Half Brothers. Stretton Hesba
LII. LAURA'S DOUBTS.
CHAPTER LVIII. NIGHT AND MORNING.
CHAPTER I.
IN A STRANGE LAND.
It will be a terrible thing to be ill here, among strangers, to have my little child born, and no one with me, if Sidney does not come back. I have been looking for him every day for the last three weeks. Every morning I feel sure he will come, and every night I lie listening for any sound out of doors which might mean he is come. Out on the clock tower the watchmen strike the time on the bell every quarter of an hour, and I know how the night is slipping away. Sometimes I get up and look through the window at the stars sparkling brighter than they ever sparkle on frosty nights in England, and the keen, keen air makes me shiver; but I never see him in the village street, never hear him calling softly, so as not to wake other people, "Sophy!"
And I wonder what Aunt Rachel is thinking of me in England. I know she is troubled about me; yes, and father will be half crazy about me. How dreadful it must be for those you love to disappear! I did not think of that when I stole away, and left them. And now, O God! what would I give to have Aunt Rachel with me!—especially if he does not come back in time.
It is so lonely here, and I am growing frightened and homesick. I wish I was at home in my little room, in the bed with white curtains round it, and the window darkened to keep the sun out, as it used to be when Aunt Rachel nursed me through the fever. But this room! why, it is as large as a house almost, and my little oil lamp is no better than a glowworm in it. The far corners of the room are as black as a pit, and there are four doors into it, and I cannot fasten any of them. I did not care much when he was with me; but now I am frightened. I never knew before what it was to be afraid. Then there is no landlady in this inn—only Chiara, the old servant, whom I do not like. The landlord is a widower, a rough, good man, I dare say; but I wish there had been a good mistress. Surely, surely, he will come back to me to-morrow.
And now, because I have nothing else to do, and because I want to keep my mind off from worrying about his return, which is certain to be in time, I will write quite fairly and honestly how we came to quarrel, and why he left me, disappearing from me almost as I disappeared from Aunt Rachel and father, only I left them in their own home, and he has left me all alone in a rough inn, in a strange country; and if he does not come back, what will become of me?
Aunt Rachel and father, I am writing all this for you.
We were married quite secretly, for fear of his rich uncle, who would never, never have consented to him marrying a poor saddler's daughter like me. And we left England directly under another name, and went down into Italy and wandered about; I shall have strange things to tell of when I reach home again. And he was so kind, so fond of me; only I vexed him often, because I did not care about the pictures and the music, and the old ruins, and all the things he delighted in. I wish I had pretended to care for them; but he only laughed at first, and called me an odd name—a "pretty Philistine," and took me to look in at the shop windows. So I did not guess that he cared so much, till he got tired, and used to leave me by myself while he went to picture galleries and concerts, and exploring ancient buildings. In Venice he left me all day, time after time, and I used to wander about the Piazza, and in and out of the little narrow streets, until I lost myself; and I knew nothing of Italian, and very little French, and often and often I walked up and down for hours before I found the Piazza again, and then I knew where to go. From Venice we came up here, among the mountains, and now I am in Austria. When I was a girl at school I never thought I should go to Austria. It is a very narrow valley, just wide enough to hold a village with one street, and all that is on the slope. There are fields all along the valley—fields without any hedgerows, and only rough cart tracks through them, and wherever the tracks cross one another there is a crucifix. Yes, there are crucifixes everywhere, and most of them are so ugly I cannot bear to look at them. I like better the little shrines, where Mary sits with the child Jesus in her arms.
It is strange when I look out of the window to see the great high rocks rising up like walls far into the sky; thousands of feet, Sidney said they are. They are so steep that snow cannot rest on them, and it only lies in the niches and on the ledges and the sharp points, which shine like silver in the sun. The sky looks almost like a flat roof lying over the valley on the tops of these rocky walls. There is not a tree, or a shrub, or a blade of grass growing on them; and how bleak it looks!
I do not like to begin about our quarrel. We had fallen into a way of quarreling, and I did not think much of it. You know, Aunt Rachel, I am always ready to kiss and be friends again, and it will be so again. When he comes back I will do everything he wishes, and I'll pretend to like what he likes. I'll not be the foolish, silly girl I was again.
Nearly a mile from the village there is an old ruin, not a pretty place, only a fortress, built to guard the valley from the Italians, if they sent their soldiers this way. An ugly old place. There is a church built out of the stone, and a long flight of stone steps up to it. I felt very ill and wretched and out of spirits that day; three weeks to-morrow it will be, and Sidney was worrying me about the ruins.
"I wish you would learn to take some interest in anything besides yourself," he said at last.
I was sitting on the church steps, and he stood over me, with a gloomy face, and looked at me as if he despised me.
"I wish I'd never seen you!" I cried out suddenly, as if I was beside myself. "I hate the day I ever saw you. I wish I'd been struck blind or dead that day. We're going to be miserable for ever and ever, and I was happy enough till I knew you."
Those were bitter words; how could I say them to Sidney?
"If you say that again," he answered, "I'll leave you. I've borne your temper as long as I can bear it. Do you think you are the only one to be miserable? I curse the day when I met you. It has spoiled all my future life, fool that I was!"
"Fool! yes, that's true," I said in my passion, "and I'm married to a fool! And they used to think me so clever at home, poor Aunt Rachel and father did. Me! I'm married to a fool, you know," and I looked up, and looked round, as if there were people to hear me beside him. But there was nobody. He ground the pebbles under his foot, and raised himself up and stood as if he were going away the next moment.
"Go on one minute longer, Sophy," he said, "and I'm off. You may follow me if you please, and be the ruin of my life, as you're likely to be the plague of it. Oh, fool, fool that I was! But I'll get a few days' peace. Another word from you, and I go."
"Go! go! go!" I cried, quite beside myself; "I shall only be too glad to see you go. Only I wish Aunt Rachel was here."
"Sophy, will you be reasonable?" he asked, and I thought he was going to give way again, as he always did before.
"No, I won't be reasonable; I can't be reasonable," I said; "how can I be reasonable when I'm married to a fool? If you're