Heriot's Choice Part 66

'Heaven only knows, Richard! This is a wretched business; there seems nothing but trouble everywhere,' and Mildred almost wrung her hands.

Richard thought he had never seen her so agitated--so unlike herself.

The days and weeks that followed tried Mildred sorely; heavy autumnal rains had set in; wet gra.s.s, dripping foliage, heaps of rotting leaves saturated with moisture, met her eyes daily. A sunless, lurid atmosphere surrounded everything; by and by the rain ceased, and a merciless wind drove across the fells, drying up the soddened pools, whirling the last red leaves from the bare stems, and threatening to beat in the vicarage windows.

A terrible scarping wind, whose very breath was bitterness to flesh and blood, blatant and unresting, filled the valley with a strange voice and life.

The river was full to the brim now; the brown water that rushed below the terrace carried away sticks and branches, and light eddying leaves; great fires roared up the vicarage chimneys, while the girls sat and shivered beside them.

Those nights were terrible to Mildred--the wild stir and tumult, the fury of the great rushing wind, fevered her blood with strange excitement, and drove sleep from her pillow, or, when weariness overcame her, haunted her brain with painful images.

Never had the tranquil soul so lacked tranquillity, never had daily life, never had the many-folded hours, held such torture for her.

'I must have change, or I shall be ill,' she thought, as she contemplated her wan and bloodless exterior morning after morning.

'Anything but that--anything but having him pitying me.'

Relief by his hand might be sweet indeed; but a doubt of her own power of self-control, should weakness seize upon her, oppressed her like a nightmare, and the longing to escape from her daily ordeal of suffering amounted to actual agony.

Morning after morning she opened Richard's letters, in the hope that her proposal had been accepted, but each morning some new delay or object fretted her.

Richard had remained in London up to the last possible moment. Roy's injured foot had rendered him dependent on his brother's nursing; his obstinacy had led to a great deal of unnecessary delay and suffering; wakeful and hara.s.sed nights had undermined his strength, and made him so nervous and irritable by day, that only patience and firm management could effect any improvement; he was so reckless that it required coaxing to induce him to take the proper remedies, or to exert himself in the least; he had not yet roused himself, or resumed his painting, and all remonstrances were at present unavailing.

Mildred sighed over this fresh evidence of Roy's weakness and instability of purpose, and then she remembered that he was suffering, perhaps ill. No one knew better than herself the paralysing effects on will and brain caused by anxiety and want of sleep; some stimulus, stronger than she or Richard could administer, was needful to rouse Roy's dormant energies.

Help came when they had least looked for it.

'Is Roy painting anything now?' asked Polly suddenly, one day, when she was alone with Mildred.

[Mildred was writing to Richard; his last letter lay open beside her on the table. Polly had glanced at it once or twice, but she had not questioned Mildred concerning its contents. Polly had fallen into very quiet ways lately; the pretty pink colour had never returned to her face, the light footstep was slower now, the merry laugh was less often heard, a sweet wistful smile had replaced it; she was still the same busy active Polly, gentle and affectionate, as of old, but some change, subtle yet undefinable, had pa.s.sed over the girl. Dr. Heriot liked the difference, even though he marvelled at it. 'Polly is looking quite the woman,' he would say presently. Mildred paused, a little startled over Polly's abrupt question.]

'Richard does not say; it is not in his letter, my dear,' she stammered.

'Not in this one, perhaps, but in his last,' persisted Polly. 'Try to remember, Aunt Milly; how does Richard say that Rex occupies himself?'

'I am afraid he is very idle,' returned Mildred, reluctantly.

Polly coloured, and looked distressed.

'But his foot is better; he is able to stand, is he not?'

'I believe so. Richard certainly said as much as that.'

'Then it is very wrong for him to be losing time like this; he will not have his picture in the Academy after all. Some one ought to write and remind him,' faltered Polly, with a little heat.

'I have done so more than once, and Richard is for ever lecturing. Roy is terribly desultory, I am afraid.'

'Indeed you are wrong, Aunt Milly,' persisted the girl earnestly. 'Roy loves his work--dearly--dearly--it is only his foot, and--' she broke down, recovered herself, and hurried on--

'I think it would be a good thing if Dad Fabian were to go and talk to him. I will write to him--yes, and I will write to Roy.'

Mildred did not venture to dissuade her; she had a notion that perhaps Polly's persuasion might be more efficacious than Richard's arguments.

She took it quite as a matter of course, when, half an hour later, Polly laid the little note down beside her.

'There, you may read it,' she said, hurriedly. 'Let it go in Richard's letter; he may read it too, if he likes.'

It was very short, and covered the tiniest sheet of note-paper; the pretty handwriting was not quite so steady as usual.

'My dearest brother Roy,' it began--never had she called him that before--'I have never written to thank you for your note. It was a dear, kind note, and I love you for writing it; do not be afraid of my misunderstanding or thinking you unkind; you could not be that to any one. I am so thankful your poor foot is better; it has been terrible to think of your suffering all this time. I am so afraid it must have interfered with your painting, and that you have not got on well with the picture you began when you were here. Roy, dear, you must promise to work at it harder than ever, and as soon as you are able. I am sure it will be the best picture you have ever done, and I have set my heart on seeing it in the Academy next year; but unless you work your hardest, there will be no chance of that. I have asked Dad Fabian to come and lecture you. You and he must have one of your clever art-talks, and then you must get out your palette and brushes, and set to work on that pretty little girl's red cloak.

'Do, Roy--do, my dear brother. Your loving friend, POLLY.

'Be kind to Dad Fabian. Make much of the dear old man. Remember he is Polly's friend.'

It was the morning after the receipt of this letter, so Richard informed Mildred, that Roy crept languidly from the sofa, where he spent most of his days, and sat for a long time fixedly regarding the unfinished canvas before him.

Richard made no observation, and shortly left the room. When he returned an hour afterwards, Roy was working at a child's drapery, with compressed lips and frowning brow.

He tossed back his fair hair with the old irritable movement as his brother smiled approval.

'Well done, Roy; there is nothing like making a beginning after all.'

'I hate it as much as ever,' was the sullen answer. 'I am only doing it because--she told me--and I don't mean to disappoint her. I am her slave; she might put her pretty foot on my neck if she liked. Ah, Polly, Polly, what a poor fool you have made of me.' And Roy put his head on the easel, and fairly groaned.

But there was no shirking labour after that. Roy spent long moody hours over his work, while Richard sat by with his books. An almost unbroken silence prevailed in the young artist's studio. 'The sweet whistler' in Dr. Heriot's little gla.s.s-house no longer existed; a half-stifled sigh, or an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of impatience, only reached Richard's ears from time to time; but Roy seemed to have no heart for conversation,--nothing interested him, his attention flagged after the first few minutes.

Richard was obliged to go back to Oxford at the beginning of the term; but Dad Fabian took his place. Mildred learnt to her dismay that the old man was located at the cottage, at Roy's own wish, and was likely to remain for some weeks. How Mildred's heart sank at the news; her plan had fallen to the ground; the change and quiet for which she was pining were indefinitely postponed.

No one but Dr. Heriot guessed how Mildred's strength was failing; but his well-meant inquiries were evidently so unpalatable that he forbore to press them. Only once or twice he hinted to Mr. Lambert that he thought his sister was looking less strong than usual, and wanted change of air.

'Heriot tells me that you are not looking well--that you want a change, Mildred,' her brother said to her one day, and, to his surprise, she looked annoyed, and answered more hastily than her wont--

'There is nothing the matter with me, at least nothing of consequence. I am not one of those who are always fancying themselves ill.'

'But you are thinner. Yes, I am sure he is right; you are thinner, Mildred.'

'What nonsense, Arnold; he has put that in your head.

By and by I shall be glad of a little change, I daresay. When Mr. Fabian leaves Roy, I mean to take his place.'

'A good idea,' responded Mr. Lambert, warmly; 'it will be a treat for Rex, and will do you good at the same time. I was thinking of running up myself after Christmas. One sees so little of the boy, and his letters are so short and unsatisfactory; he seems a little dull, I fancy.'

'Mr. Fabian will cheer him up,' replied Mildred, evasively. She was thankful when her brother went back to his study. She felt more than usually oppressed and languid that day, though she would not own it to herself; her work wearied her, and the least effort to talk jarred the edge of her nerves.

'How dreadful it is to feel so irritable and cross, as I have done lately,' she thought. 'Perhaps after all he is right, and I am not so strong as usual; but I cannot have them all fancying me ill. The bare idea is intolerable. If I am going to be ill, I hope I may know it, that I may get away somewhere, where his kindness will not kill me.'

She shivered here, partly from the thought, and partly from the opening of the door. A keen wind whistled through the pa.s.sage, a rush of cold air followed Polly as she entered. Dr. Heriot was with her.

His cordial greeting was as hearty as ever.

'All alone, and in the dark, and positively doing nothing; how unlike Aunt Milly,' he said, in his cheerful quizzical voice; and kneeling down on the rug, he stirred the fire, and threw on another log, rousing a flame that lighted up the old china and played on the ebony chairs and cabinet.