Queechy Volume I Part 21

"But tell me," said Fleda, anxiously.

"I don't know as there's anything the matter with him," said Cynthy. "Nothing much, I suppose. What makes you think anything is the matter?"

"Because I heard you telling Watkins to go for aunt Miriam."

Fleda could not say, ?- "and the doctor."

"Well, your grandpa thought he'd like to have her come down, and he don't feel right well, ? so I sent Watkins up; but you'd better go to bed, Flidda; you'll catch cold if you sit up o' night."

Fleda was unsatisfied, the more because Cynthy would not meet the keen searching look with which the little girl tried to read her face. She was not to be sent to bed, and all Cynthy's endeavours to make her change her mind were of no avail. Fleda saw in them but fresh reason for staying, and saw besides, what Cynthy could not hide, a somewhat of wandering and uneasiness in her manner which strengthened her resolution.

She sat down in the chimney corner, resolved to wait till her aunt Miriam came; there would be satisfaction in her, for aunt Miriam always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

It was a miserable three quarters of an hour. The kitchen seemed to wear a strange desolate look, though seen in its wonted bright light of fire and candles, and in itself nice and cheerful as usual. Fleda looked at it also through that vague fear which casts its own lurid colour upon everything.

The very flickering of the candle blaze seemed of ill omen, and her grandfather's empty chair stood a signal of pain to little Fleda whenever she looked at it. She sat still, in submissive patience, her cheek pale with the working of a heart too big for that little body. Cynthia was going in and out of her grandfather's room, but Fleda would not ask her any more questions, to be disappointed with word-answers; she waited, but the minutes seemed very long, ? and very sad.

The characteristic outward calm which Fleda had kept, and which belonged to a nature uncommonly moulded to patience and fort.i.tude, had yet perhaps heightened the pressure of excited fear within. When at last she saw the cloak and hood of aunt Miriam coming through the moonlight to the kitchen door, she rushed to open it, and quite overcome for the moment, threw her arms around her and was speechless. Aunt Miriam's tender and quiet voice comforted her.

"You up yet, Fleda! Hadn't you better go to bed? 'Tisn't good for you."

"That's what I've been a-telling her," said Cynthy, "but she wa'n't a mind to listen to me."

But the two little arms embraced aunt Miriam's cloak and wrappers, and the little face was hid there still, and Fleda's answer was a half smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"I am _so_ glad you are come, dear aunt Miriam!"

Aunt Miriam kissed her again, and again repeated her request.

"O no ? I can't go to bed," said Fleda, crying; ? "I can't till I know ? I am sure something is the matter, or Cynthy wouldn't look so. _Do_ tell me, aunt Miriam!"

"I can't tell you anything, dear, except that grandpa is not well ? that is all I know ? I am going in to see him. I will tell you in the morning how he is."

"No," said Fleda, "I will wait here till you come out. I couldn't sleep."

Mrs. Plumfield made no more efforts to persuade her, but rid herself of cloak and hood and went into Mr. Ringgan's room.

Fleda placed herself again in her chimney corner. Burying her face in her hands, she sat waiting more quietly; and Cynthy, having finished all her business, took a chair on the hearth opposite to her. Both were silent and motionless, except when Cynthy once in a while got up to readjust the sticks of wood on the fire. They sat there waiting so long that Fleda's anxiety began to quicken again.

"Don't you think the doctor is a long time coming, Cynthy?"

said she, raising her head at last. Her question, breaking that forced silence, sounded fearful.

"It seems kind o' long," said Cynthy. "I guess Watkins ha'n't found him to hum."

Watkins indeed presently came in and reported as much, and that the wind was changing and it was coming off cold; and then his heavy boots were heard going up the stairs to his room overhead; but Fleda listened in vain for the sound of the latch of her grandfather's door, or aunt Miriam's quiet foot- fall in the pa.s.sage; listened and longed, till the minutes seemed like the links of a heavy chain which she was obliged to pa.s.s over from hand to hand, and the last link could not be found. The noise of Watkins' feet ceased overhead, and nothing stirred or moved but the crackling flames and Cynthia's elbows, which took turns each in resting upon the opposite arm, and now and then a tell-tale gust of wind in the trees.

If Mr. Ringgan was asleep, why did not aunt Miriam come out and see them, ? if he was better, why not come and tell them so. He had been asleep when she first went into his room, and she had come back for a minute then to try again to get Fleda to bed; why could she not come out for a minute once more. Two hours of watching and trouble had quite changed little Fleda; the dark ring of anxiety had come under each eye in her little pale face; she looked herself almost ill.

Aunt Miriam's grave step was heard coming out of the room at last, ? it did not sound cheerfully in Fleda's ears. She came in, and stopping to give some direction to Cynthy, walked up to Fleda. Her face encouraged no questions. She took the child's head tenderly in both her hands, and told her gently, but it was in vain that she tried to make her voice quite as usual, that she had better go to bed ? that she would be sick.

Fleda looked up anxiously in her face.

"How is he?"

But her next word was the wailing cry of sorrow, ? "Oh grandpa!"

The old lady took the little child in her arms, and they both sat there by the fire until the morning dawned.

CHAPTER VIII.

Patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest.

KING LEAR.

When Mr. Carleton knocked at the front door the next day, about two o'clock, it was opened to him by Cynthy. He asked for his late host.

"Mr. Ringgan is dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed the young man, much shocked; ? "when ? how?"

"Wont you come in, Sir?" said Cynthy; ? "maybe you'll see Mis'

Plumfield."

"No, certainly," replied the visitor. "Only tell me about Mr.

Ringgan."

"He died last night."

"What was the matter with him?"

"I don't know," said Cynthy in a business-like tone of voice, ? "I s'pose the doctor knows, but he didn't say nothing about it. He died very sudden."

"Was he alone?"

"No ? his sister was with him; he had been complaining all the evening that he didn't feel right, but I didn't think nothing of it, and I didn't know as he did; and towards evening he went and laid down, and Flidda was with him a spell, talking to him; and at last he sent her to bed, and called me in and said he felt mighty strange, and he didn't know what it was going to be, and that he had as lieve I should send up and ask Mis' Plumfield to come down, and perhaps I might as well send for the doctor, too. And I sent right off, but the doctor wa'n't to hum, and didn't get here till long after. Mis'

Plumfield, she come; and Mr. Ringgan was asleep then, and I didn't know as it was going to be anything more after all than just a turn, such as anybody might take; and Mis' Plumfield went in and sot by him; and there wa'n't no one else in the room; and after a while he come to, and talked to her, she said, a spell; but he seemed to think it was something more than common ailed him; and all of a sudden he just riz up half way in bed, and then fell back and died, ? with no more warning than that."

"And how is the little girl?"

"Why," said Cynthy, looking off at right angles from her visitor, "she's middling now, I s'pose, but she wont be before long, or else she must be harder to make sick than other folks. We can't get her out of the room," she added, bringing her eyes to bear, for an instant, upon the young gentleman, ?

"she stays in there the hull time since morning, ? I've tried, and Mis' Plumfield's tried, and everybody has tried, and there can't none of us manage it; she will stay in there, and it's an awful cold room when there aint no fire."

Cynthy and her visitor were both taking the benefit of the chill blast which rushed in at the open door.

"_The room?_" said Mr. Carleton. "The room where the body lies?"

"Yes ? it's dreadful chill in there when the stove aint heated, and she sits there the hull time. And she ha'n't got much to boast of now; she looks as if a feather would blow her away."

The door at the further end of the hall opened about two inches, and a voice called out through the crack,