'And what do you want me to do?--to go and tell papa all about it? I mean to do that, of course; it is the only way to get comforted.'

'Of course it is; but--'

'You horrid creature, Ethel! I'll never say you aren't a bother again.

You really do want me to go and tell Charles Cheviot that he was quite right, and Mary that I'm ready to be trampled on by all my brothers-in-law in a row! Well, there won't be any more. You'll never give me one--that's one comfort!' said Gertrude, wriggling herself up, and flinging an arm round Ethel's neck. 'As long as you don't do that, I'll do anything for you.'

'Not for me.'

'Well, you know that, you old thing! only you might take it as a personal compliment. I really will do it; for, of course, one could not keep one's Christmas otherwise!' It was rather too business-like; but elders are often surprised to find what was a hard achievement in their time a matter of course to their pupils--almost lightly pa.s.sed over.

d.i.c.kie slept till morning, when he was found very pale, but lively and good-humoured as ever. Mr. Wright, coming up to see him, found the hurt going on well, and told Ethel, that if she could keep him in bed and undisturbed for the day, it would be better and safer; but that if he became restless and fretful, there would be no great risk in taking him to a sofa. Restless and fretful! Mr. Wright little knew the discretion, or the happy power of accommodation to circ.u.mstances, that had descended to Meta's firstborn.

He was quite resigned as soon as the explanation had been made--perhaps, indeed, there was an instinctive sense, that to be dressed and moved would be fatiguing; but he had plenty of smiles and animation for his visitors, and, when propped up in bed, was full of devices for occupation. Moreover he acquired a slave; he made a regular appropriation of Leonard, whom he quickly perceived to be the most likely person to a.s.sist in his great design of constructing a model of the clock in the Minster tower, for the edification of his little brother Harry. Leonard worked away at the table by the bed-side with interest nearly equal to the child's; and when wire and cardboard were wanting, he put aside all his dislike to facing the Stoneborough streets and tradesmen in open day, and, at d.i.c.kie's request, sallied forth in quest of the materials. And when the bookseller made inquiries after the boy, Leonard, in the fulness of his heart, replied freely and in detail--nay, he was so happy in the little man's well-doing, that he was by no means disconcerted even by a full encounter of Mrs. Harvey Anderson in the street, but answered all her inquiries, in entire oblivion of all but the general rejoicing in little d.i.c.kie's wonderful escape.

'Well,' said Aubrey to his sisters, after a visit to his nephew's room, 'd.i.c.kie has the best right to him, certainly, to-day. It is an absolute appropriation! They were talking away with all their might when I came up, but came to a stop when I went in, and Master d.i.c.k sent me to the right-about.'

The truth was, that d.i.c.kie, who, with eyes and ears all alive, had gathered up some fragments of Leonard's history, had taken this opportunity of catechizing him upon it in a manner that it was impossible to elude, and which the child's pretty tact carried off, as it did many things which would not have been tolerated if done rudely and abruptly. Step by step, in the way of question and remark, he led Leonard to tell him all that had happened; and when once fairly embarked in the reminiscence, there was in it a kind of peace and pleasure. The fresh, loving, wondering sympathy of the little boy was unspeakably comforting; and besides, the bringing the facts in their simple form to the grasp of the childish mind, restored their proportion, which their terrible consequences had a good deal disturbed. They seemed to pa.s.s from the present to the historical, and to a.s.sume the balance that they took in the child's mind, coming newly upon them. It was like bathing in a clear limpid stream, that washed away the remains of morbid oppression.

'I wish mamma was here,' said the little friend, at last.

'Do you want her? Are you missing her, my dear?'

'I miss her always,' said d.i.c.kie. 'But it was not that--only mamma always makes everybody so happy; and she would be so fond of you, because you have had so much trouble.'

'But, d.i.c.kie, don't you think I am happy to be with your grandfather and aunt, and hoping to see my own sisters very soon--your aunt, who taught me what bore me through it all?'

'Aunt Ethel?' cried d.i.c.kie, considering. 'I like Aunt Ethel very much; but then she is not like mamma!'

There could be no doubt that Leonard was much better and happier after this adventure. Reluctantly, d.i.c.kie let him go back to c.o.c.ksmoor, where his services in church-decking and in singing had been too much depended on to be dispensed with; but he was to come back with Richard for the family a.s.sembly on Christmas evening.

Moreover, Gertrude, who was quite herself again, having made her peace with the Cheviots, and endured the reception of her apologies, seized on him to lay plots for a Christmas-tree, for the delectation of d.i.c.kie on his sofa, and likewise of Margaret Rivers, and of the elite of the c.o.c.ksmoor schools. He gave in to it heartily, and on the appointed day worked with great spirit at the arrangements in the dining-room, where Gertrude, favoured by the captive state of the little boy, conducted her preparations, relegating the family meals to the schoolroom.

This tree was made the occasion for furnishing Leonard with all the little appliances of personal property that had been swept away from him; and, after all, he was the most delighted of the party. The small Charlie Cheviot had to be carried off shrieking; Margaret Rivers was critical; even c.o.c.ksmoor was experienced in Christmas-trees; and d.i.c.kie, when placed in the best situation, and asked if such trees grew in New Zealand, made answer that he helped mamma to make one every year for the Maori children. It was very kind in Aunt Daisy, he added, with unfailing courtesy; but he was too zealous for his colony to be dazzled--too utilitarian to be much gratified by any of his gifts, excepting a knife of perilous excellence, which Aubrey, in contempt of Stoneborough productions, had sacrificed from his own pocket at the last moment.

Leonard and d.i.c.kie together were in a state of great delight at the little packets handed to the former; studs, purse, pencil-case, writing materials; from Hector Ernescliffe, a watch, with the entreaty that his gifts might not be regarded as unlucky; from Ethel, a photographic book, with the cartes of his own family, whose old negatives had been hunted up for the purpose; also a recent one of Dr. May with his grandson on his knee, the duplicate of which was gone to New Zealand, with the Doctor's inscription, 'The modern Cyropaedia, Astyages confounded.' There was Richard, very good, young and pretty; there was Ethel, exactly like the Doctor, 'only more so;' there was Gertrude, like n.o.body, not even herself, and her brothers much in the same predicament, there was the latest of Mr. Rivers's many likenesses, with the c.o.c.katoo on his wrist, and there was the least truculent and witchlike of the numerous attempts on Flora; there was Mrs. Cheviot, broad-faced and smiling over her son, and Mr. and Mrs. Ernescliffe, pinioning the limbs of their offspring, as in preparation for a family holocaust; there was d.i.c.kie's mamma, unspoilable in her loveliness even by photography, and his papa grown very bald and archidiaconal; there was Ethel's great achievement of influence, Dr. Spencer, beautiful in his white hair; there were the vicar and the late and present head-masters. The pleasure excited by all these gifts far exceeded the antic.i.p.ations of their donors, it seemed as if they had fallen on the very moment when they would convey a sense of home, welcome, and restoration. He did not say much, but looked up with liquid l.u.s.trous eyes, and earnest 'thank you's,' and caressingly handled and examined the treasures over and over again, as they lay round him on d.i.c.kie's couch. 'I suppose,' said the child to him, 'it is like Job, when all his friends came to see him, and every one gave him a piece of money.'

'He could hardly have enjoyed it more,' murmured Leonard, feeling the restful capacity of happiness in the new possession of the child's ardent love, and of the kind looks of all around, above all, of the one presence that still gave him his chief sense of sunshine. The boyish and romantic touch of pa.s.sion had, as Ethel had long seen, been burnt and seared away, and yet there was something left, something that, as on this evening she felt, made his voice softer, his eye more deferential, to her than to any one else. Perhaps she had once been his guiding star; and if in the wild tempests of the night he had learnt instead to direct his course by the "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning," still the star would be prized and distinguished, as the first and most honoured among inferior constellations.

CHAPTER XXIX

Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mixed.--TENNYSON

At New York, Tom wrote a short letter to announce his safe arrival, and then pushed on by railway into Indiana. Winter had completely set in; and when he at length arrived at Winiamac, he found that a sleigh was a far readier mode of conveyance to Ma.s.sissauga than the wagons used in summer. His drive, through the white cathedral-like arcades of forest, hung with transparent icicles, and with the deep blue sky above, becoming orange towards the west, was enjoyable; and even Ma.s.sissauga itself, when its skeleton trees were like their neighbours, embellished by the pure snowy covering, looked less forlorn than when their death contrasted with the exuberant life around. He stopped at the hotel, left his baggage there, and after undergoing a catechism on his personal affairs, was directed to Mr. Muller's house, and made his way up its hard-trodden path of snow, towards the green door, at which he knocked two or three times before it was opened by a woman, whose hair and freckled skin were tinted nowhere but in Ireland.

He made a step forward out of the cutting blast into the narrow entry, and began to ask, 'Is Miss Ward here? I mean, can I see Miss Warden?'

when, as if at the sound of his voice, there rang from within the door close by a shriek--one of the hoa.r.s.e hysterical cries he had heard upon the day of the inquest. Without a moment's hesitation, he pushed open the door, and beheld a young lady in speechless terror hanging over the stiffened figure on the couch--the eyes wide open, the limbs straight and rigid. He sprang forward, and lifted her into a more favourable posture, hastily asking for simple remedies likely to be at hand, and producing a certain amount of revival for a few moments, though the stiffness was not pa.s.sing--nor was there evidence of consciousness.

'Are you Leonard?' said Cora Muller, under her breath, in this brief interval, gazing into his face with frightened puzzled eyes.

'No; but I am come to tell her that he is free!' But the words were cut short by another terrible access, of that most distressing kind that stimulates convulsion; and again the terrified women instinctively rendered obedience to the stranger in the measures he rapidly took, and his words, 'hysteria--a form of hysteria,' were forced from him by the necessity of lessening Cora's intense alarm, so as to enable her to be effective. 'We must send for Dr. Laidlaw,' she began in the first breathing moment, and again he looked up and said, 'I am a physician!'

'Mr. Tom?' she asked with the faintest shadow of a smile; he bent his head, and that was their introduction, broken again by another frightful attack; and when quiescence, if not consciousness, was regained, Tom knelt by the sofa, gazing with a sense of heart-rending despair at the wasted features and thin hands, the waxen whiteness of the cheek, and the tokens in which he clearly read long and consuming illness as well as the overthrow of the sudden shock.

'What is this?' he asked, looking up to Cora's beautiful anxious face.

'Oh, she has been very sick, very sick,' she answered; 'it was an attack of pleurisy; but she is getting better at last, though she will not think so, and this news will make all well. Does she hear? Say it again!'

Tom shook his head, afraid of the sound of the name as yet, and scarcely durst even utter the word 'Ella' above his breath.

'She is gone out with Cousin Deborah to an apple bee,' was the rea.s.suring answer. 'She wanted change, poor child! Is she getting better?'

Averil was roused by a cough, the sound which tore Tom's heart by its import, but he drew back out of her sight, and let Cora raise her, and give her drink, in a soothing tender manner, that was evident restoration. 'Cora dear, is it you?' she said, faintly; 'didn't I hear some one else's voice? Didn't they say--?' and the shiver that crept over her was almost a return of the hysteric fit.

'We said he was free,' said Cora, holding her in her arms.

'Free--yes, I know what that means--free among the dead,' said Averil, calmly, smoothing Cora's hair, and looking in her face. 'Don't be afraid to let me hear. I shall be there with him and Minna soon.

Didn't somebody come to tell me? Please let him in, I'll be quiet now.'

And as she made gestures of arranging her hair and dress, Tom guardedly presented himself, saying in a voice that trembled with his endeavour to render it calm, 'Did you think I should have come if I had nothing better to tell you?' and as she put out her hand in greeting, he took it in both his own, and met her eyes looking at him wide open, in the first dawning of the hope of an impossible gladness. 'Yes,' he said, 'the truth is come out--he is cleared--he is at home--at Stoneborongh!'

The hot fingers closed convulsively on his own, then she raised herself, pressed her hands together, and gasped and struggled fearfully for breath. The joy and effort for self-command were more than the enfeebled frame could support, and there was a terrible and prolonged renewal of those agonizing paroxysms, driving away every thought from the other two except of the immediate needs. At last, when the violence of the attack had subsided, and left what was either fainting or stupor, they judged it best to carry her to her bed, and trust that, reviving without the a.s.sociations of the other room, the agitation would be less likely to return, and that she might sleep under the influence of an anodyne. Poor Tom! it was not the reception he had figured to himself, and after he had laid her down, and left her to Cora and to Katty to be undressed, he returned to the parlour, and stood over the sinking wood-fire in dejection and dreariness of heart--wrung by the sufferings he had witnessed, with the bitter words (too late) echoing in his brain, and with the still more cruel thought--had it been his father or one of his brothers--any one to whose kindness she could trust, the shock had not been so great, and there would have been more sense of soothing and comfort! And then he tried to collect his impressions of her condition, and judge what would serve for her relief, but all his senses seemed to be scattered; dismay, compa.s.sion, and sympathy, had driven away all power of forming a conclusion--he was no longer the doctor--he was only the anxious listener for the faintest sound from the room above, but none reached him save the creaking of the floor under Katty's heavy tread.

The gay tinkle of sleigh-bells was the next noise he heard, and presently the door was opened, and two m.u.f.fled hooded figures looked into the room, now only lighted by the red embers of the fire.

'Where's Cora? where's Ave?' said the bright tone of the lesser. 'It is all dark!' and she was raising her voice to call, when Tom instinctively uttered a 'Hush,' and moved forward; 'hush, Ella, your sister has been ill.'

The little m.u.f.fled figure started at the first sound of his voice, but as he stepped nearer recoiled for a second, then with a low cry, almost a sob of recognition, exclaimed, 'Mr. Tom! Oh, Mr. Tom! I knew you would come! Cousin Deborah, it's Mr. Tom!' and she flew into his arms, and clung with an ecstasy of joy, unknowing the why or how, but with a sense that light had shone, and that her troubles were over. She asked no questions, she only leant against him with, 'Mr. Tom! Mr. Tom!'

under her breath.

'But what is it, stranger? Do tell! Where are the girls? What's this about Avy's being sick? Do you know the stranger, Ella?'

'It's Mr. Tom,' she cried, holding his arm round her neck, looking up in a rapturous restfulness.

'I brought Miss Ward-en some good news that I fear has been too much for her,' said he; 'I am--only waiting to--hear how she is.'

By way of answer, Deborah opened another door which threw more light on the scene from the cooking stove in the kitchen, and at the same moment Cora with a candle came down the stairs.

'O, Dr. May,' she said, 'you have been too long left alone in the dark.

I think she is asleep now. You will stay. We will have tea directly.'

Tom faltered something about the hotel, and began to look at Cousin Deborah, and to consider the proprieties of life; but Cousin Deborah, Cora, and Ella began declaring with one voice that he must remain for the evening meal, and a bustle of cheerful preparation commenced, while Ella still hung on his hand.

'But, Ella, you've never asked my good news.'

'Oh dear! I was too glad! Are we going home then?'