“But I have not invited the Pendarvis boys.”
“Then what children, in goodness’ name, are to eat all those cakes?” cried Celia.
“My party is for the children of the cottagers. All your father’s infant school will be there.”
“Then all I can say is, I hope you have arranged for the ventilation of your rooms; for if you expect me to spend Christmas Eve in an atmosphere at all resembling that of our infant schoolroom you are reckoning without your host.”
“I am not reckoning without a knowledge of Celia Clare’s good nature. I shall expect you to help me with all your heart and soul. Even your brother might do something for us. He could give us a comic reading—Mrs. Brown at the play, or something of that kind.”
“Picture to yourself Algernon Swinburne reading ‘Mrs. Brown’ to a herd of charity children,” exclaimed Celia, laughingly; “I assure you my brother Edward thinks himself quite as important a person as Mr. Swinburne. Would you have him lay aside his magnum opus to study ‘Mrs. Brown at the play?’ ”
“I am sure he won’t mind helping us,” said Laura. “I shall have a Christmas tree loaded with gifts, a good many of them useful ones. I shall hire a magic lantern from London; and for the rest we can have all the old-fashioned games—Blind Man’s Buff, Oranges and Lemons, Thread my Needle—all the noisiest, wildest romps we can think of. I am going to have the servants’ hall cleared out and decorated for the occasion; so there will be no fear of any of the dear old furniture coming to grief.”
“If poor old Mr. Treverton could come to life again, and see such goings on,” ejaculated Celia.
“I am sure he would be glad to know that his wealth was employed in making other people happy. Think of all those poor little children, Celia, who hardly know the meaning of the word pleasure, as rich people understand it.”
“All the happier for them,” said Celia, philosophically. “The pleasures of the rich are dreadfully hollow; as sickly-sweet and crumbly as a meringue from an inferior pastry cook, with the cream gone sour inside. Well, Laura, you are a good soul, and I will do my very best to help you through your juvenile muddle. I wonder if fourteen thousand a year would make me benevolent. I’m afraid my expenses would increase at such a rate that I should have no margin for charity.”
Before Christmas Eve came a shadow had fallen upon Laura’s life, which made complete happiness impossible, even for one who was bent upon giving joy to others. John Treverton fell ill of a low fever. He was not dangerously ill. Mr. Morton, the local doctor, who had attended Jasper Treverton for twenty years, and who was a general practitioner of skill and experience, made very light of the malady. The patient had got a chill riding a tired horse a long way home through the rain, after his last hunt, and the chill had resulted in slightly feverish symptoms, and Mr. Treverton was a little below par. That was all. The only remedies wanted were rest and good nursing, and for a man in John Treverton’s position both were easy.
“Ought I to put off my children’s party?” Laura asked, anxiously, the day before Christmas Eve. “I should be very sorry to disappoint the poor little things, but,” here her voice faltered, “if I thought John was going to be worse—.”
“My dear Mrs. Treverton, he is not going to be worse; in fact, he is rapidly mending. Didn’t I tell you the pulse was stronger this morning? He will be well in a few days, I hope; but I shall keep him in his room to the end of the week, and I shall not allow him to take part in any Christmas festivities. As for your children’s party, if you can prevent the noise of it reaching him, there is no reason in the world why it should be postponed.”
“The servants’ hall is quite on the other side of the house,” said Laura. “I don’t think the noise can possibly reach the next room.”
This conversation between Mrs. Treverton and the doctor had taken place in John Treverton’s study—the panelled room adjoining his bedroom—the room in which he and Laura had first met.
“Then that’s all you need care about,” replied Mr. Morton.
Laura had been her husband’s only nurse throughout his illness. She had sat with him all day, and watched him through the night, taking snatches of slumber at intervals on the comfortable old sofa at the foot of the big old-fashioned four-post bed. In vain had John Treverton urged the danger of injury to her own health from the fatigue involved in this tender care of him. She told him she had never felt better or stronger, and never enjoyed more refreshing sleep than on the roomy old sofa.
They had been happy together, even in this time of anxiety. It was Laura’s delight to read aloud to the invalid, to write his letters, to pour out his medicine, to minister to all the trivial wants of an illness that caused at its most only a sense of languor and helplessness. Her only regret with regard to the children’s party was that for this one evening she must be for the most part absent from the sick room. Instead of reading aloud to her husband, she must give her mind to “Blind Man’s Buff,” and all her energies to “Thread my Needle.”
The winter twilight came gently down, bringing a light snow shower with it, and at four o’clock Laura was seated at the little Chippendale table by her husband’s bed, drinking tea with him for the first time since the beginning of his illness. He had been sitting up for a few hours in the middle of the day, and was now lying outside the bed, wrapped warmly in his long fur-bordered dressing-gown.
He was intensely interested in the children’s party, and asked Laura all about her arrangements
