Margaret Capel, vol. 2. Ellen Wallace
I always see three or four curly heads round his door when I pass. He lost one poor little one in the winter with the whooping cough. The neighbours said it was a mercy, as he had such a large family, but I don't know that the parents felt the less on that account."
"Poor people!" said Aveline. "I'll tell you what, mamma, I shall get up early to-morrow, and go down to the cottage with Susan, and buy some prawns for breakfast; and then I shall see what the children would like as a present. I am always so glad when people are in want of nice clean little straw bonnets. There is nothing romantic in giving away flannel petticoats or thick worsted stockings."
"Remember, Miss Aveline," said the nurse, "that you give away a great deal of comfort with those warm clothes."
"And if you intend to take a long walk to-morrow," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "you had better not sit up later to-night. You have had a long journey, and should be prudent; though you bore it remarkably well."
But Aveline was unwilling to retire. Although she was evidently suffering from over fatigue, she persisted in wandering restlessly round the room, looking at all the trifling ornaments with which it was strewn. Mrs. Grant noticed with pain that her step was languid, and that she stooped very much as she walked. Presently she was seized with a distressing fit of coughing.
"A lozenge, if you please, Mamma," said Aveline, coming up to her mother's chair.
"Now Aveline I know you are tired," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "take your lozenges and go to bed at once. She always coughs," she said turning to Mrs. Grant, "when she is over fatigued. She always did from a child." "Come, Miss Aveline," said Mrs. Grant, "I am going home in a minute—let me see you off. Dear heart! how I recollect the time when you were a little girl; what a trouble there always was to get you to bed."
"Why what particular secrets have you good people to talk over that you wish me away?" said Aveline laughing, "what account have you to give mamma of the turkey poults and the guinea fowls that I may not hear? But, good night, nurse; you will have me plaguing you early to-morrow, at your cottage, and pillaging your strawberry beds, which you know are a great deal better than ours. As for you, mamma, I shall not say good night, because you will be upstairs long before I am asleep."
"Her spirits are excellent, nurse," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, in a tone that seemed as if she was desirous to be assured of the fact.
"They are—very high, Ma'am;" said Mrs. Grant. "How do you think she is looking?" asked Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"I shall tell better to-morrow, Ma'am," said the old woman with rather an unsteady voice; "I should like, I confess to see her looking a little less thin."
"She was always thin as a child if you remember, Mrs. Grant, and when a girl grows very tall, she naturally grows thin at the same time. I think nothing of that."
"No, no, Ma'am," said Mrs. Grant cheerfully, "young girls will look thin sometimes."
"She was very ill at Nice you know; the north-east wind brought back her cough and frightened us very much. And we had a desponding kind of a man as our medical attendant. There is nothing so unfavourable to an invalid as one of those over-anxious people about them. But, you see, now the weather is warm she is getting on nicely."
Mrs. Grant felt her hopes sinking fast away before the news that the medical man's opinion was an unfavourable one. She thought it a bad sign that he should despond, where no particular interest led him to exaggerate the case.
"You can have no idea," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "of what we suffered at Nice. You have heard of the prejudice the Italians entertain against any illness that they consider to be of a consumptive tendency. And Aveline having something of a cough—in short, Mrs. Grant, they fancied that my poor child was in a decline; and when she was at the worst, they took fright, and ordered us out of our lodgings at a moment's notice. Aveline was too ill to travel—our hostess was peremptory—and I knew well that no other house would take us in. It was then that a country-woman of ours, a Mrs. Maxwell Dorset, hearing of our distress, sought us out, and instantly offered us apartments in her house. It was impossible to stand on ceremony at such a time. I accepted her kindness, and had we been her nearest relatives, we could not have been more warmly welcomed nor more carefully attended."
"Thank God that you are safe again on English ground," said the old nurse; "where, at least, we do not turn sick people into the streets, the Pagans! And Heaven reward the good lady who took compassion on you in your need."
And so saying, Mrs. Grant took her departure.
As soon as Mrs. Fitzpatrick was alone, she sat down before her writing case, and leaning her head on her hand seemed lost in thought. She had but few and distant relations, and since her widowhood had lived in such retirement, that except two or three neighbouring families she numbered as few friends. She had in early life, lived much in the world; but having withdrawn into solitude, the world had paid her the usual compliment, and forgotten her existence. She had lost several children when very young, and all her affections centred upon this only girl whose health was so precarious. She wrote a few lines to a medical man of some eminence who lived a few miles off, to announce her return, and to beg that he would lose no time in paying them a visit.
"It is best to be upon the safe side;" she said to herself, "Aveline is gaining strength; but Mr. Lindsay may point out some means that would escape me. He is so clever, and has known her constitution from a child. I am sure he will think she is improved by her residence abroad."
So saying she rose to retire for the night; and casting her eyes round the room, she saw lying about, Aveline's gloves, her handkerchief and scarf, which she had thrown aside and forgotten, with the carelessness of youth. These she gathered up and folded together with that indescribable air of tenderness, which, in a mother, sometimes extends itself to the trifles that her child has worn or touched; and then went up stairs to take a last look at Aveline—and to sleep, if she could.
CHAPTER II
Mighty power, all powers above! Great unconquerable Love! Thou who liest in dimple sleek, On the tender virgin's cheek: Thee the rich and great obey; Every creature owns thy sway. O'er the wide earth, and o'er the main Extends thy universal reign.
Perhaps few things are more curious to those who, as bystanders, contemplate the game of life, than to see how in the stream of time, persons the most divided, and the least likely to be brought into contact, are whirled by those resistless waves nearer and nearer, until at last they meet; or if no collision takes place, still the course of the one, draws into its channel, or modifies in some strange way the course of the other.
Margaret little thought as she sat dreaming over her lot at Ashdale, that a sick girl in another county, whom she had never seen, and whose name she had never heard, was to exercise a strange influence over her future fate.
Mr. Haveloc was constantly at Ashdale. He went, it is true, backwards and forwards from his own place to that of Mr. Grey, but his visits to his home were wonderfully short, and those at Ashdale longer and longer. His attention, his devotion to Margaret increased daily; she never had occasion to form a wish. He seemed to divine all her thoughts, to anticipate everything that she could by possibility enjoy. And his was especially the kind of character to interest her; his failings were not of a nature to come in her way, and the earnestness of his disposition suited her ideas of the romance of love. She was not likely to mistake a devotion that knew no pause, that entertained no other idea than herself day after day.
Then his knowledge, which though rather desultory, was unusual in a man who had not to earn his living—his command of languages, his accomplishments—all things that he never cared to bring forward, but that accident discovered to her by degrees, increased his power over her mind.
Men cannot forgive acquirement in a woman, though they will sometimes pardon a sort of natural cleverness; but it is a common story that women are swayed by genius or learning in a man.
Margaret was hardly aware