‘I wish you had come home sooner. We have had such a pleasant dinner-party. You would have liked to meet the professor.’
It was not the first time John had been sensible that that drawing-room was no place for sympathy; and he felt it the more now, because he had been living in such entire participation of his brother’s hopes and fears, that he could hardly suppose any one could be less interested in the mother and child in Cadogan-place. He came home, wishing Theodora would go and relieve Arthur of some of the care Violet needed in her convalescence; and he was much disappointed by her apparent indifference—in reality, a severe fit of perverse jealousy.
All dinner-time she endured a conversation on the subjects for which she least cared; nay, she talked ardently about the past dinner-party, for the very purpose of preventing John from suspecting that her anxiety had prevented her from enjoying it. And when she left the dining-room, she felt furious at knowing that now her father would have all the particulars to himself, so that none would transpire to her.
She longed so much to hear of Arthur and his child, that when John came into the drawing-room she could have asked! But he went to greet his aunt, who received him thus:
‘Well, I am glad to see you at last. You ought to have good reasons for coming to England for the May east winds, and then exposing yourself to them in London!’
‘I hope I did not expose myself: I only went out three or four times.’
‘I know you are always rejoiced to be as little at home as possible.’
‘I could not be spared sooner, ma’am.’
‘Spared? I think you have come out in a new capacity.’
John never went up his aunt without expecting to undergo a penance.
‘I was sorry no one else could be with Arthur, but being there, I could not leave him.’
‘And your mother tells me you are going back again.’
‘Yes, to stand godfather.’
‘To the son and heir, as they called him in the paper. I gave Arthur credit for better taste; I suppose it was done by some of her connections?’
‘I was that connection,’ said John.
‘Oh! I suppose you know what expectations you will raise?’
John making no answer, she grew more angry. ‘This one, at least, is never likely to be heir, from what I hear; it is only surprising that it is still alive.’
How Theodora hung upon the answer, her very throat aching with anxiety, but hardening her face because John looked towards her.
‘We were very much afraid for him at first,’ he said, ‘but they now think there is no reason he should not do well. He began to improve from the time she could attend to him.’
A deep sigh from his mother startled John, and recalled the grief of his childhood—the loss of two young sisters who had died during her absence on the continent. He crossed over and stood near her, between her and his aunt, who, in agitated haste to change the conversation, called out to ask her about some club-book. For once she did not attend; and while Theodora came forward and answered Mrs. Nesbit, she tremulously asked John if he had seen the child.
‘Only once, before he was an hour old. He was asleep when I came away; and, as Arthur says, it is a serious thing to disturb him, he cries so much.’
‘A little low melancholy wailing,’ she said, with a half sob. But Mrs. Nesbit would not leave her at peace any longer, and her voice came beyond the screen of John’s figure:—
‘Lady Martindale, my dear, have you done with those books! They ought to be returned.’
‘Which, dear aunt?’ And Lady Martindale started up as if she had been caught off duty, and, with a manifest effort, brought her wandering thoughts back again, to say which were read and which were unread.
John did not venture to revert to a subject that affected his mother so strongly; but he made another attempt upon his sister, when he could speak to her apart. ‘Arthur has been wondering not to hear from you.’
‘Every one has been writing,’ she answered, coldly.
‘He wants some relief from his constant attendance,’ continued John; ‘I was afraid at first it would be too much for him, sitting up three nights consecutively, and even now he has not at all recovered his looks.’
‘Is he looking ill?’ said Theodora.
‘He has gone through a great deal, and when she tries to make him go out, he only goes down to smoke. You would do a great deal of good if you were there.’
Theodora would not reply. For Arthur to ask her to come and be godmother was the very thing she wished; but she would not offer at John’s bidding, especially when Arthur was more than ever devoted to his wife; so she made no sign; and John repented of having said so much, thinking that, in such a humour, the farther she was from them the better.
Yet what he had said might have worked, had not a history of the circumstances of Violet’s illness come round to her by way of Mrs. Nesbit. John had told his father; Lord Martindale told his wife; Lady Martindale told her aunt, under whose colouring the story reached Theodora, that Arthur’s wife had been helpless and inefficient, had done nothing but cry over her household affairs, could not bear to be left alone, and that the child’s premature birth had been occasioned by a fit of hysterics because Arthur had gone out fishing. No wonder Theodora pitied the one brother, and thought the other infatuated. To write to Arthur was out of the question; and she could only look forward to consoling him when the time for London should come. Nor was she much inclined to compassionate John, when, as he said, the east wind—as his aunt said, the London fog—as she thought, the Rickworth meadows—brought on such an accession of cough that he was obliged to confine himself to his two rooms, where he felt unusually solitary.
She went in one day to carry him the newspaper. ‘I am writing to Arthur,’ he said, ‘to tell him that I shall not be able to be in London next Sunday; do you like to put in a note?’
‘No, I thank you.’
‘You have no message?’
‘None.’
He paused and looked at her. ‘I wish you would write,’ he said. ‘Arthur has been watching eagerly for your congratulation.’
‘He does not give much encouragement,’ said Theodora, moving to the door.
‘I wish he was a letter writer! After being so long with them, I don’t like hearing nothing more; but his time has been so much engrossed that he could hardly have written at first. I believe the first letter he looked for was from you.’
‘I don’t know what to say. Other people have said all the commonplace things.’
‘You would not speak in that manner—you who used to be so fond of Arthur—if you by any means realized what he has gone through.’
Theodora was touched, but would not show it. ‘He does not want me now,’ she said, and was gone, and then her lips relaxed, and she breathed a heavy sigh.
John sighed too. He could not understand her, and was sensible that his own isolation was as a consequence of having lived absorbed in his affection and his grief, without having sought the intimacy of his sister. His brother’s family cares had, for the first time, led him to throw himself into the interests of those around him, and thus aroused from the contemplation of his loss, he began to look with regret on opportunities neglected and influence wasted. The stillness of his own room did not as formerly suffice to him; the fears and hopes he had lately been sharing rose more vividly before him, and he watched eagerly for the reply to his letter.
It came, not from Arthur, but in the pointed style of Violet’s hardest steel pen, when Matilda’s instructions were most full in her mind; stiff, cramped, and formal, as if it had been a great effort to write it, and John was grieved to find that she was still in no state for exertion. She had scarcely been down-stairs, and neither she nor the baby were as yet likely to be soon able to leave the house, in spite of all the kind care of Lady Elizabeth and Miss Brandon. Violet made numerous apologies for the message, which she had little thought would cause Mr. Martindale to alter his route.
In fact, those kind friends had been so much affected by John’s account of Violet’s weak state, under no better nursing than Arthur’s, that, as he had hoped, they had hastened their visit to London, and were now settled as near to her as possible, spending nearly the whole of their time with her. Emma almost idolized the baby, and was delighted at Arthur’s grateful request that she would be its sponsor, and Violet was as happy in their company as the restlessness of a mind which had not yet recovered its tone, would allow her to be.
In another fortnight John wrote to say that he found he had come home too early, and must go to the Isle of Wight till the weather was warmer. In passing through London, he would come to Cadogan-place, and it was decided that he should arrive in time to go with the baby to church on the Tuesday, and proceed the next morning.
He arrived as Violet came down to greet her party of sponsors. Never had she looked prettier than when her husband led her into the room, her taper figure so graceful in her somewhat languid movements, and her countenance so sweetly blending the expression of child and mother. Each white cheek was tinged with exquisite rose colour, and the dark liquid eyes and softly smiling mouth had an affectionate pensiveness far lovelier than her last year’s bloom, and yet there was something painful in that beauty—it was too like the fragility of the flower fading under one hour’s sunshine; and there was a sadness in seeing the matronly stamp on a face so young that it should have shown only girlhood’s freedom from care. Arthur indeed was boasting of the return of the colour, which spread and deepened as he drew attention to it; but John and Lady Elizabeth agreed, as they walked to church, that it was the very token of weakness, and that with every kind intention Arthur did not know how to take care of her—how should he?
The cheeks grew more brilliant and burning at church, for on being carried to the font, the baby made his doleful notes heard, and when taken from his nurse, they rose into a positive roar. Violet looked from him to his father’s face, and there saw so much discomposure that her wretchedness was complete, enhanced as it was by a sense of wickedness in not being able to be happy and grateful. Just as when a few days previously she had gone to return thanks, she had been in a nervous state of fluttering and trembling that allowed her to dwell on nothing but the dread of fainting away. The poor girl’s nerves had been so completely overthrown, that even her powers of mind seemed to be suffering, and her agitated manner quite alarmed Lady Elizabeth. She was in good hands, however; Lady Elizabeth went home with her, kept every one else away, and nursing her in her own kind way, brought her back to common sense, for in the exaggeration of her weak spirits, she had been feeling as if it was she who had been screaming through the service, and seriously vexing Arthur.
He presently looked in himself to say the few fond merry words that were only needed to console her, and she was then left alone to rest, not tranquil enough for sleep, but reading hymns, and trying to draw her thoughts up to what she thought they ought to be on the day of her child’s baptismal vows.
It was well for her that the christening dinner (a terror to her imagination) had been deferred till the family should be in town, and that she had no guest but John, who was very sorry to see how weary and exhausted she looked, as if it was a positive effort to sit at the head of the table.
When the two brothers came up to the drawing-room, they found her on the sofa.
‘Regularly done for!’ said Arthur, sitting down by her. ‘You ought to have gone to bed, you perverse woman.’
‘I shall come to life after tea,’ said she, beginning to rise as signs of its approach were heard.
‘Lie still, I say,’ returned Arthur, settling the cushion. ‘Do you think no one can make tea but yourself! Out with the key, and lie still.’
‘I hope, Violet,’ said John, ‘you did not think the Red Republicans had been in your drawers and boxes. I am afraid Arthur may have cast the blame of his own doings on the absent, though I assure you I did my best to protect them.’
‘Indeed he did you more justice,’ said Violet, ‘he told me the box was your setting to rights, and the drawer his. It was very honest of him, for I must say the box did you most credit.’
‘As to the drawer,’ said Arthur, ‘I wish I had put it into the fire at once! Those accounts are a monomania! She has been worse from the day she got hold of that book of hers again, and the absurd part of it is that these are all bills that she pays!’
‘Oh! they are all comfortable now,’ said Violet.
‘And what did you say to Arthur’s bold stroke!’ said John.
‘Oh! I never laughed more in my life.’
‘Ah ha’’ said Arthur, ‘it was all my admirable sagacity! Why, John, the woman was an incubus saddled upon us by Miss Standaloft, that this poor silly child did not know how to get rid of, though she was cheating us out of house and home. Never were such rejoicings as when she found the Old Man of the Sea was gone!’
‘It is quite a different thing now,’ said Violet. ‘Nurse found me such a nice niece of her own, who does not consume as much in a fortnight as that dreadful woman did in a week. Indeed, my great book has some satisfaction in it now.’
‘And yet he accuses it of having thrown you back.’
‘Everything does that!’ said Arthur. ‘She will extract means of tiring herself out of anything—pretends to be well, and then is good for nothing!’
‘Arthur! Arthur! do you know what you are doing with the tea?’ cried Violet, starting up. He has put in six shellfuls for three people, and a lump of sugar, and now was shutting up the unfortunate teapot without one drop of water!’ And gaily driving him away, she held up the sugar-tongs with the lump of sugar in his face, while he laughed and yielded the field, saying, disdainfully, ‘Woman’s work.’
‘Under the circumstances,’ said John, ‘putting in no water was the best thing he could do.’
‘Ay,’ said Arthur, ‘a pretty fellow you for a West Indian proprietor, to consume neither sugar nor cigars.’
‘At this rate,’ said John, ‘they are the people to consume nothing. There was such an account of the Barbuda property the other day, that my father is thinking of going to see what is to be done with it.’
‘No bad plan for your next winter,’ said Arthur. ‘Now, Violet, to your sofa! You have brewed your female potion in your female fashion, and may surely leave your betters to pour it out.’
‘No, indeed! How do I know what you may serve us up?’ said she, quite revived with laughing. ‘I won’t give up my place.’
‘Quite right, Violet,’ said John, ‘don’t leave me to his mercy. Last time he made tea for me, it consisted only of the other ingredient, hot water, after which I took the law into my own hands for our mutual benefit. Pray what became of him after I was gone?’
‘I was obliged to have him up into my room, and give him his tea properly there, or I believe he would have existed on nothing but cigars.’
‘Well, I shall have some opinion of you when you make him leave off cigars.’
‘Catch her!’ quietly responded Arthur.
‘There can’t be a worse thing for a man that gets bad coughs.’
‘That’s all smoke, Violet,’ said Arthur. ‘Don’t tell her so, or I shall never have any peace.’
‘At least, I advise you to open the windows of his den before you show my mother and Theodora the house.’
‘As to Theodora! what is the matter with her!’ said Arthur.
‘I don’t know,’ said John.
‘In one of her moods? Well, we shall have her here in ten days’ time, and I shall know what to be at with her.’
‘I know she likes babies,’ said Violet, with confidence. She had quite revived, and was lively and amused; but as soon as tea was over, Arthur insisted on her going to bed.
The loss of her gentle mirth seemed to be felt, for a long silence ensued; Arthur leaning against the mantel-shelf, solacing himself with a low whistle, John sitting in meditation. At last he looked up, saying, ‘I wish you would all come and stay with me at Ventnor.’
‘Thank you; but you see there’s no such thing as my going. Fitzhugh is in Norway, and till he comes back, I can’t get away for more than a day or two.’
‘Suppose,’ said John, rather doubtingly; ‘what should you think of putting Violet under my charge, and coming backwards and forwards yourself?’
‘Why, Harding did talk of sea air, but she did not take to the notion; and I was not sorry; for, of all things I detest, the chief is sticking up in a sea place, with nothing to do. But it is wretched work going on as we do, though they say there is nothing the matter but weakness. I verily believe it is all that child’s eternal noise that regularly wears her out. She is upset in a moment; and whenever she is left alone, she sets to work on some fidget or other about the house, that makes her worse than before.’
‘Going from home would be the best cure for that.’
‘I suppose it would. I meant her to have gone out with my mother, but that can’t be anyway now! The sea would give her a chance; I could run down pretty often; and you would see that she did not tire herself.’
‘I would do my best to take care of her, if you would trust her to me.’
‘I know you would; and it is very kind in you to think of it.’
‘I will find a house, and write as soon as it is ready. Do you think the end of the week would be too soon for her? I am sure London is doing her harm.’
‘Whenever you please; and yet I am sorry. I wanted my father to have seen the boy; but perhaps he had better look a little more respectable, and learn to hold his tongue first. Besides, how will it be taken, her going out of town just as they come up?’
‘I rather think it would be better for her not to meet them till she is stronger. Her continual anxiety and effort to please would be too much strain.’
‘Very likely; and I am sure I won’t keep her here to expose her to Miss Martindale’s airs. She shall come as soon as you like.’
Arthur was strengthened in his determination by the first sound that met him on going up-stairs—the poor babe’s lamentable voice; and by finding Violet, instead of taking the rest she so much needed, vainly trying to still the feeble moaning. He was positively angry; and almost as if the poor little thing had been wilfully persecuting her, declared it would be the death of her, and peremptorily ordered it up-stairs; the nurse only too glad to carry it off, and agreeing with him that it was doing more harm to its mother than she did good to it. Violet, in submissive misery, gave it up, and hid her face. One of her chief subjects for self-torment was an imagination that Arthur did not like the baby, and was displeased with its crying; and she felt utterly wretched, hardly able to bear the cheerful tone in which he spoke! ‘Well, Violet, we shall soon set you up. It is all settled. You are to go, at the end of the week, to stay with John in the Isle of Wight.’
‘Go away?’ said Violet, in an extinguished voice.
‘Yes; it is the very thing for you. I shall stay here, and go backwards and forwards. Well, what is it now?’
She was starting up, as the opening of the door let out another scream. ‘There he is still! Let me go to him for one minute.’
‘Folly!’ said Arthur, impatiently. ‘There’s no peace day or night. I won’t stand it any longer. You are half dead already. I will not have it go on. Lie down; go to sleep directly, and don’t trouble your head about anything more till morning.’
Like a good child, though choking with tears, she obeyed the first mandate; and presently was rather comforted by his listening at the foot of the stairs, and reporting that the boy seemed to be quiet at last. The rest of the order it was not in her power to obey; she was too much fatigued to sleep soundly, or to understand clearly. Most of the night was spent in broken dreams of being separated from her child and her husband, and wakening to the knowledge that something was going to happen.
At last came sounder slumbers; and she awoke with an aching head, but to clearer perceptions. And when Arthur, before going down to breakfast, asked what she wished him to say to John, she answered: ‘It is very kind of him—but you never meant me to go without you?’
‘I shall take you there, and run down pretty often; and John has been used to coddling himself all his life, so of course he will know how to take care of you.’
‘How kind he is, but I don’t’—she broke off, and looked at the little pinched face and shrivelled arms of the tiny creature, which she pressed more closely to her; then, with a hesitating voice, ‘Only, if it would do baby good!’
‘Of course it would. He can’t be well while things go on at this rate. Only ask Harding.’
‘I wonder whether Mr. Martindale knew it was what Mr. Harding recommended! But you would be by yourself.’
‘As if I had not taken care of myself for three-and-twenty years without your help!’
‘And all your party will be in town, so that you will not miss me.’
‘I shall be with you very often. Shall I tell John you accept?’
‘Tell him it is very kind, and I am so much obliged to him,’ said Violet, unable to speak otherwise than disconsolately.
Accordingly the brothers agreed that Arthur should bring her to Ventnor on Saturday, if, as John expected, he could be prepared to receive her; placing much confidence in Brown’s savoir faire, though Brown was beyond measure amazed at such a disarrangement of his master’s methodical habits; and Arthur himself gave a commiserating shake of the head as he observed that there was no accounting for tastes, but if John chose to shut himself up in a lodging with the most squallingest babby in creation, he was not the man to gainsay him; and further reflected, that if a man must be a younger son, John was a model elder brother.
Poor Violet! Her half-recovered state must be an excuse for her dire consternation on hearing it was definitively settled that she was to be carried off to Ventnor in four days’ time! How arrange for Arthur? Where find a nursemaid? What would become of the baby so far from Mr. Harding? The Isle of Wight seemed the ends of the earth—out of England! Helpless and overpowered, she was in despair; it came to Arthur’s asking, in displeasure, what she wanted—whether she meant to go or not. She thought of her drooping infant, and said at once she would go.
‘Well, then, what’s all this about?’
Then came tears, and Arthur went away, declaring she did not know herself what she would be at. He had really borne patiently with much plaintiveness, and she knew it. She accused herself of ingratitude and unreasonableness, and went into a fresh agony on that score; but soon a tap at the door warned her to strive for composure. It was Sarah, and Violet felt sure that the dreaded moment was come of her giving warning; but it was only a message. ‘If you please, ma’am, there’s a young person wants to see you.’
‘Come as a nursery maid?’ said Violet, springing up in her nervous agitated way. ‘Do you think she will do?’
‘I don’t think nothing of her,’ said Sarah, emphatically. ‘Don’t you go and be in a way, ma’am; there’s no hurry.’
‘Yes, but there is, Sarah. Baby and I are to go next Saturday to the Isle of Wight, and I can’t take old nurse. I must have some one.’
‘You won’t get nobody by hurrying,’ said Sarah.
‘But what’s to be done, Sarah? I can’t bear giving the dear baby to a stranger, but I can’t help it.’
‘As for that, said Sarah, gloomily, ‘I don’t see but I could look after Master John as well as any that is like to offer for the present.’
‘You! Oh, that would be nice! But I thought you did not like children?’
‘I don’t, but I don’t mind while he is too little to make a racket, and worrit one out of one’s life. It is only for the present, till you can suit yourself, ma’am—just that you may not be lost going into foreign parts with a stranger.’
Sarah had been nursing the baby every leisure moment, and had, during the worst part of Violet’s illness, had more to do with him than the regular nurse. This was happily settled, and all at which Violet still demurred was how the house and its master should be provided for in their absence; to which Sarah replied, ‘Mary would do well enough for he;’ and before Violet knew to which she must suppose the pronoun referred, there was a new-comer, Lady Elizabeth, telling her that Arthur had just been to beg her to come to her, saying he feared he had hurried her and taken her by surprise.
Under such kind soothing Violet’s rational mind returned. She ceased to attempt to put herself into a vehement state of preparation, and began to take so cheerful a view of affairs that she met Arthur again in excellent spirits.
Emma Brandon pitied her for being left alone with Mr. Martindale, but this was no subject of dread to her, and she confessed that she was relieved to escape the meeting with the rest of the family. The chief regret was, that the two friends would miss the constant intercourse with which they had flattered themselves—the only thing that made London endurable to poor Emma. She amused Violet with her lamentations over her gaieties, and her piteous accounts of the tedium of parties and balls; whereas Violet declared that she liked them very much.
‘It was pleasant to walk about with Arthur and hear his droll remarks, and she liked seeing people look nice and well dressed.’
‘Ah! you are better off. You are not obliged to dance, and you are safe, too. Now, whenever any one asks to be introduced to me I am sure he wants the Priory, and feel bound to guard it.’
‘And so you don’t like any one, and find it stupid?’
‘So I do, of course, and I hope I always shall. But oh! Violet, I have not told you that I saw that lady again this morning at the early service. She had still her white dress on, I am sure it is for Whitsuntide; and her face is so striking—so full of thought and earnestness, just like what one would suppose a novice. I shall take her for my romance, and try to guess at her history.’
‘To console you for your godson going away?’
‘Ah! it won’t do that! But it will be something to think of, and I will report to you if I make out any more about her. And mind you give me a full account of the godson.’
Arthur wished the journey well over; he had often felt a sort of superior pity for travellers with a baby in company, and did not relish the prospect; but things turned out well; he found an acquaintance, and travelled with him in a different carriage, and little Johnnie, lulled by the country air, slept so much that Violet had leisure to enjoy the burst into country scenery, and be refreshed by the glowing beauty of the green meadows, the budding woods, and the brilliant feathery broom blossoms that gilded the embankments. At Winchester Arthur came to her window, and asked if she remembered last year.
‘It is the longest year of my life,’ said she. ‘Oh, don’t laugh as if I had made a bad compliment, but so much has happened!’ There was no time for more; and as she looked out at the cathedral as they moved on, she recollected her resolutions, and blamed herself for her failures, but still in a soothed and happier frame of hope.
The crossing was her delight, her first taste of sea. There was a fresh wind, cold enough to make Arthur put on his great-coat, but to her it brought a delicious sense of renewed health and vigour, as she sat inhaling it, charmed to catch a drop of spray on her face, her eyes and cheeks brightening and her spirits rising.
The sparkling Solent, the ships at Spithead, the hills and wooded banks, growing more defined before her; the town of Ryde and its long pier, were each a new wonder and delight, and she exclaimed with such ecstasy, and laughed so like the joyous girl she used to be, that Arthur felt old times come back; and when he handed her out of the steamer he entirely forgot the baby.
At last she was tired with pleasure, and lay back in the carriage in languid enjoyment; fields, cottages, hawthorns, lilacs, and glimpses of sea flitting past her like pictures in a dream, a sort of waking trance that would have been broken by speaking or positive thinking.
They stopped at a gate: she looked up and gave a cry of delight. Such a cottage as she and Annette had figured in dreams of rural bliss, gable-ends, thatch, verandah overrun with myrtle, rose, and honeysuckle, a little terrace, a steep green slope of lawn shut in with laburnum and lilac, in the flush of the lovely close of May, a view of the sea, a green wicket, bowered over with clematis, and within it John Martindale, his look of welcome overpowering his usual gravity, so as to give him an air of gladness such as she had never seen in him before.