Hills of the Shatemuc Part 129

CHAPTER IX.

The One remains, the many change and pa.s.s; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows flee; Life, like a dome of many-coloured gla.s.s Stains the clear radiance of Eternity, Until Death shiver it to atoms.

Sh.e.l.lEY.

The dawn of the summer morning was just flushing up over the city, when Winthrop and his trembling companion came out of the house. The flush came up upon a fair blue sky, into which little curls of smoke were here and there stealing; and a fresh air in the streets as yet held place of the sun's hot breath. One person felt the refreshment of it, as he descended the steps of the house and began a rather swift walk up the Parade. But those were very trembling feet that he had to guide during that early walk; though his charge was perfectly quiet. She did not weep at all; she did not speak, nor question any of his movements. Neither did he speak. He kept a steady and swift course till they reached Mr. Inchbald's house in Little South Street, and then only paused to open the door.

He led Elizabeth up-stairs to his own room, and there and not before took her hand from his arm and placed her on a chair.

Himself quietly went round the room, opening the windows and altering the disposition of one or two things. Then he came back to her where she sat like a statue, and in kind fashion again took one of her hands.

"I will see that you are waited upon," he said gently; "and I will send Clam to you by and by for your orders. Will you stay here for a little while? -- and then I will take care of you."

How she wished his words meant more than she knew they did.

She bowed her head, thinking so.

"Can I give you anything?"

She managed to say a smothered 'no,' and he went; first pulling out of his pocket his little bible which he laid upon the table.

Was that by way of answering his own question? It might be, or he might not have wanted it in his pocket. Whether or no, Elizabeth seized it and drew it towards her, and as if it had contained the secret charm and panacea for all her troubles, she laid her hands and her head upon it, and poured out there her new and her old sorrows; wishing even then that Winthrop could have given her the foundation of strength on which his own strong spirit rested.

After a long while, or what seemed such, she heard the door softly open and some one come in. The slow careful step was none that she knew, and Elizabeth did not look up till it had gone out and the door had closed again. It was Mrs. Nettley, and Mrs. Nettley had softly left on the table a waiter of breakfast. Elizabeth looked at it, and laid her head down again.

The next interruption came an hour later and was a smarter one. Elizabeth had wearied herself with weeping, and lay comparatively quiet on the couch.

"Miss 'Lizabeth," said the new-comer, in more gentle wise than it was her fashion to look or speak, -- "Mr. Winthrop said I was to come and get your orders about what you wanted."

"I can't give orders -- Do what you like," said Elizabeth keeping her face hid.

"If I knowed what 'twas," -- said Clam, sending her eye round the room for information or suggestion. "Mr. Winthrop said I was to come. -- Why you haven't took no breakfast?"

"I didn't want any."

"You can't go out o' town that way," said Clam. "The Governor desired you would take some breakfast, and his orders must be follered. You can't drink cold coffee neither --"

And away went Clam, coffee-pot in hand.

In so short a s.p.a.ce of time that it shewed Clam's business faculties, she was back again with the coffee smoking hot. She made a cup carefully and brought it to her mistress.

"You can't do nothin' without it," said Clam. "Mr. Winthrop would say, 'Drink it' if he was here --"

Which Elizabeth knew, and perhaps considered in swallowing the coffee. Before she had done, Clam stood at her couch again with a plate of more substantial supports.

"He would say 'Eat,' if he was here --" she remarked.

"Attend a little to what _I_ have to say," said her mistress.

"While you're eatin'," said Clam. "I wasn't to stop to get breakfast."

A few words of directions were despatched, and Clam was off again; and Elizabeth lay still and looked at the strange room and thought over the strange meaning and significance of her being there. A moment's harbour, with a moment's friend. She was shiveringly alone in the world; she felt very much at a loss what to do, or what would become of her, She felt it, but she could not think about it. Tears came again for a long uninterrupted time.

The day had reached the afternoon, when Clam returned, and coming into Mrs. Nettley's kitchen inquired if her mistress had had any refreshment. Mrs. Nettley declared that she dursn't take it up and that she had waited for Clam. Upon which that damsel set about getting ready a cup of tea, with a sort of impatient prompt.i.tude.

"Have you got all through?" Mrs. Nettley asked in the course of this preparation.

"What?" said Clam.

"Your work."

"No," said Clam. "Never expect to. My work don't get done."

"But has Mr. Landholm got through his work, down at the house?"

"Don't know," said Clam. "He don't tell _me_. But if we was to work on, at the rate we've been a goin' to-day -- we'd do up all Mannahatta in a week or so."

"What's been so much to do? -- the funeral, I know."

"The funeral," said Clam, "and everything else. That was only one thing. There was everything to be locked up, and everything to be put up, and the rest to be packed; and the silver sent off to the Bank; and everybody to be seen to. I did all I could, and Mr. Winthrop he did the rest."

"He'll be worn out!" said Mrs. Nettley.

"No he won't," said Clam. "He ain't one o' them that have to try hard to make things go -- works like oiled 'chinery -- powerful too, I can tell you."

"What's going to be done?" said Mrs. Nettley meditatively.

"Can't say," said Clam. "I wish my wishes was goin' to be done -- but I s'pose they ain't. People's ain't mostly, in this world." She went off with her dish of tea and what not, to her mistress up-stairs. But Elizabeth this time would endure neither her presence nor her proposal. Clam was obliged to go down again leaving her mistress as she had found her. Alone with herself.

Then, when the sun was long past the meridian, Elizabeth heard upon the stair another step, of the only friend, as it seemed to her, that she had. She raised her head and listened to it.

The step went past her door, and into the other room, and she sat waiting. "How little he knows," she thought, "how much of a friend he is! how little he guesses it. How far he is from thinking that when he shall have bid me good bye -- somewhere -- he will have taken away all of help and comfort I have. --"

But clear and well defined as this thought was in her mind at the moment, it did not prevent her meeting her benefactor with as much outward calmness as if it had not been there. Yet the quiet meeting of hands had much that was hard to bear.

Elizabeth did not dare let her thoughts take hold of it.

"Have you had what you wanted?" he said, in the way in which one asks a question of no moment when important ones are behind.

"I have had all I could have," Elizabeth answered.

There was a pause; and then he asked,

"What are your plans, Miss Elizabeth?"

"I haven't formed any. -- I couldn't not, yet."

"Do you wish to stay in the city, or to go out of it?"

"Oh to go out of it!" said Elizabeth, -- "if I could -- if I knew where."

"Where is your cousin?"