Modern Broods; Or, Developments Unlooked For Part 37

But when the door opened and the grey-headed Bishop came in there was a low half scream of "Oh! oh!" and with one leap she was in his arms, as he knelt on one knee, and clasped her, holding out a hand to Angela, whose eyes were full of tears of relief and trust. Marilda gave a glad welcome, but they were startled by perceiving that the joy of meeting had brought on a spasm of choking on Lena, who was gasping in a strange sort of agony. Angela took her in her arms and carried her out of the room. Marilda presently following, came back reporting that the little girl had been relieved by a shower of tears, but was still faint and agitated, and that Angela could not leave her, but begged that they would not wait dinner.

"Such sensitiveness needs anxious care," said Elizabeth.

"If it be not the effect of spoiling. Just affectation!" replied the sister-in-law in a decided voice, which made Bessie glad that the poor child's home was not to be among the rough boys at Stokesley, who were not credited with any particular feelings.

Angela's absence gave the Bishop the opportunity of telling what she had been during her years at Albertstown, what a wonderful power among the natives, though not without disappointment, and she had been still more effective among the settlers and their daughters.

Carrigaboola, Fulbert's farm, had been an oasis of hope and rest to the few clergy of his scanty staff, and Fulbert himself had been a tower of strength for influence over the settlers who had fallen in his way, by his unswerving uprightness and honour, with the deeper principles of religion, little talked of but never belied. Even after his death, the power he had been told over all with whom he had come in contact.

Bernard heard it with immense pleasure, as did the faithful Ferdinand and Marilda; while Elizabeth felt more and more that Sister Angela was not to be treated, as she feared Sam and his wife were inclined to do, as a mere interloper in their family affairs, but as one to be not merely considered with grat.i.tude, but even reverenced.

Indeed, Sam began to feel it, as he saw how the other men, both practical business men, listened, and were impressed; but it was not quite the case with his wife, who did not particularly esteem colonial Bishops, and still less Sisterhoods or devotion to missionary efforts, especially among the Australian blacks, whom her old geography book had told her were the most degraded and hopeless of natives, scarcely removed from mere animals.

When Angela appeared half through dinner time and said that Lena was safely asleep, and Marilda sat her down to be happy in exchange of Carrigaboola tidings with her Bishop, Fernando greeted her with a reverence not undeserved, though perhaps all the more from the contrast to the mischievous little sprite who used to disturb the days of his philandering with Alda.

How much shocked Mrs. Samuel was, when the magnificent Sir Ferdinand, whom she regarded with awe as a millionaire, was flippantly answered by this extraordinary Sister, "Thank you, Fernan, I should like to have a sight of the old office. I hope you have a descendant of the old cat, Betty. Didn't she come from your grandmother, Marilda? Do you remember her being found playing tricks with the nugget, just come from Victoria?"

"That was in her kitten days," said Ferdinand.

"Is that personal, Fernan?"

"A compliment, Angel," said the Bishop. "Kittens alter a good deal."

"Not much for the better," said Angela. "If you only could see Mrs.

Lamb, who used to be the very moral of a kitten, scratchiness and all!"

"I thought her very much improved," said Lady Underwood gravely.

"Oh, yes; grown into a sleek and personable tabby, able to wave her tail at the tip and tuck her paws--her velvet paws--well under her; and lick her lips over the--oh, dear!--what do you call it?--your menu is quite too much for us poor savages, Marilda. A bit of damper is quite enough for us, isn't it, Bishop?"

"Varied with opossum and fern root," he said smiling; "but that's only when we have lost our way."

The talk drifted off to the history of a shepherd's child, who had strayed into the bush, and after much searching, in which the Bishop and Fulbert had been half starved, had finally been found and carried home by Angela's "crack gin," as she told it to Bernard; and as Marilda thought the poor child was in a trap, it had to be translated into "favourite pupil," though Bernard carried on the joke by asking Marilda if she thought the natives cannibals given to the snaring of mankind.

Altogether it was a thoroughly merry evening, such as comes to pa.s.s in the meeting of old friends and comrades in too large numbers for grave discourse, but with habits of close intercourse and a.s.sociations of all kinds. Emilia and her husband tried in all courtesy not to let the Merrifields feel themselves neglected; and indeed Bessie was only too glad to listen and join at times in the talk; but it all went outside Mrs. Sam, who was on the whole scandalised at the laughter of a Bishop, and a Sister. Indeed, it was true that Bishop Fulmort, naturally a grave man, very much so in his early days, comported himself on this occasion as if he realised Southey's wish -

"That in mine age as cheerful I might be, Like the green winter of the holly tree."

At any rate, that evening was long a bright remembrance. Lena slept all night, and was so fresh and well in the morning that Angela foreboded that the examination might not detect her delicacy. They met Mrs. Merrifield, and took her with them to the doctor's, Lady Underwood Travis having placed her carriages at their disposal.

It was very much as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital reputation what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and fanciful mothers, while perhaps he had also heard of her fracas long ago at the hospital. For he was not more courteous to her than could be helped, treating her much as if she were only the nursery maid, and hardly looking at the opinion which she had made Professor May write out for him.

To her mind, it was a very cursory examination that he made; and the upshot of his opinion, triumphantly accepted by Mrs. Merrifield, was that there was nothing seriously amiss with the child, that she only needed care, regularity and bracing, and that the stifling, gasping spasms were simply the effect of hysteria.

Hysteria! Angela felt as if she should run wild as she heard Mrs.

Merrifield's complacent remarks on having always thought so, and being sure that a few weeks of good air and good management would make an immense difference. The need of not alarming or prejudicing the poor little victim was all that kept Angela in any restraint; and Mrs. Merrifield went on to say that she had promised her youngest boy, who was with her in London, to take him to the Zoological Gardens, and it would be a good opportunity for Magdalen to see them.

"Is that where there is a kangaroo?" asked Lena, so eagerly that Angela, though thinking that morning's work enough for the feeble strength, could not withstand her. Besides, if the Merrifields were to have her wholly in another day, what was the use of standing out for one afternoon? One comfort was that Elizabeth, who would really have the charge of the child, had much more good sense and knowledge of the world than her sister-in-law.

Still Angela felt the only way of bearing it was that after setting Mrs. Merrifield down, she stopped the carriage at a church she knew to have a noon-tide Litany, knelt there, with the little girl beside her, and tried to say, "Thy will be done! To Thy keeping I commit her." Her "hours" came to help her.

"Quench Thou the fires of hate and strife, The wasting fever of the heart, From perils guard her feeble life, And to our souls Thy help impart."

She was able to be calm, and to utter none of her rage when they came back to luncheon; and Marilda, declaring she liked nothing so well as seeing children at the Zoo, wished to go with the party. All, save Mrs. Merrifield and her boy, had gone different ways in London, so there was plenty of room in the barouche.

The boy's mind was set on riding on the elephant, and they walked on that way, turning aside, however, to the yard where towered the kangaroo, tall, gentle, graceful and gracious. Lena sprang forward with a cry of joy, and clasped her hands; but in one moment the same spasm, at first of ecstasy then of overpowering feeling, becoming agony, came over her, and gasping and choking, Angela held her in her arms and carried her to a seat, holding her up, loosening her clothes; but still she did not come round. Her aunt tried to say, "hysteric." Some one brought water, but it was of no use--there were still the labouring gasps, and the convulsive motion. "Let us take her home," Marilda said.

"Nothing but hysterics!" repeated the aunt. "I will stay with Jackie."

Marilda found her servant and the carriage, and in the long drive, a few drops of strong stimulant at a chemist's brought a little relief though scarcely consciousness; and when Angela had carried her up to her room, there was a blueness about the lips, a coldness about the fingers, that told much. Marilda had at once sent for Dr. Brownlow as the nearest, and he was at home; but he could only look and do nothing, but attempt to revive circulation, all in vain; and with Marilda standing by, with one convulsive clutch of Angela's hand, the true mother of her orphaned life, little Lena sank to a peaceful rest from the tribulations that awaited her here.

CHAPTER XXIX--SAFE

"Rest beyond all grief and pain, Death to thee is truest gain."

KEBLE.

Angela's nearest and best friends had antic.i.p.ated that the peaceful climax of all her cares would be a relief to her; and so indeed in the long run it would be to her higher sense, and she would be thankful. But even those who knew her most thoroughly had not estimated the pangs of personal affection and deprivation of the child she had fostered with a mother's tenderness for seven years, and the absolute suffering of the sudden parting, even though it was to security of bliss, instead of doubt and uneasiness.

She was quite broken and really ill with neuralgia and exhaustion, unable to attend the funeral, which the Merrifields wished to have at Stokesley, and unfit for anything but lying still with the pink parrot on the rail below, kindly watched over by good Marilda. The strain of many disturbed nights, the perplexities, the struggle for resignation, all coming after a succession of trying events in Australia, had told heavily upon her. Indeed, no one guessed how much she had undergone, physically as well as spiritually, till Marilda would not be denied the consulting Dr. Brownlow, who questioned her closely, and extorted confessions of the long continued strain of exertion. Rest was all she needed; and Marilda took care that she had it, bringing Robina up from Minsterham to make it more effectual, and letting her have visits from her Bishop and from Bernard as they could afford the time, both being very and variously busy.

Angela had made up her mind to go out to Australia again, and to make Carrigaboola an endowment for the Sisterhood; but the means of doing this could best be arranged there, and she intended to go out when her Bishop should return in the autumn, feeling that her vocation was there, though there was a blank in all she had most cared for on earth in that home.

As soon as she had recovered, she wished to spend a fortnight at Dearport, beginning with a retreat that was held there. Remembering her old career there, and the abrupt close of her novitiate, she felt and spoke as if she was to be received as in penitence, but to the Sisters who surrounded her it was more as if they were receiving a saint.

When she came back to Vale Leston, she had recovered cheerfulness, more equable than it had ever been, and Cherry and Alda found her a charming companion. There was much going on at Vale Leston just then. Miss Arthuret and Dolores were at Penbeacon, seriously considering of the scheme of converting the old farm house into a kind of place of study for girls who wanted to work at various technicalities, and to fit themselves for usefulness or for self- maintenance. There was to be more or less of the Convalescent Home or House of Rest in combination, and it had occurred to Dolores that there could hardly be a better head of such an establishment than Magdalen Prescott.

Magdalen had been asked to the Priory to meet Angela, to whom it was now a comfort and pleasure to talk of her treasure, so much less lost to her than in the uncongenial surroundings threatened at Coalham.

And the invitation, followed by the proposal, came at a not unpropitious moment. A railway company, after much surveying, much disputing, and many heartburnings, were actually obtaining an Act of Parliament, empowering it to lay its cruel hands upon the Goyle, running its viaducts down the ravine of Arns...o...b.., and destroy all the peace and privacy! It did much, as Agatha had said, to make the new scheme of Penbeacon acceptable though.

"That comes of making one's nest," she sighed, "and thinking one's self secure in it for life! Oh! it is worse and more changeable in this latter century than in any other! Does the world go round faster?"

"Of course it does," said Geraldine. "Think how many fashions, how many styles, how many ways of thinking, have pa.s.sed away, even in our own time."

"And what have they left behind them?"

"Something good, I trust. Coral cells, stones for the next generation of zoophytes to stand upon to reach up higher."

"Is it higher?"

"In one sense, I hope. The same foundation, remember, and each cell forms a rock for the future--a white and beautiful cell, remember, as it grows unconsciously, beneath this creature."

Magdalen smiled, delighted with the ill.u.s.tration.