Queechy Volume Ii Part 70

"Well, Sir, I'll open it if you wish it," said the man, civilly, "but they say we sha'n't have nothing to make fires with more than an hour or two longer; so maybe you'll think we can't afford to let any too much cold in."

The gentleman however, persisting in his wish, and the wish being moreover backed with those arguments to which every grade of human reason is accessible, the window was opened. At first the rush of fresh air was a great relief; but it was not very long before the raw snowy atmosphere, which made its way in, was felt to be more dangerous, if it was more endurable, than the close pent-up one it displaced. Mr. Carleton ordered the window closed again; and Fleda's glance of meek grateful patience was enough to pay any reasonable man for his share of the suffering. _Her_ share of it was another matter. Perhaps Mr.

Carleton thought so, for he immediately bent himself to reward her and to avert the evil, and for that purpose brought into play every talent of manner and conversation that could beguile the time, and make her forget what she was among. If success were his reward he had it. He withdrew her attention completely from all that was around her, and without tasking it; she could not have borne that. He did not seem to task himself; but without making any exertion, he held her eye and ear, and guarded both from communication with things disagreeable. He knew it. There was not a change in her eye's happy interest, till, in the course of the conversation, Fleda happened to mention Hugh, and he noticed the saddening of the eye immediately afterwards.

"Is he ill?" said Mr. Carleton.

"I don't know," said Fleda, faltering a little ? "he was not ?

very ? but a few weeks ago."

Her eye explained the broken sentences which there, in the neighbourhood of other ears, she dared not finish.

"He will be better after he has seen you," said Mr. Carleton, gently.

"Yes."

A very sorrowful and uncertain "yes," with an "if" in the speaker's mind, which she did not bring out.

"Can you sing your old song yet?" said Mr. Carleton, softly ?

"Yet one thing secures us, Whatever betide?"

But Fleda burst into tears.

"Forgive me," he whispered, earnestly, "for reminding you of that ? you did not need it, and I have only troubled you."

"No, Sir, you have not," said Fleda ? "it did not trouble me, and Hugh knows it better than I do. I cannot bear anything to- night I believe" ?

"So you have remembered that, Mr. Carleton?" she said, a minute after.

"Do you remember that?" said he, putting her old little Bible into her hand.

Fleda seized it, but she could hardly bear the throng of images that started up around it. The smooth worn cover brought so back the childish happy days when it had been her constant companion ? the shadows of the Queechy of old, and Cynthia and her grandfather, and the very atmosphere of those times when she had led a light-hearted strange wild life all alone with them, reading the Encyclopaedia, and hunting out the wood-springs. She opened the book and slowly turned over the leaves where her father's hand had drawn those lines of remark and affection round many a pa.s.sage ? the very look of them she knew; but she could not see it now, for her eyes were dim, and tears were dropping fast into her lap ? she hoped Mr.

Carleton did not see them, but she could not help it; she could only keep the book out of the way of being blotted. And there were other and later a.s.sociations she had with it too ?

how dear! ? how tender! ? how grateful!

Mr. Carleton was quite silent for a good while ? till the tears had ceased; then he bent towards her so as to be heard no further off.

"It has been for many years my best friend and companion," he said, in a low tone.

Fleda could make no answer, even by look.

"At first," he went on, softly, "I had a strong a.s.sociation of you with it; but the time came when I lost that entirely, and itself quite swallowed up the thought of the giver."

A quick glance and smile told how well Fleda understood, how heartily she was pleased with that. But she instantly looked away again.

"And now," said Mr. Carleton, after a pause ? "for some time past, I have got the a.s.sociation again; and I do not choose to have it so. I have come to the resolution to put the book back into your hands, and not receive it again, unless the giver go with the gift."

Fleda looked up, a startled look of wonder, into his face, but the dark eye left no doubt of the meaning of his words; and in unbounded confusion she turned her own and her attention, ostensibly, to the book in her hand, though sight and sense were almost equally out of her power. For a few minutes poor Fleda felt as if all sensation had retreated to her finger- ends. She turned the leaves over and over, as if willing to cheat herself or her companion into the belief that she had something to think of there, while a.s.sociations and images of the past were gone with a vengeance, swallowed up in a tremendous reality of the present; and the book, which a minute ago was her father's Bible, was now, ? what was it? ?

something of Mr. Carleton's, which she must give back to him.

But still she held it and looked at it ? conscious of no one distinct idea but that, and a faint one besides, that he might like to be repossessed of his property in some reasonable time ? time like everything else was in a whirl? the only steady thing in creation seemed to be that perfectly still and moveless figure by her side ? till her trembling fingers admonished her they would not be able to hold anything much longer; and gently and slowly, without looking, her hand put the book back towards Mr. Carleton. That both were detained together she knew, but hardly felt; ? the thing was that she had given it! ?

There was no other answer; and there was no further need that Mr. Carleton should make any efforts for diverting her from the scene and the circ.u.mstances where they were. Probably he knew that, for he made none. He was perfectly silent for a long time, and Fleda was deaf to any other voice that could be raised, near or far. She could not even think.

Mrs. Renney was happily snoring, and most of the other people had descended into their coat collars, or, figuratively speaking, had lowered their blinds by tilting over their hats in some uncomfortable position that signified sleep; and comparative quiet had blessed the place for some time; as little noticed, indeed, by Fleda, as noise would have been.

The sole thing that she clearly recognized in connexion with the exterior world, was that clasp in which one of her hands lay. She did not know that the car had grown quiet, and that only an occasional grunt of ill-humour or waking-up colloquy testified that it was the unwonted domicile of a number of human beings, who were harbouring there in a disturbed state of mind. But this state of things could not last. The time came that had been threatened, when their last supply of extrinsic warmth was at an end. Despite shut windows, the darkening of the stove was presently followed by a very sensible and fast-increasing change of temperature; and this addition to their causes of discomfort roused every one of the company from his temporary lethargy. The growl of dissatisfied voices awoke again, more gruff than before; the spirit of jesting had long languished, and now died outright, and in its stead came some low, and deep, and bitter-spoken curses. Poor Mrs. Renney shook off her somnolency and shook her shoulders, a little business shake, admonitory to herself to keep cool; and Fleda came to the consciousness that some very disagreeable chills were making their way over her.

"Are you warm enough?" said Mr. Carleton, suddenly, turning to her.

"Not quite," said Fleda, hesitating; "I feel the cold a little. Please don't, Mr. Carleton!" she added, earnestly, as she saw him preparing to throw off his cloak, the identical black fox which Constance had described, with so much vivacity; "pray do not. I am not very cold ? I can bear a little ? I am not so tender as you think me; I do not need it, and you would feel the want very much after wearing it. I won't put it on."

But he smilingly bade her "stand up," stooping down and taking one of her hands to enforce his words, and giving her, at the same time, the benefit of one of those looks of good-humoured wilfulness to which his mother always yielded, and to which Fleda yielded instantly, though with a colour considerably heightened at the slight touch of peremptoriness in his tone.

"You are not offended with me, Elfie?" he said, in another manner, when she had sat down again, and he was arranging the heavy folds of the cloak.

Offended! ? a glance answered.

"You shall have everything your own way," he whispered, gently, as he stooped down to bring the cloak under her feet, "_except yourself_."

What good care should be taken of that exception was said in the dark eye at which Fleda hardly ventured half a glance. She had much ado to command herself.

She was shielded again from all the sights and sounds within reach. She was in a maze. The comfort of the fur-cloak was curiously mixed with the feeling of something else, of which that was an emblem ? a surrounding of care and strength which would effectually be exerted for her protection ? somewhat that Fleda had not known for many a long day ? the making up of the old want. Fleda had it in her heart to cry like a baby.

Such a dash of sunlight had fallen at her feet that she hardly dared look at it for fear of being dazzled; but she could not look anywhere that she did not see the reflection.

In the mean time the carful of people settled again into sullen quietude. The cold was not found propitious to quarrelling. Those who could subsided again into lethargy; those who could not, gathered in their outposts to make the best defence they might of the citadel. Most happily it was not an extreme night; cold enough to be very disagreeable, and even (without a fur-cloak) dangerous; but not enough to put even noses and ears in immediate jeopardy. Mr. Carleton had contrived to procure a comfortable wrapper for Mrs. Renney, from a Yankee, who, for the sake of being a "warm man" as to his pockets, was willing to be cold otherwise for a time. The rest of the great-coats and cloaks, which were so alert and erect a little while ago, were doubled up on every side in all sorts of despondent att.i.tudes. A dull quiet brooded over the a.s.sembly, and Mr. Carleton walked up and down the vacant s.p.a.ce. Once he caught an anxious glance from Fleda, and came immediately to her side.

"You need not be troubled about me," he said, with a most genial smile; "I am not suffering ? never was farther from it in my life."

Fleda could neither answer nor look.

"There are not many hours of the night to wear out," he said.

"Can't you follow your neighbour's example?"

She shook her head.

"This watching is too hard for you. You will have another headache to-morrow."

"No, perhaps not," she said, with a grateful look up.

"You do not feel the cold now, Elfie?"

"Not at all ? not in the least ? I am perfectly comfortable ?

I am doing very well."

He stood still, and the changing lights and shades on Fleda's cheek grew deeper.

"Do you know where we are, Mr. Carleton?"