Their money matters were much entangled. They had entered into a partnership for keeping horses for the turf, and there was a debt shared between them, the amount of which Arthur dreaded to investigate.

That Gardner should obtain a rich wife would be the greatest relief to Colonel Martindale; but he had rather it should have been any heiress in the world but Emma Brandon. He had a friendly feeling towards her, and a respect for her mother, that made him shrink from allowing her to become a victim, especially when he would himself be the gainer; and, on the other hand, he could not endure to betray a friend,--while he knew that his wife, his father, and his sister would be horrified at his secrecy.

After a night spent in execrating the dinner-party, he received a call from Mr. Gardner, who, without being aware that he took any interest in Miss Brandon, came to put him upon his guard, but found him less manageable than usual. Arthur made a formidable description of Lady Elizabeth's discretion, underrated the value of Rickworth, and declared that it would be so tied up that Mark would gain nothing but a dull, plain little wife. Not thus deterred, Mark only asked of him discretion; and when, trying to cloak his earnest under faltering jest, he declared that he had a regard for the Brandons, and should get into a sc.r.a.pe with his father, his friend held out the allurement of freedom from his difficulties, but was obliged to touch on this lightly, for Arthur's honour was ready to take fire at the notion of being bought. It ended in Gardner's treating the matter as if he had engaged not to betray him, and being hardly gainsaid, otherwise than by a sort of bantering proviso, that in case of an appeal direct, he could not be expected to vouch for Mark's entire and disinterested reformation.

With an intense dislike to the world in general, Arthur was considering how to prevent his wife from meeting Lady Elizabeth, and how to be out of the way before the report should spread of Mark's addresses, when everything else was driven from his mind by the arrival of the papers, with the announcement of the fire at Martindale.

The safety of the infant family of the Honourable Lieutenant-Colonel Martindale was the first news that met his eye; next, that of the death of Mrs. Nesbit,--the chief thought that occupied him in his hasty homeward journey.

He had been taught to think himself her heir; and though never forgiven for his marriage, hoped that the will might not have been altered, and considered that, whether it were in his favour or not, so large a property coming into the family could not fail to render his circ.u.mstances more easy, by enabling his father to augment his allowance, which, though ample in itself, appeared far from sufficient to a man with expensive tastes and an increasing family. The hope of independence, and of not being obliged to wish success to Gardner, was an opening into liberty and happiness.

By night he was at the parsonage, and Violet in his arms as soon as the door was opened. That moment was perfect--he was so eagerly tender, so solicitous lest she should have been injured by terror or exertion, so shocked at her peril in his absence. In the fulness of her heart she even asked him to come and see the children safely asleep.

'Now? What should I do that for?'

There was no unkindness, but the full felicity of the evening was marred.

There was no room for him at the parsonage, and an apartment in the empty house had been fitted up for him, so that she only saw him for an hour of confused talk over the events of the fire, and Theodora's condition, which was very uncomfortable; for though the fever was slight, the burns and bruises were in an unsatisfactory state, and eyes, arms, and hands of very little use. She was patient, and resolute as ever, and so grateful to her nurses that waiting on her was a pleasure.

In fact, attendance on her was the only resource for occupying Lady Martindale, who, when not thus engaged, was listless and dejected, attending to nothing that pa.s.sed around her, and sometimes giving way to inconsolable bursts of grief. It was as if her aunt had been her one idea in life, and without her she could turn to nothing else. Violet was very anxious to prevent the children from molesting her, and in much dread of their troubling her, now that all were in such close quarters.

It was trying to be engaged with Theodora, and to hear the little feet and voices where they were not intended to be.

But when she was able to hasten to the rescue, she beheld Helen in Lady Martindale's lap, and Johnnie by her side, all three intent on making bouquets; and all apologies and proposals to fetch them away were replied to by a.s.surances of their goodness, and the pleasure afforded by their company.

It appeared that while playing in the garden, the little brother and sister had been, as it were, fascinated by watching her fixed melancholy figure in the drawing-room. Again and again they had peeped in at the window, striving to forget, but ever attracted by the sweet compa.s.sion of their hearts; till at last, after much pausing and whispering, they had betaken themselves to the corner of the garden where Cousin Hugh had given permission to gather as they liked, and at the expense of his own small fingers, Johnnie had pulled the first bud of sweet-brier. Lady Martindale had felt a soft touch, and heard a little timid, coaxing voice--'Grandmamma, may we? Would you like this little, young rose?'

while towards her was raised a face delicate and glowing with pale pink like the bud itself.