Queechy Volume Ii Part 22

"I shall let her encounter the dullness alone, Ma'am," said Fleda, lightly.

But it was not in a light mood that she put on her bonnet after dinner, and set out to pay a visit to her uncle at the library; she had resolved that she would not be near the _dormeuse_ in whatsoever relative position that evening. Very, very quiet she was; her grave little face walked through the crowd of busy, bustling, anxious people, as if she had nothing in common with them; and Fleda felt that she had very little.

Half unconsciously, as she pa.s.sed along the streets, her eye scanned the countenances of that moving panorama; and the report it brought back made her draw closer within herself.

She wondered that her feet had ever tripped lightly up those library stairs.

"Ha! my fair Saxon," said the doctor, "what has brought you down here to-day?"

"I felt in want of something fresh, uncle Orrin, so I thought I would come and see you."

"Fresh!" said he. "Ah! you are pining for green fields, I know. But, you little piece of simplicity, there are no green fields now at Queechy, they are two feet deep with snow by this time."

"Well, I am sure _that_ is fresh," said Fleda, smiling.

The doctor was turning over great volumes one after another in a delightful confusion of business.

"When do you think you shall go north, uncle Orrin?"

"North?" said he ? "what do you want to know about the north?"

"You said, you know, Sir, that you would go a little out of your way to leave me at home."

"I wont go out of my way for anybody. If I leave you there, it will be in my way. Why, you are not getting home-sick?"

"No Sir, not exactly; but I think I will go with you when you go."

"That wont be yet awhile; I thought those people wanted you to stay till January."

"Ay, but suppose I want to do something else?"

He looked at her with a comical kind of indecision, and said ?

"You don't know what you want; I thought when you came in you needn't go further than the gla.s.s to see something fresh; but I believe the sea-breezes haven't had enough of you yet. Which part of you wants freshening?" he said, in his mock-fierce way.

Fleda laughed, and said she didn't know.

"Out of humour, I guess," said the doctor. "I'll talk to you.

Take this and amuse yourself awhile with something that isn't fresh till I get through, and then you shall go home with me."

Fleda carried the large volume into one of the reading-rooms, where there was n.o.body, and sat down at the baize-covered table. But the book was not of the right kind, or her mood was not, for it failed to interest her. She sat nonchalantly turning over the leaves; but mentally she was busy turning over other leaves, which had by far most of her attention. The pages that memory read ? the record of the old times pa.s.sed in that very room, and the old childish light-hearted feelings that were, she thought, as much beyond recall. Those pleasant times, when the world was all bright and friends all fair, and the light heart had never been borne down by the pressure of care, nor sobered by disappointment, nor chilled by experience. The spirit will not spring elastic again from under that weight; and the flower that has closed upon its own sweetness will not open a second time to the world's breath.

Thoughtfully, softly, she was touching and feeling of the bands that years had fastened about her heart ? they would not be undone ? though so quietly and almost stealthily they had been bound there. She was remembering the shadows that, one after another, had been cast upon her life, till now one soft veil of a cloud covered the whole; no storm-cloud certainly, but also there was nothing left of the glad sunlight that her young eyes rejoiced in. At Queechy the first shadow had fallen; it was a good while before the next one, but then they came thick. There was the loss of some old comforts and advantages, that could have been borne; then, consequent upon that, the annoyances and difficulties that had wrought such a change in her uncle, till Fleda could hardly look back and.

believe that he was the same person. Once manly, frank, busy, happy and making his family so ? now reserved, gloomy, irritable, unfaithful to his duty, and selfishly throwing down the burden they must take up, but were far less able to bear.

And so Hugh was changed too; not in loveliness of character and demeanour, nor even much in the always gentle and tender expression of countenance; but the animal spirits and frame, that should have had all the strong cherishing and bracing that affection and wisdom together could have applied, had been left to wear themselves out under trials his father had shrunk from, and other trials his father had made. And Mrs.

Rossitur? it was hard for Fleda to remember the face she wore at Paris ? the bright eye and joyous corners of the mouth, that now were so utterly changed. All by his fault ? that made it so hard to bear. Fleda had thought all this a hundred times; she went over it now as one looks at a thing one is well accustomed to; not with new sorrow, only in a subdued mood of mind just fit to make the most of it. The familiar place took her back to the time when it became familiar; she compared herself sitting there, and feeling the whole world a blank, except for the two or three at home, with the child who had sat there years before in that happy time "when the feelings were young and the world was new."

Then the Evelyns ? why should they trouble one so inoffensive, and so easily troubled as her poor little self? They did not know all they were doing; but if they had eyes, they must see a little of it. Why could she not have been allowed to keep her old free, simple feeling with everybody, instead of being hampered, and constrained, and miserable, from this pertinacious putting of thoughts in her head that ought not to be there? It had made her unlike herself, she knew, in the company of several people. And perhaps _they_ might be sharp- sighted enough to read it; but, even if not, how it had hindered her enjoyment! She had taken so much pleasure in the Evelyns last year, and in her visit; well, she would go home and forget it, and maybe they would come to their right minds by the next time she saw them.

"What pleasant times we used to have here once, uncle Orrin!"

she said, with half a sigh, the other half quite made up by the tone in which she spoke. But it was not, as she thought, uncle Orrin that was standing by her side, and looking up as she finished speaking ? Fleda saw, with a start, that it was Mr. Carleton. There was such a degree of life and pleasantness in his eyes, that, in spite of the start, her own quite brightened.

"That is a pleasure one may always command," he said, answering part of her speech.

"Ay, provided one has one's mind always under command," said Fleda. "It is possible to sit down to a feast with a want of appet.i.te."

"In such a case, what is the best tonic?"

His manner, even in those two minutes, had put Fleda perfectly at her ease, ill-bred eyes and ears being absent. She looked up and answered, with such entire trust in him, as made her forget that she had ever had any cause to distrust herself.

"For me," she said, "as a general rule, nothing is better than to go out of doors ? into the woods or the garden ? they are the best fresheners I know of. I can do myself good there at times when books are a nuisance."

"You are not changed from your old self," he said.

The wish was strong upon Fleda to know whether _he_ was, but it was not till she saw the answer in his face that she knew how plainly hers had asked the question. And then she was so confused that she did not know what the answer had been.

"I find it so, too," he said. "The influences of pure nature are the best thing I know for some moods ? after the company of a good horse."

"And you on his back, I suppose?"

"That was my meaning. What is the doubt thereupon?" said he, laughing.

"Did I express any doubt?"

"Or my eyes were mistaken."

"I remember they never used to be that," said Fleda.

"What was it?"

"Why," said Fleda, thinking that Mr. Carleton had probably retained more than one of his old habits, for she was answering with her old obedience ? "I was doubting what the influence is in that case ? worth a.n.a.lyzing, I think. I am afraid the good horse's company has little to do with it."

"What, then, do you suppose?" said he, smiling.

"Why," said Fleda ? "it might be ? but I beg your pardon, Mr.

Carleton! I am astonished at my own presumption."

"Go on, and let me know why," he said, with that happiness of manner which was never resisted. Fleda went on, rea.s.suring her courage now and then with a glance.

"The relief _might_ spring, Sir, from the gratification of a proud feeling of independence ? or from a dignified sense of isolation ? or an imaginary riding down of opposition ? or the consciousness of being master of what you have in hand."

She would have added to the general category, "the running away from one's-self;" but the eye and bearing of the person before her forbade even such a thought as connected with him.

He laughed, but shook his head.

"Perhaps, then," said Fleda, "it may be nothing worse than the working off of a surplus of energy or impatience that leaves behind no more than can be managed."

"You have learned something of human nature since I had the pleasure of knowing you," he said, with a look at once amused and penetrating.

"I wish I hadn't," said Fleda.