Uncle Max Part 64

'I have had such a lovely sleep, Ursula, and without any bad dreams.

I feel so refreshed.'

'I am so glad to hear it, dear,' I replied; and, overjoyed at this good news, I went out into the pa.s.sage to find Chatty, for I wanted Mr.

Hamilton to know at once of this improvement. He had been very anxious the previous night, and had talked of consulting with an old friend of his who knew Gladys's const.i.tution.

On the threshold I encountered Miss Darrell.

'Were you looking for any one?' she asked coldly.

'Yes, for Chatty. I want Mr. Hamilton to know that Gladys has had three hours' sleep, and has awakened refreshed and without any nervous feelings. Will you be kind enough to tell him?'

'Oh, certainly: not that I attach much importance to such a transient improvement. Gladys's case is far too serious for me to be so sanguine.

I believe you have not nursed these nervous patients before. If Giles had taken my advice he would have had a person trained to this special work.'

'Gladys's case does not require that sort of nurse,' I replied quickly.

'Excuse me, Miss Darrell, but I am anxious that Mr. Hamilton should know of his sister's improvement before he goes out. Chatty told me that they had sent for him from Abbey Farm.'

'Yes, I believe so,' she replied carelessly. 'Don't trouble yourself Miss Garston: I am quite as anxious as yourself that Giles's mind should be put at rest. He has had worry enough, poor fellow.'

I was rather surprised and disappointed when, ten minutes afterwards, I heard the hall door close, and, hurrying to a window, I saw Mr. Hamilton walking very quickly in the direction of Maplehurst. A moment afterwards Chatty brought me a message from him. He had been called off suddenly, and might not be back for hours. If I wanted him, Atkinson was to take one of the horses. He would probably be at Abbey Farm or at Gunter's Cottages in the Croft.

This message rather puzzled me. After turning it over in my mind, I went in search of Miss Darrell. I found her in the conservatory gathering some flowers.

'Did you give my message to Mr. Hamilton?' I asked, rather abruptly. I thought she hesitated and seemed a little confused.

'What message? Oh, I remember,--about Gladys. No, I just missed him: he had gone out. But it is of no consequence, is it? I will tell him when he comes home.'

I would not trust myself to reply. She must have purposely loitered on her way downstairs, hoping to annoy me. He would spend an anxious day, for I knew he was very uncomfortable about Gladys: perhaps he would write to Dr. Townsend. It was no use speaking to Miss Darrell: she was only too ready to thwart me on all occasions. I would take the matter into my own hands. I went down to the stables and found Atkinson, and asked him to ride over to Abbey Farm and take a note to his master.

'I hope Miss Gladys is not worse, ma'am,' he said civilly, looking rather alarmed at his errand; but when I had satisfied him on this point he promised to find him as quickly as possible.

'There is only Whitefoot in the stable,' he said. 'Master has both the browns out: Norris was to pick him up in the village. But he is quite fresh, and will do the job easily.' I wrote my note while Whitefoot was being saddled, and then went back to the house. Miss Darrell looked at me suspiciously.

'I thought I heard voices in the stable-yard,' she said; and I at once told her what I had done.

For the first time she seemed utterly confounded.

'You told Atkinson to saddle Whitefoot and go all these miles just to carry that ridiculous message! I wonder what Giles will say,' she observed indignantly. 'All these years that I have managed his house I should never have thought of taking such a liberty.'

This was hard to bear, but I answered her with seeming coolness:

'If Mr. Hamilton thinks I am wrong, he will tell me so. In this house I am only accountable to him.' And I walked away with much dignity.

But I knew I had been right when I saw Mr. Hamilton's face that evening, for he did not return until seven o'clock. He came up at once, and beckoned me into Lady Betty's room.

'Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Miss Garston,' he said gratefully.

'You have spared me a wretchedly anxious day. A bad accident case at Abbey Farm called me off, and I had only time to get my things ready, and I was obliged to see the colonel first. If you had not sent me that note I should have written to Dr. Townsend. But why did not Chatty bring me a message before I went?'

I explained that I had given the message to Miss Darrell.

'That is very strange,' he observed thoughtfully. 'Thornton was helping me in the hall when I saw Etta watering her flower-stand. Well, never mind; she shall have her lecture presently. Now let us go to Gladys.'

Of course his first look at her told him she was better, and he went downstairs contentedly to eat his dinner. After this Gladys made slow but steady progress: she gained a little more strength; the habit of sleep returned to her; her nights were no longer seasons of terror, leaving her dejected and exhausted. Insensibly her thoughts became more hopeful; she spoke of other things besides her own feelings, and no longer refused to yield to my efforts to cheer her.

I watched my opportunity, and one evening, as we were sitting by the window looking out at a crescent moon that hung like a silver bow behind the oak-trees, I remarked, with a.s.sumed carelessness, that Uncle Max had called earlier that day. There was a perceptible start on Gladys's part, and she caught her breath for an instant.

'Do you mean that Mr. Cunliffe often comes?' she asked, in a low voice, and turning her long neck aside with a quick movement that concealed her face.

'Oh yes, every day. I do not believe that he has missed more than once, and then he sent Mr. Tudor. You see your friends have been anxious about you, Gladys. I wrote to Max often to tell him exactly what progress you were making.'

'It was very kind of him to be so anxious,' she answered slowly, and with manifest effort. I thought it best to say no more just then, but to leave her to digest these few words. That night was the best she had yet pa.s.sed, and in the morning I was struck by the improvement in her appearance; she looked calmer and more cheerful.

Towards mid-day I noticed that she grew a little abstracted, and when Uncle Max's bell rang, she looked at me, and a tinge of colour came to her face.

'Should you not like to go down and speak to Mr. Cunliffe?' she said timidly. 'I must not keep you such a prisoner, Ursula.' But when I returned indifferently that another day would do as well, and that I had nothing special to say to him, I noticed that she looked disappointed. As I never mentioned Miss Darrell's name to her, I could not explain my real reason for declining to go down. I was rather surprised when she continued in an embarra.s.sed tone, as though speech had grown difficult to her,--she often hesitated in this fashion when anything disturbed her,--

'I am rather sorry that Etta always sees him alone: one never knows what she may say to him. I have begun to distrust her in most things.'

'I do not think that it matters much what she says to him,' I returned briskly; for it would never do to leave her anxious on this point. 'You know I have provided an antidote in the shape of daily notes.'

'Surely you do not write every day,' taking her fan from the table with a trembling hand. 'What can you have to say to Mr. Cunliffe about me?'

And I could see she waited for my answer with suppressed eagerness.

'Oh, he likes to know how you slept,' I returned carelessly, 'and if you are quieter and more cheerful. Uncle Max has such sympathy with people who are ill; he is very kind-hearted.'

'Oh yes; I never knew any one more so,' she replied gently; but I detected a yearning tone in her voice, as though she was longing for his sympathy then. We did not say any more, but I thought she was a trifle restless that afternoon, and yet she looked happier; she spoke once or twice, as though she were tired of remaining upstairs.

'I think I am stronger. Does Giles consider it necessary for me to stop up here?' she asked, once. 'If it were not for Etta I should like to be in the drawing-room. But no, that would be an end to our peace.' And here she looked a little excited. 'But if Giles would let me have a drive.'

I promised to speak to him on the subject of the drive, for I was sure that he would hail the proposition most gladly as a sign of returning health; but I told her that in my opinion it would be better for her to remain quietly in these two pleasant rooms until she was stronger and more fit to endure the little daily annoyances that are so trying to a nervous invalid.

'When that time comes you will have to part with your nurse,' I went on, in a joking tone. But I was grieved to see that at the first hint of my leaving her she clung to me with the old alarm visible in her manner.

'You must not say that! I cannot part with you, Ursula!' she exclaimed vehemently. 'If you go, you must take me with you.' And it was some time before she would let herself be laughed out of her anxious thoughts.

When I revolved all these things in my mind,--her prolonged delicacy and painful sensitiveness, her aversion to her cousin, and her evident dread of the future,--I felt that the time had come to seek a more complete understanding on a point that still perplexed me: I must come to the bottom of this singular change in her manner to Max. I must know without doubt and reserve the real state of her feeling with regard to him and her cousin Claude. If, as I had grown to think during these weeks of illness, one of these two men, and not Eric, was the chief cause of her melancholy, I must know which of these two had so agitated her young life. But in my own mind I never doubted which it was.

This was the difficult task I had set myself, and I felt that it would not be easy to approach the subject. Gladys was exceedingly reserved, even with me; it had cost her an effort to speak to me of Eric, and she had never once mentioned her cousin Captain Hamilton's name.

A woman like Gladys would be extremely reticent on the subject of lovers: the deeper her feelings, the more she would conceal them. Unlike other girls, I never heard her speak in the light jesting way with which others mention a love-affair. She once told me that she considered it far too sacred and serious to be used as a topic of general conversation. 'People do not know what they are talking about when they say such things,' she said, in a moved voice: 'there is no reverence, and little reticence, nowadays. Girls talk of falling in love, or men felling in love with them, as lightly as they would speak of going to a ball. They do not consider the responsibility, the awfulness, of such an election, being chosen out of a whole worldful of women to be the light and life of a man's home. Oh, it hurts me to hear some girls talk!' she finished, with a slight shudder.

Knowing the purity and uprightness of this girl's nature, I confess I hesitated long in intruding myself into that inner sanctuary that she guarded so carefully; but for Max's sake--poor Max, who grew more tired-looking and haggard every day--I felt it would be cruel to hesitate longer.

So one evening, when we were sitting quietly together enjoying the cool evening air, I took Gladys's thin hand in mine and asked her if she felt well enough for me to talk to her about something that had long troubled me, and that I feared speaking to her about, dreading lest I should displease her. I thought she looked a little apprehensive at my seriousness, but she replied very sweetly, and the tears came into her beautiful eyes as she spoke, that nothing I could say or do could displease her; that I was so true a friend to her that it would be impossible for her to take offence.

'I am glad of that, Gladys dear,' I returned quietly; 'for I have long wanted courage to ask you a question. What is the real reason of your estrangement from Max?' and then, growing bolder, I whispered in her ear, as she shrank from me, 'I do not ask what are your feelings to him, for I think I have guessed them,--unless, indeed, I am wrong, and you prefer your cousin Captain Hamilton.' I almost feared that I had been too abrupt and awkward when I saw her sudden paleness: she began to tremble like a leaf until I mentioned Captain Hamilton's name, and then she turned to me with a look of mingled astonishment and indignation.

'Claude? Are you out of your senses, Ursula? Who has put such an idea into your head?'