Part 36 (1/2)

In time they were spent, and Ave lay on her bed half torpid, feebly moaning, but with an instinctive dread of being disturbed. Henry anxiously watched over her, and Dr. May thought it best to leave the brother and sister to one another. Absolute quiet was best for her, and he had skill and tenderness enough to deal with her, and was evidently somewhat relieved by the necessity of waiting on her. It was the best means, perhaps, of uniting them, that they should be thus left together; and Dr. May would have taken home little pale frightened Minna, who had been very helpful all the time.

'Oh, please not, Dr. May,' she said, earnestly. 'Indeed I will not be troublesome, and I can give Henry his tea, and carry Ave's cup. Please, Henry, don't send me:' and she took hold of his hand, and laid it against her cheek. He bent down over her, and fondled her; and there were tears that he could not hide as he tried both to thank Dr. May, and tell her that she need not leave him.

'No,' said Dr. May; 'it would be cruel to both of you.--Good-bye, little Minna; I never wanted to carry away a little comforter.'

'I believe you are right, papa,' said Ethel, as she went out with him to the carriage; 'but I long to stay, it is like doing something for that boy.'

'The best you did for him, poor dear boy! was the saying you trusted his word. The moment I told him that, he took comfort and energy.'

Ethel's lips moved into a strange half smile, and she took Mab on her lap, and fondled her. 'Yes,' she said, 'I believe I stand for a good deal in his imagination. I was afraid he would have been wrecked upon that horrid place; but, after all, this may be the saving of him.'

'Ah! if that story of his would only be more vraisemblable.'

There was only time briefly to narrate it before coming home, where the first person they met was Aubrey, exceeding pale, and in great distress. 'Papa, I must tell you,' he said, drawing him into the study. 'I have done terrible harm, I am afraid.' And he explained, that in the morning, when Mrs. Pugh had come down full of inquiries and conjectures, and had spoken of the possibility of Leonard's having been drowned while bathing, he had unguardedly answered that it could be no such thing; Leonard had always meant to run away, and by that very window, if the Axworthys grew too bad.

Prudent Tom had silenced him at the time, but had since found that it had got abroad that the evasion had long been meditated with Aubrey's privity, and had been asked by one of the constabulary force if his brother would not be an important witness. Tom had replied that he knew nothing about it; but Aubrey was in great misery, furious with Mrs. Pugh, and only wanting his father to set off at once to a.s.sure them it was all nonsense.

'No, Aubrey, they neither would, nor ought to, take my word.'

'Just hear, papa, and you would know the chaff it was.'

'I cannot hear, Aubrey. If we were to discuss it, we might give it an unconscious colouring. You must calm your mind, and exactly recall what pa.s.sed; but do not talk about it to me or to any one else. You must do nothing to impair the power of perfect truth and accuracy, which is a thing to be prayed for. If any one--even the lawyer who may have to get up the case against him--asks you about it, you must refuse to answer till the trial; and then--why, the issue is in the hands of Him that judgeth righteously.'

'I shall never remember nor speak with his eyes on me, seeing me betray him!'

'You will be no worse off than I, my boy, for I see I am in for identifying Hector's rifle; the Mill people can't swear to it, and my doing it will save his brother something.'

'No, it is not like me. O! I wish I had stayed at Eton, even if I had died of it! Tom says it all comes of living with women that I can't keep my mouth shut; and Leonard will be so hurt that I--'

'Nay, any tolerable counsel will make a capital defence out of the mere fact of his rodomontading. What, is that no comfort to you?'

'What! to be the means of making a fool of him before all the court--seeing him hear our talk by the river-side sifted by those horrid lawyers?'

The Doctor looked even graver, and his eye fixed as on a thought far away, as the boy's grief brought to his mind the Great a.s.size, when all that is spoken in the ear shall indeed be proclaimed on the house-tops.

There was something almost childish in this despair of Aubrey, for he had not become alarmed for the result of the trial. His misery was chiefly shame at his supposed treason to friends.h.i.+p, and failure in manly reserve; and he could not hold up his head all the evening, but silently devoted himself to Mab, endeavouring to make her at home, and meeting with tolerable success.

Tom was no less devoted to Ella Ward. It was he who had brought her home, and he considered her therefore as his charge. It was curious to see the difference that a year had made between her and Minna. They had the last summer been like one child, and had taken the stroke that had orphaned them in the same childish manner; but whether the year from eight to nine had been of especial growth to Minna, or whether there had been a stimulus in her constant a.s.sociation with Averil, the present sorrow fell on her as on one able to enter into it, think and feel, and a.s.sume her sweet mission of comfort; whilst Ella, though neither hard nor insensible, was still child enough to close her mind to what she dreaded, and flee willingly from the pain and tedium of affliction. She had willingly accepted 'Mr. Tom's' invitation, and as willingly responded to his attentions. Gertrude did not like people in the 'little girl' stage, and the elder sisters had their hands and hearts full, and could only care for her in essentials; but Tom undertook her amus.e.m.e.nt, treated her to an exhibition of his microscope, and played at French billiards with her the rest of the evening, till she was carried off to bed in Mary's room, when he p.r.o.nounced her a very intelligent child.

'I think her a very unfeeling little thing,' said Gertrude. 'Very unbecoming behaviour under the circ.u.mstances.'

'What would you think becoming behaviour?' asked Tom.

'I won't encourage it,' returned Daisy, with dignified decision, that gave her father his first approach to a laugh on that day; but n.o.body was in spirits to desire Miss Daisy to define from what her important sanction was withdrawn.

Mary gave up her Sunday-school cla.s.s to see how Averil was, and found Henry much perturbed. He had seen her fast asleep at night, and in the morning Minna had carried up her breakfast, and he was about to follow it, as soon as his own was finished, when he found that she had slipped out of the house, leaving a message that she was gone to practise on the harmonium.

He was of the mind that none of the family could or ought to be seen at church; and though Mary could not agree with him, she willingly consented to go to the chapel and try what she could do with his sister. She met Mrs. Ledwich on the way, coming to inquire and see whether she or dear Matilda could do anything for the 'sweet sufferer.'

Even Mary could not help thinking that this was not the epithet most befitting poor Ave; and perhaps Mrs. Ledwich's companions.h.i.+p made her the less regret that Ave had locked herself in, so that there was no making her hear, though the solemn chants, played with great fervour, reached them as they waited in the porch. They had their own seats in the Minster, and therefore could not wait till the s.e.xton should come to open the church.

There was no time for another visit till after the second service, and then Dr. May and Mary, going to Bankside, found that instead of returning home, Ave had again locked herself up between the services, and that Minna, who had ventured on a mission of recall, had come home crying heartily both at the dreary disappointment of knocking in vain, and at the grand mournful sounds of funeral marches that had fallen on her ear. Every one who had been at the chapel that day was speaking of the wonderful music, the force and the melody of the voluntary at the dismissal of the congregation; no one had believed that such power resided in the harmonium. Mr. Scudamour had spoken to Miss Ward most kindly both before and after evening service, but his attempt to take her home had been unavailing; she had answered that she was going presently, and he was obliged to leave her.