Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife Part 30

'I could not be spared sooner, ma'am.'

'Spared? I think you have come out in a new capacity.'

John never went up his aunt without expecting to undergo a penance.

'I was sorry no one else could be with Arthur, but being there, I could not leave him.'

'And your mother tells me you are going back again.'

'Yes, to stand G.o.dfather.'

'To the son and heir, as they called him in the paper. I gave Arthur credit for better taste; I suppose it was done by some of her connections?'

'I was that connection,' said John.

'Oh! I suppose you know what expectations you will raise?'

John making no answer, she grew more angry. 'This one, at least, is never likely to be heir, from what I hear; it is only surprising that it is still alive.'

How Theodora hung upon the answer, her very throat aching with anxiety, but hardening her face because John looked towards her.

'We were very much afraid for him at first,' he said, 'but they now think there is no reason he should not do well. He began to improve from the time she could attend to him.'

A deep sigh from his mother startled John, and recalled the grief of his childhood--the loss of two young sisters who had died during her absence on the continent. He crossed over and stood near her, between her and his aunt, who, in agitated haste to change the conversation, called out to ask her about some club-book. For once she did not attend; and while Theodora came forward and answered Mrs. Nesbit, she tremulously asked John if he had seen the child.

'Only once, before he was an hour old. He was asleep when I came away; and, as Arthur says, it is a serious thing to disturb him, he cries so much.'

'A little low melancholy wailing,' she said, with a half sob. But Mrs.

Nesbit would not leave her at peace any longer, and her voice came beyond the screen of John's figure:--

'Lady Martindale, my dear, have you done with those books! They ought to be returned.'

'Which, dear aunt?' And Lady Martindale started up as if she had been caught off duty, and, with a manifest effort, brought her wandering thoughts back again, to say which were read and which were unread.

John did not venture to revert to a subject that affected his mother so strongly; but he made another attempt upon his sister, when he could speak to her apart. 'Arthur has been wondering not to hear from you.'

'Every one has been writing,' she answered, coldly.

'He wants some relief from his constant attendance,' continued John; 'I was afraid at first it would be too much for him, sitting up three nights consecutively, and even now he has not at all recovered his looks.'

'Is he looking ill?' said Theodora.

'He has gone through a great deal, and when she tries to make him go out, he only goes down to smoke. You would do a great deal of good if you were there.'

Theodora would not reply. For Arthur to ask her to come and be G.o.dmother was the very thing she wished; but she would not offer at John's bidding, especially when Arthur was more than ever devoted to his wife; so she made no sign; and John repented of having said so much, thinking that, in such a humour, the farther she was from them the better.

Yet what he had said might have worked, had not a history of the circ.u.mstances of Violet's illness come round to her by way of Mrs.

Nesbit. John had told his father; Lord Martindale told his wife; Lady Martindale told her aunt, under whose colouring the story reached Theodora, that Arthur's wife had been helpless and inefficient, had done nothing but cry over her household affairs, could not bear to be left alone, and that the child's premature birth had been occasioned by a fit of hysterics because Arthur had gone out fishing. No wonder Theodora pitied the one brother, and thought the other infatuated. To write to Arthur was out of the question; and she could only look forward to consoling him when the time for London should come. Nor was she much inclined to compa.s.sionate John, when, as he said, the east wind--as his aunt said, the London fog--as she thought, the Rickworth meadows--brought on such an accession of cough that he was obliged to confine himself to his two rooms, where he felt unusually solitary.

She went in one day to carry him the newspaper. 'I am writing to Arthur,' he said, 'to tell him that I shall not be able to be in London next Sunday; do you like to put in a note?'

'No, I thank you.'

'You have no message?'

'None.'

He paused and looked at her. 'I wish you would write,' he said. 'Arthur has been watching eagerly for your congratulation.'

'He does not give much encouragement,' said Theodora, moving to the door.

'I wish he was a letter writer! After being so long with them, I don't like hearing nothing more; but his time has been so much engrossed that he could hardly have written at first. I believe the first letter he looked for was from you.'

'I don't know what to say. Other people have said all the commonplace things.'

'You would not speak in that manner--you who used to be so fond of Arthur--if you by any means realized what he has gone through.'

Theodora was touched, but would not show it. 'He does not want me now,'

she said, and was gone, and then her lips relaxed, and she breathed a heavy sigh.

John sighed too. He could not understand her, and was sensible that his own isolation was as a consequence of having lived absorbed in his affection and his grief, without having sought the intimacy of his sister. His brother's family cares had, for the first time, led him to throw himself into the interests of those around him, and thus aroused from the contemplation of his loss, he began to look with regret on opportunities neglected and influence wasted. The stillness of his own room did not as formerly suffice to him; the fears and hopes he had lately been sharing rose more vividly before him, and he watched eagerly for the reply to his letter.

It came, not from Arthur, but in the pointed style of Violet's hardest steel pen, when Matilda's instructions were most full in her mind; stiff, cramped, and formal, as if it had been a great effort to write it, and John was grieved to find that she was still in no state for exertion. She had scarcely been down-stairs, and neither she nor the baby were as yet likely to be soon able to leave the house, in spite of all the kind care of Lady Elizabeth and Miss Brandon. Violet made numerous apologies for the message, which she had little thought would cause Mr. Martindale to alter his route.

In fact, those kind friends had been so much affected by John's account of Violet's weak state, under no better nursing than Arthur's, that, as he had hoped, they had hastened their visit to London, and were now settled as near to her as possible, spending nearly the whole of their time with her. Emma almost idolized the baby, and was delighted at Arthur's grateful request that she would be its sponsor, and Violet was as happy in their company as the restlessness of a mind which had not yet recovered its tone, would allow her to be.

In another fortnight John wrote to say that he found he had come home too early, and must go to the Isle of Wight till the weather was warmer.

In pa.s.sing through London, he would come to Cadogan-place, and it was decided that he should arrive in time to go with the baby to church on the Tuesday, and proceed the next morning.

He arrived as Violet came down to greet her party of sponsors. Never had she looked prettier than when her husband led her into the room, her taper figure so graceful in her somewhat languid movements, and her countenance so sweetly blending the expression of child and mother. Each white cheek was tinged with exquisite rose colour, and the dark liquid eyes and softly smiling mouth had an affectionate pensiveness far lovelier than her last year's bloom, and yet there was something painful in that beauty--it was too like the fragility of the flower fading under one hour's sunshine; and there was a sadness in seeing the matronly stamp on a face so young that it should have shown only girlhood's freedom from care. Arthur indeed was boasting of the return of the colour, which spread and deepened as he drew attention to it; but John and Lady Elizabeth agreed, as they walked to church, that it was the very token of weakness, and that with every kind intention Arthur did not know how to take care of her--how should he?

The cheeks grew more brilliant and burning at church, for on being carried to the font, the baby made his doleful notes heard, and when taken from his nurse, they rose into a positive roar. Violet looked from him to his father's face, and there saw so much discomposure that her wretchedness was complete, enhanced as it was by a sense of wickedness in not being able to be happy and grateful. Just as when a few days previously she had gone to return thanks, she had been in a nervous state of fluttering and trembling that allowed her to dwell on nothing but the dread of fainting away. The poor girl's nerves had been so completely overthrown, that even her powers of mind seemed to be suffering, and her agitated manner quite alarmed Lady Elizabeth. She was in good hands, however; Lady Elizabeth went home with her, kept every one else away, and nursing her in her own kind way, brought her back to common sense, for in the exaggeration of her weak spirits, she had been feeling as if it was she who had been screaming through the service, and seriously vexing Arthur.

He presently looked in himself to say the few fond merry words that were only needed to console her, and she was then left alone to rest, not tranquil enough for sleep, but reading hymns, and trying to draw her thoughts up to what she thought they ought to be on the day of her child's baptismal vows.

It was well for her that the christening dinner (a terror to her imagination) had been deferred till the family should be in town, and that she had no guest but John, who was very sorry to see how weary and exhausted she looked, as if it was a positive effort to sit at the head of the table.

When the two brothers came up to the drawing-room, they found her on the sofa.

'Regularly done for!' said Arthur, sitting down by her. 'You ought to have gone to bed, you perverse woman.'

'I shall come to life after tea,' said she, beginning to rise as signs of its approach were heard.

'Lie still, I say,' returned Arthur, settling the cushion. 'Do you think no one can make tea but yourself! Out with the key, and lie still.'

'I hope, Violet,' said John, 'you did not think the Red Republicans had been in your drawers and boxes. I am afraid Arthur may have cast the blame of his own doings on the absent, though I a.s.sure you I did my best to protect them.'

'Indeed he did you more justice,' said Violet, 'he told me the box was your setting to rights, and the drawer his. It was very honest of him, for I must say the box did you most credit.'