MRS. BELLINGHAM and Miss Leslie arrived as soon as convenient trains could bring them. The summons which Margaret wrote later that day, taking down her father’s message from his lips, was not instant, though as decided as he could make it without too much alarming the girl, whose nerves were shaken, and who sat and gazed at him with a wistful countenance, large-eyed and dismal, watching every look. When he spoke to her, her eyes filled, and she did not seem able to keep that anxious gaze from his face. But the doctor, when he came, was more consoling than alarming. There was nothing to be frightened about, he said, scolding Margaret, paternally. And by degrees the household calmed down and accepted the new state of affairs, and began to think it natural that Sir Ludovic should have taken to his bed. His son came and paid him a visit from Edinburgh, staying a single night, and sitting for a solemn hour or two by his father’s bedside, though he did not say much. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” he asked, and begged that he might be written to daily with news of his father’s state, though he could find so little to say to him. But the visit of Mr. Leslie was not nearly so important as that of “the ladies,” to which everybody looked forward with excitement. They arrived in the afternoon, having slept in Edinburgh the previous night. Just at the right moment they arrived, at the hour which is most proper for the arrival of a visitor at a country house, leaving just time enough to dress for dinner. And they came in with a rustle of silk into Sir Ludovic’s octagon room, where there was scarcely room for them, and gave him each a delicate kiss, filling the place with delicate odors.
“I hope you are a little better, dear papa,” Grace said; and Mrs. Jean, who was large and round, and scarcely could pass between the bed and the wall, cried out cheerily that it was a relief to her mind to see him looking so well.
“I never should have found out he was ill at all, if I had not been told,” Mrs. Bellingham said, whose voice was pitched higher than that of the others. Sir Ludovic greeted them kindly, and allowed them to put their faces against his for a moment without disturbing himself.
“Yes, I told you— I am very comfortable,” he said to Margaret, who stood behind, very eager to see what impression her father’s appearance would make on her sisters. She was very happy, poor child, to hear those cheerful words from Mrs. Bellingham’s high-pitched voice.
“Well, papa, now we have seen you, and I feel quite happy about you, we will go and make ourselves comfortable too,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “I hope you have a cup of tea for us, Margaret, after our journey? and you must come and pour it out, for I want to look at you. Papa will spare you a little. John is waiting in the next room, I see.”
“John will do very well,” said Sir Ludovic; “don’t derange yourselves, my dears, from your usual habits for me.”
“I assure you, dear papa,” said Grace, “I do not care at all for being put out of my usual habits. I will stay with you. What is there in comparison with a dear father’s wishes? You go, dearest Jean; I am sure you want some tea, and I will stay with dear papa. I can see in his eyes,” she added, in an audible undertone, pushing her sister gently toward the door, “that he wishes me to stay.”
“My dear,” said Sir Ludovic, “you must not begin your self-sacrifices as soon as you enter the house. I am looking quite well, as you both say. There is no reason why you shouldn’t have your tea in peace. My eyes are very deceitful if they say anything about it except what I have said. Go, and make yourselves quite comfortable.”
“Come, come,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “This is just your usual nonsense; of course papa likes his old John, whom he can order about as he pleases, better than you in that old silk that makes such a noise. We shall come and sit with papa after dinner; good-bye for the moment,” she said, kissing the tips of her fingers. Sir Ludovic laughed to himself softly as they disappeared. They came back every year with all their little peculiarities unchanged, all their little vanities and minauderies—Grace self-sacrificing, Jean sensible. They were so little like his children that he could laugh at their foibles without any harshness, but without any pain. The constant reappearance of these two ladies, always falling into their little genteel comedy as they entered the room, exactly at the point where, on the previous year, they left it off, made the interval of time appear as if it had never been. John, who was coming in with one of the many additional adjuncts to comfort which he was always bringing, caught the sound of the laugh. John did not know if he approved of a laugh from a dying man, but he could not help joining in with a faint chuckle.
“The ladies, Sir Ludovic, are aye just the same, a’ their little ways,” he said.
Meanwhile Margaret followed them in a little flutter of excitement. She had not wanted them to come; but now that they were here, the novelty was always agreeable, and she had been grateful to them for thinking so well of Sir Ludovic’s looks, which by dint of anxiety and watching she had ceased to be satisfied with. Bell, who knew the ways and the wants of the ladies, had sent up tea to the West Chamber, whither they went, giving a sensation of company and fulness to the quiet old house. The other voices in Earl’s-hall had a different sound; they were lower, softer, with a little of the chant and modulation which belongs to Fife, and did not make the air tingle as Mrs. Bellingham did. Even down-stairs the women-servants could trace the movements of the new-comers by the flow of what was chiefly a monologue on the part of the elder lady. Miss Leslie had no objection to take her share; but Mrs. Bellingham had most boldness and most perseverance, and left little room for any one else. “Hear to her lang tongue,” Bell said; “high English, and as sharp as the clipping of a pair of shears.” It ran on from Sir Ludovic’s dressing-room, through the long room, which was so vacant, and which Margaret could scarcely go through without tears.
“I wish papa would have been advised about this room, it might have been made so much more comfortable. A partition where that screen is would have given a real dining-room and library, instead of this ridiculous long wilderness. Oh, Margaret, why do you leave that huge old chair standing out there, to break one’s legs against? It should be put back out of the way,” said Mrs. Bellingham, advancing her hand to put aside the chair.
“Oh, stop, stop! It is papa’s chair; it must not be moved!”
“Ah, to be sure, it is papa’s chair,” said Mrs. Bellingham. She stood and looked at it for a moment, with her head on one side. “Well, do you know it is touching, this? Poor papa! I remember he always sat here. It is affecting, like a soldier’s sword and his horse. But, my dear little Margaret, my poor child, you cannot leave it always here blocking up the way.”
“Dear papa’s chair!” said Miss Grace, putting her hand caressingly upon it; and then she touched the back with her cheek, as she had touched Sir Ludovic’s face. “Poor dear old chair! never again to be what it has been, never again—”
“Yes, poor old thing, I should not like to see it sent away to a lumber-room,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “But there will be so many changes, that it is sad to contemplate! Now, Margaret, tell me all about it: how was he seized? You did not say anything about a fit, and he does not look as if there had been any fit. No sugar for me, dear. Were you with him when it happened? or how did it come on? We must know all this, you know, before we see the doctor. I shall make it a point of going fully over the case with the doctor. One knows then what we have to expect, and how long a course it is likely to run.”
“Jean!” cried Margaret, aghast with grief and horror; “I thought you thought he was looking well! You said you would not have known there was anything the matter. You said—”
“My dear child, did you expect me to tell him that I saw death in his face? Is that the sort of thing, do you think, to let the patient know? Do you expect me to say to him— Good gracious, child! what is the matter? What are you going to do?”
“You must pour out your tea for yourselves,” said Margaret; “I am going to papa. Oh, if you think he is so ill, how can you sit and take your tea? How can you sit down and talk, and tell him you will come after dinner, as if it was nothing? You cannot mean it!” said the poor girl, “you cannot mean it! Oh! how can you tell, that have seen him only once? The doctor thinks he will soon be well again; and Ludovic— Ludovic is as old as you are—he never said a word to me.”
“Ludovic thought you were too young to be told; he thought it was best for us to come first; and there are some doctors that will never tell you the truth. I don’t hold with that. I would not blurt it out to the patient to affect his spirits, but I would tell the family always. Now, Margaret, you must not go to papa with that crying face. Sit down and compose yourself. He is very well; he has got old John. You don’t suppose that I am looking for anything immediate—”
“Take this; it will do you good,” said Miss Leslie, forcing upon Margaret her own cup of tea. “I will pour out another for myself.”
Margaret put it away from her with outstretched hands. She turned from them with an anguish of disgust and impatience which Jean and Grace had done nothing to deserve, feeling only the justice of that one advice not to go to her father with her countenance convulsed with weeping. But where could she go? She had been frightened, and had recovered from her fright; had taken comfort from what the doctor said, and joyful consolation from the comments of her sisters on the old man’s appearance: but where was she to seek any comfort now? With her heart sick, and fluttering, tingling, with the stroke she had received so unexpectedly, the girl turned to the window, where at least she could conceal her “crying face,” and stood there gazing out, seeing nothing, stunned with sudden misery, and not knowing what to do. But the intolerable pain into which she had been plunged all at once did not deaden her faculties. Though her mind was in such commotion, she could not help hearing all that went on behind her. Jean and Grace were quite free from any bewilderment of pain. They were glad to have their tea after their journey, and they discussed everything with a little excitement and expectation, just touched by solemnity. To be thus summoned to their father’s death-bed, to be placed in the foremost places at this tragic act which was about to be accomplished, themselves sharing in the importance of it, and with a claim upon the sympathy and respect of the world in consequence, gave Jean and Grace a sense of solemn dignity. When the heart is not deeply affected, and when, indeed, your connection with the dying is, as it were, an official one, it is difficult not to feel thus advanced in moral importance by attendance on a death-bed. It was Miss Leslie who felt this most.
“How sad to think of poor dearest papa on that bed from which he will never rise!” she said, shaking her head; “and when one remembers how active he used to be! But we have nothing to murmur at. He has been spared to us for so many years—”
“What are you thinking of, Grace?” said Mrs. Bellingham. “I am older than you are, but I never can remember a time when papa was active; and, to be sure, he is an old man, but not half so old as grandpapa, whom I recollect quite distinctly. He was active, if you like.”
“At such a time, dearest Jean, why should we dispute about words? Of course, you are right; I am always making mistakes,” said Miss Grace; “but all the same, we have no right to complain. Many, many years we have had him longer than numbers of people I could mention. Indeed, to have a father living is rare at our time of life.”
“That’s true, at least,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “I hope you are not going to keep on that dress. I told you in Edinburgh that a silk gown with a train was preposterous to travel in, and it is quite impossible for a sick-room. I shall put on a soft merino, that does not make any noise. Merino is never too warm, even in the height of summer, at Earl’s-hall.”
“I have nothing but black, and I could not put on black to hurt poor papa’s feelings,” said Grace. “He would think we were getting our mourning already. Indeed, when you think how long we will have to wear it without putting it on a day too soon—”
“As if he would remark what you are wearing! But I must go and see that Steward has unpacked. It is true there will be black enough before we are done with it, and once in mourning, I always say you never can tell when you may take it off,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “but I will not let you come into the sick-room in that rustling dress. He was always fidgety at the best of times. He would not put up with it. There’s your muslins, if you are not afraid of taking cold; but I won’t have silk,” said the elder sister, peremptory and decided.
Miss Leslie came to Margaret, and put an arm round her where she stood at the window, as the other went away.
“Dearest child, you must not cry so,” she said. “He is not suffering, you know. What a blessing that there is no pain, that he is comfortable, as he says. Dear Jean seems to be a little hard, but she means it very well; and now that we are here, you will be able to rest; you will not have so much responsibility.”
“Oh, do you think I want to rest? am I thinking of myself? It is because you are all wrong—you are mistaken. The doctor did not say so. It is not true!”
Miss Leslie shook her head, and gave a little moan.
“Dearest child!” she said, putting her cheek against Margaret’s wet and tear-stained cheek. “But I must go and see about my things too,” she said. “Steward never thinks of me till she has done everything for Jean. I am very glad of that, of course; it is just what I like; but it gives me a little more to do. Come with me, dear, and tell me what to put on. It will amuse you a little to see my things, though I haven’t got anything new—not a thing all this year. You see, dear Ludie told us of dearest papa’s uncertain state of health, and what was the good? There is nothing more provoking than having got a supply of colored things just before a long mourning. Alas! it is bad enough without that,” said Grace, with a deep sigh.
After they had made their toilet, the ladies dined, and not without appetite, while Margaret sat unable to swallow a morsel, unable to escape to her father’s room for the tears which she could not suppress. In the mean time it was Bell that had taken the place of watcher. Bell’s heart was heavy too; but she exerted herself to amuse her patient, to tell him all the circumstances of his daughters’ arrival.
“They’ve but a box apiece,” said Bell, “and that’s wonderful for our ladies. But they’ve minded this time that it’s not that easy to get trunks up our stairs. They’ve minded and they’ve no minded, Sir Ludovic: for Mrs. Bellin’am’s is that big that no mortal, let alone John, could get it up the stair. Her woman has had a’ the things to carry up in armfu’s. And oh, the heap o’ things a leddy wants when she gangs about! It’s just a bondage—gowns for the mornin’ and gowns for the evenin’, and gowns to put on when she’s dressing hersel’, and as mony fykes of laces and collars, and caps for her head—if they ca’ thae vanities caps.”
Sir Ludovic laughed.
“Poor Jean and poor Grace!” he said. “I hope they think mourning is becoming to them, Bell, for they will not stint me of a ribbon; I know my daughters too well for that. They will give me everything that is due to me, to the very last scrap of crape.”
“They’ll do that, Sir Ludovic,” said Bell, divided between her desire to humor him and her wish to keep off painful subjects; “the ladies have never shown any want o’ respect. But Miss Grace was aye fond of bright colors. They’re no so young as I mind them, but they’re weel-fa’ured women still. The Leslies were aye a handsome family. They take it from yourself, Sir Ludovic, if I may make so bold.”
“Not entirely from me,” said Sir Ludovic, with a smile. He did not dislike the allusion to his good looks, even though he was dying. “Their mother, whom you scarcely remember, was a handsome woman. We were not a bad-looking couple, people said. Ah! that’s a long time ago, Bell.”
“Deed and it’s a long time, Sir Ludovic;” but Bell did not know what to say on this subject, for the interpolation of a third Lady Leslie no doubt made the matter somewhat more difficult. Probably this struck Sir Ludovic too, and he was in the condition when human nature is glad to seek a little help from another, or sympathy at least, no help being possible. This time he sighed—which was a thing much more befitting than laughter on a dying bed.
“That’s a strange subject altogether,” he said; “any meeting after so long a time would be strange. If she had been at one end of the world and I at the other, there would be many changes even then. Would we understand each other?” Sir Ludovic had ceased to speak to Bell. He was musing alone, talking with himself. “And the difference must be greater than any mortal separation. Know each other? Of course we must know each other, she and I; but the question is, will we understand each other?”
“Eh, Sir Ludovic,” said Bell, “it was God’s will that parted you, not your ain. There would be fault on one side or the other, if my lady had been in, say America, a’ this time, and you at hame; but she’s been in—heaven; that makes a’ the difference.”
“Does it?” he said; “that’s just what I want to be sure of, Bell. Time has made great changes on me. If I find her just where she was when she left me, I have gone long beyond that; and if she has gone on too, where is she? and how shall we meet, each with our new experiences which the other does not know?”
Bell was very much perplexed by this inquiry. It had not occurred to her own mind. “Eh, Sir Ludovic,” she said, “I am no the one, the like o’ me, to clear up sic mysteries. But what new things can the lady meet with in heaven, but the praise o’ God and the love o’ God? and that doesna distract the mind.”
“Ah, Bell! but I’ve met with a great many more things since I parted with her; and then,” he said, with a gleam in his eyes which might have been half comic in its embarrassment had the circumstances been different, “there is—my little Peggy’s mother, poor thing.”
Bell sat down, in her confusion and bewilderment, by the bedside, and pondered. “I’m thinking,” she said, “that my late leddy, Miss Margret’s mother, will be the one that will maist cling to ye when a’s done.”
“Poor little thing!” he said, softly, with a smile on his face—“poor little thing! She should have seen me safe out of the world, and then had a life of her own. That would have made a balance; but how are we to know what my wife thinks? You see, we know nothing—we know nothing. And it is very hard to tell, when people have been parted so long, and things have happened, how they are to get on when they meet again.”
(Sir Ludovic, perhaps, was a little confused in his mind as to which of the Ladies Leslie he meant when he said “my wife;” but at all events it was not the last one, the “poor little thing,” Margaret’s mother, who was to him as a child.)
“Sir Ludovic, there’s neither marrying nor giving in marriage there,” said Bell, solemnly. It had never occurred to herself certainly that old John would not form part of her paradise; but then there was no complication in their relations. “And you maunna think of things like that,” she added, reverently, “eh, Sir Ludovic? There’s One we should a’ think of. And if He’s pleased, what does it matter for anything else in the wide world?”
“Ay, Bell; that’s very true, Bell,” he said, acquiescing, though scarcely remarking what she said. But the dying will rarely see things with the solemnity which the living feel to be appropriate to their circumstances, neither does the approach of death concentrate our thoughts on our most important concerns, as we all fondly hope it may, without difficulty or struggle. “I would like to know—what my wife thinks,” he said.
“What are you talking so much about?” said Mrs. Bellingham, coming in. “I heard your tongues going all the time of dinner. Is that you, Bell? How are you, Bell? I was wondering not to have seen you before; but I don’t think you should let papa talk so much when he is so weak. Indeed, I don’t think you should talk, papa. It is always exhausting your strength. Just lie quiet and keep quite still, till you get your strength back.”
Sir Ludovic turned round and looked at Bell with a glimmer of fun, about which this time there could be no mistake, in his eyes. Bell did not know what it meant. She did not see any fun in Mrs. Bellingham’s orders, nor in the way in which she herself was speedily, noiselessly displaced from the position she had taken. But so it was. Bell was put out of the way very innocently and naturally, and, with a soft flood of unrustling merino about her, Mrs. Bellingham took possession. She made no sound; she was quite fresh in dress, in looks, in spirits.
“I have made Margaret tell me all about how it came on, and cheered her up, the silly little thing. She has never seen any illness; she is like to cry if you only look at her. But we must make her more practical,” said the elder sister. Grace was in a blue gown with rose-colored ribbons. She came in, stealing with noiseless feet, a much slimmer shadow than her sister, and bent over the bed, and put her cheek to Sir Ludovic’s again, and kissed his hand and murmured, “Dearest papa!” If he had been in the article of death Sir Ludovic must have laughed.
But Margaret did not appear. She could not present herself with her swollen eyes and pale cheeks. Oh! if Jean and Grace had but stayed away—had they but left him to herself, to Bell, and John, who loved him! But she could not creep into her corner in her father’s room, while the ladies were there, filling it up, taking possession of him. Her heart was as heavy as lead in her bosom; it lay there like a stone. People will sometimes speak of the heart as if it were a figure of speech. Margaret felt hers lying, broken, bleeding, heavy—a weight that bent her to the ground.