Hopes and Fears Part 64

When the sounds ceased, Owen looked up to listen, and Robert said, 'Still no consciousness?'

'No, better not. What would she gain by it?'

'It must be better not, if so ordained,' said Robert.

'Pshaw! what are last feelings and words? As if a blighted life and such suffering were not sure of compensation. There's more justice in Heaven than in your system!'

He was gone; and Robert with a deep sigh said, 'I am not judging. I trust there were tokens of repentance and forgiveness; but it is painful, as her mother feels it, to hear how her mind runs on light songs and poetry.'

'Mechanically!'

'True; and delirium is no criterion of the state of mind. But it is very mournful. In her occupation, one would have thought habit alone would have made her ear catch other chimes.'

Lucilla remembered with a pang that she had sympathized with Edna's weariness of the monotony of hymn and catechism. Thinking poetry rather dull and tiresome, she had little guessed at the effect of sentimental songs and volumes of L. E. L. and the like, on an inflammable mind, when once taught to slake her thirsty imagination beyond the S.P.C.K. She did not marvel at the set look of pain with which Robert heard pa.s.sionate verses of Sh.e.l.ley and Byron fall from those dying lips. They must have been conned by heart, and have been the favourite study, or they could hardly thus recur.

'I must go,' said Robert, after a time; 'I am doing no good here. You will take care of your brother, if it is over before I return. Where are you?'

'My things are in Woolstone-lane.'

'I meant to get him there. I will come back by seven o'clock; but I must go to the school.'

'May I go in there?'

'You had better not. It is a fearful sight, and you cannot be of use. I wish you could be out of hearing; but the house is full.'

'One moment, Robert--the child?'

'Sent to a nurse, when every sound was agony.'

He stepped into the sick room, and brought out Mrs. Murrell, who began with a curtsey, but eagerly pressed Lucilla's offered hand. Subdued by sorrow and watching, she was touchingly meek and resigned, enduring with the patience of real faith, and only speaking to entreat that Mr. Fulmort would pray with her for her poor child. Never had Lucilla so prayed; and ere she had suppressed her tears, ere rising from her knees, Robert was gone.

She spent the ensuing hours of that summer evening, seated in the arm-chair, barely moving, listening to the ticking of the clock, and the thunder of the streets, and at times hearkening to the sounds in the inner chamber, the wanderings feebler and more rare, but the fearful convulsions more frequent, seeming, as it were, to be tearing away the last remnant of life. These moments of horror-struck suspense were the only breaks, save when Owen rushed out unable to bear the sight, and stood, with hidden face, in such absorption of distress as to be unconscious of her awe-struck attempts to obtain his attention, or when Mrs. Murrell came to fetch something, order her maid, or relieve herself by a few sad words to her guest. Gratified by the eager sisterly acknowledgment of poor Edna, she touched Lucilla deeply by speaking of her daughter's fondness for Miss Sandbrook, grief at having given cause for being thought ungrateful, and a.s.surances that the secret never could have been kept had they met the day after the _soiree_. Many had been the poor thing's speculations how Miss Sandbrook would receive her marriage, but always with confidence in her final mercy and justice: and when Lucilla heard of the prolonged wretchedness, the hope deferred, the evil reports and suspicions of neighbours and lodgers, the failing health, and cruel disappointment, and looked round at the dismal little stifling dungeon where this fair and gifted being had pined and sunk beneath slander and desertion, hot tears of indignation filled her eyes, and with fingers clenching together, she said, 'Oh that I had known it sooner! Edna was right. I will be the person to see justice done to her!'

And when left alone she cast about for the most open mode of proclaiming Edna Murrell her brother's honoured wife, and her own beloved sister.

The more it mortified the Charterises the better!

By the time Robert came back, the sole change was in the failing strength, and he insisted on conducting Lucilla to Woolstone-lane, Mrs.

Murrell enforcing his advice so decidedly that there was no choice. She would not be denied one look at the sufferer, but what she saw was so miserably unlike the beautiful creature whom she remembered, that she recoiled, feeling the kindness that had forbidden her the spectacle, and pa.s.sively left the house, still under the chill influence of the shock.

She had tasted nothing since breakfasting on board the steamer, and on coming into the street the comparative coolness seemed to strike her through; she shivered, felt her knees give way, and grasped Robert's arm for support. He treated her with watchful, considerate solicitude, though with few words, and did not leave her till he had seen her safe under the charge of the housekeeper; when, in return for his a.s.surance that he would watch over her brother, she promised to take food, and go at once to rest.

Too weary at first to undress, and still thinking that Owen might be brought to her, she lay back on the couch in her own familiar little cedar room, feeling as if she recalled the day through the hazy medium of a dream, and as if she had not been in contact with Edna, nor Owen, nor Robert, but only with pale phantoms called by those names.

Robert especially! Engrossed and awe-stricken as she had been, still it came on her that something was gone that to her had const.i.tuted Robert Fulmort. Neither the change of dress, nor even the older and more settled expression of countenance, made the difference; but the want of that nameless, hesitating deference which in each word or action formerly seemed to implore her favour, or even when he dared to censure, did so under appeal to her mercy. Had he avoided her, she could have understood it; but his calm, authoritative self-possession was beyond her, though as yet she was not alarmed, for her mind was too much confused to perceive that her influence was lost; but it was uncomfortable, and part of this strange, unnatural world, as though the wax which she had been used to mould had suddenly lost its yielding nature and become marble.

Tired out, she at last went to bed, and slept soundly, but awoke early, and on coming down, found from the housekeeper that her brother had been brought home at two o'clock by Mr. Fulmort, and had gone to his room at once. All was over. Lucilla, longing to hear more, set out to see Mrs.

Murrell, before he should come down-stairs.

While the good woman was forced to bestir herself for her lodgers'

breakfasts, Lucilla could steal a solitary moment to gaze on the pallid face to which death had restored much of its beauty. She pressed her lips on the regal brow, and spoke half aloud, 'Edna, Edna Sandbrook, sister Edna, you should have trusted me. You knew I would see justice done to you, and I will. You shall lie by my mother's side in our own churchyard, and Wrapworth shall know that she, whom they envied and maligned, was Owen Sandbrook's wife and my cherished sister.'

Poor Mrs. Murrell, with her swimming eyes and stock phrases, brought far more Christian sentiments to the bed of death. 'Poor, dear love, her father and I little thought it would end in this, when we used to be so proud of her. We should have minded that pride is not made for sinners.

"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain;" and the Lord saw it well that we should be cast down and slanderous lips opened against us, that so we might feel our trust is in Him alone! Oh, it is good that even thus she was brought to turn to Him! But I thank--oh, I thank Him that her father never lived to see this day!'

She wept such tears of true thankfulness and resignation, that Lucilla, almost abashed by the sight of piety beyond her comprehension, stood silent, till, with a change to the practical, Mrs. Murrell recovered herself, saying, 'If you please, ma'am, when had I best come and speak to the young gentleman? I ought to know what would be pleasing to him about the funeral.'

'We will arrange,' said Lucilla; 'she shall be buried with my mother and sister in Wrapworth churchyard.'

Though gratified, Mrs. Murrell demurred, lest it might be taken ill by the 'family' and by that G.o.dly minister whose kindness and sympathy at the time of Edna's evasion had made a deep impression; but Lucilla boldly undertook that the family _must_ like it, and she would take care of the minister. Nor was the good woman insensible to the posthumous triumph over calumny, although still with a certain hankering after Kensal Green as a sweet place, with pious monuments, where she should herself be laid, and the Company that did things so reasonable and so handsome.

Lucilla hurried back to fulfil the mission of Nemesis to the Charterises, which she called justice to Edna, and by the nine o'clock post despatched three notes. One containing the notice for the _Times_--'On the 17th instant, at 8, Little Whittington-street, St. Wulstan's, Edna, the beloved wife of Owen Charteris Sandbrook, Esq.;' another was to order a complete array of mourning from her dressmaker; and the third was to the Reverend Peter Prendergast, in the most simple manner requesting him to arrange for the burial of her sister-in-law, at 5 P.M. on the ensuing Sat.u.r.day, indicating the labourers who should act as bearers, and ending with, 'You will be relieved by hearing that she was no other than our dear Edna, married on the 14th of July, last year.'

She then beguiled the time with designs for gravestones, until she became uneasy at Owen's non-appearance, and longed to go and see after him; but she fancied he might have spent nights of watching, and thought sleep would be the best means of getting through the interval which appalled her mind, unused to contact with grief. Still his delay began to wear her spirits and expectation, so long wrought up to the meeting; and she was at least equally restless for the appearance of Robert, wanting to hear more from him, and above all certain that all her dreary cravings and vacancy would be appeased by one dialogue with him, on whatever topic it might be. She wished that she had obeyed that morning bell at St.

Wulstan's. It would have disposed of half-an-hour, and she would have met him. 'For shame,' quoth the haughty spirit, 'now that has come into my head, I can't go at all.'

Her solitude continued till half-past ten, when she heard the welcome sound of Robert's voice, and flew to meet him, but was again checked by his irresponsive manner as he asked for Owen.

'I have not seen him. I do not know whether to knock, lest he should be asleep.'

'I hope he is. He has not been in bed for three nights. I will go and see.'

He was moving to the door without lingering for a word more. She stopped him by saying, 'Pray hear first what I have settled with Mrs. Murrell.'

'She told me,' said Robert. 'Is it Owen's wish?'

'It ought to be. It must. Every public justice must be paid now.'

'Is it quite well judged, unless it were his strong desire? Have you considered the feelings of Mr. Prendergast or your relations?'

'There is nothing I consider more. If Charles thinks it more disgraceful to marry a Christian for love than a Jewess for money, he shall see that we are not of the same opinion.'

'I never pretend to judge of your motives.'

'Mercy, what have I gone and said?' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lucilla, as the door closed after him. 'Why did I let it out, and make him think me a vixen?

Better than a hypocrite though! I always professed to show my worst.

What's come to me, that I can't go on so contentedly? He must hear the Charteris' sentiments, though, that he may not think mine a gratuitous affront.'

Her explanation was at her tongue's end, but Robert only reappeared with her brother, whom he had found dressing. Owen just greeted his sister, but asked no questions, only dropping heavily into a chair, and let her bring him his breakfast. So young was he, still wanting six weeks to years of discretion; so youthful his appearance in spite of his size and strength, that it was almost absurd to regard him as a widower, and expect him to act as a man of mature age and feeling. There was much of the boy in his excessive and freely-indulged la.s.situde, and his half-sullen, half-shy reserve towards his sister. Knowing he had been in conversation with Robert, she felt it hard that before her he only leant his elbows on the table, yawned, and talked of his stiffness, until his friend rising to leave them, he exerted himself to say, 'Don't go, Fulmort.'

'I am afraid I must. I leave you to your sister.' (She noted that it was not 'Lucy.')

'But, I say, Fulmort, there are things to settle--funeral, and all that,'

he said in a helpless voice, like a sulky schoolboy.

'Your sister has been arranging with Mrs. Murrell.'

'Yes, Owen,' said Lucilla, tears glistening in her eyes, and her voice thrilling with emotion; 'it is right and just that she should be with our mother and little Mary at home; so I have written to Mr. Prendergast.'

'Very well,' he languidly answered. 'Settle it as you will; only deliver me from the old woman!'