mamma, mamma!' A fresh fit of weeping succeeded, and Mrs. Langford herself feeling most deeply, was in great doubt and perplexity; she did not like to leave Henrietta in this condition, and yet there was an absolute necessity that she should go to poor Fred, before any chance accident or mischance should reveal the truth.
'I must leave you, my dear,' said she, at last. 'Think how your dear mother bowed her head to His will. Pray to your FATHER in Heaven, Who alone can comfort you. I must go to your brother, and when I return, I hope you will be more composed.'
The pain of witnessing the passionate sorrow of Henrietta was no good preparation for carrying the same tidings to one, whose bodily weakness made it to be feared that he might suffer even more; but Mrs. Geoffrey Langford feared to lose her composure by stopping to reflect, and hastened down from Henrietta's room with a hurried step.
She knocked at Fred's door, and was answered by his voice. As she entered he looked at her with anxious eyes, and before she could speak, said, 'I know what you are come to tell me.'
'Yes, Fred,' said she; 'but how?'
'I was sure of it,' said Fred. 'I knew I should never see her again; and there were sounds this morning. Did not I hear poor Henrietta crying?'
'She has been crying very much,' said his aunt.
'Ah! she would never believe it,' said Fred. 'But after last Sunday-O, no one could look at that face, and think she was to stay here any longer!'
'We could not wish it for her sake,' said his aunt, for the first time feeling almost overcome.
'Let me hear how it was,' said Frederick, after a pause.
His aunt repeated what she had before told Hen- rietta, and then he asked quickly, 'What did you do? I did not hear you ring.'
'No, that was what I was afraid of. I was going to call some one, when I met grandpapa, who was just going up. He came with me, and-and was very kind-then he sent me to lie down; but I could not sleep, and went to wait for Henrietta's waking.'
Fred gave a long, deep, heavy sigh, and said, 'Poor Henrietta! Is she very much overcome?'
'So much, that I hardly know how to leave her.'
'Don't stay with me, then, Aunt Geoffrey. It is very kind in you, but I don't think anything is much good to me.' He hid his face as he spoke thus, in a tone of the deepest dejection.
'Nothing but prayer, my dear Fred,' said she, gently. 'Then I will go to your sister again.'
'Thank you.' And she had reached the door when he asked, 'When does Uncle Geoffrey come?'
'By the four o'clock train,' she answered, and moved on.
Frederick hid his head under the clothes, and gave way to a burst of agony, which, silent as it was, was even more intense than his sister's. O! the blank that life seemed without her look, her voice, her tone! the frightful certainty that he should never see her more! Then it would for a moment seem utterly incredible that she should thus have passed away; but then returned the conviction, and he felt as if he could not even exist under it. But this excessive oppression and consciousness of misery seemed chiefly to come upon him when alone. In the presence of another person he could talk in the same quiet matter-of-fact way in which he had already done to his aunt; and the blow itself, sudden as it was, did not affect his health as the first anticipation of it had done. With Henrietta things were quite otherwise. When alone she was quiet, in a sort of stupor, in which she scarcely even thought; but the entrance of any person into her room threw her into a fresh paroxysm of grief, ever increasing in vehemence; then she was quieted a little, and was left to herself, but she could not, or would not, turn where alone comfort could be found, and repelled, almost as if it was an insult to her affection, any entreaty that she would even try to be comforted. Above all, in the perverseness of her undisciplined affliction, she persisted in refusing to see her brother. 'She should do him harm,' she said. 'No, it was utterly impossible for her to control herself so as not to do him harm.' And thereupon her sobs and tears redoubled. She would not touch a morsel of food; she would not consent to leave her bed when asked to do so, though ten minutes after, in the restlessness of her misery, she was found walking up and down her room in her dressing-gown.
Never had Mrs. Geoffrey Langford known a more trying day. Old Mr. Langford, who had loved 'Mary' like his own child, did indeed bear up under the affliction with all his own noble spirit of Christian submission; but, excepting by his sympathy, he could be of little assistance to her in the many painful offices which fell to her share. Mrs. Langford walked about the house, active as ever; now sitting down in her chair, and bursting into a flood of tears for 'poor Mary,' or 'dear Frederick,' all the sorrow for whose loss seemed renewed; then rising vigorously, saying, 'Well, it is His will; it is all for the best!' and hastening away to see how Henrietta and Fred were, to make some arrangement about mourning, or to get Geoffrey's room ready for him. And in all these occupations she wanted Beatrice to consult, or to sympathise, or to promise that Geoffrey would like and approve what she did. In the course of the morning Mr. and Mrs. Roger Langford came from Sutton Leigh, and the latter, by taking the charge of, talking to, and assisting Mrs. Langford, greatly relieved her sister-in-law. Still there were the two young mourners. Henrietta was completely unmanageable, only resting now and then to break forth with more violence; and her sorrow far too selfish and unsubmissive to be soothed either by the thought of Him Who sent it, or of the peace and rest to which that beloved one was gone; and as once the anxiety for her brother had swallowed up all care for her mother, so now grief for her mother absorbed every consideration for Frederick; so that it was useless to attempt to persuade her to make any exertion for his sake. Nothing seemed in any degree to tranquillize her except Aunt Geoffrey's reading to her; and then it was only that she was lulled by the sound of the voice, not that the sense reached her mind. But then, how go on reading to her all day, when poor Fred was left in his lonely room, to bear his own share of sorrow in solitude? For though Mr. and Mrs. Langford, and Uncle and Aunt Roger, made him many brief kind visits, they all of them had either too much on their hands, or were unfitted by disposition to be the companions he wanted. It was only Aunt Geoffrey who could come and sit by him, and tell him all those precious sayings of his mother in her last days, which in her subdued low voice renewed that idea of perfect peace and repose which came with the image of his mother, and seemed to still the otherwise overpowering thought that she was gone. But in the midst the door would open, and grandmamma would come in, looking much distressed, with some such request as this-'Beatrice, if Fred can spare you, would you just go up to poor Henrietta? I thought she was better, and that it was as well to do it at once; so I went to ask her for one of her dresses, to send for a pattern for her mourning, and that has set her off crying to such a degree, that Elizabeth and I can do nothing with her. I wish Geoffrey was come!'
Nothing was expressed so often through the day as this wish, and no one wished more earnestly than his wife, though, perhaps, she was the only person who did not say so a dozen times. There was something cheering in hearing that his brother had actually set off to meet him at Allonfield; and at length Fred's sharpened ears caught the sound of the carriage wheels, and he was come. It seemed as if he was considered by all as their own exclusive property. His mother had one of her quick, sudden bursts of lamentation as soon as she saw him; his brother, as usual, wanted to talk to him; Fred was above all eager for him; and it was only his father who seemed even to recollect that his wife might want him more than all. And so she did. Her feelings were very strong and impetuous by nature, and the loss was one of the greatest she could have sustained. Nothing save her husband and her child was so near to her heart as her sister; and worn out as she was by long attendance, sleepless nights, and this trying day, when all seemed to rest upon her, she now completely gave way, and was no sooner alone with her husband and daughter, than her long repressed feelings relieved themselves in a flood of tears, which, though silent, were completely beyond her own control. Now that he was come, she could, and indeed must, give way; and the more she attempted to tell him of the peacefulness of her own dear Mary, the more her tears would stream forth. He saw how it was, and would not let her even reproach herself for her weakness, or attempt any longer to exert herself; but made her lie down on her bed, and told her that he and Queen Bee could manage very well.
Queen Bee stood there pale, still, and bewildered-looking. She had scarcely spoken since she heard of her aunt's death; and new as affliction was to her sunny life, scarce knew where she was, or whether this was her own dear Knight Sutton; and even her mother's grief seemed to her almost more like a dream.
'Ah, yes,' said Mrs. Geoffrey Langford, as soon as her daughter had been named, 'I ought to have sent you to Henrietta before.'
'Very well,' said Beatrice, though her heart sank within her as she thought of her last attempt at consoling Henrietta.
'Go straight up to her,' continued her mother; 'don't wait to let her think whether she will see you or not. I only wish poor Fred could do the same.'
