was again the time for feeding Frank. Miles went half way up-stairs with her and returned, looking very wistful. Julius smiled at him, 'Your wife is too valuable, Miles; she is every one's property.'
'It must be very gratifying to you,' added Mr. Charnock, 'to find how example and superior society have developed the native qualities your discernment detected in the charming young lady who has just quitted us. It was a most commendable arrangement to send her to enjoy the advantages of this place.'
'I sent her to be a comfort to my mother,' said Miles, bluntly.
'And so she has been,' said Julius, fervently, but sotto voce.
'I understand,' said Mr. Charnock; 'and as I was saying, my dear Cecil expressed from the first her desire to assist in forming her stranger sister-in-law, and I am happy to see the excellent effect. I should scarcely have guessed that she came from a colony.'
'Indeed,' Miles answered dryly.
Mr. Charnock might have it his own way, if he liked to think Anne had been a Hottentot till Cecil reclaimed her.
The two brothers did feel something like joy when a message at last informed Mr. Charnock that his daughter was awake and he might see her. They drew nearer together, and leant against one another, with absolute joy in the contact. They were singularly alike in outline, voice, and manner, in everything but colouring, and had always been one in spirit, except for the strong passion for adventure which had taken Miles to sea, to find he had chosen his profession too young to count the cost, and he held to it rather by duty than taste. Slight as had been his seniority, poor Raymond had always been on a sort of paternal pinnacle, sharing the administration with his mother, while Miles and Julius had paired on an equality.
'Poor mother!' sighed Miles. 'How is she to live without him? Julius, did he leave any word for me with you?'
'Above all, that Anne is the daughter for my mother, and so she is.'
'What, when this poor wife of Raymond's was said to be the superior creature?'
'You see her adoring father,' said Julius. 'My Rose has necessarily her own cares, but Anne has been my mother's silent aid and stay for months, and what she has been in the present need no words can say. My mother has had no power to take the direction of anything, her whole being has been absorbed, first in Raymond, now in Frank; and not only has Anne been Frank's constant nurse through these five weeks of the most frightful fever and delirium I have seen at all here, but she has had thought for all, and managed all the house and servants. We could do comparatively little, with Rose's brother ill at home, and the baby so young; besides, there have been eleven cases in the parish; and there was Wil'sbro'-but Anne has been the angel in the house.'
'I knew-I knew she would be everything when once the first strangeness was over; but, poor girl, her heart is in Africa, and it has been all exile here; I could see it in every letter, though she tried to make the best of it. If there had but been a child here!'
'I think you will find sufficient attachment to mother to weigh a good deal with her. Poor Anne, she did think us all very wicked at first, and perhaps she does still, but at least this has drawn us all nearer together.'
And then the brothers lowered their voices, and Miles heard the full history of Raymond's last illness, with all the details that Julius could have spoken of to none else, while the sailor's tears slowly dropped through the hands that veiled his face. It was a great deprivation to him that he might not look on Raymond's face again, but the medical edict had been decisive, and he had come home to be of use and not a burthen. As Julius told Rosamond, he only thoroughly felt the blessing of Miles's return when he bade good night and left the Hall, in peace and security that it had a sufficient aid and stay, and that he was not deserting it.
Miles had proposed to send his wife to bed and take the night watch, and he so far prevailed that she lay down in the adjoining room in her dressing gown while he sat by Frank's side. She lay where she could feast her eyes upon him, as the lamplight fell on his ruddy brown cheek, black hair, and steady dark eye, so sad indeed, but so full of quiet strength and of heedful alacrity even in stillness-a look that poor Raymond, with all his grave dignity, had never worn. That sight was all Anne wanted. She did not speak, she did not sleep; it was enough, more than enough, to have him there. She was too much tired, body and mind, after five weeks of strain, for more than the sense that God had given her back what she loved, and this was 'more than peace and more than rest.'
CHAPTER XXXI. Breaking Down
Funerals were little attended in these sad days. The living had to be regarded more than the dead, and Raymond Poynsett was only followed to the grave by his two brothers, his father-in-law, and some of the servants. Rosamond, however, weeping her soft profuse tears, could hear everything from behind the blind at Terry's open window, on that moist warm autumn day; everything, for no exception was made to the rule that coffins might not be taken into the church during this deadly sickness. She did hear a faltering and a blundering, which caused her to look anxiously at the tall white figure standing at the head of the grave, and, as she now saw, once or twice catching at the iron railing that fenced in the Poynsett tombs. Neither her husband nor his brother seemed to notice what she observed. Absorbed in the sorrow and in one another, they turned away after the service was ended and walked towards the Hall. Rosamond did not speak for a minute or two, then she turned round to Terry, who was sitting up in bed, with an awe-struck face, listening as well as he could to the low sounds, and watching her.
'Terry, dear, shall you mind my going to see after Herbert Bowater? I am sure they have let him overwork himself. If he is not fit to take Lady Tyrrell's funeral this afternoon, I
'Do you think he is ill-Bowater, I mean?' asked Terry.
'I don't like it. He seemed to totter as he went across the churchyard, and he blundered. I shall go and see.'
'Oh yes, go,' said Terry; 'I don't want anybody. Don't hurry.'
Rosamond put on her hat and sped away to Mrs. Hornblower's. As usual, the front door leading to the staircase was open, and, going up, she knocked at the sitting-room door; but the only response was such a whining and scratching that she supposed the dogs had been left prisoners there and forgotten, and so she turned the lock-but there was an obstruction; so that though Mungo and Tartar darted out and snuffed round her, only Rollo's paw and head appeared, and there was a beseeching earnestness in his looks and little moans, as if entreating her to come in. Another push, vigorously seconded by Rollo within, showed her that it was Herbert's shoulder that hindered her, and that he was lying outstretched on the floor, apparently just recalled to consciousness by the push; for as Rollo proceeded to his one remedy of licking, there was a faint murmur of 'Who-what-'
'It is I! What is the matter?'
'Lady Rose! I'll-I'll try to move-oh!' His voice died away, and Rosamond thrust in her salts, and called to Mrs. Hornblower for water, but in vain. However, Herbert managed to move a little to one side. She squeezed into the doorway, hastily brought water from his bedroom within, and, kneeling down by him, bathed his face, so that he revived to say, in the same faint voice, 'I'm so sorry I made such mulls. I couldn't see. I thought I knew it by heart.'
'Never mind, never mind, dear Herbert! You are better. Couldn't you let me help you to the sofa?'
'Oh, presently;' and as she took his head on her lap, 'Thank you; I did mean to hold out till after this day's work; but it is all right now Bindon is come.'
'Come!-is he?' she joyfully exclaimed.
'Yes, I saw him from the window. I was getting up to hail him when the room turned upside down with me.'
'There's his step!' now exclaimed Rosamond. 'Squeeze in, Mr. Bindon; you are a very welcome sight.'
Mr. Bindon did make his way in, and stood dismayed at the black mass on the floor. Rosamond and Rollo, one on each side of Herbert's great figure, in his cassock, and the rosy face deadly white, while Mungo and Tartar, who hated Mr. Bindon, both began to bark, and thus did the most for their master, whose call of 'Quiet! you brutes,' seemed to give him sudden strength. He took a grip of Rollo's curly back, and, supported by Mr. Bindon, dragged himself to the sofa and fell heavily back on it.
'Give him some brandy,' said Mr. Bindon, hastily.
'There's not a drop of anything,' muttered Herbert; 'it's all gone- '
'To Wil'sbro',' explained Rosamond; then seeing the scared face of Dilemma at the door, she hastily gave a message, and sent her flying to the Rectory, while Mr. Bindon was explaining.
