The Daughters of Danaus Part 62

As Hadria had foretold, she commenced the attack on herself as soon as Henriette had departed, and all night long, the stormy inner debate was kept up. Her mind never wavered, but her heart was rebellious. Hubert deserved to pay for his conduct; but if we all had to pay for our conduct to the uttermost farthing, that would be hard, if just. If Hadria a.s.sumed the burden of Hubert's debt, it would mean what M.

Jouffroy had pointed out. Hubert's suffering would be only on account of offended public opinion; hers--but then her parents would suffer as well as Hubert. Round and round went the thoughts, like vast wheels, and when towards morning, she dozed off a little, the wheels were still turning in a vague, weary way, and as they turned, the life seemed to be crushed gradually out of the sleeper.

Jouffroy came to enquire whether the decision had been made. He was in a state of great excitement. He gave fervent thanks that Hadria had stood firm.

"You do not forget my words, Madame?"

"I shall never forget them, Monsieur."

Henriette discreetly forbore to say anything further on the subject of dispute. She waited, hopefully.

"Hubert has been troubled about the money that your father set apart, on your marriage, as a contribution to the household expenses," she said, one morning. "Your father did not place it all in your name."

"I know," said Hadria. "It is tied up, in some way, for the use of the family. I have a small sum only in my own control."

"Hubert is now leaving half of it to acc.u.mulate. The other half has still to go towards the expenses at the Red House. I suppose you approve?"

"Certainly," said Hadria. "My father designed it for that purpose."

"But Hubert feared you might be running short of money, and wished to send you some; but the trustees say it is against the conditions of the trust."

"So I suppose."

"I wanted you to know about it, that is all," said Henriette. "Also, I should like to say that though Hubert does not feel that he can ask you to return to the Red House, after what has happened--he cannot risk your refusing--yet I take it on myself to tell you, that he would only be too glad if you would go back."

"Thank you, I understand."

Next morning, Henriette came with a letter in her hand.

"Bad news!" Hadria exclaimed.

The letter announced the failure of the Company. It was the final blow.

Dunaghee would have to be given up. Mrs. Fullerton's settlement was all that she and her husband would now have to live upon.

Hadria sat gazing at the letter, with a dazed expression. Almost before the full significance of the calamity had been realized, a telegram arrived, announcing that Mrs. Fullerton had fallen dangerously ill.

The rest of that day was spent in packing, writing notes, settling accounts, and preparing for departure.

"When--how are you going?" cried Madame Vauchelet, in dismay.

"By the night boat, by the night boat," Hadria replied hurriedly, as if the hurry of her speech would quicken her arrival in England.

The great arches of the station which had appealed to her imagination, at the moment of arrival, swept upward, hard and grey, in the callous blue light. Hadria breathed deep. Was she the same person who had arrived that night, with every nerve thrilled with hope and resolve? Ah!

there had been so much to learn, and the time had been so short.

Starting with her present additional experience, she could have managed so much better. But of what use to think of that? How different the homeward journey from the intoxicating outward flight, in the heyday of the spring!

What did that telegram mean? _Ill; dangerously, dangerously._ The words seemed to be repeated cruelly, insistently, by the jogging of the train and the rumble of the wheels. The anxiety gnawed on, rising at times into terror, dulling again to a steady ache. And then remorse began to fit a long-pointed fang into a sensitive spot in her heart. In vain to resist. It was securely placed. Let reason hold her peace.

A thousand fears, regrets, self-accusations, revolts, swarmed insect-like in Hadria's brain, as the train thundered through the darkness, every tumultuous sound and motion exaggerated to the consciousness, by the fact that there was no distraction of the attention by outside objects. Nothing offered itself to the sight except the strange lights and shadows of the lamp thrown on the cus.h.i.+ons of the carriage; Henriette's figure in one corner, Hannah, with the child, in another, and the various rugs and trappings of wandering Britons.

Everything was contracted, narrow. The sea-pa.s.sage had the same sinister character. Hadria compared it to the crossing of the Styx in Charon's gloomy ferry-boat.

She felt a patriotic thrill on hearing the first mellow English voice p.r.o.nouncing the first kindly English sentence. The simple, slow, honest quality of the English nature gave one a sense of safety. What splendid raw material to make a nation out of! But, ah, it was sometimes dull to live with! These impressions, floating vaguely in the upper currents of the mind, were simultaneous with a thousand thoughts and anxieties, and gusts of bitter fear and grief.

What would be the end of it all? This uprooting from the old home--it wrung one's heart to think of it. Scarcely could the thought be faced.

Her father, an exile from his beloved fields and hills; her mother banished from her domain of so many years, and after all these disappointments and mortifications and sorrows! It was piteous. Where would they live? What would they do?

Hadria fought with her tears. Ah! it was hard for old people to have to start life anew, bitterly hard. This was the moment for their children to flock to their rescue, to surround them with care, with affection, with devotion; to make them feel that at least _some_thing that could be trusted, was left to them from the wreck.

"Ah! poor mother, poor kind father, you were very good to us all, very, very good!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

Mrs. Fullerton's illness proved even more serious than the doctor had expected. She asked so incessantly for her daughters, especially Hadria, that all question of difference between her and Hubert was laid aside, by tacit consent, and the sisters took their place at their mother's bedside. The doctor said that the patient must have been suffering, for many years, from an exhausted state of the nerves and from some kind of trouble. Had she had any great disappointment or anxiety?

Hadria and Algitha glanced at one another. "Yes," said Algitha, "my mother has had a lot of troublesome children to worry and disappoint her."

"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor, nodding his head. "Well, now has come a crisis in Mrs. Fullerton's condition. This illness has been incubating for years. She must have undergone mental misery of a very acute kind, whether or not the cause may have been adequate. If her children desire to keep her among them, it will be necessary to treat her with the utmost care, and to oppose her in _nothing_. Further disappointment or chagrin, she has no longer the power to stand. There are complications.

Her heart will give trouble, and all your vigilance and forbearance are called for, to avoid serious consequences. I think it right to speak frankly, for everything depends--and always hereafter will depend--on the patient's being saved as much as possible from the repet.i.tion of any former annoyance or sorrow. At best, there will be much for her to endure; I dread an uprooting of long familiar habits for any one of her age. Her life, if not her reason, are in her children's hands."

A time of terrible anxiety followed, for the inmates of the Red House.

The doctor insisted on a trained nurse. Algitha and Hadria felt uneasy when they were away, even for a moment, from the sick-room, but the doctor reminded them of the necessity, for the patient's sake as well as their own, of keeping up their strength. He warned them that there would be a long strain upon them, and that any lack of common sense, as regards their own health, would certainly diminish the patient's chances of recovery. n.o.body had his clearest judgment and his quickest observation at command, when nervously exhausted. Everything might depend on a moment's decision, a moment's swiftness of insight. The warning was not thrown away, but both sisters found the incessant precautions trying.

Every thought, every emotion was swallowed up in the one awful anxiety.

"Oh, Hadria, I feel as if this were my fault," cried Algitha, on one still, ominous night, after she had resigned her post at the bedside to the nurse, who was to fill it for a couple of hours, after which Hadria took her turn of watching.

"You? It was I," said Hadria, with trembling lips.

"Mother has never been strong," Algitha went on. "And my leaving home was the beginning of all this trouble."

"And _my_ leaving home the end of it," her sister added.

Algitha was walking restlessly to and fro.

"And I went to Dunaghee so often, so often," she cried tearfully, "so that mother should not feel deserted, and you too came, and the boys when they could. But she never got over my leaving; she seemed to resent my independence, my habit of judging for myself; she hated every detail in which I differed from the girls she knew. If I had married and gone to the Antipodes, she would have been quite satisfied, but----"

"Ah, why do people need human souls for their daily food?" cried Hadria mournfully. She flung open the window of the bedroom, and looked out over the deadly stillness of the fields and the heavy darkness. "But they do need them," she said, in the same quiet, hopeless tone, "and the souls have got to be provided."

"What is the time?" asked Algitha. A clock had struck, outside. "Could it be the clock of Craddock church? The sound must have stolen down hill, through the still air."

"It struck three."

"You ought to get some sleep," cried Algitha. "Remember what the doctor said."