What were her feelings when she heard Violet was out of danger? For humanity's sake and for Arthur's, she rejoiced; but it was the downfall of a noble edifice. 'How that silly young mother would spoil the poor child!'
'My brothers' had always been mentioned in Theodora's prayer, from infancy. It was the plural number, but the strength and fervency of petition were reserved for one; and with him she now joined the name of his child. But how pray for the son without the mother? It was positively a struggle; for Theodora had a horror of mockery and formality; but the duty was too clear, the evil which made it distasteful, too evident, not to be battled with; she remembered that she ought to pray for all mankind, even those who had injured her, and, on these terms, she added her brother's wife. It was not much from her heart; a small beginning, but still it was a beginning, that might be blessed in time.
Lord Martindale wished the family to have gone to London immediately, but Mrs. Nesbit set herself against any alteration in their plans being made for the sake of Arthur's wife. They were to have gone only in time for the first drawing-room, and she treated as a personal injury the proposal to leave her sooner than had been originally intended; making her niece so unhappy that Lord Martindale had to yield. John's stay in London was a subject of much anxiety; and while Mrs. Nesbit treated it as an absurd trifling with his own health, and his father reproached himself for being obliged to leave Arthur to him, Theodora suffered from complicated jealousy. Arthur seemed to want John more than her, John risked himself in London, in order to be with Arthur and his wife.
She was very eager for his coming; and when she expected the return of the carriage which was sent to meet him at the Whitford station, she betook herself to the lodge, intending him to pick her up there, that she might skim the cream of his information.
The carriage appeared, but it seemed empty. That dignified, gentlemanly personage, Mr. Brown, alighted from the box, and advanced with affability, replying to her astonished query, 'Mr. Martindale desired me to say he should be at home by dinner-time, ma'am. He left the train at the Enderby station, and is gone round by Rickworth Priory, with a message from Mrs. Martindale to Lady Elizabeth Brandon.'
Theodora stood transfixed; and Brown, a confidential and cultivated person, thought she waited for more information.
'Mr. Martindale has not much cough, ma'am, and I hope coming out of London will remove it entirely. I think it was chiefly excitement and anxiety that brought on a recurrence of it, for his health is decidedly improved. He desired me to mention that Mrs. Martindale is much better. She is on the sofa to-day for the first time; and he saw her before leaving.'
'Do you know how the little boy is?' Theodora could not help asking.
'He is a little stronger, thank you, ma'am,' said Brown, with much interest; 'he has cried less these last few days. He is said to be extremely like Mrs. Martindale.'
Brown remounted to his place, the carriage drove on, and Theodora impetuously walked along the avenue.
'That man is insufferable! Extremely like Mrs. Martindale! Servants' gossip! How could I go and ask him? John has perfectly spoilt a good servant in him! But John spoils everybody. The notion of that girl sending him on her messages! John, who is treated like something sacred by my father and mother themselves! Those damp Rickworth meadows! How could Arthur allow it? It would serve him right if he was to marry Emma Brandon after all!'
She would not go near her mother, lest she should give her aunt the pleasure of hearing where he was gone; but as she was coming down, dressed for dinner, she met her father in the hall, uneasily asking a servant whether Mr. Martindale was come.
'Arthur's wife has sent him with a message to Rickworth,' she said.
'John? You don't mean it. You have not seen him?'
'No; he went round that way, and sent Brown home. He said he should be here by dinner-time, but it is very late. Is it not a strange proceeding of hers, to be sending him about the country!'
'I don't understand it. Where's Brown?'
'Here's a fly coming up the avenue. He is come at last.'
Lord Martindale hastened down the steps; Theodora came no further than the door, in so irritated a state that she did not like John's cheerful alacrity of step and greeting. 'She is up to-day, she is getting better,' were the first words she heard. 'Well, Theodora, how are you?' and he kissed her with more warmth than she returned.
'Did I hear you had been to Rickworth?' said his father.
'Yes; I sent word by Brown. Poor Violet is still so weak that she cannot write, and the Brandons have been anxious about her; so she asked me to let them know how she was, if I had the opportunity, and I came round that way. I wanted to know when they go to London; for though Arthur is as attentive as possible, I don't think Violet is in a condition to be left entirely to him. When do you go?'
'Not till the end of May--just before the drawing-room,' said Lord Martindale.
'I go back when they can take the boy to church. Is my mother in the drawing-room? I'll just speak to her, and dress--it is late I see.'
'How well he seems,' said Lord Martindale, as John walked quickly on before.
'There was a cough,' said Theodora.
'Yes; but so cheerful. I have not seen him so animated for years. He must be better!'
His mother was full of delight. 'My dear John, you look so much better! Where have you been?'
'At Rickworth. I went to give Lady Elizabeth an account of Violet. She is much better.'
'And you have been after sunset in that river fog! My dear John!'
'There was no fog; and it was a most pleasant drive. I had no idea Rickworth was so pretty. Violet desired me to thank you for your kind messages. You should see her to-day, mother; she would be quite a study for you; she looks so pretty on her pillows, poor thing! and Arthur is come out quite a new character--as an excellent nurse.'
'Poor thing! I am glad she is recovering,' said Lady Martindale. 'It was very kind in you to stay with Arthur. I only hope you have not been hurting yourself.'
'No, thank you; I came away in time, I believe: but I should have been glad to have stayed on, unless I made room for some one of more use to Violet.'
'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 wretch
edness 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.'
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