Heriot's Choice Part 89

Trelawny. There had been a paralytic seizure, and his daughter was in deep distress. They had sent for a physician from Kendal, but as the case required watching, Dr. Heriot knew how urgently his presence would be desired.

He went in search of his wife immediately, and found her sitting in a quiet nook in the Lowood Gardens overlooking Windermere.

The book they had been reading together lay unheeded in her lap.

Mildred's eyes were fixed on the s.h.i.+ning lake and the hills, with purple shadows stealing over them. Her husband's step on the turf failed to rouse her, so engrossing was her reverie, till his hand was laid on her shoulder.

'John, how you startled me!'

'I have been looking for you everywhere, Milly, darling,' he returned, sitting down beside her. 'I have been watching you for ever so long; I wanted to know what other people thought of my wife, and so for once I resolved to be a disinterested spectator.'

'Hush, your wife does not like you to talk nonsense;' but all the same Mildred blushed beautifully.

'Unfortunately she has to endure it,' he replied, coolly. 'After all I think people will be satisfied. You are a young-looking woman, Milly, especially since you have left off wearing gray.'

'As though I mind what people think,' she returned, smiling, well pleased with his praise.

Was it not sufficient for her that she was fair in his eyes? Dr. Heriot had a fastidious taste with regard to ladies' dress. In common with many men, he preferred rich dark materials with a certain depth and softness of colouring, and already, with the nicest tact, she contrived to satisfy him. Mildred was beginning to lose the old-fas.h.i.+oned staidness and precision that had once marked her style; others besides her husband thought the quiet, restful face had a certain beauty of its own.

And he. There were some words written by the wise king of old which often rose to his lips as he looked at her--'The heart of her husband does safely trust in her; she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.' How had it ever come that he had won for himself this blessing? There were times when he almost felt abashed before the purity and goodness of this woman; the simplicity and truthfulness of her words, the meekness with which she ever obeyed him. 'If I can only be worthy of my Mildred's love, if I can be what she thinks me,' he often said to himself. As he sat beside her now a feeling of regret crossed him that this should be their last evening in this sweet place.

'Shall you be very much disappointed, my wife' (his favourite name for her), 'if we return home a few days earlier than we planned?'

She looked up quickly.

'Disappointed--to go home, and with you, John! But why? is there anything the matter?'

'Not at the vicarage, but Mr. Trelawny is very ill, and Richard has telegraphed for me. What do you say, Mildred?'

'That we must go at once. Poor Ethel. Of course she will want you, she always had such faith in you. Dr. Strong is no favourite at Kirkleatham.'

'Yes, I think we ought to go,' he returned, slowly; 'you will be a comfort to the poor girl, and of course I must be at my post. I am only so sorry our pleasant trip must end.'

'Yes, and it was doing you so much good,' she replied, looking fondly at the dark face, now no longer thin and wan. 'I should have liked you to have had another week's rest before you began work.'

'Never mind,' he returned, cheerfully, 'we will not waste this lovely evening with regrets. Where are your wraps, Mildred? I mean to fetch them and row you on the lake; there will be a glorious moon this evening.'

The next night as Richard crossed the market-place on his way from Kirkleatham he saw lights in the window of the low gray house beside the Bank, and the next minute Dr. Heriot came out, swinging the gate behind him. Richard sprang to meet him.

'My telegram reached you then at Windermere? I am so thankful you have come. Where is Aunt Milly?'

'There,' motioning to the house; 'do you think I should leave my wife behind me? Let me hear a little about things, Richard. Are you going my way; to Kirkleatham, I mean?'

'Yes, I will turn back with you. I have been up there most of the time.

He seems to like me, and no one else can lift him. It seemed hard breaking into your holiday, Dr. Heriot, but what could I do? We are sure he dislikes Dr. Strong, and then Ethel seemed so wretched.'

'Poor girl; the sudden seizure must have terrified her.'

'Oh, I must tell you about that; I promised her I would. You see he has taken this affair of the election too much to heart; every one told him he would fail, and he did not believe them. In his obstinacy he has squandered large sums of money, and she believes this to be preying on his mind.'

'That and the disappointment.'

'As to that his state was pitiable. He came back from Kendal looking as ill as possible and full of bitterness against her. She has no want of courage, but she owned she was almost terrified when she looked at him.

She does not say much, but one can tell what she has been through.'

Dr. Heriot nodded. Too well he understood the state of the case. Mr.

Trelawny's paroxysms of temper had latterly become almost uncontrollable.

'He parted from her in anger, his last words being that she had ruined her father, and then he went up to his dressing-room. Shortly after a servant in an adjoining room heard a heavy fall, and alarmed the household. They found him lying speechless and unable to move. Ethel says when they had laid him on his bed and he had recovered consciousness a little, his eyes followed her with a frightened, questioning look that went to her heart, and which no soothing on her part could remove. The whole of the right side is affected, and though he has recovered speech, the articulation is very imperfect, impossible to understand at present, which makes it very distressing.'

'Poor Miss Trelawny, I fear she has sad work before her.'

'She looks wretchedly ill over it; but what can one expect from such a shock? She shows admirable self-command in the sickroom; she only breaks down when she is away from him. I am so glad she will have Aunt Milly.

Now I must go back, as Marsden is away, and I have to copy some papers for my father. I shall go back in a couple of hours to take the first share of the night's nursing.'

'You will find me there,' was Dr. Heriot's reply as they shook hands and parted.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

OLIVE'S DECISION

'Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever; Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long; And so make Life, Death, and that vast For Ever, One grand sweet song.'

Charles Kingsley.

Ethel Trelawny had long felt as though some crisis in her life were impending.

To her it seemed impossible that the unnatural state of things between her father and herself could any longer continue; something must occur to break the hideous monotony and constraint of those slowly revolving weeks and months. Latterly there had come to her that strange listening feeling to which some peculiar and sensitive temperaments are subject, when in the silence they can distinctly hear the m.u.f.fled footfall of approaching sorrow.

Yet what sorrow could be more terrible than this estrangement, this death of a father's love, this chill cloud of distrust that had risen up between them!

And yet when the blow fell, filial instinct woke up in the girl's soul, all the stronger for its repression. There were times during those first forty-eight hours when she would gladly have laid down her own life if she could have restored power to those fettered limbs, and peace to that troubled brain.

Oh, if she could only have blotted out those last cruel words--if they would cease to ring in her ears!

She had met him almost timidly, knowing how heavily the bitterness of his failure would lie upon him.

'Papa, I fear things have not gone well with you,' she had said, and there had been a caressing, almost a pitying chord in her voice as she spoke.

'How should things go well with me when my own child opposes my interest?' he had answered, gloomily. 'I have wasted time and substance, I have fooled myself in the eyes of other men, and now I must hide my head in this obscurity which has grown so hateful to me, and it is all your fault, Ethel.'

'Papa, listen to me,' she pleaded. 'Ambition is not everything; why have you set your heart on this thing? It is embittering your life and mine.

Other men have been disappointed, and it has not gone so very hard with them. Why will you not let yourself be comforted?'

'There is no comfort for me,' he had replied, and his face had been very old and haggard as he spoke. It were far better that she had not spoken; her words, few and gentle as they were, only added to the fuel of his discontent; he had meant to shut himself up in his sullenness, and make no sign; but she had intercepted his retreat, and brought down the vials on her devoted head.