Heriot's Choice Part 92

Mildred might well say that the sorrows of others shadowed her brightness. During the autumn and winter that followed her marriage her affectionate heart was often oppressed by thoughts of that dreary sickroom. Her husband had predicted from the first that only partial recovery could be expected in Mr. Trelawny's case. A few months or years of helplessness was all that remained to the once lithe and active frame of the master of Kirkleatham.

It was a pitiable wreck that met Richard's eyes one fine June evening in the following year, when he went up to pay his almost daily visit. They had wheeled the invalid on to the sunny terrace that he might enjoy the beautiful view. Below them lay the old gray buildings and church of Kirkby Stephen. The pigeons were sitting in rows on the tower, preparatory to roosting in one of the unoccupied rooms; through the open door one had glimpses of the dark-painted window, with its fern-bordered ledge, and the gleaming javelins on the wall. A book lay on Ethel's lap, but she had long since left off turning the pages. The tale, simple as it was, was wearying to the invalid's oppressed brain. Her wan face brightened at the young curate's approach.

'How is he?' asked Richard in a low voice as he approached her, and dropping his voice.

Ethel shook her head. 'He is very weary and wandering to-night; worse than usual, I fancy. Papa, Richard has come to see us; he is waiting to shake hands with you.'

'Richard--ay, a good lad--a good lad,' returned the sick man, listlessly. His voice was still painfully thick and indistinct, and his eyes had a dull look of vacancy. 'You must excuse my left hand, Richard,' with an attempt at his old courtliness; 'the other is numb or gone to sleep; it is of no use to me at all. Ah, I always told Lambert he ought to be proud of his sons.'

'His thoughts are running on the boys to-night,' observed Ethel, in a low voice. 'He keeps asking after Rupert, and just now he fancied I was my poor mother.'

Richard gave her a grave pitying look, and turned to the invalid. 'I am glad to see you out this lovely evening,' he said, trying gently to rouse his attention, for the thin, dark face had a painful abstracted look.

'Ah, it is beautiful enough,' replied Mr. Trelawny, absently. 'I am waiting for the boys; have you seen them, Richard? Agatha sent them down to the river to bathe; she spoils them dreadfully. Rupert is a fine swimmer; he does everything well; he is his mother's favourite.'

'I think Ethel is looking pale, Mr. Trelawny. Aunt Milly has sent me to fetch her for an hour, if you can spare her?'

'I can always spare Ethel; she is not much use to me. Girls are generally in the way; they are poor things compared with boys. Where is the child, Agatha? Tell her to make haste; we must not keep Richard waiting.'

'Dear papa,' pleaded the girl, 'you are dreaming to-night. Your poor Ethel is beside you.'

'Ah, to be sure,' pa.s.sing his hand wearily through his whitening hair.

'I get confused; you are so like your mother. Ask this gentleman to wheel me in, Ethel; I am getting tired.'

'Is he often like this?' asked Richard, when at last she was free to join him in the porch. The curfew bell was ringing as they walked through the dewy crofts among the tall, sleeping daisies; the cool breeze fanned Ethel's hot temples.

'Yes, very often,' she returned, in a dejected tone. 'It is this that tries me so. If he would only talk to me a little as he used to do before things went wrong; but he only seems to live in the past--his wife and his boys--but it is chiefly Rupert now.'

'And yet he seems restless without you.'

'That is the strangest part; he seems to know me through it all. There are times when he is a little clearer; when he seems to think there is something between us; and then nothing satisfies him, unless I sit beside him and hold his hand. It is so hard to hear him begging my forgiveness over and over again for some imaginary wrong he fancies he has done me.'

'Poor Ethel! Yet he was never dearer to you than he is now?'

'Never,' she returned, drying her eyes. 'Night and day he engrosses my thoughts. I seem to have no room for anything else. Do you know, Richard, I can understand now the pa.s.sionate pity mothers feel for a sick child, for whom they sacrifice rest and comfort. There is nothing I would not do for papa.'

'Aunt Milly says your devotion to him is beautiful.'

Ethel's face grew paler. 'You must not tell me that, Richard; you do not consider that I have to retrieve the coldness of a lifetime. After all, poor papa is right. I have not been a good daughter to him; I have been carping and disagreeable; I have presumed to sit in judgment on my own father; I have separated myself and my pursuits from his, and alienation was the result.'

'For which you were not wholly to blame,' he replied, gently, unable to hear those self-accusations unmoved. Why was she, the dearest and the truest, to go heavily all her days for sins that were not her own?

'No, you must not blame him,' she continued, beseechingly. 'Is he not bearing his own punishment? am I not bearing mine? Oh, it is dreadful!'

her voice suddenly choked with strong emotion. 'Bodily sufferings I could have witnessed with far less misery than I feel at the spectacle of this helplessness and mental decay; to talk to dull ears, to arrest wandering thoughts, to listen hour after hour to confused rambling, Richard, this seems harder than anything.'

'If He--the Master I mean--fell under His cross, do we wonder that we at times sink under ours?' was the low, reverent answer. 'Ethel, I sometimes think how wonderful it will be to turn the page of suffering in another world, and, with eyes purified from earthly rheum, to spell out all the sacred meaning of the long trial that we considered so unbearable--nay, sometimes so unjust.'

Ethel did not trust herself to speak, but a grateful glance answered him. It was not the first time he had comforted her with words which had sunk deep into a subdued and softened heart. She was learning her lesson now, and the task was a hard one to poor pa.s.sionate human flesh and blood. If what Richard said was true, she would not have a pang too many; the sorrowful moments would be numbered to her by the same Father, without whom not even a sparrow could fall to the ground. Could she not safely trust her father to Him?

'Richard, I am always praying to come down from my cross,' she said at last, looking up at the young clergyman with sweet humid eyes. 'And after all He has fastened us there with His own hands. I suppose it is faith and patience for which one should ask, and not only relief?'

'He will give that too in His own good time,' returned Richard, solemnly, and then, as was often the case, a short silence fell between them.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

BERENGARIA

'I have led her home, my love, my only friend, There is none like her, none.

And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wished-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good.

None like her, none.'--Tennyson's _Maud_.

Two years had elapsed since Olive Lambert had made her n.o.ble decision, and during that time triple events had happened. Mr. Trelawny's suffering life was over, Rex had married his faithful Polly, and Dr.

Heriot and Mildred had rejoiced over their first-born son.

Mr. Trelawny did not long survive the evening when Richard found him on the sunny terrace; towards the end of the autumn there was a brief rally, a strange flicker of restless life; his confused faculties seemed striving to clear themselves; at times there was a strained dilated look in the dark eyes that was almost pitiful; he seemed unwilling to have Ethel out of his sight--even for a moment.

One night he called her to him. She was standing at the window finishing some embroidery by the fading light, but at the first sound of the weak, querulous tones, she turned her cheerful face towards him, for however weary she felt, there was always a smile for him.

'What is it, dear father?' for in those sad last days the holy name of father had come involuntarily to her lips. True, she had tasted little of his fatherhood, but still he was hers--her father.

'Put down that tiresome work and come to me,' he went on, fretfully; 'you are always at work--always--as though you had your bread to earn; there is plenty to spare for you. Rupert will take care of you; you need not fear, Ethel.'

'No, dear, I am not afraid,' she returned coming to his side, and parting his hair with her soft fingers.

How often she had kissed those gray streaks, and the poor wrinkled forehead. He was an old man now, bowed and decrepit, sitting there with his lifeless arm folded to his side. But how she loved him--her poor, stricken father!

'No, you were always a good girl. Ethel, are the boys asleep?'

'Yes, both of them, father,' leaning her cheek against his.

'And your mother?'

'Yes, dear.'

'I had a fancy I should like to hear Rupert's voice again. You remember his laugh, Ethel, so clear and ringing? Hal's was not like it; he was quiet and tame compared to Rupert. Ethel,' wistfully, 'it is a long time since I saw my boys.'

'My poor dear, a long, long time!' and then she whispered, almost involuntarily, '"I shall go to them, but they shall not return to me."'

He caught the meaning partially.

'Yes, we will go to them--you and I,' he returned, vacantly, patting her cheek as she hung over him. 'Don't cry, Ethel, they are good boys, and shall have their rights; but I have not forgotten you. You have been a good daughter to me--better than I deserved. I shall tell your mother so when----'