Hills of the Shatemuc Part 127

"And then will I go off to the second story and leave you?"

"No, indeed -- Fetch something that you can lay on the floor, and stay here with me."

Which Clam presently did; nothing more than a blanket however; and remarked as she curled herself down with her head upon her arm,

"Ain't he a handsome man, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"Who? --" ungraciously enough.

"Why, the Governor."

"Yes, for aught I know. Lie still and go to sleep, Clam, if you can; and let me."

Very promptly Clam obeyed this command; but her less happy mistress, as soon as the deep drawn breaths told her she was alone again, sat up on her sofa to get in a change of posture a change from pain.

How alone! -- In the parlour after midnight, with the lamps burning as if the room were gay with company; herself, in her morning dress, on the sofa for a night's rest, and there on her blanket on the carpet, Clam already taking it. How it told the story, of illness and watching and desertion and danger; how it put life and death in near and strong contrast; and the summer wind blew in through the blinds and pushed the blinds themselves gently out into the room, just as Elizabeth had seen and felt in many a bright and happy hour not so long past. The same summer breath, and the summer so different!

Elizabeth could hardly bear it. She longed to rush up stairs where there was somebody; but then she must not; and then the remembrance that somebody was there quieted her again. That thought stirred another train, the old contrast between him and herself, the contrast between his condition and hers, now brought more painfully than ever home. "He is ready to meet anything," she thought, -- "nothing can come amiss to him; -- he is as ready for that world as for this -- and more!" --

The impression of the words he had read that evening came back to her afresh, and the recollection of the face with which he had read them, -- calm, happy, and at rest; -- and Elizabeth threw herself off the sofa and kneeled down to lay her head and arms upon it, in mere agony of wish to change something, or rather of the felt want that something should be changed. O that she were at peace like him! O that she had like him a sure home and possession beyond the reach of sickness and death! O that she were that rectified, self-contained, pure, strong spirit, that he was! -- The utmost of pa.s.sionate wish was in the tears that wept out these yearnings of heart -- pet.i.tions they half were, -- for her mind in giving them form, had a half look to the only possible power that could give them fruition. But it was with only the refreshment of tears and exhaustion that she laid herself on her couch and went to sleep.

Clam had carried away her blanket bed and put out the lamps, before Elizabeth awoke the next morning. It was a question whether the room looked drearier by night or by day. She got up and went to the window. Clam had pulled up the blinds. The light of the summer morning was rising again, but it shone only without; all was darkness inside. Except that light- surrounded watcher up stairs. How Elizabeth's heart blessed him.

The next thing was, to get ready to receive his report. That morning's toilet was soon made, and Elizabeth sat waiting. He might come soon, or he might not; for it was early, and he might not know whether she was awake and risen yet. She was unaccustomed, poor child, to a waiting of pain; and her heart felt tired and sore already from the last forty-eight hours of fears and hopes. Fears and hopes were in strong life now, but a life that had become very tender to every touch. Clam was setting the breakfast-table -- Could breakfast be eaten or not?

The very cups and saucers made Elizabeth's heart ache. She was glad when Clam had done her work and was gone and she sat waiting alone. But the breaths came painfully now, and her heart was weary with its own aching.

The little knock at the door came at last. Elizabeth ran to open it, and exchanged a silent grasp of the hand with the newsbearer; her eyes looked her question. He came in just as he came last night; calm and grave.

"I can tell you nothing new, Miss Elizabeth," he said. "I cannot see that Mr. Haye is any better -- I do not know that he is any worse."

But Elizabeth was weak to bear longer suspense; she burst into tears and sat down hiding her face. Her companion stood near, but said nothing further.

"May I call Clam?" he asked after a few minutes.

Elizabeth gave eager a.s.sent; and the act of last night was repeated, to her unspeakable gratification. She drank in every word, and not only because she drank in the voice with them.

"Breakfast's just ready, Mr. Winthrop," said Clam when she was leaving the room; -- "so you needn't go up stairs."

The breakfast was a very silent one on Elizabeth's part.

Winthrop talked on indifferent subjects; but she was too full- hearted and too sick-hearted to answer him with many words.

And when the short meal was ended and he was about quitting the parlour she jumped up and followed him a step or two.

"Mr. Winthrop -- won't you say a word of comfort to me before you go? --"

He saw she needed it exceedingly; and came back and sat down on the sofa with her.

"I don't know what to say to you better than this, Miss Elizabeth," he said, turning over again the leaves of his little bible; -- "I came to it in the course of my reading this morning; and it comforted me."

He put the book in her hands, but Elizabeth had to clear her eyes more than once from hot tears, before she could read the words to which he directed her.

"And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain."

Elizabeth looked at it.

"But I don't understand it, Mr. Landholm?" she said, raising her eyes to his face.

He said nothing; he took the book from her and turning a few leaves over, put it again in her hands. Elizabeth read; --

"And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land."

"Is that plainer?" he asked.

"It means the Saviour?" said Elizabeth.

"Certainly it does! To whom else should we go?"

"But Mr. Landholm," said Elizabeth after a minute's struggle, "why do you shew me this, when you know I can do nothing with it?"

"_Will_ you do nothing?" he said.

The words implied that she could; an implication she would not deny; but her answer was another burst of tears. And with the book in her hand he left her.

The words were well studied that day! by a heart feeling the blast of the tempest and bitterly wanting to hide itself from the wind. But the fact of her want and of a sure remedy, was all she made clear; how to match the one with the other she did not know. The book itself she turned over with the curiosity and the interest of fresh insight into character. It was well worn, and had been carefully handled; it lay open easily anywhere, and in many places various marks of pencilling shewed that not only the eyes but the mind of its owner had been all over it. It was almost an awful book to Elizabeth's handling. It seemed a thing too good to be in her hold. It bore witness to its owner's truth of character, and to her own consequent being far astray; it gave her an opening such as she never had before to look into his mind and life and guess at the secret spring and strength of them. Of many of the marks of his pencil she could make nothing at all; she could not divine why they had been made, nor what could possibly be the notable thing in the pa.s.sage pointed out; and longing to get at more of his mind than she could in one morning's hurried work, she found another bible in the house and took off a number of his notes, for future and more leisurely study.

It was a happy occupation for her that day. No other could have so softened its exceeding weariness and sadness. The doctor gave her no comfort. He said he could tell nothing _yet;_ and Elizabeth could not fancy that this delay of amendment gave any encouragement to hope for it. She did not see Winthrop at dinner. She spent the most of the day over his bible. Sickness of heart sometimes made her throw it aside, but so surely sickness of heart made her take it up again.

The thought of Winthrop himself getting sick, did once or twice look in through the window of Elizabeth's mind; but her mind could not take it in. She had so much already to bear, that this tremendous possibility she could not bear so much as to look at; she left it a one side; and it can hardly be numbered among her recognized causes of trouble.

The day wore to an end. The evening and the sea-breeze came again. The lamps were lit and the table dressed with the salver and tea-urn. And Elizabeth was thankful the day was over; and waited impatiently for her friend to make his appearance.

She thought he looked thoughtfuller than ever when he came.

That might have been fancy.

"I don't know, Miss Elizabeth," he said, taking her hand as he had done in the morning, and answering her face. "We must wait yet. -- How have you borne the day?"

"I have borne it by the help of your book," she said looking down at it and trembling.

"You could have no better help," he said with a little sigh, as he turned away to the table, -- "except that of the Author of it."

The tea was very silent, for even Winthrop did not talk much; and very sad, for Elizabeth could hardly hold her head up.

"Mr. Winthrop," she said when he rose, -- "can you give me a minute or two before you go? -- I want to ask you a question."

"Certainly," -- he said; and waited, both standing, while she opened his bible and found the place he had shewed her in the morning. She shewed it to him now.

"This -- I don't quite understand it. -- I see what is spoken of, and the need of it, -- but -- how can I make it my own?"