LITMIR.BIZ

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“what my carelessness has come to—let that suffice at least, as a lesson that may spare you—what your father must feel as long as he lives.”

      He pressed his hand tightly on her shoulder, and left her, without letting her see his face. Shocked and bewildered, she hurried upstairs to Margaret. She threw herself on her knees, felt her arms round her, and heard her kind soothing, and then, in broken words, told how dreadful it had been, and how kind papa had been, and what he had said, which was now the uppermost thought. “Oh, Margaret, Margaret, how very terrible it is! And does papa really think so?”

      “I believe he does,” whispered Margaret.

      “How can he, can he bear it!” said Ethel, clasping her hands. “Oh! it is enough to kill one—I can’t think why it did not!”

      “He bears it,” said Margaret, “because he is so very good, that help and comfort do come to him. Dear papa! He bears up because it is right, and for our sakes, and he has a sort of rest in that perfect love they had for each other. He knows how she would wish him to cheer up and look to the end, and support and comfort are given to him, I know they are; but oh, Ethel! it does make one tremble and shrink, to think what he has been going through this autumn, especially when I hear him moving about late at night, and now and then comes a heavy groan—whenever any especial care has been on his mind.”

      Ethel was in great distress. “To have grieved him again!” said she, “and just as he seemed better and brighter! Everything I do turns out wrong, and always will; I can’t do anything well by any chance.”

      “Yes you can, when you mind what you are about.”

      “But I never can—I’m like him, every one says so, and he says the heedlessness is ingrain, and can’t be got rid of.”

      “Ethel, I don’t really think he could have told you so.”

      “I’m sure he said ingrain.”

      “Well, I suppose it is part of his nature, and that you have inherited it, but—” Margaret paused, and Ethel exclaimed:

      “He said his was long-nurtured; yes, Margaret, you guessed right, and he said he could not change it, and no more can I.”

      “Surely, Ethel, you have not had so many years. You are fifteen instead of forty-six, and it is more a woman’s work than a man’s to be careful. You need not begin to despair. You were growing much better; Richard said so, and so did Miss Winter.”

      “What’s the use of it, if in one moment it is as bad as ever? And to-day, of all days in the year, just when papa had been so very, very kind, and given me more than I asked.”

      “Do you know, Ethel, I was thinking whether dear mamma would not say that was the reason. You were so happy, that perhaps you were thrown off your guard.”

      “I should not wonder if that was it,” said Ethel thoughtfully. “You know it was a sort of probation that Richard put me on. I was to learn to be steady before he spoke to papa, and now it seemed to be all settled and right, and perhaps I forgot I was to be careful still.”

      “I think it was something of the kind. I was a little afraid before, and I wish I had tried to caution you, but I did not like to seem unkind.”

      “I wish you had,” said Ethel. “Dear little Aubrey! Oh, if papa had not been there! And I cannot think how, as it was, he could contrive to put the fire out, with his one hand, and not hurt himself. Margaret it was terrible. How could I mind so little! Did you see how his frock was singed?”

      “Yes, papa showed it to me. How can we be thankful enough! One thing I hope, that Aubrey was well frightened, poor little boy.”

      “I know! I see now!” cried Ethel; “he must have wanted me to make the fire blaze up, as Richard did one evening when we came in and found it low; I remember Aubrey clapping his hands and shouting at the flame; but my head was in that unhappy story, and I never had sense to put the things together, and reflect that he would try to do it himself. I only wanted to get him out of my way, dear little fellow. Oh, dear, how bad it was of me! All from being uplifted, and my head turned, as it used to be when we were happier. Oh! I wish Mr. Wilmot was not coming!”

      Ethel sat for a long time with her head hidden in Margaret’s pillows, and her hand clasped by her good elder sister. At last she looked up and said, “Oh, Margaret, I am so unhappy. I see the whole meaning of it now. Do you not? When papa gave his consent at last, I was pleased and set up, and proud of my plans. I never recollected what a silly, foolish girl I am, and how unfit. I thought Mr. Wilmot would think great things of it—it was all wrong and self-satisfied. I never prayed at all that it might turn out well, and so now it won’t.”

      “Dearest Ethel, I don’t see that. Perhaps it will do all the better for your being humbled about it now. If you were wild and high flying, it would never go right.”

      “Its hope is in Richard,” said Ethel.

      “So it is,” said Margaret.

      “I wish Mr. Wilmot was not coming to-night,” said Ethel again. “It would serve me right if papa were to say nothing about it.”

      Ethel lingered with her sister till Harry and Mary came up with Margaret’s tea, and summoned her, and she crept downstairs, and entered the room so quietly, that she was hardly perceived behind her boisterous brother. She knew her eyes were in no presentable state, and cast them down, and shrank back as Mr. Wilmot shook her hand and greeted her kindly.

      Mr. Wilmot had been wont to come to tea whenever he had anything to say to Dr. or Mrs. May, which was about once in ten or twelve days. He was Mary’s godfather, and their most intimate friend in the town, and he had often been with them, both as friend and clergyman, through their trouble—no later than Christmas Day, he had come to bring the feast of that day to Margaret in her sick-room. Indeed, it had been chiefly for the sake of the Mays that he had resolved to spend the holidays at Stoneborough, taking the care of Abbotstoke, while his brother, the vicar, went to visit their father. This was, however, the first time he had come in his old familiar way to spend an evening, and there was something in the resumption of former habits that painfully marked the change.

      Ethel, on coming in, found Flora making tea, her father leaning back in his great chair in silence, Richard diligently cutting bread, and Blanche sitting on Mr. Wilmot’s knee, chattering fast and confidentially. Flora made Harry dispense the cups, and called every one to their places; Ethel timidly glanced at her father’s face, as he rose and came into the light. She thought the lines and hollows were more marked than ever, and that he looked fatigued and mournful, and she felt cut to the heart; but he began to exert himself, and to make conversation, not, however, about Cocksmoor, but asking Mr. Wilmot what his brother thought of his new squire, Mr. Rivers.

      “He likes him very much,” said Mr. Wilmot. “He is a very pleasing person, particularly kind-hearted and gentle, and likely to do a great deal for the parish. They have been giving away beef and blankets at a great rate this Christmas.”

      “What family is there?” asked Flora.

      “One daughter, about Ethel’s age, is there with her governess. He has been twice married, and the first wife left a son, who is in the Dragoons, I believe. This girl’s mother was Lord Cosham’s daughter.”

      So the talk lingered on, without much interest or life. It was rather keeping from saying nothing than conversation, and no one was without the sensation that she was missing, round whom all had been free and joyous—not that she had been wont to speak much herself, but nothing would go on smoothly or easily without her. So long did this last, that Ethel began to think her father meant to punish her by not beginning the subject that night, and though she owned that she deserved it, she could not help being very much disappointed.

      At length, however, her father began: “We wanted you to talk over a scheme that these young ones have been concocting. You see, I am obliged to keep Richard at home this next term—it won’t do to have no one in the house to carry poor Margaret. We can’t do without him anyway, so he and Ethel have a scheme of seeing what can be done for that wretched place, Cocksmoor.”

      “Indeed!” said Mr.

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