Queechy Volume I Part 77

"I am sorry, Sir," said Fleda, smiling now, "that you have so many silver pennies to dispose of ? we shall never get at the gold."

"I will do my very best," said he.

So he did, and made himself agreeable that evening to every one of the circle; though Fleda's sole reason for liking to see him come in had been, that she was glad of everything that served to keep Charlton's attention from home subjects. She saw sometimes the threatening of a cloud that troubled her.

But the Evelyns and Thorn, and everybody else whom they knew, left the Pool at last, before Charlton, who was sufficiently well again, had near run out his furlough; and then the cloud, which had only showed itself by turns during all those weeks, gathered and settled determinately upon his brow.

He had long ago supplied the want of a newspaper. One evening in September, the family were sitting in the room where they had had tea, for the benefit of the fire, when Barby pushed open the kitchen door and came in.

"Fleda, will you let me have one of the last papers? I've a notion to look at it."

Fleda rose and went to rummaging in the cupboards.

"You can have it again in a little while," said Barby, considerately.

The paper was found, and Miss Elster went out with it.

"What an unendurable piece of ill-manners that woman is!" said Charlton.

"She has no idea of being ill-mannered, I a.s.sure you," said Fleda,.

His voice was like a brewing storm ? hers was so clear and soft that it made a lull in spite of him. But he began again.

"There is no necessity for submitting to impertinence. I never would do it."

"I have no doubt you never will," said his father. "Unless you can't help yourself."

"Is there any good reason, Sir, why you should not have proper servants in the house?"

"A very good reason," said Mr. Rossitur. "Fleda would be in despair."

"Is there none beside that?" said Charlton, dryly.

"None ? except a trifling one," Mr. Rossitur answered, in the same tone.

"We cannot afford it, dear Charlton," said his mother, softly.

There was a silence, during which Fleda moralized on the ways people take to make themselves uncomfortable.

"Does that man ? to whom you let the farm ? does he do his duty?"

"I am not the keeper of his conscience."

" I am afraid it would be a small charge to any one," said Fleda.

"But are you the keeper of the gains you ought to have from him? Does he deal fairly by you?"

"May I ask first what interest it is of yours?"

"It is my interest, Sir, because I come home and find the family living upon the exertions of Hugh and Fleda, and find them growing thin and pale under it."

"You, at least, are free from all pains of the kind, Captain Rossitur."

"Don't listen to him, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda, going round to her uncle, and making, as she pa.s.sed, a most warning impression upon Charlton's arm ? "don't mind what he says ?

that young gentleman has been among the Mexican ladies till he has lost an eye for a really proper complexion. Look at me! ?

do I look pale and thin? I was paid a most brilliant compliment the other day upon my roses. Uncle, don't listen to him! ? he hasn't been in a decent humour since the Evelyns went away."

She knelt down before him and laid her hands upon his, and looked up in his face to bring all her plea ? the plea of most winning sweetness of entreaty in features yet flushed and trembling. His own did not unbend as he gazed at her, but he gave her a silent answer in a pressure of the hands that went straight from his heart to hers. Fleda's eye turned to Charlton appealingly.

"Is it necessary," he repeated, "that that child and this boy should spend their days in labour to keep the family alive?"

"If it were," replied Mr. Rossitur, "I am very willing that their exertions should cease. For my own part, I would quite as lief be out of the world as in it."

"Charlton! ? how can you!" said Fleda, half-beside herself ?

"you should know of what you speak, or be silent! ? Uncle, don't mind him! he is talking wildly ? my work does me good."

"You do not understand yourself," said Charlton, obstinately; ? "it is more than you ought to do, and I know my mother thinks so, too."

"Well!" said Mr. Rossitur ? "it seems there is an agreement in my own family to bring me to the bar ? get up, Fleda, ? let us hear all the charges to be brought against me, at once, and then pa.s.s sentence. What have you and your mother agreed upon, Charlton? ? go on!"

Mrs. Rossitur, now beyond speech, left the room, weeping even aloud. Hugh followed her. Fleda wrestled with her agitation for a minute or two, and than got up and put both arms round her uncle's neck.

"Don't talk so, dear uncle Rolf! ? you make us very unhappy ?

aunt Lucy did not mean any such thing ? it is only Charlton's nonsense. Do go and tell her you don't think so ? you have broken her heart by what you said; ? do go, uncle Rolf! ? do go and make her happy again! Forget it all! ? Charlton did not know what he was saying ? wont you go, dear uncle Rolf? ?"

The words were spoken between bursts of tears that utterly overcame her, though they did not hinder the utmost caressingness of manner. It seemed at first spent upon a rock.

Mr. Rossitur stood like a man that did not care what happened or what became of him ? dumb and unrelenting ? suffering her sweet words and imploring tears, with no attempt to answer the one or stay the other. But he could not hold out against her beseeching. He was no match for it. He returned at last heartily the pressure of her arms, and, unable to give her any other answer, kissed her two or three times ? such kisses as are charged with the heart's whole message; and, disengaging himself, left the room.

For a minute after he was gone, Fleda cried excessively; and Charlton, now alone with her, felt as if he had not a particle of self-respect left to stand upon. One such agony would do her more harm than whole weeks of labour and weariness. He was too vexed and ashamed of himself to be able to utter a word, but when she recovered a little, and was leaving the room, he stood still by the door in an att.i.tude that seemed to ask her to speak a word to him.

"I am sure, Charlton," she said, gently, "you'll be sorry to- morrow for what you have done."

"I am sorry now," he said. But she pa.s.sed out without saying anything more.

Captain Rossitur pa.s.sed the night in unmitigated vexation with himself. But his repentance could not have been very genuine, since his most painful thought was, what Fleda must think of him.

He was somewhat rea.s.sured at breakfast to find no traces of the evening's storm; indeed, the moral atmosphere seemed rather clearer and purer than common. His own face was the only one which had an unusual shade upon it. There was no difference in anybody's manner towards himself; and there was even a particularly gentle and kind pleasantness about Fleda, intended, he knew, to soothe and put to rest any movings of self-reproach he might feel. It somehow missed of its aim, and made him feel worse; and after, on his part, a very silent meal, he quitted the house, and took himself and his discontent to the woods.

Whatever effect they had upon him, it was the middle of the morning before he came back again. He found Fleda alone in the breakfast-room, sewing; and for the first time noticed the look his mother had spoken of ? a look not of sadness, but rather of settled, patient gravity; the more painful to see, because it could only have been wrought by long-acting causes, and might be as slow to do away as it must have been to bring.

Charlton's displeasure with the existing state of things had revived as his remorse died away, and that quiet face did not have a quieting effect upon him.

"What on earth is going on?" he began, rather abruptly, as soon as he entered the room. "What horrible cookery is on foot?"

"I venture to recommend that you do not inquire," said Fleda.

"It was set on foot in the kitchen, and it has walked in here.

If you open the window, it will walk out."

"But you will be cold?"