'Coming in,' said Amy; and Philip, intent only on hospitality, hastened into the hall, and met him at the door, gave him his arm and conducted him where the inviting light guided them to the sitting-room. The full brightness of lamp and fire showed the ashy paleness of his face; his hair, rumpled with lying on the sofa, had, on the temples, acquired a noticeable tint of gray, his whole countenance bore traces of terrible suffering; and Amabel thought that even at Recoara she had never seen him look more wretchedly ill.
'How did you come?' he asked. 'It was very kind. I hope you will be comfortable.'
'We have taken good care of ourselves,' said Amy. 'I wrote to Mr. Markham, for I thought you were not well enough to be worried with preparations. We ought to beg your pardon for breaking on you so unceremoniously.'
'If any one should be at home here--' said Philip, earnestly;--then interrupting himself, he shaded his eyes from the light, 'I don't know how to make you welcome enough. When did you set off?'
'Yesterday afternoon,' said Charles; 'we slept in London, and came on to-day.'
'Have you dined?' said Philip, looking perplexed to know where the dinner could come from.
'Yes; at K---, thank you.'
'What will you have? I'll ring for Mrs. Drew.'
'No, thank you; don't tease yourself. Mrs. Drew will take care of us. Never mind; but how bad your head is!' said Amabel, as he sat down on the sofa, leaning his elbow on his knee, and pressing his hand very hard on his forehead. 'You must lie down and keep quiet, and never mind us. We only want a little tea. I am just going to take off my bonnet, and see what they have done with baby, and then I'll come down. Pray lie still till then. Mind he does, Charlie.'
They thought she was gone; but the next moment there she was with the two pillows from the library sofa, putting them under Philip's head, and making him comfortable; while he, overpowered by a fresh access of headache, had neither will nor power to object. She rang, asked for Mrs. Drew, and went.
Philip lay, with closed eyes, as if in severe pain: and Charles, afraid to disturb him, sat feeling as if it was a dream. That he, with Amy and her child, should be in Guy's home, so differently from their old plans, so very differently from the way she should have arrived. He looked round the room, and everywhere knew what Guy's taste had prepared for his bride--piano, books, prints, similarities to Hollywell, all with a fresh new bridal effect, inexpressibly melancholy. They brought a thought of the bright eye, sweet voice, light step, and merry whistle; and as he said to himself 'gone for ever,' he could have hated Philip, but for the sight of his haggard features, gray hairs, and the deep lines which, at seven-and-twenty, sorrow had traced on his brow. At length Philip turned and looked up.
'Charles,' he said, 'I trust you have not let her run any risk.'
'No: we got Dr. Mayerne's permission.'
'It is like all the rest,' said Philip, closing his eyes again. Presently he asked: 'How did you know I was not well?'
'Markham said something in a business letter that alarmed Amy. She wrote to inquire, and on his second letter we thought we had better come and see after you ourselves.'
No more was said till Amabel returned. She had made some stay up- stairs, talking to Mrs. Drew, who was bewildered between surprise, joy, and grief; looking to see that all was comfortable in Charles's room, making arrangements for the child, and at last relieving herself by a short space of calm, to feel where she was, realize that this was Redclyffe, and whisper to her little girl that it was her father's own home. She knew it was the room he had destined for her; she tried, dark as it was, to see the view of which he had told her, and looked up, over the mantel-piece, at Muller's engraving of St. John. Perhaps that was the hardest time of all her trial, and she felt as if, without his child in her arms, she could never have held up under the sense of desolation that came over her, left behind, while he was in his true home. Left, she told herself, to finish the task he had begun, and to become fit to follow him. Was she not in the midst of fulfilling his last charge, that Philip should be taken, care of? It was no time for giving way, and here was his own little messenger of comfort looking up with her sleepy eyes to tell her so. Down she must go, and put off 'thinking herself into happiness' till the peaceful time of rest; and presently she softly re-entered the sitting-room, bringing to both its inmates in her very presence such solace as she little guessed, in her straightforward desire to nurse Philip, and take care Charles was not made uncomfortable.
That stately house had probably never, since its foundation, seen anything so home-like as Amabel making tea and waiting on her two companions; both she and Charles pleasing each other by enjoying the meal, and Philip giving his cup to be filled again and again, and wondering why one person's tea should taste so unlike another's.
He was not equal to conversation, and Charles and Amabel were both tired, so that tea was scarcely over before they parted for the night; and Amy, frightened at the bright and slipperiness of the dark-oak stairs, could not be at peace till she had seen Arnaud help Charles safely up them, and made him promise not to come down without assistance in the morning.
She was in the sitting-room soon after nine next morning, and found breakfast on one table, and Charles writing a letter on the other.
'Well,' said he, as she kissed him, 'all right with you and little miss?'
'Quite, thank you. And are you rested?'
'Slept like a top; and what did you do? Did you sleep like a sensible woman?'
'Pretty well, and baby was very good. Have you heard anything of Philip?'
'Bolton thinks him rather better, and says he is getting up.'
'How long have you been up?'
'A long time. I told Arnaud to catch Markham when he came up, as he always does in a morning to see after Philip, and I have had a conference with him and Bolton, so that I can lay the case before Dr. Mayerne scientifically.'
'What do you think of it?'
'I think we came at the right time. He has been getting more and more into work in London, taking no exercise, and so was pretty well knocked up when he came here; and this place finished it. He tried to attend to business about the property, but it always ended in his head growing so bad, he had to leave all to Markham, who, by the way, has been thoroughly propitiated by his anxiety for him. Then he gave up entirely; has not been out of doors, written a note, nor seen a creature the last fortnight, but there he has lain by himself in the library, given up to all manner of dismal thoughts without a break.'
'How dreadful!' said Annabel, with tears in her eyes. 'Then he would not see Mr. Ashford? Surely, he could have done something for him.'
'I'll tell you what,' said Charles, lowering his voice,' from what Bolton says, I think he had a dread of worse than brain fever.'
She shuddered, and was paler, but did not speak.
'I believe,' continued Charles, 'that it is one half nervous and the oppression of this place, and the other half, the over-straining of a head that was already in a ticklish condition. I don't think there was any real danger of more than such a fever as he had at Corfu, which would probably have been the death of him; but I think he dreaded still worse, and that his horror of seeing any one, or writing to Laura, arose from not knowing how far he could control his words.'
'0! I am glad we came,' repeated Amabel, pressing her hands together.
'He has been doctoring himself,' proceeded Charles; 'and probably has kept off the fever by strong measures, but, of course, the more he reduced his strength, the greater advantage he gave to what was simply low spirits. He must have had a terrible time of it, and where it would have ended I cannot guess, but it seems to me that most likely, now that he is once roused, he will come right again.'
Just as Charles had finished speaking, he came down, looking extremely ill, weak, and suffering; but calmed, and resting on that entire dependence on Amabel which had sprung up at Recoara.
She would not let him go back to his gloomy library, but made him lie on the sofa in the sitting-room, and sat there herself, as she thought a little quiet conversation between her and Charles would be the best thing for him. She wrote to Laura, and he sent a message, for he could not yet attempt to write; and Charles wrote reports to his mother and Dr. Mayerne; a little talk now and then going on about family matters.
Amabel asked Philip if he knew that Mr. Thorndale was at Kilcoran.
'Yes,' he said, 'he believed there was a letter from him, but his eyes had ached too much of late to read.'
