Chapter 6

________________________________________________
_ "Love that asketh love again,
Finds the barter naught but pain;
Love that giveth in full store,
Aye receives as much, and more.

"Love, exacting nothing back,
Never knoweth any lack;
Love, compelling love to pay,
Sees him bankrupt every day."

LIFE in the sick-room--most of us know what that is; how the whole world narrows itself within four walls, and every fanciful grief and morbid imagining slips off, pressed down into nothingness by the weight of daily, hourly cares, and commonplace, yet all-engrossing realities.

Christian was a born nurse--and nurses, like poets, are born, not made. You may recognize the faculty in the little girl of ten years old, as she steals into your room to bring you your breakfast, and takes the opportunity to arrange your pillow, and put your drawers in order, and do any other little helpful office which you may need; and you miss it painfully in the matron of sixty, who, with perhaps the kindest intentions, comes to nurse you, taking for granted that she is the best person you could possibly have about you; and yet you would be thankful to shut the door upon her, and struggle, suffer, die alone; as Arthur, child as he was, would rather have died than suffer near his sick-bed either of his two aunts.

Phillis too--he screamed whenever he saw her, and with a jealousy not unnatural, and which Mrs. Grey was rather sorry for than annoyed at, she came into the room continually. At last it became a question almost of life and death, for the fever ran high; and even Dr. Anstruther, cheery man as he was, began to look exceedingly grave. The child must be kept quiet, and how to do it?

For in this crisis Christian found out, what every woman has to find out soon or late, the weak points in her husband. She saw that, like many another good and brave man, he was in this matter quite paralyzed; that she could rely only upon herself, and act for herself, or else tell him what he was to do, and help him to do it, just like a child. She did not care for him the less for this--she sometimes felt she cared for him, more; but she opened her eyes calmly to the facts of the case, and to her own heavy responsibility.

She consulted with Dr. Anstruther, and left him to explain things to whomsoever he would; then locked the door, and for eight days and nights suffered no one to cross the threshold of Arthur's room except the doctor.

It was a daring expedient, but the desperation of the time and Dr. Anstruther's consent and co-operation, gave her courage; she was neither timid nor ignorant; she knew exactly what to do, and she believed, if it were God's will to save Arthur's life, He would give her strength to do it.

"My boy's life--only his life!" she prayed, more earnestly than she had ever prayed in her life before, and then prepared for the long solitary vigil, of which it was impossible to foresee the end. In its terrible suspense she forgot every thing except the present; day by day and hour by hour, as they slipped heavily along. She ceased to think of herself at all, scarcely even of her husband; her mind was wholly engrossed by her poor sick boy.

Hers, though hitherto she had never loved him; for he was not lovable at all, that rough, selfish, headstrong Arthur, the plague of his aunts, and the terror of the nursery. But now, when he lay on his sick-bed, lingering on from day to day, in total dependence on her care, with a heavy future before him, poor child!--for he seemed seriously injured-- there came into his step-mother's weak, womanly heart a woman's passionate tenderness over all helpless things. She did to him not only her duty, but something more. She learned to love him.

Had any one told her a while ago that she should stand for hours watching every change in that pale face, whose common, uncomely features grew spiritualized with sickness, till she often trembled on their unearthly sweetness; that twenty times in the night she would start up from her uncomfortable sofa-bed, listening for the slightest sound; that the sight of Arthur eating his dinner (often prepared by her own hands, for the servants of the Lodge were strangely neglectful), or of Arthur trying to play a game of draughts, and faintly smiling over it, should cause her a perfect ecstasy of delight, Christian would have replied "Impossible!" But heaven sometimes converts our impossibles and inevitables into the very best blessings we have--most right, most natural, and most dear.

As to Christian herself, she was, even externally, greatly changed. Pale as she looked, and no wonder, there was a light in her eye and a firmness in her step very different from those of the weary-looking woman who used to roam listlessly about the gloomy galleries or sit silently working in the equally gloomy drawing-room with Miss Gascoigne and Miss Grey.

Poor Aunt Maria, in her regular daily visit--she dared venture no more--to the sick-room door, would sometimes say hesitatingly, "My dear, how well you look still? You are sure you are not breaking down?" And Christian, grateful for the only kindly woman's face she ever saw near her, would respond with a smile--sometimes with a kiss, which always alarmed Aunt Maria exceedingly.

As for Aunt Henrietta, she never came at all. Since the evening when she had marched out of the room in high dudgeon, she had taken not the smallest notice of the sick boy. His life or death was apparently of far less moment to her than her own offended dignity. Had he been left in her sole charge, she would doubtless have done her duty to him but to stand by and see another doing it? No! a thousand times no! That part, insignificant in itself, and yet often one of the very sweetest and most useful in life's harmonies, familiarly called "second fiddle," was a part impossible to be played by Miss Gascoigne.

What she did or said--though probably the first was little and the other a great deal--was happily unknown to Mrs. Grey. Her one duty lay clear before her, to save her poor boy's life, if any human means could do it. And sometimes, when she saw the agony and anxiety in his father's face, Christian felt a wild joy in spending herself and being spent, even to the last extremity, if by such means she could repay to her most good and tender husband that never-counted, unaccountable debt of love, which nothing ever does pay except return in kind.

Concerning Arthur himself, the matter was simple enough now. All his fractiousness, restlessness, and innumerable wants were easy to put up with; she loved the child. And he, who (except from his father) had never known any love before, took it with a wondering complacency, half funny, half pathetic. Sometimes he would say, looking at her wistfully, "Oh, it's so nice to be ill!" And once, the first time she untied his right arm, and allowed it to move freely, he slipped it around her neck, whispering, "You are very good to me, mother." Christian crept away. She dared not clasp him or cry over him, he was so weak still; but she stole aside into the oriel window, her heart full almost to bursting.

After that he always called her "mother."

The other two children she scarcely ever saw. The need for keeping Arthur quiet was so vital, that of course they were not admitted to his room, and she herself rarely left it. Dim and far away seemed all the world, and especially her own poor life, whether happy or miserable, compared with that frail existence, which hung almost upon a thread.

At last the medical opinion was given that little Arthur might, with great care and incessant watching ("which it is plain he will have, Mrs. Grey," added the old doctor, bowing and smiling), grow up to be a man yet.

When Dr. Anstruther said this, Christian felt as if the whole world had brightened.

She had no one to tell her joy to, for Dr. Grey was out, but she stood in her familiar retreat at the window--oh, what that window could have revealed of the last few weeks!--and her tears, long dried up, poured down like summer rain.

And then Dr. Grey came in, very much agitated; he had met the doctor in the street and been told glad tidings. She had to compel herself into sudden quietness, for her husband's sake, which, indeed, was a lesson now daily being learned, and growing every day sweeter in the learning.

"Christian," he said, when they had talked it all over, and settled when and where Arthur was first to go out of doors, with various other matter of fact things which she thought would soonest calm the father's emotion--"Christian, Dr. Anstruther tells me my boy could not have lived but for you and your care. I shall ever remember this--ever feel grateful."

A pang, the full meaning of which she then did not in the least understand, shot through Christian's heart. "You should not feel grateful to his _mother._"

"Do you mean, really, that you love him like--like a mother?"

"Of course I do."

Dr. Grey said nothing more, but his wife felt him put his arm round her. She leaned her head against him and, though she still wept--for the tears, once unsealed, seemed painfully quick to rise--still she was contented and at rest. Worn and weary a little, now the suspense was over the reaction came, but very peaceful. Unconsciously there ran through her mind one of the foolish bits of poetry she had been fond of when a girl:

"In the unruffled shelter of thy love,
My bark leaped homeward from a stormy sea,
And furled its sails, and, like a nested dove--"

"Mother!" called out Arthur's feeble, fretful voice, and in a minute the poetry had all gone out of her head, and she was by her boy's side, feeding him, jesting with him, and planning how the first day of his convalescence should be celebrated by a grand festival, inviting the two others to tea in his room. It was her own room, from which he had never been moved since the first night. How familiar had grown the crimson sofa, the tall mirror, the carved oaken wardrobe! The bride had regarded these splendors with a wondering half-uneasy gratitude; but now, to Arthur's nurse and "mother," they looked pleasant, home- like, and dear.

"We will pull the sofa to the fire. Help, papa, please, and place the little table before it. And we will send written invitations which papa shall deliver, with a postman's knock, at the nursery door. We won't send him one, I think?"

"Very well," said Dr. Grey, with a great pretense of wrath; "then papa will have to invite himself, like the wicked old fairy at the christening of--Who was it, Arthur?"

Arthur clapped his hands, which proceeding was instantly stopped by Christian. "It was the Sleeping Beauty, which you don't know one bit about, and I do, and ever so many more tales. She used to tell me them in the middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep, and they were so nice and so funny! She shall tell you some after tea. And we'll make her sing too. Papa, did you ever hear her sing?"

"No," said Dr. Grey.

"Oh, but I have. She'll sing for me," returned Arthur, proudly. "She said she would, though she had meant never to sing again."

Christian blushed violently, for the boy, in his unconscious way, had referred to a little episode of his illness, when, having exhausted all efforts to soothe him into drowsiness, she had tried her voice, silent for many months--silent since before she had known Dr. Grey. She had wished it so--wished to bury all relics of that time of her youth deep down, so that no chance hand could ever dig them up again.

"Do you really sing?" asked Dr. Grey, a little surprised, and turning full upon her those grave, gentle, tender eyes.

She blushed more painfully than ever, but she answered steadily, "Yes, I was supposed to have a very fine voice. My father wished it cultivated for the stage. It might have been so if things had been different."

"Would you have liked it?--the stage, I mean."

"Oh no, no!" with a visible, unmistakable shudder. "I would have resisted to the last. I hated it."

"Was that why you left off singing?"

It would have been so easy to tell a lie--a little harmless white lie but Christian could not do it. She could keep silence to any extent, but falsehood was impossible to her. She dropped her eyes; but the color once more overspread her whole face as she answered, distinctly and decisively, "No."

It surprised her somewhat afterward, not then--her heart was beating too violently for her to notice any thing much--that her husband asked her no farther question, but immediately turned the conversation to Arthur's tea-party, in the discussion of which both were so eager to amuse the invalid that the other subject dropped--naturally, it appeared; anyhow, effectually.

But when the two other children came in to see Arthur, he again recurred to her singing, which had evidently taken a strong hold upon his imagination.

"Papa, you must hear her. Mother, sing the song with pretty little twiddle-twiddles in it--far prettier than Aunt Henrietta's things-- something about warbling in her breath."

"Oh no, not that," said Christian, shrinking involuntarily. What from? Was it from a ghostly vision of the last time she had sung it--that is properly, to a piano-forte accompaniment, played by fingers that had afterward caught hold of _her_ trembling fingers, and been a living comment on the song? It was that exquisite one from Handel's "Acis and Galatea:"

"Love in her eyes sits playing,
And sheds delicious death;
Love on her lips is straying,
And warbling in her breath."

Probably never was there a melody which more perfectly illustrated that sort of love, the idealization of fancy and feeling, with just a glimmer of real passion quivering through it--the light cast in advance by the yet unrisen day.

"Not that song, Arthur. It is rather difficult besides, Papa might not care to hear it."

"Papa might if he were tried," said Dr. Grey, smiling, "Why not do to please me what you do to please the children?"

So Christian sang at once--ay, and that very song. She faced it. She determined she would, with all the ghosts of the past that hovered round it. And soon she found how, thus faced, as says that other lovely song of Handel's, which she had learned at the same time:

"The wandering shadows, ghostly pale,
All troop to their infernal jail:
Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave."

Her ghosts slipped one by one into the grave of the past. She had begun her song feebly and uncertainly; but when she really heard the sound of her own voice echoing through the lofty room, with a gush of melody that the old walls had not known for centuries, there came upon her an intoxication of enjoyment. It was that pure enjoyment which all true artists--be they singers, painters, poets--understand, and they only-- the delight in mere creation, quite distinct from any sympathy or admiration of others; and oh how far removed from any mean vanity or love of praise.

Christian was happy--happy as a lark in the air, just to hear--and make-- the sound of her own singing. Her face brightened; her figure, as she stood leaning against the mantel-piece assumed a new grace and dignity. She was beautiful--absolutely beautiful and her husband saw it.

Was it fancy if, glancing at her, Dr. Grey half sighed? Only for a moment; then he said cheerily:

"Arthur was right. Children, tell your mother that she is the best singer we ever heard in all our lives."

"That she is. She sings just like a bird in a tree. And, then, you see, papa, she is our own bird."

Christian came down from the clouds at once, and laughed heartily at the idea of being Arthur's own bird.

"Titia," said Dr. Grey, with sudden energy, as if the thought had been brewing in his mind for many minutes, "is there not a piano in the drawing-room? There used to be."

"Yes, and I practice upon it two hours every day," answered Letitia, with dignity. "But afterward Aunt Henrietta locks it up and takes the key. She says it is poor mamma's piano, and nobody is to play upon it but me."

As the child said this in a tone so like Aunt Henrietta's, her father looked--as Christian had only seen him look once or twice before, and thought that there might be circumstances under which any body displeasing him would be considerably afraid of Dr. Arnold Grey.

"Did you know of this, Christian?"

"Yes," she answered, very softly, with a glance, half warning, half entreating, round upon the children. "But we will not say anything about it I never did, and I had rather not do so now."

"I understand. We will speak of it another time?"

But he did not, neither that night, nor for several days and Christian felt only too grateful for his silence.

Sometimes, when, after ringing at intervals of five minutes for some trifling thing, Barker had sent up "Miss Gascoigne's compliments, and the servants couldn't be spared to wait up stairs;" or the cook had apologized for deficiencies in Arthur's dinner by "Miss Gascoigne wanted it for lunch;" and especially when, to her various messages to the nursery, no answer was ever returned--sometimes it had occurred to Christian--gentle as she was, and too fully engrossed to notice small things--that this was not exactly the position Dr. Grey's wife ought to hold in his--and her--own house. Still she said nothing. She trusted to time and patience. And she had such a dread of domestic war--of a family divided against itself. Besides, some change must come, for in a day or two she would have to resume her ordinary duties, to take her place at the head of her husband's table, and once more endure the long mornings, the weary evenings, to meet and pass over the sharp speeches, the unloving looks, which made the continual atmosphere of the Lodge.

"Oh!" she thought to herself, glancing round upon those four walls of the sick-chamber, which had seen, with much of anxiety, much also of love that never failed, and patience that knew no end, "I could almost say with Arthur, 'It is so nice to be ill!'"

He seemed to think the same for on the day he left it he grumbled dreadfully at being carried in Phillis's strong arms--which he had fiercely resisted at first--to the drawing-room, where he was to hold his second tea-party--of aunts.

There they sat waiting, Aunt Maria fond and tearful, Aunt Henrietta grim and severe. And shortly--nay, before Arthur was well settled on the sofa, and lay pale and silent, still clinging to his step-mother's hand, the cause of her severity came out.

"Dr. Grey, what have you been doing? Buying a new piano?"

Yes, there it was, a beautiful Erard; and Dr. Grey stood and smiled at it with an almost childish delight, as if he had done something exceedingly clever, which he certainly had.

"To buy a new piano--without consulting me! I never heard of such a thing. Mrs. Grey, this is your doing!"

"She never saw it before, or knew I meant to buy it; but, now it is bought, I hope she will like it. Try it, Christian."

His wife was deeply touched, so much so that she almost felt sorry for Aunt Henrietta, she would have given much to bring a little brightness, a little kindness, into that worn, restless, unhappy face, true reflection of the nature which itself created its own unhappiness, as well as that of all connected with it. She said, almost humbly,

"You are very good! I never had a piano of my own before. And I hope Miss Gascoigne will enjoy it as much as I shall myself."

The soft, answer--never wasted upon fiercest wrath--threw a little oil upon Miss Gascoigne's. She spoke no more, but she resolutely turned her back upon the offending instrument. Christian struck a few chords, just to please her husband, and came away.

It was an uncomfortable tea-party--not nearly so merry as Arthur's first. After it, the boy wearily curled up on the sofa to sleep, and his father glanced round in search of his best friend--the big book.

Stop a minute, Dr. Grey; before you retire to your study, as you always seem to do whenever all your family happen to be met socially together, I have to ask you about that invitation to St. Mary's Lodge which came this morning.''

Dr. Grey paused, and listened to a long explanation, ending in the decision (to which Christian passively submitted, for what must be done had best be done quickly) that he and his bride should make their long-delayed public appearance in Avonsbridge society at an evening party shortly to be given by the Master of St. Mary's.

"It is a musical party," explained Miss Gascoigne, when, Dr. Grey having quitted the room, Christian, for want of something to converse about, began to make a few polite inquiries concerning it. "So you have got your piano just in time, and may practice all day long, to be ready for your performance. Of course you will be asked to perform, since every body knows about your father and his musical genius. By- the-by, I met lately a gentleman who said he knew Mr. Oakley, and was exceedingly surprised--at which I must confess I scarcely wondered-- when he heard who it was that my brother-in-law had married."

"Oh, Henrietta!" pleaded poor Aunt Maria, with her most troubled look. But it was too late. Even Christian--quiet as her temper was, and strong her resolution to keep peace, at any price which cost nobody any thing excepting herself--was roused at last.

"Miss Gascoigne," she said, and her eyes blazed and her whole figure dilated, "when your brother married me, he did it of his own free choice. He loved me. Whatever I was, he loved me. And whatever I may be now, I at least know his dignity and my own too well to submit to be spoken to, or spoken of, in this manner. It is not of the slightest moment to me who among your acquaintances criticises myself or my marriage, only I beg to be spared the information afterward. For my father"--she gulped down a great agony, a sorrow darker than that of death--"he was my father. You had better be silent concerning him."

Miss Gascoigne was silent--for a few minutes. Perhaps she was a little startled, almost frightened--many a torturer is a great coward--by the sight of that white face, its every feature trembling with righteous indignation or, perhaps, some touch of nature in the hard woman's heart pleaded against this unwomanly persecution of one who bad never injured her. But she could not hold her peace for long.

"There is no need to be violent, Mrs. Grey. It would be a sad thing, indeed, Maria, if your brother had married a violent-tempered woman."

"I am not that. Why do you make it seem so?" said Christian, still trembling. And then, her courage breaking down under a cruel sense of wrong. "Why can not you see that I am weak and worn out, longing for a little peace, and I can not get it? I never did you any harm--it is not my fault that you hate me. Why will you hunt me down and wear my life out, while I hear it all alone, and have never told my husband one single word? It is cruel of you--cruel."

She sobbed, till Arthur's sudden waking up--he had been fast asleep on the sofa, or she might not have given way so much--compelled her to restrain herself.

Miss Gascoigne was moved--at least as much as was in her nature to be. She said hastily, "There--there--we will say no more about it;" took up her work, and busied herself therewith.

For Aunt Maria, she did as she had been doing throughout the contest-- the only thing Aunt Maria ever had strength to do--she remained neutral and passive--cried and knitted--knitted and cried.

So sat together these three women--as good women in their way, who meant well, and might have lived to be a comfort to one another. Yet, as it was, they only seemed to live for one another's mutual annoyance, irritation, and pain.

A thunder-storm sometimes clears the air; and the passion of resistance into which Christian had been goaded apparently cooled the family atmosphere for a few days. But she herself felt only a dead-weight--a heavy chill--which lay on her heart long after the storm was spent.

For the "gentleman" and his rude remark--if indeed he had made it, which she more than doubted, aware how Miss Gascoigne, like all people who can only see things from the stand-point of their own individuality, was somewhat given to exaggeration--Christian heeded him not. The world might talk as it chose; she knew her husband loved her, and that he had married her for love.

And her boy loved her too, and needed her sorely, as he would need for many a long day yet. It would take a whole year, Dr. Anstruther said, before the injury to the lung was quite recovered, and all fear of Arthur's falling into continued ill health removed.

Thus duties, sweet as strong, kept continually weaving themselves about her once forlorn life; binding her fast, it is true, but in such pleasant bonds that she never wished them broken. Every day she grew safer and happier and every day, as she looked on Dr. Grey's kind, good face, which familiarity was making almost beautiful, she felt thankful that--whether she loved it or only liked it--she should have it beside her all her days. _

Read next: Chapter 7

Read previous: Chapter 5

Table of content of Christian's Mistake


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book