Queechy Volume Ii Part 44

"Wont you come?"

Mrs. Rossitur shook her head.

"Mayn't I bring you something? ? do let me."

But Mrs. Rossitur's shake of the head was decisive. Fleda crawled off the bed, feeling as if a month's illness had been making its ravages upon her frame and strength. She stood a moment to collect her thoughts; but alas, thinking was impossible; there was a palsy upon her mind. She went into her own room, and for a minute kneeled down ? not to form a pet.i.tion in words ? she was as much beyond that; it was only the mute att.i.tude of appeal, the pitiful outward token of the mind's bearing, that could not be forborne ? a silent uttering of the plea she had made her own in happy days. There was something of comfort in the mere feeling of doing it; and there was more in one or two words that even in that blank came to her mind ? "_Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him;_" and she again recollected that "Providence runneth not upon broken wheels."

Nothing could be darker than the prospect before her, and these things did not bring light; but they gave her a sure stay to hold on by and keep her feet ? a bit of strength to preserve from utterly fainting. Ah! the store-house must be filled, and the mind well familiarized with what is stored in it while yet the days are bright, or it will never be able to find what it wants in the dark.

Fleda first went into the kitchen to tell Barby to fasten the doors, and not sit up.

"I don't believe uncle Rolf will be home to-night; but if he comes, I will let him in."

Barby looked at her with absolutely a face of distress; but not daring to ask, and not knowing how to propose anything, she looked in silence.

"It must be nine o'clock now," Fleda went on.

"And how long be you going to sit up?" said Barby.

"I don't know ? a while yet."

"You look proper for it!" said Barby, half sorrowfully and half indignantly; "you look as if a straw would knock you down this minute. There's sense into everything. You catch me a- going to bed, and leaving you up! It wont do me no hurt to sit here the hull night; and I'm the only one in the house that's fit for it, with the exception of Philetus, and the little wit he has by day seems to forsake him at night. All the light that ever gets into his head, _I_ believe, comes from the outside; as soon as ever that's gone, he shuts up his shutters. He's been snoozing a'ready now this hour and a half.

Go yourself off to bed, Fleda," she added, with a mixture of reproach and kindness, "and leave me alone to take care of myself and the house too."

Fleda did not remonstrate, for Barby was as determined in her way as it was possible for anything to be. She went into the other room without a particle of notion what she should say or do.

Hugh was walking up and down the floor ? a most unusual sign of perturbation with him. He met and stopped her as she came in.

"Fleda, I cannot bear it. What is the matter? Do you know?" he said, as her eyes fell.

"Yes ?"

"What is it?"

She was silent, and tried to pa.s.s on to the fire. But he stayed her.

"What is it?" he repeated.

"Oh, I wish I could keep it from you!" said Fleda, bursting into tears.

He was still a moment; and then, bringing her to the arm- chair, made her sit down, and stood himself before her, silently waiting, perhaps because he could not speak, perhaps from the accustomed gentle endurance of his nature. But Fleda was speechless too.

"You are keeping me in distress," he said, at length.

"I cannot end the distress, dear Hugh," said Fleda.

She saw him change colour, and he stood motionless still.

"Do you remember," said Fleda, trembling even to her voice, "what Rutherford says about Providence 'not running on broken wheels?' "

He gave her no answer but the intent look of expectation. Its intentness paralysed Fleda. She did not know how to go on. She rose from her chair and hung upon his shoulder.

"Believe it now, if you can; for oh, dear Hugh! we have something to try it."

"It is strange my father don't come home," said he, supporting her with tenderness, which had very little strength to help it; "we want him very much."

Whether or not any unacknowledged feeling prompted this remark, some slight involuntary movement of Fleda's made him ask, suddenly ?

"Is it about him?"

He had grown deadly pale, and Fleda answered, eagerly ?

"Nothing that has happened to-day ? it is not anything that has happened to-day: he is perfectly well, I trust and believe."

"But it is about him?"

Fleda's head sank, and she burst into such an agony of tears that Hugh's distress was for a time divided.

"When did it happen, Fleda?"

"Years ago."

"And what?"

Fleda hesitated still, and then said ?

"It was something he did, Hugh."

"What?"

"He put another person's name on the back of a note he gave."

She did not look up, and Hugh was silent for a moment.

"How do you know?"

"Mr. Thorn wrote it to aunt Lucy; it was Mr. Thorn's father."

Hugh sat down and leaned his head on the table. A long, long, time pa.s.sed ? unmeasured by the wild coursing of thought to and fro. Then Fleda came and knelt down at the table beside him, and put her arm round his neck.

"Dear Hugh," she said ? and if ever love, and tenderness, and sympathy could be distilled in tones, such drops were those that fell upon the mind's ear ? "can't you look up at me?"

He did then, but he did not give her a chance to look at him.

He locked his arms about her, bringing her close to his breast; and for a few minutes, in utter silence, they knew what strange sweetness pure affection can mingle, even in the communion of sorrow. There were tears shed in those minutes that, bitter as they seemed at the time, memory knew had been largely qualified with another admixture.

"Dear Hugh," said Fleda, "let us keep what we can. Wont you go to bed and rest?"

He looked dreadfully as if he needed it; but the usual calmness and sweetness of his face was not altered; it was only deepened to very great sadness. Mentally, Fleda thought, he had borne the shock better than his mother; for the bodily frame she trembled. He had not answered, and she spoke again.

"You need it worse than I, poor Fleda."