Queechy Volume Ii Part 43

"Don't ask me, Barby," said Fleda, hiding her face in her hands, and s.h.i.+vering; "I made myself very cold just now ? Aunt Lucy doesn't feel very well, and I got frightened," she added, presently.

"What's the matter with her?"

"I don't know ? if you'll make me a cup of tea, I'll take it up to her, Barby."

"You put yourself down there," said Barby, placing her with gentle force in a chair; "you'll do no such a thing till I see you look as if there was some blood in you. I'll take it up myself."

But Fleda held her, though with a hand much too feeble indeed for any but moral suasion. It was enough. Barby stood silently, and very anxiously watching her, till the fire had removed the outward chill at least. But even that took long to do, and before it was well done, Fleda again asked for the cup of tea. Barby made it without a word, and Fleda went to her aunt with it, taking her strength from the sheer emergency.

Her knees trembled under her as she mounted the stairs, and once a glimpse of those words flitted across her mind ?

"patient continuance in well-doing." It was like a lightning flash in a dark night showing the way one must go. She could lay hold of no other stay. Her mind was full of one intense purpose ? to end the suspense.

She gently tried the door of her aunt's room; it was unfastened, and she went in. Mrs. Rossitur was lying on the bed; but her first mood had changed, for at Fleda's soft word and touch she half rose up, and, putting both arms round her waist, laid her face against her. There were no tears still, only a succession of low moans, so inexpressibly weak and plaintive, that Fleda's nature could hardly bear them without giving way. A more fragile support was never clung to. Yet her trembling fingers, in their agony, moved caressingly among her aunt's hair and over her brow, as she begged her ? when she could, she was not able at first ? to let her know the cause that was grieving her. The straitened clasp of Mrs. Rossitur's arms, and her increased moaning, gave only an answer of pain.

But Fleda repeated the question. Mrs. Rossitur still neglecting it, then made her sit down upon the bed, so that she could lay her head higher on Fleda's bosom; where she hid it, with a mingling of fondness given and asked ? a poor seeking for comfort and rest, that wrung her niece's heart.

They sat so for a little time; Fleda hoping that her aunt would by degrees come to the point herself. The tea stood cooling on the table, not even offered; not wanted there.

"Wouldn't you feel better if you told me, dear aunt Lucy?"

said Fleda, when they had been for a little while perfectly still. Even the moaning had ceased.

"Is your uncle come home?" whispered Mrs. Rossitur, but so low that Fleda could but half catch the words.

"Not yet."

"What o'clock is it?"

"I don't know ? not early ? it must be near eight. ? Why?"

"You have not heard anything of him?"

"No ? nothing."

There was silence again for a little, and then Mrs. Rossitur said in a low, fearful whisper ?

"Have you seen anybody round the house?"

Fleda's thoughts flew to Seth, with that nameless fear to which she could give neither shape nor direction, and after a moment's hesitation she said ?

"What do you mean?"

"Have you?" said Mrs. Rossitur, with more energy.

"Seth Plumfield was here a little while ago."

Her aunt had the clue that she had not, for with a half scream, half exclamation, she quitted Fleda's arms, and fell back upon the pillows, turning from her and hiding her face there. Fleda prayed again for her confidence, as well as the weakness and the strength of fear could do; and Mrs. Rossitur presently grasping a paper that lay on the bed, held it out to her, saying only, as Fleda was about quitting the room, "Bring me a light."

Fleda left the letter there and went down to fetch one. She commanded herself under the excitement and necessity of the moment ? all but her face; that terrified Barby exceedingly.

But she spoke with a strange degree of calmness; told her Mrs.

Rossitur was not alarmingly ill; that she did not need Barby's services, and wished to see n.o.body but herself, and didn't want a fire. As she was pa.s.sing through the hall again, Hugh came out of the sitting-room to ask after his mother. Fleda kept the light from her face.

"She does not want to be disturbed ? I hope she will be better to-morrow."

"What is the matter, Fleda?"

"I don't know yet."

"And you are ill yourself, Fleda? ? you are ill?" ?

"No ? I shall do very well ? never mind me. Hugh, take some tea ? I will be down by and by."

He went back, and Fleda went up stairs. Mrs. Rossitur had not moved. Fleda set down the light, and herself beside it, with the paper her aunt had given her. It was a letter.

"Queechy, Thursday.

"It gives me great concern, my dear Madam, to be the means of bringing to you a piece of painful information ? but it cannot be long kept from your knowledge, and you may perhaps learn it better from me than by any other channel. May I entreat you not to be too much alarmed, since I am confident the cause will be of short duration?

"Pardon me for what I am about to say.

"There are proceedings entered into against Mr. Rossitur ?

there are writs out against him ? on the charge of having, some years ago, endorsed my father's name upon a note of his own giving. Why it has lain so long I cannot explain. There is, unhappily, no doubt of the fact.

"I was in Queechy some days ago, on business of my own, when I became aware that this was going on ? my father had made no mention of it to me. I immediately took strict measures, I am happy to say, I believe with complete success ? to have the matter kept a profound secret. I then made my way as fast possible to New York to confer on the subject with the original mover of it ? unfortunately I was disappointed. My father had left for a neighbouring city, to be absent several days. Finding myself too late to prevent, as I had hoped to do, any open steps from being taken at Queechy, I returned hither immediately to enforce secrecy of proceedings and to a.s.sure you, Madam, that my utmost exertions shall not be wanting to bring the whole matter to a speedy and satisfactory termination. I entertain no doubt of being able to succeed entirely ? even to the point of having the whole transaction remain unknown and unsuspected by the world. It is so entirely as yet, with the exception of one or two law officers, whose silence I have means of procuring.

"May I confess that I am not entirely disinterested? May the selfishness of human nature ask its reward, and own its moving spring! May I own that my zeal in this cause is quickened by the unspeakable excellencies of Mr. Rossitur's lovely niece ?

which I have learned to appreciate with my whole heart ? and be forgiven? And may I hope for the kind offices and intercession of the lady I have the honour of addressing, with her niece, Miss Ringgan, that my reward ? the single word of encouragement I ask for ? may be given me? Having that, I will promise anything ? I will guarantee the success of any enterprise, however difficult, to which she may impel me ? and I will undertake that the matter which furnishes the painful theme of this letter shall never more be spoken or thought of by the world, or my father, or by Mrs. Rossitur's obliged, grateful, and faithful servant,

LEWIS THORN."

Fleda felt, as she read, as if icicles were gathering about her heart. The whirlwind of fear and distress of a little while ago, which could take no definite direction, seemed to have died away and given place to a dead frost ? the steady bearing down of disgrace and misery, inevitable, unmitigable, unchangeable; no lessening, no softening of that blasting power, no, nor ever any rising up from under it; the landscape could never be made to smile again. It was the fall of a bright star from their home constellation, but alas! the star was fallen long ago, and the failure of light which they had deplored was all too easily accounted for; yet now they knew that no restoration was to be hoped. And the mother and son ?

what would become of them? And the father ? what would become of him? what further distress was in store? ? Public disgrace?

? and Fleda bowed her head forward on her clasped hands with the mechanical, vain endeavour to seek rest or shelter from thought. She made nothing of Mr. Thorn's professions, she took only the facts of his letter; the rest her eye had glanced over as if she had no concern with it, and it hardly occurred to her that she had any. But the sense of his words she had taken in, and knew, better perhaps than her aunt, that there was nothing to look for from his kind offices. The weight on her heart was too great just then for her to suspect, as she did afterwards, that he was the sole mover of the whole affair.

As the first confusion of thought cleared away, two images of distress loomed up and filled the view ? her aunt, broken under the news, and Hugh still unknowing to them; her own separate existence Fleda was hardly conscious of. Hugh especially ? how was he to be told, and how could he bear to hear, with his most sensitive conformation of both physical and moral nature? And if an arrest should take place there that night! ? Fleda shuddered, and, unable to go on thinking, rose up and went to her aunt's bedside. It had not entered her mind till the moment she read Mr. Thorn's letter that Seth Plumfield was sheriff for the county. She was shaking again from head to foot with fear. She could not say anything ? the touch of her lips to the throbbing temples, soft and tender as sympathy itself, was all she ventured.

"Have you heard anything of him?" Mrs. Rossitur whispered.

"No ? I doubt if we do at all to-night."

There was a half breathed "Oh!" ? of indescribable pain and longing; and with a restless change of position Mrs. Rossitur gathered herself up on the bed and sat with her head leaning on her knees. Fleda brought a large cloak and put it round her.

"I am in no danger," she said ? "I wish I were!"

Again Fleda's lips softly, tremblingly touched her cheek.

Mrs. Rossitur put her arm round her and drew her down to her side, upon the bed, and wrapped half of the big cloak about her; and they sat there still in each other's arms, without speaking or weeping, while quarter after quarter of an hour pa.s.sed away ? n.o.body knew how many. And the cold bright moonlight streamed in on the floor, mocking them.

"Go!" whispered Mrs. Rossitur, at last ? "go down stairs, and take care of yourself ? and Hugh."