for coming to England for the May east winds, and then exposing yourself to them in London!’
‘I hope I did not expose myself: I only went out three or four times.’
‘I know you are always rejoiced to be as little at home as possible.’
‘I could not be spared sooner, ma’am.’
‘Spared? I think you have come out in a new capacity.’
John never went up his aunt without expecting to undergo a penance.
‘I was sorry no one else could be with Arthur, but being there, I could not leave him.’
‘And your mother tells me you are going back again.’
‘Yes, to stand godfather.’
‘To the son and heir, as they called him in the paper. I gave Arthur credit for better taste; I suppose it was done by some of her connections?’
‘I was that connection,’ said John.
‘Oh! I suppose you know what expectations you will raise?’
John making no answer, she grew more angry. ‘This one, at least, is never likely to be heir, from what I hear; it is only surprising that it is still alive.’
How Theodora hung upon the answer, her very throat aching with anxiety, but hardening her face because John looked towards her.
‘We were very much afraid for him at first,’ he said, ‘but they now think there is no reason he should not do well. He began to improve from the time she could attend to him.’
A deep sigh from his mother startled John, and recalled the grief of his childhood—the loss of two young sisters who had died during her absence on the continent. He crossed over and stood near her, between her and his aunt, who, in agitated haste to change the conversation, called out to ask her about some club-book. For once she did not attend; and while Theodora came forward and answered Mrs. Nesbit, she tremulously asked John if he had seen the child.
‘Only once, before he was an hour old. He was asleep when I came away; and, as Arthur says, it is a serious thing to disturb him, he cries so much.’
‘A little low melancholy wailing,’ she said, with a half sob. But Mrs. Nesbit would not leave her at peace any longer, and her voice came beyond the screen of John’s figure:—
‘Lady Martindale, my dear, have you done with those books! They ought to be returned.’
‘Which, dear aunt?’ And Lady Martindale started up as if she had been caught off duty, and, with a manifest effort, brought her wandering thoughts back again, to say which were read and which were unread.
John did not venture to revert to a subject that affected his mother so strongly; but he made another attempt upon his sister, when he could speak to her apart. ‘Arthur has been wondering not to hear from you.’
‘Every one has been writing,’ she answered, coldly.
‘He wants some relief from his constant attendance,’ continued John; ‘I was afraid at first it would be too much for him, sitting up three nights consecutively, and even now he has not at all recovered his looks.’
‘Is he looking ill?’ said Theodora.
‘He has gone through a great deal, and when she tries to make him go out, he only goes down to smoke. You would do a great deal of good if you were there.’
Theodora would not reply. For Arthur to ask her to come and be godmother was the very thing she wished; but she would not offer at John’s bidding, especially when Arthur was more than ever devoted to his wife; so she made no sign; and John repented of having said so much, thinking that, in such a humour, the farther she was from them the better.
Yet what he had said might have worked, had not a history of the circumstances of Violet’s illness come round to her by way of Mrs. Nesbit. John had told his father; Lord Martindale told his wife; Lady Martindale told her aunt, under whose colouring the story reached Theodora, that Arthur’s wife had been helpless and inefficient, had done nothing but cry over her household affairs, could not bear to be left alone, and that the child’s premature birth had been occasioned by a fit of hysterics because Arthur had gone out fishing. No wonder Theodora pitied the one brother, and thought the other infatuated. To write to Arthur was out of the question; and she could only look forward to consoling him when the time for London should come. Nor was she much inclined to compassionate John, when, as he said, the east wind—as his aunt said, the London fog—as she thought, the Rickworth meadows—brought on such an accession of cough that he was obliged to confine himself to his two rooms, where he felt unusually solitary.
She went in one day to carry him the newspaper. ‘I am writing to Arthur,’ he said, ‘to tell him that I shall not be able to be in London next Sunday; do you like to put in a note?’
‘No, I thank you.’
‘You have no message?’
‘None.’
He paused and looked at her. ‘I wish you would write,’ he said. ‘Arthur has been watching eagerly for your congratulation.’
‘He does not give much encouragement,’ said Theodora, moving to the door.
‘I wish he was a letter writer! After being so long with them, I don’t like hearing nothing more; but his time has been so much engrossed that he could hardly have written at first. I believe the first letter he looked for was from you.’
‘I don’t know what to say. Other people have said all the commonplace things.’
‘You would not speak in that manner—you who used to be so fond of Arthur—if you by any means realized what he has gone through.’
Theodora was touched, but would not show it. ‘He does not want me now,’ she said, and was gone, and then her lips relaxed, and she breathed a heavy sigh.
John sighed too. He could not understand her, and was sensible that his own isolation was as a consequence of having lived absorbed in his affection and his grief, without having sought the intimacy of his sister. His brother’s family cares had, for the first time, led him to throw himself into the interests of those around him, and thus aroused from the contemplation of his loss, he began to look with regret on opportunities neglected and influence wasted. The stillness of his own room did not as formerly suffice to him; the fears and hopes he had lately been sharing rose more vividly before him, and he watched eagerly for the reply to his letter.
It came, not from Arthur, but in the pointed style of Violet’s hardest steel pen, when Matilda’s instructions were most full in her mind; stiff, cramped, and formal, as if it had been a great effort to write it, and John was grieved to find that she was still in no state for exertion. She had scarcely been down-stairs, and neither she nor the baby were as yet likely to be soon able to leave the house, in spite of all the kind care of Lady Elizabeth and Miss Brandon. Violet made numerous apologies for the message, which she had little thought would cause Mr. Martindale to alter his route.
In fact, those kind friends had been so much affected by John’s account of Violet’s weak state, under no better nursing than Arthur’s, that, as he had hoped, they had hastened their visit to London, and were now settled as near to her as possible, spending nearly the whole of their time with her. Emma almost idolized the baby, and was delighted at
