Hills of the Shatemuc Part 126

"I dursn't," said Clam, going on leisurely to light the two large burners of the mantle lamps, -- "Mr. Winthrop told me to get tea for you and do everything just as it was every night; so I knowed these had to be flarin' up -- You ain't goin' to be allowed to sit in the shades no longer."

"I don't want anything!" said Elizabeth. "Don't bring any tea here."

"Then I'll go up and tell him his orders is contrad.i.c.kied,"

said Clam.

"Stop!" said her mistress when she had reached the door walking off, -- "don't carry any foolish speech up stairs at such a time as this; -- fetch what you like and do what you like, -- I don't care."

The room was brilliantly lighted now; and Clam set the salver on the table and brought in the tea-urn; and miserable as she felt, Elizabeth half confessed to herself that her coadjutor up stairs was right. Better this pain than the other. If the body was nothing a gainer, the mind perhaps might be, for keeping up the wonted habits and appearances.

"Ask Mr. Landholm to come down, Clam."

"I did ask him," said the handmaiden, "and he don't want nothin' but biscuits, and he's got lots o' them."

"Won't he have a cup of tea?"

"He knows his own mind mostly," said Clam; "and he says he won't."

"What arrangements can you make for his sleeping up there to- night, Clam?"

"Him and me 'll see to it," responded Clam confidently. "I know pretty much what's in the house; and the best of it ain't too good for him."

So Elizabeth drank her cup of tea alone; and sat alone through the long evening and mused. For still it was rather musing than thinking; going over things past and things present; things future she cared not much to meddle with. It was not a good time, she said, for taking up her religious wants and duties; and in part that was true, severely as she felt them; for her mind was in such a slow fever that none of its pulses were healthful. Fear, and foreboding, for her father and for herself, -- hope springing along with the fear; a strong sense that her character was different from what it ought to be, and a strong wish that it were not, -- and a yet mightier leaning in another direction; -- all of these, meeting and modifying each other and struggling together, seemed to run in her veins and to tell in each beat of the tiny timekeeper at her wrist.

How could she disentangle one from the other, or give a quiet mind to anything, when she had it not to give?

She was just bitterly asking herself this question, when Winthrop came in at the open parlour door; and the immediate bitter thought which arose next was, did he ever have any _but_ a quiet mind to give to anything? The two bitters were so strong upon her tongue that they kept it still; till he had walked up to the neighbourhood of her sofa.

"How is my father, Mr. Landholm?" she said rising and meeting him.

"As you mean the question I cannot answer it -- There is nothing declarative, Miss Elizabeth. Yes," he said kindly, meeting and answering her face, -- "you must wait yet awhile longer."

Elizabeth sat down again, and looked down.

"Are you troubled with fears for yourself?" he said gently, taking a chair near her.

"No --" Elizabeth said, and said truly. She could have told him, what indeed she could not, that since his coming into the house another feeling had overmastered that fear, and kept it under.

"At least," she added, -- "I suppose I have it, but it doesn't trouble me now."

"I came down on principle," said he, -- "to exchange the office of nurse for that of physician; -- thinking it probably better that you should see me for a few minutes, than see n.o.body at all."

"I am sure you were right," said Elizabeth. "I felt awhile ago as if my head would go crazy with too many thoughts."

"Must be unruly thoughts," said Winthrop.

"They were," said she looking up.

"Can't you manage unruly thoughts?"

"No! -- never could."

"Do you know what happens in that case? -- They manage you."

"But how can I help it, Mr. Landholm? There they are, and here am I; -- they are strong and I am weak."

"If they are the strongest, they will rule."

Elizabeth sat silent, thinking her counsellor was very unsatisfactory.

"Are you going to sit up all night, Miss Elizabeth?"

"No -- I suppose not --"

"I shall; so you may feel easy about being alone down here.

There could be no disturbance, I think, without my knowing it.

Let Clam be here to keep you company; and take the best rest you can."

It was impossible for Elizabeth to say a word of thanks, or of his kindness; the words choked her; she was mute.

"Can I do anything, Mr. Landholm?"

"Nothing in the world -- but manage your thoughts," he said smiling.

Elizabeth was almost choked again, with the rising of tears this time.

"But Mr. Landholm -- about that -- what is wrong cannot be necessary; there must be some way of managing them?"

"You know it," he said simply.

But it finished Elizabeth's power of speech. She did not even attempt to look up; she sat pressing her chin with her hand, endeavouring to keep down her heart and to keep steady her quivering lips. Her companion, who in the midst of all her troubles she many times that evening thought was unlike any other person that ever walked, presently went out into the hall and called to Clam over the bal.u.s.ters.

"Is he going to give her directions about taking care of me?"

thought Elizabeth in a great maze, as Winthrop came back into the parlour and sat down again. When Clam appeared however he only bade her take a seat; and then bringing forth a bible from his pocket he opened it and read the ninety-first psalm.

Hardly till then it dawned upon Elizabeth what he was thinking to do; and then the words that he read went through and through her heart like drawn daggers. One after another, one after another. Little he imagined, who read, what strength her estimate of the reader's character gave them; nor how that same estimate made every word of his prayer tell, and go home to her spirit with the sharpness as well as the gentleness of Ithuriel's spear. When Elizabeth rose from her knees, it was with a bowed head which she could in no wise lift up; and after Winthrop had left the room, Clam stood looking at her mistress and thinking her own thoughts, as long as she pleased unrebuked.

"One feels sort o' good after that, now, don't they?" was her opening remark, when Elizabeth's head was at last raised from her hands. "Do you think the roof of any house would ever fall in over _his_ head? He's better'n a regiment o' soldiers."

"Is everything attended to down stairs, Clam?"

"All's straight where the Governor is," said Clam with a sweeping bend of her head, and going about to set the room in order; -- "there ain't two straws laid the wrong way."

"Where he is!" repeated Elizabeth -- "He isn't in the kitchen, I suppose, Clam."

"Whenever he's in the house, always seems to me he's all over," said Clam. "It's about that. He's a governor, you know.

Now Miss 'Lizabeth, how am I goin' to fix you for the night?"

"No way," said Elizabeth. "I shall just sleep here, as I am.

Let the lamps burn, and shut down the blinds."