'That, you always said of him,' continued she, not hearing, 'but you have no need to reproach yourself. You always acted the part of a true friend, did full justice to his many good qualities, and only sought his real good.'
'Every word you speak is the bitterest satire on me,' said Philip, goaded into rousing himself for a moment. 'Say no more, unless you would drive me distracted!'
Margaret was obliged to be silent, and marvel, while her brother sat motionless, leaning back in his chair, till Dr. Henley came in; and after a few words to him, went on talking to his wife, till dinner was announced. Philip went with them into the dining-room, but had scarcely sat down before he said he could not stay, and returned to the drawing-room sofa. He said he only wanted quiet and darkness, and sent his sister and her husband back to their dinner.
'What has he been doing?' said the Doctor; 'here is his pulse up to a hundred again. How can he have raised it?'
'He only came down an hour ago, and has been sitting still ever since.'
'Talking?'
'Yes; and there, perhaps, I was rather imprudent. I did not know he could so little bear to hear poor Sir Guy's name mentioned; and, besides, he did not know, till I told him, that he had so much chance of Redclyffe. He did not know the entail excluded daughters.'
'Did he not! That accounts for it. I should like to see the man who could hear coolly that he was so near such a property. This suspense is unlucky just now; very much against him. You must turn his thoughts from it as much as possible.'
All the next day, Mrs. Henley wondered why her brother's spirits were so much depressed, resisting every attempt to amuse or cheer them; but, on the third, she thought some light was thrown on the matter. She was at breakfast with the Doctor when the post came in, and there was a black-edged letter for Captain Morville, evidently from Amabel. She took it up at once to his room. He stretched out his hand for it eagerly, but laid it down, and would not open it while she was in the room. The instant she was gone, however, he broke the seal and read:--
'Hollywell, February 20th.
'MY DEAR PHILIP,--Thank you much for writing to me. It was a great comfort to see your writing again, and to hear of your being safe in our own country. We had been very anxious about you, though we did not hear of your illness till the worst was over. I am very glad you are at St. Mildred's, for I am sure Margaret must be very careful of you, and Stylehurst air must be good for you. Every one here is well; Charles growing almost active, and looking better than I ever saw him. I wish I could tell you how nice and quiet a winter it has been; it has been a great blessing to me in every way, so many things have come to me to enjoy. Mr. Ross has come to me every Sunday, and often in the week, and has been so very kind. I think talking to him will be a great pleasure to you when you are here again. You will like to hear that Mr. Shene has sent me the picture, and the pleasure it gives me increases every day. Indeed, I am so well off in every way, that you must not grieve yourself about me, though I thank you very much for what you say. Laura reads to me all the evening from dinner to tea. I am much better than I was in the winter, and am enjoying the soft spring air from the open window, making it seem as if it was much later in the year. 'Good-bye, my dear cousin; may God bless and comfort you. Remember, that after all, it was God's will, not your doing; and therefore, as he said himself, all is as it should be, and so it will surely be.
'Your affectionate cousin, 'AMABEL F. MORVILLE.'
Childishly simple as this letter might be called, with its set of facts without comment, and the very commonplace words of consolation, it spoke volumes to Philip of the spirit in which it was written-- resignation, pardon, soothing, and a desire that her farewell, perhaps her last, should carry with it a token of her perfect forgiveness. Everything from Amabel did him good; and he was so perceptibly better, that his sister exclaimed, when she was next alone with Dr. Henley, 'I understand it all, poor fellow; I thought long ago, he had some secret attachment; and now I see it was to Amabel Edmonstone.'
'To Lady Morville?'
'Yes. You know how constantly he was at Hollywell, my aunt so fond of him? I don't suppose Amy knew of it; and, of course, she could not be blamed for accepting such an offer as Sir Guy's; besides, she never had much opinion of her own.'
'How? No bad speculation for him. She must have a handsome jointure; but what are your grounds?'
'Everything. Don't you remember he would not go to the marriage? He mentions her almost like a saint; can't hear her name from any one else--keeps her letter to open alone, is more revived by it than anything else. Ah! depend upon it, it was to avoid her, poor fellow, that he refused to go to Venice with them.'
'Their going to nurse him is not as if Sir Guy suspected it.'
'I don't suppose he did, nor Amy either. No one ever had so much power over himself.'
Philip would not have thanked his sister for her surmise, but it was so far in his favour that it made her avoid the subject, and he was thus spared from hearing much of Amabel or of Redclyffe. It was bad enough without this. Sometimes in nursery tales, a naughty child, under the care of a fairy, is chained to an exaggeration of himself and his own faults, and rendered a slave to this hateful self. The infliction he underwent in his sister's house was somewhat analogous, for Mrs. Henley's whole character, and especially her complacent speeches, were a strong resemblance of his own in the days he most regretted. He had ever since her marriage regarded her as a man looks at a fallen idol, but never had her alteration been so clear to him, as he had not spent much time with her, making her short visits, and passing the chief of each day at Stylehurst. Now, he was almost entirely at her mercy, and her unvarying kindness to him caused her deterioration to pain him all the more; while each self-assertion, or harsh judgment, sounded on his ear like a repetition of his worst and most hateful presumption. She little guessed what she made him endure, for he had resumed his wonted stoicism of demeanour, though the hardened crust that had once grown over his feelings had been roughly torn away, leaving an extreme soreness and tenderness to which an acute pang was given whenever he was reminded, not only of his injuries to Guy, but of the pride and secret envy that had been their root.
At the same time he disappointed her by his continued reserve and depression. The confidence she had forfeited was never to be restored, and she was the last person to know how incapable she was of receiving it, or how low she had sunk in her self-exaltation.
He was soon able to resume the hours of the family, but was still far from well; suffering from languor, pain in the head, want of sleep and appetite; and an evening feverishness. He was unequal to deep reading, and was in no frame for light books; he could not walk far, and his sister's literary coteries, which he had always despised, were at present beyond his powers of endurance. She hoped that society would divert his thoughts and raise his spirits, and arranged her parties with a view to him; but he never could stay long in the room, and Dr. Henley, who, though proud of his wife and her talents, had little pleasure in her learned circle, used to aid and abet his escape. Thus Philip got through the hours as best he might, idly turning the pages of new club-books, wandering on the hills till he tired himself, sitting down to rest in the damp air, coming home chilled and fatigued, and lying on the sofa with his eyes shut, to avoid conversation, all the evening. Neither strength, energy, nor intellect would, serve him for more; and this, with the load and the stings of a profound repentance, formed his history through the next fortnight.
He used often to stand gazing at the slowly-rising walls of Miss Wellwood's buildings, and the only time he exerted himself in his old way to put down any folly in conversation, was when he silenced some of the nonsense talked about her, and evinced his own entire approval of her proceedings.
CHAPTER 39
Beneath a tapering ash-tree's shade
Three graves are by each other laid.
Around the very place doth brood
A strange and holy quietude.--BAPTISTERY
Late on the afternoon of the 6th of March, Mary Ross entered by the half-opened front door at Hollywell, just as Charles appeared slowly descending the stairs.
'Well! how is she?' asked Mary eagerly.
'Poor little dear!' he answered, with a sigh; 'she looks very nice and comfortable.'
'What, you have seen her?'
'I am at this moment leaving her room.'
