Nurse Elisia Part 53

"Nothing more, sir? With mental powers such as yours?"

"Hah! yes. A good reproof, but it is impossible not to lie here and repine. Mental powers such as mine! That was not meant as flattery, eh?"

"I think you know I would not be so contemptible, sir," she said.

"Yes, I do know. Thank you. Another reproof. Why, nurse, my accident must have done me good. I should have resented reproofs once upon a time. But I've paid dearly for my lesson--very dearly indeed, and there is so much more to pay--all my life. Yes, all my life."

He closed his eyes and lay thinking for some time, not opening them till the quarter of an hour had nearly sped, when he looked sharply at the little clock.

"Time you went down," he said sharply. "Tell Isabel to come and see me a little sooner to-night, to sit a quarter of an hour before she goes to bed."

Elisia placed a gla.s.s close to her patient's head; saw that the cord was within reach, in case he should want to ring; and then, conscious that he was attentively watching her every act with a satisfied look in his eyes, she pa.s.sed out into the corridor, and then drew back slightly, for Aunt Anne had just pa.s.sed the door, and was going on to her own chamber with her dress rustling loudly as it swung from side to side, and threatened to sweep some of the valuable ornaments from the side tables and brackets arranged here and here. Then, turning into her room, the door was closed and Elisia went on down.

As she reached the hall, voices could be heard plainly in the dining room, where she judged that the gentlemen would still be sitting over their wine. She half stopped as one voice rose louder and sounded deep and hoa.r.s.e, and for the moment it seemed as if, in dread lest the door should be opened and the occupants of the room appear, she was about to retreat upstairs; but, recovering her confidence, she pa.s.sed on toward the library, the softly subdued notes of a piano reaching her ear from the drawing room, so that she was in no wise surprised, on turning the handle, to find that the library was lit up but vacant.

The door swung to as she entered and glanced around the ma.s.sively furnished room with its heavy bronze figures on the mantelpiece, each bearing a globe lamp which threw a subdued light around, while a broad, green shade spread a circle of light on the book covered table.

Elisia took a few steps forward into the room, rested her hand upon the back of one of the heavy leather-covered chairs, and sighed as she stood thinking. For the place, with its calm silence and softened light, evoked thought, and the disposition to recall the days when life seemed opening out before her in one long vista of joy. At that time it was as if there were no such element in existence as sorrow; and yet of late hers had been permeated by incessant grief, and a despondency so great that there were hours when she lay sleepless, thinking that death when it came would be no trouble, only a great and welcome rest.

She sighed again as she stood there crossing one hand over the other, and half resting on the great chair back. And now a smile faintly dawned upon her lip, as she began to think of her mission there, and of how long it would be before Isabel came. For it was pleasant to think of the fresh, innocent, young face, which had now grown to light up when they met, as its owner became more trusting and affectionate day by day.

Then, as she thought that the girl would come as soon as the piece she played was finished, the tears rose to her eyes. For the melody she heard, like every air that has once made its way to the heart, evoked old memories of scenes years before, when she had played that old air.

It had been a favourite of hers, and used to sound bright and joyous, but now it was full of sadness.

"Why is it," she thought, "that as time glides on, all these old airs grow more mournful in their tones?"

The answer to this has never come, but the fact remains the same; and why should they not sound more sad to us who heard them in our youth, and love them better in our riper years when they are blended with memories, and softened by time, even if the hearing of the strain does produce a mistiness of vision and a disposition to sigh?

Even as Elisia stood and listened, the tones of the piano seemed to float to her, and it was not until there was the faint sound of a closing door that she awoke to the fact that there was no other sound vibrating in the air, and that all was very still where she waited. But her heart beat more quickly, and her hand was raised to her breast in the fancy that she might stay its throbbing, for the step she heard was familiar--that hasty, decided pace, crossing the marble floor, as if bound on some important mission.

Her lips parted and there was a hunted look in her eyes as she looked sharply round for a way of retreat.

"He is coming here," she said in a hurried whisper, and she glided toward a folding screen between her and one of the great book cases; but before she reached it the plainly heard steps ceased, and she knew that they were hushed on the thickly carpeted stairs.

"Gone to his father's room," she said with a sigh of relief, and walking back to the chair, she rested one elbow upon it and let her face drop down upon her hand, her tears welling forth, and one glistening between her white fingers in the soft light.

"No--no--no," she said quietly. "It cannot be now. It is all a painful dream. All that is dead."

She tried to picture in her mind Isabel in the drawing room playing the last chords of the familiar old air, and then leaving the music stool to join her there, but another figure forced itself to the front, and she saw the dark form of Neil Elthorne as vividly as if she were watching him from close at hand. She could picture him pa.s.sing along the corridor, then opening the chamber door, to see him more plainly as the soft light from the room shone out like a golden glow, and lit up his pale, thoughtful face. Then she seemed to see him close the door, cross the room, and go to his old seat beside the couch. And how familiar that att.i.tude had become, as he bent forward to take and hold his father's hand.

She was mentally gazing on father and son when the scene changed, and once more there was the old man's flushed and distorted face, with the veins starting and eyes wild with anger as he realised that his long cherished plans had been so rudely overset.

The scene was very plain to her imagination. There, too, were the handsome, masculine looking sisters, whose eyes flashed at her scornfully, as she saw herself standing there, pale and shrinking, in her plain black dress, and then meeting Ralph Elthorne's searching gaze.

She remembered her effort to be firm and yet how she had trembled in dread of the man's fierce anger. And without cause, for from that moment he had spoken differently to her, he had grown more kind and gentle; in fact, there had been times when she had fancied in her dread and shrinking that his words even sounded fatherly.

It might be imagination, she knew, but his manner had ended in evoking thoughts which had grown stronger than ever that night, and over which she brooded now.

Minute after minute pa.s.sed unnoticed as she stood in the old library, and she gave quite a start, and her hand fell to her side, as a door opened again, and this time she heard voices.

"Has Isabel forgotten me?" she said to herself, as steps crossed the marble floor again, another door was opened and closed, and she stood listening and expectant.

Then there was a quick, light step, the library door was thrust open, and she turned eagerly to greet Isabel, but started back in alarm on finding herself face to face with Alison, who quickly shut the door and advanced toward her with a meaning smile upon his countenance, which she could see was slightly flushed by the wine of which he had partaken freely.

A minute later Neil entered the room and seemed blinded by the pa.s.sion which surged up in his labouring breast.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

SIR CHELTNAM EXPOSED.

"What will he do? what will he say?" panted Elisia, as she hurried across the hall to reach the stairs. Her customary calmness was gone, and one moment she was wild with excitement, the next her heart was sinking in despair.

"I'll run back," she thought, as she stopped short. "It was cowardly to go and leave him."

She took a couple of steps back, for a great dread had a.s.sailed her; those two brothers were face to face! What might not happen! and she the cause. She was half way back to the library, when a hand was laid upon the door, and in her dread she stopped short, turned, and was making for the stairs, but, feeling that she would be in full view of whoever left the room, she ran swiftly over the marble floor to the large _portiere_ at the end of the hall, and entered the great conservatory which ran all along that side of the house, library and drawing room opening into it as well.

With her heart beating heavily, she had hardly found refuge among the broad leaves of the great exotics when she heard a quick step crossing the hall, and she shrank farther away.

"Neil," she said to herself; "and he is coming to drag me back to face his brother."

But even as she thought thus the sound ceased, and she knew that he had once more ascended the stairs. She stood there in the semi-darkness, hardly daring to breathe, till she felt that Neil must have reached his room; and then, with a feeling of utter desolation oppressing her,--a misery greater than she could bear,--she turned toward the hall, dimly conscious that someone was speaking in the drawing room, for the voice came through the open window at the far end of the conservatory.

But it was nothing to her; only someone to avoid. Neil had surprised her with his brother--that was all her brain would bear; and, trying to think what she should do next, she had nearly reached the hall when she stopped short, with her cheeks flushing, and a sensation of anger which mastered everything else rising in her breast.

There was no hesitation now in her movements. She walked sharply along the tiled floor, with the great-leaved plants brushing her arm, straight for the open doorway through which a subdued light showed the form of leaf and spray, and stepped at once into the dimly lighted drawing room, where a similar scene was being enacted to that in which she had so lately taken part.

Here seemed to her to be the reason why Isabel had not kept her appointment, for, as she entered, Sir Cheltnam was standing half way down the room, his back toward her, and holding Isabel's hands tightly in his, as, half banteringly, he put aside as folly every appeal and protest uttered by the now frightened girl.

Isabel was striving vainly to release herself when she caught sight of the dark figure of the nurse, framed, as it were, in the conservatory doorway, and, uttering a cry of joy, she now wrenched her hands away from their visitor's grasp, and before Burwood could check her she ran to Elisia's side, clung to her, and panted excitedly:

"Nurse--nurse--don't leave me--pray, pray stay here!"

"My poor child!" whispered Elisia, as she bent over the hysterical girl, and drew her tightly to her breast. "Hush! hush! for everyone's sake try and master it. You are quite safe now."

"Yes--yes; quite safe now," sobbed Isabel. "Don't--don't leave me here."

Sir Cheltnam, meanwhile, had stood in the middle of the room speechless with fury, for the interruption had been completely unforeseen. It was understood with Aunt Anne and Alison that he was to win from Isabel her consent to an early marriage that very night, and those who had promised their help had carefully arranged that the _tete-a-tete_ should have no one to mar its course.

But the little bit of grit had, as is often the case, made its way into the mechanism, and the wheels had so suddenly come to a stoppage that the baronet was for the moment utterly confounded.

It was only a few minutes before that, in the dining room, Alison had for about the fifth time consulted his watch, and then said quickly:

"There, old chap, it's all right now. She will be alone in the drawing room, so off with you, and say all you like."

"You think the old man will not make any objection--on account of his illness, you know?"

"Not an objection. Never fear. There, quick; be off."

"What a hurry you are in!"