Charles Lever - The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I

The doctor saw by the agitated look and tone of the sick man that the subject was one of too much excitement for him, and hastened to change the topic by jocularly expressing a hope that he might prove more successful with him than England had been with his countrymen.

“I doubt it, sir,” said Dalton, gravely; “not thanking you the less for your kindness. I believe, like my poor country, that I ‘m past doctoring.” He paused for a few seconds, and then added: “It’s all fretting. It’s thinking about the girls. Frank there is no fear of. That ‘s what ails me.”

Grounsell saw that to prolong his visit would be but to encourage a tone of depression that must prove injurious; so promising to return to see him in the morning, he shook Dalton’s hand cordially, and followed Hans into the adjoining room, where writing materials were prepared for him.

The two girls were standing at the fire as he entered; and simple as was their dress, homely even to poverty, every trait of their costume, their looks, bespoke them of gentle blood. Their anxious glances as he came forward showed their eagerness to hear his tidings; but they did not speak a word.

“Do not be uneasy, young ladies,” said he, hastening to relieve their fears. “Your father’s illness has nothing serious about it. A few days will, I trust, see him perfectly restored to health. Meanwhile you are his best physicians, who can minister to his spirits and cheer him up.”

“Since my brother left us, sir, he appeared to sink hour by hour; he cannot get over the shock,” said Ellen.

“I never knew him to give way before,” interposed Kate. “He used to say, when anything grieved him, ‘he ‘d pay some one to fret for him.”

“With better health you ‘ll see his old courage return,” said the doctor, as he hastily wrote a few lines of prescription, and then laying his head in his hand, seemed for some minutes lost in thought. There were little comforts, mat-’ ters of trifling luxury he wished to order, and yet he hesitated, for he did not know how far they were compatible with their means; nor could he venture upon the hazard of offending by questioning them. As in his uncertainty he raised his eyes, they fell upon the wooden figure which the dwarf had exhibited in the apothecary’s shop, and which now stood upon a table near. It was a child sleeping at the foot of a cross, around which its arms were entwined. The emaciated limbs and wasted cheek portrayed fasting and exhaustion, while in the attitude itself, sleep seemed verging upon death.

“What is that?” asked he, hastily, as he pointed with his pen to the object.

“A poor child was found thus, frozen to death upon the Arlberg,” said Kate; “and my sister carved that figure from a description of the event.”

“Your sister! This was done by you,” said Grounsell, slowly, as he turned his gaze from the work to the artist.

“Yes,” cried Hans, whose face beamed with delight; “is it not ‘lieblich?’ is it not vonderful? Dass, I say, alway; none have taste now none have de love to admire!”

Stooping down to examine it better, Grounsell was struck by the expression of the face, whereon a smile of trustfulness and hope seemed warring with the rigid lines of coming death; so that the impression conveyed was more of a victory over suffering than of a terrible fate.

“She is self-taught, sir; none even so much as assisted Ler by advice,” said Kate, proudly.

“That will be perhaps but too apparent from my efforts,” said Ellen, smiling faintly.

“I’m no artist, young lady,” said Grounsell, bluntly, “but I am well versed in every variety of the human expression in suffering, and of mere truth to nature I can speak confidently. This is a fine work! nay, do not blush, I am not a flatterer. May I take it with me, and show it to others more conversant with art than I am?”

“Upon one condition you may,” said the girl, in a low, deep voice.

“Be it so; on any condition you wish.”

“We are agreed, then?”

“Perfectly.”

“The figure is yours Nay, sir your promise!”

Groimsell stammered, and blushed, and looked confused; indeed, no man was less able to extricate himself from any position of embarrassment; and here the difficulties pressed on every side, for while he scrupled to accept what he deemed a gift of real value, he felt that they too had a right to free themselves from the obligation that his presence as a doctor imposed. At last he saw nothing better than to yield; and in all the confusion of a bashfully awkward man, he mumbled out his acknowledgments and catching up the figure, departed.

Hans alone seemed dissatisfied at the result, for as he cast his wistful looks after the wooden image, his eyes swam with his tears, and he muttered as he went some words of deep desponding cadence.

THE dreary weather of November showed no signs of “taking up.” Lowering days of fog and gloom alternated with cold winds and sleet, so that all out-door occupation was utterly denied to that imprisoned party, who were left with so few resources to pass the time within. It is true they did not make the best of the bad. Lady Hester grew hourly more irritable and peevish. Sydney Onslow seldom left her room. George took to the hills every morning, and never returned before a late dinner; while the doctor, when not with Sir Stafford, spent all his time at the Dal tons’, with whom he had already established a close intimacy.

Lady Hester had exhausted every possible means she could imagine to while away the hours; she had spent whole days in letter-writing folios of “tirades” to every one she could think of. She had all the carriages inspected, and the imperials searched, for books she well knew had been left behind. She had sent for the landlord’s daughter to give her lessons in German, which she thought of learning during the week. She had given a morning to the Italian boy with his white mice, and pored for hours long over the “Livre des Voyageurs,” reading the names of friends who, with better fortune, had taken their departure for Italy. But at last there came an end even to these frail resources, and she was left utterly without an occupation to engage, or even a thought to employ her. The five minutes of morning altercation with Grounsell over, the dreary time was unbroken by a single event, or uncheckered by a single hope. Sir Stafford was indeed recovering, but so slowly that weeks might be required ere he could proceed on his journey. How were they to be passed? was the fearful question to which she could find no answer. She looked with actual envy at the party of boors who played at dominos in the beer-house opposite, and followed with longing eyes the little mail-cart as it left the village. If she could read Germau, there were scores of books at her service. If she could but take a charitable turn, there was poverty enough to give her occupation from morn till night. She never knew what it was to think seriously, for meditation is the manufacture that cannot work without its raw material, and with this her mind was not stored.

It was in this pitiable frame of mind she was walking up and down the drawing-room one morning, just as the doctor had taken his departure, and with him the last little scene that was to relieve the day, when the servant entered with the card of Colonel Haggerstone, and the daily repeated inquiry for Sir Stafford’s health.

Had the gallant colonel presented himself at Wilton Crescent, or the Villa, it is more than likely that the well-instructed porter had not vised his passport, but at once consigned a name of such unimposing consonants to gentle obscurity, while such an entry in the visiting-book had been coolly set down as a mistake. Not so now, however. Lady Hester took up the card, and, instead of the habitual curt rejoinder, “Sir Stafford is better,” said, “You may tell Colonel Haggerstone that Lady Hester will receive him.”