Wee Wifie Part 26

Fay shook her head over this part of Erle's letter. He was an incorrigible flirt, she was afraid; but she missed him very much. The old Hall seemed very quiet without Erle's springy footsteps and merry whistle, and somehow Fay was a little quieter too.

For a change was pa.s.sing over Hugh's Wee Wifie in those early spring days.

With the new hope there came a new and tender expression on her sweet face.

She grew less child-like and more womanly, and day by day there grew a certain modest dignity that became her well. Hugh was very gentle with her, and careful to guard her from all imprudence; but life was very difficult to him just then, and he could not always restrain his growing irritability.

He was ill, and yet unwilling to own anything was amiss. He scoffed at the idea that his nerves were disorganized; and with the utmost recklessness seemed bent on ruining his fine const.i.tution.

His restlessness and inward struggles were making him thin and haggard; still any fatigue was better than inaction, he thought.

Often, after a long day spent in riding over the Redmond and Wyngate estates, he would set out again, often fasting, to walk across plowed lands and through miry lanes to visit some sick laborer, and then sit up half the night in his solitary study.

Years afterward he owned that he never looked back on this part of his life without an inward shudder.

What would have become of him, he said, if the hand of Providence had not laid him low before he had succeeded in ruining himself, body and soul?

No one but Hugh knew how often he had yielded to the temptation to drown his inward miseries in pernicious drugs; how in those solitary vigils, while his innocent child-wife was sleeping peacefully like an infant, his half-maddened brain conjured up delirious fancies that seemed to people the dark library with haunting faces.

But he never meant to harm himself really; he would say in his sober daylight reflections he was only so very wretched. Margaret's influence had always kept him pure, and he was not the man to find pleasure in any dissipation.

No, he would not harm himself; but he wanted more to do. If he could represent his county, for example; but he had lost his seat last election to his neighbor Colonel Dacre! If he could travel; if Fay would only spare him! And then he shook his head as he thought of his unborn child.

"You look so ill, Hugh," Fay would say with tears in her eyes when he came up to wish her good-bye, "I wish you would stay with me a little."

But Hugh would only give a forced laugh, and say that his "Wee Wifie was becoming more fanciful than ever, and that he should not know what to do with her if she went on like this;" and then, kissing her hastily, and unloosening the little hands from his neck, he would go out of the room pretending to whistle.

But one evening, when they were together in the library, he fell asleep while she was talking to him, and looked so strange and flushed that Fay got frightened and tried to wake him.

"Come, Hugh," she said, softly, "it is eleven o'clock, and I can not leave you like this, and I am so tired and sleepy, dear;" and she knelt down and put her hand under his head, and stroked back the hair from his hot forehead. But Hugh only muttered something inaudibly, and turned his face away.

And Fay, watching him anxiously, felt her heart sink with some undefined fear, and presently rang for his valet.

"Saville," she said, as the man entered the room, "I do not know what is the matter with Sir Hugh to-night, he sleeps so heavily and looks so strange. If it were not so late, and I were sure that he would not mind it, I would send for Doctor Martin."

"Nonsense," exclaimed her husband, drowsily, for this threat of sending for the doctor had roused him effectually, and he managed to sit up and look at them.

"Why, what a white shaking child you look, you are not fit to be up so late, Fay; why don't you take more care of yourself."

"I was so frightened, dear," she whispered; "I could not bear to leave you. I am sure you are ill, Hugh; do let Saville help you to bed."

"Oh, is that Saville? I thought--I thought--well, never mind. There is nothing the matter with me, Saville, is there?"

"No, Sir Hugh; only it is late, and I expect you are tired, as my lady said."

"But she said I was ill"--very querulously; "I have never had a day's illness in my life, have I, Saville? Mrs. Heron will know; ask Mrs.

Heron--well, I think I may as well go to bed and have my sleep out."

And the next day he reiterated the same thing, that there was nothing the matter with him, nothing; only they had not called him at the usual time, and he had slept late; but he had no appet.i.te, and did not care to rise.

It was foolish to have tired himself out so, he owned. But if Fay were good and would not scold him, she might sit with him and read something amusing. But he did not tell her, or Saville either, that he had tried to dress himself and had fallen back half fainting on the bed, or of the strange horrible feelings that were creeping over him, and that made him dread to be alone. Only Fay was very disappointed that he did not seem to hear anything she read; or remember a word of it. It was the shooting pain in his head, he told her; and then he laughed in a way that was hardly mirthful, and said he would try to sleep.

But that night he never closed his eyes, and yet the next day he would not allow Fay to send for the doctor, though she begged piteously for permission. Doctors were old women, he said, and Dr. Martin especially. It was only the pain in his head that kept him awake and made him so feverish; but toward the evening his eyes began to s.h.i.+ne beautifully, and he grew quite lively and talkative.

He said he was much better, if only his head and hands were not burning like live coals; and that he meant if it were fine to drive Fay out in the pony-carriage to-morrow, and they would go and call on Margaret.

Fay stared, as well she might. Did Hugh mean Miss Ferrers? she asked, timidly.

And Hugh, speaking thickly, like a drunken man, said, "Yes, certainly!

and why not?" and he would ask Margaret to go with him to Shepherd's Corner to-morrow, and see Tim Hartlebury, who was lying dying or dead, he did not know which; but apropos to the Sudbury politics, and the old Tory member, Lord Lyndhurst of Lyndhurst, at whom the Radical party, with the publican of the Green Drake at their head, had s.h.i.+ed rotten eggs, would Lady Redmond a.s.sure him that the Grange was not infested with serpents. The old hydra-headed reptile had lived there in his father's time, and there was a young brood left, he heard, that were nourished on Margaret's roses. No, he repeated, if there were serpents at the Grange they would not drive there, for he was afraid of Raby, and he hated parsons, for even blind ones could see sometimes, and they might tell tales--lies--he said, beating wildly on the bedclothes; lies, every one of them, and would they please take away his Wee Wifie, for he was tired of her. And Fay, trembling very much, called out to Saville to come quickly, for Sir Hugh was talking so funnily, she could not make out what he meant. And Saville, as he stood and held his master's hands, thought his talk so very f.a.n.n.y that he summoned Mrs. Heron and Ellerton at once, while the groom saddled one of the horses and galloped off for Dr. Martin; and when Dr.

Martin arrived, and had seen his patient, the mystery was soon cleared.

Sir Hugh had brain fever; and that night Ellerton and Saville had to hold him down in his bed to prevent him throwing himself from the window. He very nearly did it once in the cunning of his madness, when they left him unguarded for a moment; and after that they had to strap him down.

They had taken his Wee Wifie from him almost by force; she had clung to him so--her poor mad Hugh, as she called him. But Mrs. Heron took the distracted young creature in her motherly arms when Dr. Martin brought her downstairs, and soothed her as though she were a child.

Fay put her head down on the housekeeper's shoulder and cried until she could cry no longer. "Will he die--will my darling die?" was all she could say at first; and then she would ask piteously to go back to him.

No one ventured to let her cross the threshold. After this there were two hospital nurses sent down from London, and Dr. Conway, a well-known physician in town, met Dr. Martin in consultation. Saville and Ellerton were always in the sick-room when wanted. Everything that money could procure, or faithful attendance could give, was lavished on the patient, but for a long time there was no improvement.

If his violence had not banished Fay from the room his miserable ravings would.

The nurses were too much accustomed to such scenes to take much notice of their patient's wild talk; but the trusty old servants, who knew their master's secret, shuddered as they heard him, for his talk was always of Margaret. He never even mentioned his Wee Wifie.

"Oh, for Margaret!" he cried, to give him water to quench his thirst; for he was in torment, and no one could give him drink. Oh, for Margaret's cool hand--for Maggie--for his own love, Margaret; and so on and so on, through the long hours of that fevered dream.

How that one idea beset him!

She was a star, and he went seeking her through s.p.a.ce till he got lost and entangled in the Milky Way, and revolved madly through the infinite.

She was in Paradise, standing on the topmost stair of the golden ladder, stretching out her hands and calling to him to come to her before the door was shut; and ever as he tried to climb, the fiends came swarming from their pits of darkness, and dragged him down with endless fallings and precipitous cras.h.i.+ngs, while his Wee Wifie laughed mockingly from the distance.

"Oh, for Margaret, Margaret, Margaret!" and so on through the day and through the night, until they thought it must have killed him.

Those were terrible days at Redmond Hall. The very servants went carefully about the house with hushed voices, looking after their young mistress with pitying eyes, as she wandered like a lost spirit from one room to another, generally followed by the faithful Janet.

Erle came down once, but Fay grew so hysterical at the sight of her old favorite that Mrs. Heron was quite frightened, and begged him to go away; and, as he could do no good, he acquiesced very sensibly in this piece of advice.

Mrs. Heron was growing quite unhappy about my lady. Nothing she could say would make Fay cease from those aimless wanderings; she could not eat, she could not rest, and her fits of weeping seemed only to exhaust her.

Nothing did her any good until Dr. Martin came to her one day, and, taking the thin little hand in his, gave her his faithful promise that, if the fever abated, and she were strong enough, she should help to nurse him by and by, but it would depend upon herself, he said, meaningly; and Fay promised to eat and sleep that she might be fit to nurse Hugh.

She meant to be good and keep her promise; but one evening the longing to see her husband was too strong for her.

Saville had just gone down-stairs for something and had left the dressing-room door ajar. Fay, gliding down the corridor in her white dress, caught sight of the half-opened door, and the temptation was too strong for her; the next moment she was in the dimly lighted room, with her finger on the handle of the closed door.

It yielded to her touch at once, and Fay's hungry eyes tried to pierce through the semi-darkness.

It was the oriel chamber, and Sir Hugh lay on the very bed where, Mrs.

Heron had solemnly a.s.sured Fay, many a Redmond had breathed his first and last breath. It had been found impossible to move him, but Fay did not remember this as she stood with beating heart, not daring to move a step.

It was very quiet and still--one of the strange nurses was sitting by the bed with her face toward the patient; she had not heard Fay's stealthy entrance; the next moment Fay choked back a sob that threatened to rise in her throat, for she had caught sight at last of the white changed face that lay on the pillow; and then, regardless of everything but her love and longing, she glided quickly to the bed, and kissing the wide staring eyes, laid the shaven head tenderly upon her bosom.