Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) (continued 13)

Mr Hope meant to drive Morris to Buckley himself, and to see her into the coach for Birmingham; and he had borrowed Mr Grey’s gig for the purpose. He had been urged by Mr Grey not to think of returning that night, had desired his wife and sister not to expect him, and had engaged a neighbour to sleep in the house. The sisters might well look forward to a sad evening; and their hearts were heavy when the gig came to the door, when they were fortifying Morris with a parting glass of wine, and wrapping her up with warm things which were to come back with her master, and expressing their heart-sorrow by the tenderness with which they melted the very soul of poor Morris. She could not speak; she could resist nothing. She took all they offered her to comfort herself with, from having neither heart nor voice to refuse. Morris never gave way to tears; but she was as solemn as if she were going to execution. The baby alone was insensible to her gravity; he laughed in her face when she took him into her arms for the last time;—a seasonable laugh it was, for it relieved his mother of some slight superstitious dread which was stealing upon her, as she witnessed the solemnity of Morris’s farewell to him. They all spoke of her return to them; but no one felt that there was any comfort in so vague a hope, amidst the sadness of the present certainty.

As Hester and Margaret stood out on the steps to watch the gig till the last moment, a few flakes of snow were driven against their faces. They feared Morris would have a dreary journey; and this was not the pleasantest thought to carry with them into the house.

While Hester nursed her infant by the fire, Margaret went round the house, to see what there was for her to do to-night. It moved her to find how thoughtfully everything was done. Busy as Morris had been with a thousand little affairs and preparations, every part of the house was left in the completest order. The very blinds of the chambers were drawn down, and a fire was laid in every grate, in case of its being wanted. The tea-tray was set in the pantry, and not a plate left from dinner unwashed. Margaret felt and said how badly she should supply the place of Morris’s hands, to say nothing of their loss of her head and heart. She sighed her thankfulness to her old friend, that she was already at liberty to sit down beside her sister, with actually nothing on her hands to be done before tea-time.

It was always a holiday to Margaret when she could sit by at leisure, as the morning and evening dressing and undressing of the baby went on. Hester would never entrust the business to her or to any one: but it was the next best thing to watch the pranks of the little fellow, and the play between him and his mother; and then to see the fun subside into drowsiness, and be lost in that exquisite spectacle, the quiet sleep of an infant. When he was this evening laid in his basket, and all was unusually still, from there being no one but themselves in the house, and the snow having by this time fallen thickly outside, Margaret said to her sister—“If I remember rightly, it is just a twelvemonth since you warned me how wretched marriage was. Just a year, is it not?”

“Is it possible?” said Hester, withdrawing her eyes from her infant.

“I wish I could have foreseen then how soon I might remind you of this.”

“Is it possible that I said so?—and of all marriage?”

“Of all love, and all marriage. I remember it distinctly.”

“You have but too much reason to remember it, love. But how thankless, how wicked of me ever to say so.”

“We all, perhaps, say some wretched things which dwell on other people’s minds, long after we have forgotten them ourselves. It is one of the acts we shall waken up to as sins—perhaps every one of us—whenever we become qualified to review our lives dispassionately;—as sins, no doubt, for the pain does not die with the utterance; and to give pain needlessly, and to give lasting pain, is surely a sin. We are none of us guiltless; but I am glad you said this particular thing—dreadful as it was to hear it. It has caused me a great deal of thought within the year; and it now makes us both aware how much happier we are than we were then.”

“We!”

“Yes; all of us. I rather shrink from measuring states of fortune and of mind, as they are at one time against those of another; but it is impossible to recall that warning of yours, and be unaware how differently we have cause to think and speak now. I felt at the time that it was too late for us to complain of love and of marriage. The die was then cast for us all. It is much better to feel now that those complaints were the expression of passing pain, long since over.”

“I rejoice to hear you say this for yourself, Margaret; though I own I should scarcely have expected it. And yet no one is more aware than I that it is a blessing to love—a blessing still, whatever may be the woe that must come with the love. It is a blessing to live for another, to feel far more deeply than the most selfish being on earth ever felt for himself. I know that it is better to have felt this disinterested attachment to another, even in the midst of storms of passion hidden in the heart, and of pangs from disappointment, than to live on in the very best peace of those who have never loved. Yet, knowing this, I have been cowardly for you, Margaret, and at one time sank under my own troubles. Any one who loved as I did should have been braver. I should have been more willing, both for you and for myself, to meet the suffering which belongs to the exercise of all the highest and best part of our nature: but I was unworthy then of the benignant discipline appointed to me: and at the moment, I doubt not I should have preferred, if the choice had been offered to me, the safety and quiet of a passionless existence to the glorious exercise which has been graciously appointed me against my will. I do try now, Margaret, to be thankful that you have had some of this exercise and discipline; but I have not faith enough. My thanks are all up in grief before I have done—grief that you have the struggle and the sorrow, without the support and the full return which have been granted to me.”

“You need not grieve much for me. I have not only had the full return you speak of, but I have it still. It cannot be spoken, or written, or even indulged; but I know it exists; and therefore am I happier than I was last year. How foolish it is,” she continued, as if thinking aloud, “how perfectly childish to set our hearts on what we call happiness,—on any arrangement of circumstances, either in our minds or our fortunes—so little as we know! How you and I should have dreaded this night and to-morrow, if they could have been foreshown to us a while ago! How we should have shrunk from sitting down under the cloud of sorrow which appears to have settled upon this house! And now this evening has come—”

“The evening of Morris’s going away, and everything else so dreary! No servant, no money, no prospect! Careful economy at home, ill-will abroad; the times bad, the future all blank—we two sitting here alone, with the snow falling without!”

“And our hearts aching with parting with Morris (we must come back to that principal grief). How dismal all this would have looked, if we could have seen it in a fairy-glass at Birmingham long ago!—and yet I would not change this very evening for any we ever spent in Birmingham, when we were exceedingly proud of being very happy.”

“Nor I. This is life: and to live—to live with the whole soul, and mind, and strength, is enough. It is not often that I have strength to feel this, and courage to say it; but to-night I have both.”

“And in time we may be strong enough to pray that this child may truly and wholly live—may live in every capacity of his being, whatever suffering may be the condition of such life: but it requires some courage to pray so for him, he looks so unfit for anything but ease at present!”

“For anything but feeding and sleeping, and laughing in our faces. Did you ever see an infant sleep so softly? Are not those wheels passing? Yes; surely I heard wheels rolling over the snow.”

She was right. In five minutes more, Margaret had to open the door to her brother.

Hope had arrived at Blickley only just in time to drive Morris up to the door of the Birmingham coach, and put her in as the guard was blowing his horn. Mr Grey’s horse had gone badly, and they had been full late in setting off. He had not liked the prospect of staying where he was till morning, and had resolved to bid defiance to footpads, and return: so he stepped into the coffee-room, and read the papers while the horse was feeding, and came home as quickly after as he could. As he was safe, all the three were glad he had done so; and the more that, for once, Edward seemed sad. They made a bright fire, and gave him tea; but their household offices did not seem to cheer him as usual. Hester asked, at length, whether he had heard any bad news.

“Only public news. The papers are full of everything that is dismal. The epidemic is spreading frightfully. It is a most serious affair. The people you meet in the streets at Blickley look as if they had the plague raging in the town. They say the funerals have never ceased passing through the streets, all this week; and really the churchyard I saw seemed full of new graves. I believe the case is little better in any town in the kingdom.”

“And in the villages?”

“The villages follow, of course, with differences according to their circumstances. None will be worse than this place, when once the fever appears among us. I would not say so anywhere but by our own fireside, because everything should be done to encourage the people instead of frightening them; but indeed it is difficult to imagine a place better prepared for destruction than our pretty village is just now, from the extreme poverty of most of the people, and their ignorance, which renders them unfit to take any rational care of themselves.”

“You say, ‘whenever the fever comes.’ Do you think it must certainly come?”

“Yes: and I have had some suspicions, within a day or two, that it is here already. I must see Walcot to-morrow; and learn what he has discovered in his practice.”

“Mr Walcot! Will not Dr Levitt do as well?”

“I must see Dr Levitt too, to consult about some means of cleansing and drying the worst of the houses in the village. But it is quite necessary that I should have some conversation with Walcot about the methods of treatment of this dreadful disease. If he is not glad of an opportunity of consulting with a brother in the profession, he ought to be—and I have no doubt he will be; for he will very soon have as much upon him as any head and hands in the world could manage.”

“Cannot you let him come to you for advice and assistance when he wants it?”

“I must not wait for that. He is young, and, as we all imagine, not over wise: and a dozen of our poor neighbours might die before he became aware of as much as I know to-night about this epidemic. No, love; my dignity must give way to the safety of our neighbours. Depend upon it, Walcot will be glad enough to hear what I have to say—if not to-morrow, by next week at furthest.”

“So soon? What makes you say next week?”

“I judge partly from the rate of progress of the fever elsewhere, and partly from the present state of health in Deerbrook. There are other reasons too. I have seen some birds of ill omen on the wing hitherward this evening.”

“What can you mean?”

“I mean fortune-tellers. Are you not aware that in seasons of plague—of the epidemics of our times, as well as the plagues of former days—conjurors, and fortune-tellers, and quacks appear, as a sort of heralds of the disease? They are not really so, for the disease in fact precedes them; but they show themselves so immediately on its arrival, and usually before its presence is acknowledged, that they have often been thought to bring it. They have early information of its existence in any place; and they come to take advantage of the first panic of the inhabitants, where there are enough who are ignorant to make the speculation a good one. I saw two parties of these people trooping hither; and we shall have heard something of their prophecies, and of a fever case or two, before this time to-morrow, I have little doubt.”

“It is this prospect which has made you sad,” said Hester.

“No, my dear—not that alone. But do not let us talk about being sad. What does it matter?”

“Yes; do let us talk about it,” said Margaret, “if, as I suspect, you are sad for us. It is about Morris’s going away, is it not?”

“About many things. It is impossible to be at all times unaffected by such changes as have come upon us; I cannot always forget what my profession once was to me, for honour, for occupation, and for income. I confidently reckoned on bringing you both to a home full of comfort. Never were women so cherished as I meant that you should be. And now it has ended in your little incomes being almost our only resource, and in your being deprived of your old friend Morris, some years before her time. I can hardly endure to think of to-morrow.”

“And do you really call this the end?” asked Margaret. “Do you consider our destiny fixed for evermore?”

“As far as you and I are concerned, love,” said Hester to him, “I could almost wish that this were the end. I feel as if almost any change would be for the worse; I mean supposing you not to look as you do now, but as you have always been till now. Oh, Edward, I am so happy!”

Her husband could not speak for astonishment and delight. “You remember that evening in Verdon woods, Edward—the evening before we were married?”

“Remember it!”

“Well. How infinitely happier are we now than then! Oh! that fear—that mistrust of myself! You reproved me for my fear and mistrust then; and I must beg leave to remind you of what you then said. It is not often that I can have the honour of preaching to you, my dear husband, as it is rather difficult to find an occasion; but now I have caught you tripping. What is there for you to be uneasy about now, that can at all be compared with what I troubled myself about then?—Since that time I have caused you much misery, I know—misery which I partly foresaw I should cause you: but that is over, I trust. It is over at least for the time that we are poor and persecuted. I dare not and do not wish for anything otherwise than as we have it flow. Persecution seems to have made us wiser, and poverty happier; and how, if only Margaret were altogether as we would see her, how could we be better than we are?”

“You are right, my dear wife.” These few tender words, and her husband’s brightened looks, sufficed—Hester had no cares. She forgot even the fever, in seeing Edward look as gay as usual again, and in feeling that she was everything to that feeling, that conviction, for which she had sighed in vain, for long after her marriage. She had then fancied that his profession, his family, his own thoughts, were as important to him as herself. She now knew that she was supreme; and this was supreme satisfaction.

When Margaret sprang up to her new labours in the chill dusk of the next morning, she flattered herself that she was the first awake; but it was not so. When she went down, she found her brother busy shovelling the snow away, and making a clear path from the kitchen door to the coal-house. He declared it delightfully warm work, by the time he had brought in coals enough for the day, and wanted more employment of the same sort. He went round to the front of the house, and cleared the steps and pavement there; caring nothing for the fact, that two or three neighbours gazed from their doors, and that some children stood blowing upon their fingers, and stamping with their feet, enduring the cold, for the sake of seeing the gentleman clearing his own steps.

“What would the Greys say?” asked Margaret, laughing; as, duster in hand, she looked from the open window, and spoke to her brother outside.

“I am sure they ought to say I have done my work well.”

“That is just what Hester is observing within here. You are almost ready for breakfast, are you not? She is setting the table.”

“Quite ready. What warm work this is! Really I do not believe there is such a bit of pavement in all Deerbrook as this of ours.”

“Come—come in to breakfast. You have admired your work quite enough for this morning.”

The three who sat down to breakfast were as reasonable and philosophical as most people; but even they were taken by surprise with the sweetness of comforts provided by their own immediate toil. There was something in the novelty, perhaps; but Hope threw on the fire with remarkable energy the coals he had himself brought in from the coal-house, and ate with great relish the toast toasted by his wife’s own hands. Margaret, too, looked round the room more than once, with a new sort of pride in there being not a particle of dust on table, chair, or book. It was scarcely possible to persuade Edward that there was nothing more for him to do about the house till the next morning; that the errand-boy would come in an hour, and clean the shoes; and that the only assistance the master of the house could render, would be to take charge of the baby for a quarter of an hour, while Hester helped her sister to make the beds.

After breakfast, when Hester was dressing her infant, and Margaret washing up the tea-cups and saucers, the postman’s knock was heard. Margaret went to the door, and paid for the letter from the “emergency purse,” as they called the little sum of money they had put aside for unforeseen expenses. The letter was for Edward, and so brief that it must be on business.

It was on business. It was from the lawyer of Mr Hope’s aged grandfather; and it told that the old gentleman had at last sunk rather suddenly under his many infirmities. Mr Hope was invited to go—not to the funeral, for it must be over before he could arrive, but to see the will, in which he had a large beneficial interest, the property being divided between himself and his brother, subject to legacies of one hundred pounds to each of his sisters, and a few smaller bequests to the servants.

“This is as you always feared,” said Hester to her husband, observing the expression of concern in his face, on reading the letter.

“Indeed, I always feared it would be so,” he replied. “I did what I could to prevent this act of posthumous injustice; and I am grieved that I failed; for nothing can repair it. My sisters will have their money—the same in amount, but how different in value! They will receive it as a gift from their brothers, instead of as their due from their grandfather. I am very sorry his last act was of this character.”

“Will you go? Must you go?”

“No, I shall not go—at least, not at present. The funeral would be over, you see, before I could get there; and I doubt not the rest of the business may be managed quietly and easily by letter. I have no inclination to travel just now, and no money to do it with, and strong reasons of another kind for staying at home. No, I shall not go.”

“I am very glad. Now, the first duty is to write to Emily and Anne, I suppose: and to Frank?”

“Not to Frank just yet. He knows what I meant to do, in case of my grandfather recurring to this disposition of his property; and, further than this, I must not influence Frank. He must be left entirely free to do as he thinks proper, and I shall not communicate with him till he has had ample time to decide on his course. I shall write to Emily and Anne to-day.”

“I am sorry for them.”

“So am I. What a pity it is, when the aged, whom one would wish to honour after they are gone to their graves, impair one’s respect, by an unjust arrangement of their affairs! How easily might my grandfather have satisfied us all, and secured our due reverence at the last, by merely being just! Now, after admitting what was just, he has gone back into his prejudices, and placed us all in a painful position, from which it will be difficult to every one of us to regard his memory as we should wish.”

“He little thought you would look upon his rich legacy in this way,” said Margaret, smiling.

“I gave him warning that I should. It was impossible to refuse it more peremptorily than I did.”

“That must be your satisfaction now, love. You have done everything that was right; so we will not discompose ourselves because another has done a wrong which you can partly repair.”

“My dear wife, what comfort you give! What a blessing it is, that you think, and feel, and will act, with me—making my duty easy instead of difficult!”

“I was going to ask,” observed Margaret, “whether you have no misgiving—no doubt whatever that you are right in refusing all this money.”

“Not the slightest doubt, Margaret. The case is not in any degree altered by my change of fortune. The facts remain, that my sisters have received nothing yet from the property, while I have had my professional education out of it. That my profession does not at present supply us with bread does not affect the question at all: nor can you think that it does, I am sure. But Hester, my love, what think you of our prospect of a hundred pounds?”

“A hundred pounds!”

“Yes; that is the sum set down for me when the honest will was made; and that sum I shall of course retain.”

“Oh, delightful! What a quantity of comfort we may get out of a hundred pounds! How rich we shall be!”

“She is thinking already,” said Margaret, “what sort of a pretty cloak baby is to have for the summer.”

“And Margaret must have something out of it, must not she, love?” asked Hester.

“We will all enjoy it, with many thanks to my poor grandfather. Surely this hundred pounds will set us on through the year.”

“That will be very pleasant, really,” observed Margaret. “To be sure of bread for all the rest of the year! Oh, the value of a hundred pounds to some people!”

“What a pity that Morris did not stay this one other day!” exclaimed Hester. “And yet, perhaps, not so. It might have perplexed her mind about leaving us, and induced her to give up her new place; and there is nothing in a chance hundred pounds to justify that. It is better as it is.”

“All things are very well as they are,” said Hope, “as long as we think so. Now, I am going to call on Walcot. Good-bye.”

“Stop, stop one moment! Stay, and see what I have found!” cried his wife, in a tone of glee. “Look! Feel! Tell me—is not this our boy’s first tooth?”

“It is—it certainly is. I give you joy, my little fellow!”

“Worth all the hundreds of pounds in the world,” observed Margaret, coming in her turn to see and feel the little pearly edge, whose value its owner was far from appreciating, while worried with the inquisition which was made into the mysteries of his mouth. “Now it is a pity that Morris is not here!” all exclaimed.

“We must write to her. Perhaps we might have found it yesterday, if we had had any idea it would come so soon.”

No: Hester was quite positive there was no tooth to be seen or felt last night.

“Well, we must write to Morris.”

“You must leave me a corner,” said Hope. “We must all try our skill in describing a first tooth. I will consider my part as I walk. Bite my finger once more before I go, my boy.”

The sisters busied themselves in putting the parlour in order, for the reception of any visitors who might chance to call, though the streets were so deep in snow as to render the chance a remote one. Margaret believed that, when the time should come, she might set the potatoes over the parlour fire to boil, and thus, without detection, save the lighting another fire. But before she had taken off her apron, while she was in the act of sweeping up the hearth, there was a loud knock, which she recognised as proceeding from the hand of a Grey. The family resemblance extended to their knocks at the door.

As if no snow had fallen, Mrs Grey and Sophia entered.

“You are surprised to see us, my dears, I have no doubt. But I could not be satisfied without knowing what Mr Hope thinks of this epidemic, this terrible fever, which every one is speaking about so frightfully.”

“Why, what can he think?”

“I mean, my dear, does he suppose that it will come here? Are we likely to have it?”

“He tells us, what I suppose you hear from Mr Grey, that the fever seems to be spreading everywhere, and is just now very destructive at Buckley. Does not Mr Grey tell you so?”

“No, indeed; there is no learning anything from Mr Grey that he does not like to tell. Sophia, I think we must take in a newspaper again, that we may stand a chance of knowing something.”

Sophia agreed.

“Sophia and I found that we really had no time to read the newspaper. There it lay, and nobody touched it; for Mr Grey reads the news in the office always. I told Mr Grey it was just paying so much a-week for no good to anybody, and I begged he would countermand the paper. But we must take it in again, really, to know how this fever goes on. Does Mr Hope think, my dears, as many people are saying here this morning, that it is a sort of plague?”

“Oh, mamma,” exclaimed Sophia, “how can you say anything so dreadful?”

“I have not heard my husband speak of it so,” said Hester. “He thinks it a very serious affair, happening as it does in the midst of a scarcity, when the poor are already depressed and sickly.”

“Ah! that is always the way, Mr Grey tells me. After a scarcity comes the fever, he says. The poor are much to be pitied indeed. But what should those do who are not poor, have you heard Mr Hope say?”

“He thinks they should help their poor neighbours to the very utmost.”

“Oh, yes; of course: but what I mean is, what precautions would be advise?”

“We will ask him. I have not heard him speak particularly of this on the present occasion.”

“Then he has not established any regulations in his own family?”

“No. But I know his opinion on such cases in general to be, that the safest way is to go on as usual, taking rational care of health, and avoiding all unnecessary terror. This common way of living, and a particularly diligent care of those who want the good offices of the rich, are what he would recommend, I believe, at this time: but when he comes in, we will ask him. You had better stay till he returns. He may bring some news. Meantime, I am sorry my baby is asleep. I should like to show you his first tooth.”

“His first tooth? Indeed! He is a forward little fellow. But, Hester, do you happen to have heard your husband say what sort of fumigation he would recommend in case of such a fever as this showing itself in the house?”

“Indeed I have not heard him speak of fumigations at all. Have you, Margaret?”

“I should just like to know; for Mrs Jones told me of a very good one; and Mrs Howell thinks ill of it. Mrs Jones recommended me to pour some sulphuric acid upon salt—common salt—in a saucer; but Mrs Howell says there is nothing half so good as hot vinegar.”

“Somebody has come and put up a stall,” said Sophia, “where he sells fumigating powders, and some pills, which he says are an infallible remedy against the fever.”

“Preventive, my dear.”

“Well, mamma, ’tis just the same thing. Does Mr Hope know anything of the people who have set up that stall?”

Hester thought she might venture to answer that question without waiting for her husband’s return. She laughed as she said, that medical men avoided acquaintance with quacks.

“Does Mr Hope think that medical men are in any particular danger?” asked Sophia, bashfully, but with great anxiety. “I think they must be, going among so many people who are ill. If there is a whole family in the fever in a cottage at Crossly End, as Mrs Howell says there is, how very dangerous it must be to attend them!”

Sophia was checked by a wink from her mother, and then first remembered that she was speaking to a surgeon’s wife. She tried to explain away what she had said; but there was no need. Hester calmly remarked that it was the duty of many to expose themselves at such times in an equal degree with the medical men; and that she believed that few were more secure than those who did so without selfish thoughts and ignorant panic. Sophia believed that every one did not think so. Some of Mr Walcot’s friends had been remonstrating with him about going so much among the poor sick people, just at this time; and Mr Walcot had been consulting her as to whether his duty to his parents did not require that he should have some regard to his own safety. He had not known what to do about going to a house in Turnstile-lane, where some people were ill.

A dead silence followed this explanation. Mrs Grey broke it by asking Margaret if she might speak plainly to her—the common preface to a lecture. As usual, Margaret replied, “Oh! certainly.”

“I would only just hint, my dear, that it would be as well if you did not open the door yourself. You cannot think how strangely it looks: and some very unpleasant remarks might be made upon it. It is of no consequence such a thing happening when Sophia and I come to your door. I would not have you think we regard it for ourselves in the least—the not being properly shown in by a servant.”

“Oh! not in the least,” protested Sophia.

“But you know it might have been the Levitts. I suppose it would have been just the same if the Levitts had called?”

“It certainly would.”

“It might have been the Levitts certainly,” observed Hester: “but I must just explain that it was to oblige me that Margaret went to the door.”

“Then, my dear, I hope you will point out some other way in which Margaret may oblige you; for really you have no idea how oddly it looks for young ladies to answer knocks at the door. It is not proper self-respect, proper regard to appearance. And was it to oblige you that Margaret carried a basket all through Deerbrook on Wednesday, with the small end of a carrot peeping out from under the lid? Fie, my dears! I must say fie! It grieves me to find fault with you: but really this is folly. It is really neglecting appearances too far.”

Mr Hope did not return in time to see Mrs Grey. When she could wait no longer, Hester promised to send her husband to solve Mrs Grey’s difficulties.

“What would she have said,” exclaimed Hester, “if she had seen my husband’s doings of this morning?”

“Ah! what indeed?”

“Actually shovelling snow from his own steps!”

“Oh, I thought you meant giving away a competence. Which act would she have thought the least self-respectful?”

“She would have had a great deal to say on his duty to his family in both cases. But it is all out of kindness that she grieves so much over his ‘enthusiasm,’ and lectures us for our disregard of appearances. If she loved us less, we should hear less of her concern, and it would be told to others behind our backs. So we will not mind it. You do not mind it, Margaret?”

“I rather enjoy it.”

“That is right. Now I wish my husband would come in. He has been gone very long; and I want to hear the whole truth about this fever.”

Chapter Forty One.

Deerbrook in Shadow.

It was some hours before Hope appeared at home again; and when he did, he was very grave. Mr Walcot had been truly glad to see him, and, it was plain, would have applied to him for aid and co-operation some days before, if Mrs Rowland had not interfered, to prevent any consultation of the kind. The state of health of Deerbrook was bad,—much worse than Hope had had any suspicion of. Whole families were prostrated by the fever in the labourers’ cottages, and it was creeping into the better sort of houses. Mr Walcot had requested Hope to visit some of his patients with him: and what he had seen had convinced him that the disease was of a most formidable character, and that a great mortality must be expected in Deerbrook. Walcot appeared to be doing his duty with more energy than might have been expected: and it seemed as if whatever talent he had, was exercised in his profession. Hope’s opinion of him was raised by what he had seen this morning. Walcot had complained that his skill and knowledge could have no fair play among a set of people so ignorant as the families of his Deerbrook patients. They put more faith in charms than in medicines or care; and were running out in the cold and damp to have their fortunes told by night, or in the grey of the morning. If a fortune-teller promised long life, all the warnings of the doctor went for nothing. Then, again, the people mistook the oppression which was one of the first symptoms of the fever, for debility; and before the doctor was sent for, or in defiance of his directions, the patient was plied with strong drinks, and his case rendered desperate from the beginning. Mr Walcot had complained that the odds were really too much against him, and that he believed himself likely to lose almost every fever patient he had. It may be imagined how welcome to him were Mr Hope’s countenance, suggestions, and influence,—such as the prejudices of the people had left it.

Dr Levitt’s influence was of little more avail than Mr Hope’s. From this day, he was as busily engaged among the sick as the medical gentlemen themselves; laying aside his books, and spending all his time among his parishioners; not neglecting the rich, but especially devoting himself to the poor. He co-operated with Hope in every way; raising money to cleanse, air, and dry the most cheerless of the cottages, and to supply the indigent sick with warmth and food. But all appeared to be of little avail. The disease stole on through the village, as if it had been left to work its own way; from day to day tidings came abroad of another and another who was down in the fever,—the Tuckers’ maidservant, Mr Hill’s shop-boy, poor Mrs Paxton, always sure to be ill when anybody else was, and all John Ringworth’s five children. In a fortnight, the church bell began to give token how fatal the sickness was becoming. It tolled till those who lived very near the church were weary of hearing it.

On the afternoon of a day when its sound had scarcely ceased since sunrise, Dr Levitt and Hope met at the door of the corner-house.

“You are the man I wanted to meet,” said Dr Levitt. “I have been inquiring for you, but your household could give me no account of you. Could you just step home with me? Or come to me in the evening, will you? But stay! There is no time like the present, after all; so, if you will allow me, I will walk in with you now; and, if you are going to dinner, I will make one. I have nobody to sit down with me at home at present, you know,—or perhaps you do not know.”

“Indeed I was not aware of the absence of your family,” said Hope, leading the way into the parlour, where Margaret at the moment was laying the cloth.

“You must have wondered that you had seen nothing of my wife all this week, if you did not know where she was. I thought it best, all things considered, to send them every one away. I hope we have done right. I find I am more free for the discharge of my own duty, now that I am unchecked by their fears for me, and untroubled by my own anxiety for them. I have sent them all abroad, and shall go for them when this epidemic has run its course; and not till then. I little thought what satisfaction I could feel in walking about my own house, to see how deserted it looks. I never hear that bell but I rejoice that all that belong to me are so far off.”

“I wanted to ask you about that bell,” said Hope. “My question may seem to you to savour strongly of dissent; but I must inquire whether it is absolutely necessary for bad news to be announced to all Deerbrook every day, and almost all day long. However far we may be from objecting to hear it in ordinary times, should not our first consideration now be for the living? Is not the case altered by the number of deaths that takes place at a season like this?”

“I am quite of your opinion, Mr Hope; and I have talked with Owen, and many others, about that matter, within this week. I have proposed to dispense, for the present, with a custom which I own myself to be attached to in ordinary times, but which I now see may be pernicious. But it cannot be done. We must yield the point.”

“I will not engage to cure any sick, or to keep any well, who live within sound of that bell.”

“I am not surprised to hear you say so. But this practice has so become a part of people’s religion, that it seems as if worse effects would follow from discontinuing it than from pursuing the usual course. Owen says there is scarcely a person in Deerbrook who would not talk of a heathen death and burial if the bell were silenced; and, if once the people’s repose in their religion is shaken, I really know not what will become of them.”

“I agree with you there. Their religious feelings must be left untouched, or all is over; but I am sorry that this particular observance is implicated with them so completely as you say. It will be well if it does not soon become an impossibility to toll the bell for all who die.”

“It would be well, too,” said Dr Levitt, “if this were the only superstition the people entertained. They are more terrified with some others than with this bell. I am afraid they are more depressed by their superstitions than sustained by their religion. Have you observed, Hope, how many of them stand looking at the sky every night?”

“Yes; and we hear, wherever we go, of fiery swords, and dreadful angels, seen in the clouds; and the old prophecies have all come up again—at least, all of them that are dismal. As for the death-watches, they are out of number; and there is never a fire lighted but a coffin flies out.”

“And this story of a ghost of a coffin, with four ghosts to bear it, that goes up and down in the village all night long,” said Hester, “I really do not wonder that it shakes the nerves of the sick to hear of it. They say that no one can stop those bearers, or get any answer from them: but on they glide, let what will be in their way.”

“Come, tell me,” said Dr Levitt, “have not you yourself looked out for that sight?”

Hester acknowledged that she had seen a real substantial coffin, carried by human bearers, pass down the middle of the street, at an hour past midnight; the removal of a body from a house where it had died, she supposed, to another whence it was to be buried. This coffin and the ghostly one she took to be one and the same.

Dr Levitt mentioned instances of superstition, which could scarcely have been believed by him, if related by another.

“Do you know the Platts?” he inquired of Hope. “Have you seen the poor woman that lies ill there with her child?”

“Yes: what a state of destitution they are in!”

“At the very time that that woman and her child are lying on shavings, begged from the carpenter’s yard, her mother finds means to fee the fortune-teller in the lane for reading a dream. The fortune-teller dooms the child, and speaks doubtfully of the mother.”

“I could not conceive the reason why no one of the family would do anything for the boy. I used what authority I could, while I was there; but I fear he has been left to his fate since. The neighbours will not enter the house.”

“What neighbours?” said Margaret. “You have never so much as asked me.”

“You are our main stay at home, Margaret. I could ask no more of you than you do here.”

Margaret was now putting the dinner on the table. It consisted of a bowl of potatoes, salt, the loaf and butter, and a pitcher of water. Dr Levitt said grace, and they sat down, without one word of apology from host or hostess. Though Dr Levitt had not been prepared for an evidence like this of the state of affairs in the family, he had known enough of their adversity to understand the case now at a glance. No one ate more heartily than he; and the conversation went on as if a sumptuous feast had been spread before the party.

“I own myself disappointed,” said Hope, “in finding among our neighbours so little disposition to help each other. I hardly understand it, trusting as I have ever done in the generosity of the poor, and having always before seen my faith justified. The apathy of some, and the selfish terrors of others, are worse to witness than the disease itself.”

“How can you wonder,” said Dr Levitt, “when they have such an example before their eyes in certain of their neighbours, to whom they are accustomed to look up? Sir William Hunter and his lady are enough to paralyse the morals of the whole parish at a time like this. Do not you know the plan they go upon? They keep their outer gates locked, lest any one from the village should set foot within their grounds; every article left at the lodge for the use of the family is fumigated before it is admitted into the house: and it is generally understood that neither the gentleman nor the lady will leave the estate, in any emergency whatever, till the disease has entirely passed away. Our poor are not to have the solace of their presence even in church, during this time of peril, when the face of the prosperous is like light in a dark place. Sir William makes it no secret that they would have left home altogether, if they could have hoped to be safer anywhere else—if they could have gone anywhere without danger of meeting the fever.”

“If the fact had not been,” said Hester, “as Mrs Howell states it, that the epidemic prevails partially everywhere.”

“There is a case where Lady Hunter’s example immediately operates,” observed Dr Levitt. “If Lady Hunter had not forgotten herself in her duty, Mrs Howell would have given the benefit of her good offices to some whom she might have served; for she is really a kind-hearted woman: but she is struck with a panic because Lady Hunter is, and one cannot get a word with her or Miss Miskin.”

“I saw that her shutters were nearly closed,” observed Margaret. “I supposed she had lost some relation.”

“No: she is only trying to shut out the fever. She and Miss Miskin are afraid of the milkman, and each tries to put upon the other the peril of serving a customer. This panic will destroy us if it spreads.”

The sisters looked at each other, and in one glance exchanged agreement that the time was fully come for them to act abroad, let what would become of their home comforts.

“I ought to add, however,” said Dr Levitt, “that Sir William Hunter has supplied my poor’s purse with money very liberally. I spend his money as freely as my own at a time like this; but I tell him that one hour of his presence among us would do more good than all the gold he can send. His answer comes in the shape of a handsome draft on his banker, smelling strongly of aromatic vinegar. They fumigate even their blotting-paper, it seems to me. I did hope my last letter would have brought him to call.”

“Our friends are very ready with their money,” said Hope. “I should have begged of you before this, but that Mr Grey has been liberal in that way. He concludes it to be impossible that he should look himself into the wants of the village; but he permits me to use his purse pretty freely. Is there anything that you can suggest that can be done by me, Dr Levitt? Is there any case unknown to me where I can be of service?”

“Or I?” said Margaret. “My brother and sister will spare me, and put up with some hardship at home, I know, if you can point out any place where I can be more useful.”

“To be sure I can. Much as I like to come to your house, to witness and feel the thorough comfort which I always find in it, I own I shall care little to see everything at sixes and sevens here for a few weeks, if you will give me your time and talents for such services as we gentlemen cannot perform, and as we cannot at present hire persons to undertake. You see I take you at your word, my dear young lady. If you had not offered, I should not have asked you: as you have, I snatch at the good you hold out. I mean to preach a very plain sermon next Sunday on the duties of neighbours in a season of distress like this: and I shall do it with the better hope, if I have, meanwhile, a fellow-labourer of your sex, no less valuable in her way than my friend Hope in his.”

“I shall come and hear your sermon,” said Hester, “if Margaret will take charge of my boy for the hour. I want to see clearly what is my duty at a time when claims conflict as they do now.”

There was at present no time for the conscientious and charitable to lose in daylight loiterings over the table, or chat by the fireside. In a few minutes the table was cleared, and Margaret ready to proceed with Dr Levitt to the Platts’ Cottage.

As soon as Margaret saw what was the real state of affairs in the cottage, she sent away Dr Levitt, who could be of no use till some degree of decency was instituted in the miserable abode. What to set about first was Margaret’s difficulty. There was no one to help her but Mrs Platt’s mother, who was sitting down to wait the result of the fortune-teller’s predictions. Her daughter lay moaning on a bedstead spread with shavings only, and she had no covering whatever but a blanket worn into a large hole in the middle. The poor woman’s long hair, unconfined by any cap, strayed about her bare and emaciated shoulders, and her shrunken bands picked at the blanket incessantly, everything appearing to her diseased vision covered with black spots. Never before had so squalid an object met Margaret’s eyes. The husband sat by the empty grate, stooping and shrinking, and looking at the floor with an idiotic expression of countenance, as appeared through the handkerchief which was tied over his head. He was just sinking into the fever. His boy lay on a heap of rags in the corner, his head also tied up, but the handkerchief stiff with the black blood which was still oozing from his nose, ears, and mouth. It was inconceivable to Margaret that her brother, with Mr Grey’s money in his pocket, could have left the family in this state. He had not. There were cinders in the hearth which showed that there had been a fire; and the old woman acknowledged that a pair of sheets and a rug had been pawned to the fortune-teller in the lane since the morning. There had been food; but nobody had any appetite but herself, and she had eaten it up. The fortune-teller had charmed the pail of fresh water that stood under the bed, and had promised a new spell in the morning.

In a case of such extremity, Margaret had no fears. She set forth alone for the fortune-teller’s, not far off, and redeemed the sheets and blanket, which were quite clean. As she went, she was sorry she had dismissed Dr Levitt so soon. As a magistrate, he could have immediately compelled the restoration of the bedding. The use of his name, however, answered the purpose, and the conjurer even offered to carry the articles for her to Platt’s house. She so earnestly desired to keep him and her charge apart, that she preferred loading herself with the package. Then the shavings were found to be in such a state that every shred of them must be removed before the sick man could be allowed to lie down. No time was to be lost. In the face of the old woman’s protestations that her daughter should not stir, Margaret spread the bedding on the floor, wrapped the sick woman in a sheet, and laid her upon it, finding the poor creature so light from emaciation that she was as easy to lift as a child. The only thing that the old woman would consent to do, was to go with a pencil note to Mr Grey, and bring back the clean dry straw which would be given her in his yard. She went, in hopes of receiving something else with the straw; and while she was gone, Margaret was quite alone with the sick family.

Struggling to surmount her disgust at the task, she resolved to employ the interval in removing the shavings. The pail containing the charmed water was the only thing in the cottage which would hold them; and she made bold to empty it in the ditch close at hand. Platt was capable of watching all she did; and he made a frightful gesture of rage at her as she re-entered. She saw in the shadow of the handkerchief his quivering lips move in the act of speaking, and her ear caught the words of an oath. Her situation now was far from pleasant; but it was still a relief that no one was by to witness what she saw and was doing. She conveyed pailful after pailful of the noisome shavings to the dunghill at the back of the cottage, wondering the while that the inhabitants of the dwelling were not all dead of the fever long ago. She almost gave over her task when a huge toad crawled upon her foot from its resting-place among the shavings. She shrunk from it, and was glad to see it make for the door of its own accord. Platt again growled, and clenched his fist at her. He probably thought that she had again broken a charm for which he had paid money. She spoke kindly and cheerfully, again and again; but he was either deaf or too ill to understand. To relieve the sense of dreariness, she went to work again. She thoroughly cleansed the pail, and filled it afresh from the brook, looking anxiously down the lane for the approach of some human creature, and then applied herself to rubbing the bedstead as dry and clean as she could, with an apron of the old woman’s.

In due time her messenger returned; and with her Ben, carrying a truss of straw. His face was the face of a friend.

“We must have some warm water, Ben, to clean these poor creatures; and there seems to be nothing to make a fire with.”

“And it would take a long time, Miss, to get the coals, and heat the water; and the poor soul lying there all the time. Could not I bring you a pail of hot water from the ‘Bonnet-so-Blue’ quicker than that?”

“Do; and soap and towels from home.”

Ben was gone with the pail. During the whole time of spreading the straw on the bedstead, the old woman remonstrated against anything being done to her daughter, beyond laying her where she was before, and giving her a little warm spirits; but when she discovered that the charmed water had been thrown out into the ditch, all to her seemed over. Her last hope was gone; and she sat down in sulky silence, eyeing Margaret’s proceedings without any offer to help.

When the warm water arrived, and the sick woman seemed to like the sponging and drying of her fevered limbs, the mother began to relent, and at last approached to give her assistance, holding her poor daughter in her arms while Margaret spread the blanket and sheet on the straw, and then lifting the patient into the now clean bed. She was still unwilling to waste any time and trouble on the child in the corner; but Margaret was peremptory. She saw that he was dying; but not the less for this must he be made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. In half an hour he, too, was laid on his bed of clean straw; and the filthy rags with which he had been surrounded were deposited out of doors till some one who would wash them could come for them. By a promise of fire and food, Margaret bribed the old woman to let things remain as they were while she went for her brother, whose skill and care she hoped might now have some chance of saving his patients. She recommended that Platt himself should not attempt to sit up any longer, and engaged to return in half an hour.

She paused on the threshold a minute, to see how far Platt was able to walk; so great seemed to be the difficulty with which he raised himself from his chair, with the old woman’s assistance. Once he stumbled, and would have fallen, if Margaret had not sprung to his side. On recovering himself; he wrenched his arm from her, and pushed her backwards with more force than she had supposed he possessed. There was a half-smile on the old woman’s face as he did this, which made Margaret shudder; but she was more troubled by a look from the man, which she caught from beneath the handkerchief that bound his head; a look which she could not but fancy she had met before with the same feeling of uneasiness.

When she had seen him safely seated on the bedside, she hastened away for her brother. They lost no more time in returning than just to step to Widow Rye’s, to ask whether she would sit up with this miserable family this night. The widow would have done anything else in the world for Mr Hope; and she did not positively refuse to do this; but the fear of her neighbours had so infected her, and her terror of a sick-room was so extreme, that it was evident her presence there would do more harm than good. She was glad to compound for a less hazardous service, and agreed to wash for the sick with all diligence, if she was not required to enter the houses, but might fetch the linen from tubs of water placed outside the doors. After setting on plenty of water to heat, she now followed Hope and Margaret to the cottage in the lane.

It was nearly dark, and they walked rapidly, Margaret describing as they went what she had done, and what she thought remained to be done, to give Mrs Platt a chance of recovery.

“What now? Why do you start so?” cried Hope, as she stopped short in the middle of a sentence.

Margaret even stood still for one moment. Hope looked the way she was looking, and saw, in the little twilight that remained, the figure of some one who had been walking on the opposite side of the road, but whose walk was now quickened to a run.

“It is—it is he,” said Hope, as Philip disappeared in the darkness. Answering to what he knew must be in Margaret’s thoughts, he continued—

“He knows the state the village is in—the danger that we are all in, and he cannot stay away.”

“‘We!’ ‘All?’”

“When I say ‘we,’ I mean you particularly.”

“If you think so—” murmured Margaret, and stopped for breath.

“I think so; but it does not follow that there is any change. He has always loved you. Margaret, do not deceive yourself. Do not afflict yourself with expectations—”

“Do not speak to me, brother. I cannot bear a word from you about him.”

Hope sighed deeply, but he could not remonstrate. He knew that Margaret had only too much reason for saying this. They walked on in entire silence to the lane.

A fire was now kindled, and a light dimly burned in Platt’s cottage. As Margaret stood by the bedside, watching her brother’s examination of his patient, and anxious to understand rightly the directions he was giving, the poor woman half raised her head from her pillow, and fixed her dull eyes on Margaret’s face, saying, as if thinking aloud:

“The lady has heard some good news, sure. She looks cheerful-like.”

The mother herself turned round to stare, and, for the first time, dropped a curtsey.

“I hope we shall see you look cheerful too, one day soon, if we nurse you well,” said Margaret.

“Then, Miss, don’t let them move me, to take the blankets away again.”

“You shall not be moved unless you wish it. I am going to stay with you to-night.”

Her brother did not oppose this, for he did not know of the unpleasant glances and mutterings with which Platt rewarded all Margaret’s good offices. Hope believed he should himself be out all night among his patients. He would come early in the morning, and now fairly warned Margaret that it was very possible that the child might die in the course of the night. She was not deterred by this, nor by her dread of the sick man. She had gained a new strength of soul, and this night she feared nothing. During the long hours there was much to do—three sufferers at once requiring her cares; and amidst all that she did, she was sustained by the thought that she had seen Philip, and that he was near. The abyss of nothingness was passed, and she now trod the ground of certainty of his existence, and of his remembrance. When her brother entered, letting in the first grey of the morning as he opened the cottage door, he found her almost untired, almost gay. Platt was worse, his wife much the same, and the child still living. The old woman’s heart was so far touched with the unwonted comfort of the past night, and with her having been allowed, and even encouraged, to take her rest, that she now offered her bundle of clothes for the lady to lie down upon; and when that favour was declined, readily promised not to part with any article to the fortune-teller, till she should see some of Mr Hope’s family again.

Hope thought Mrs Platt might possibly get through: and this was all that was said on the way home. Margaret lay down to rest, to sweet sleep, for a couple of hours: and when she appeared below, her brother and sister had half done breakfast, and Mr Grey and his twin daughters were with them.

Mr Grey came to say that he and all his family were to leave Deerbrook in two hours. Where they should settle for the present, they had not yet made up their minds. The first object was to get away, the epidemic being now really too frightful to be encountered any longer. They should proceed immediately to Brighton, and there determine whether to go to the Continent, or seek some healthy place nearer home, to stay in, till Deerbrook should again be habitable. They were extremely anxious to carry Hester, Margaret, and the baby, with them. They knew Mr Hope could not desert his posts: but they thought he would feel as Dr Levitt did, far happier to know that his family were out of danger, than to have them with him. Hester had firmly refused to go, from the first mention of the plan; and now Margaret was equally decided in expressing her determination to stay. Mr Grey urged the extreme danger: Fanny and Mary hung about her, and implored her to go, and to carry the baby with her. They should so like to have the baby with them for a great many weeks! and they would take care of him, and play with him all day long. Their father once more interposed for the child’s sake. Hester might go to Brighton, there wean her infant, and return to her husband; so that the little helpless creature might at least be safe. Mr Grey would not conceal that he considered this a positive duty—that the parents would have much to answer for, if anything should happen to the boy at home. The parents’ hearts swelled. They looked at each other, and felt that this was not a moment in which to perplex themselves with calculations of incalculable things—with comparisons of the dangers which threatened their infant abroad and at home. This was a decision for their hearts to make. Their hearts decided that their child’s right place was in his parents’ arms; and that their best hope now, as at all other times, was to live and die together.

Hester had heard from her husband of the apparition of the preceding evening, and she therefore knew that there was less of ‘enthusiasm,’ as Mr Grey called what some others would have named virtue, in Margaret’s determination to stay, than might appear. If Philip was here, how vain must be all attempts to remove her! Mr Grey might as well set about persuading the old church tower to go with him: and so he found.

“Oh, cousin Margaret,” said Mary, in a whisper, with a face of much sorrow, “mamma will not ask Miss Young to go with us! If she should be ill while we are gone! If she should die!”

“Nonsense, Mary,” cried Fanny, partly overhearing, and partly guessing what her sister had said; “you know mamma says it is not convenient: and Miss Young is not like my cousins, as mamma says, a member of a family, with people depending upon her. It is quite a different case, Mary, as you must know very well. Only think, cousin Margaret! what an odd thing it will be, to be so many weeks without saying any lessons! How we shall enjoy ourselves!”

“But if Miss Young should be ill, and die!” persisted Mary.

“Pooh! why should she be ill and die, more than Dr Levitt, and Ben, and our cook, and my cousins, and all that are going to stay behind? Margaret, I do wish cousin Hester would let us carry the baby with us. We shall have no lessons to do, you know; and we could play with him all day long.”

“Yes, I wish he might go,” said Mary. “But, Margaret, do you not think, if you spoke a word to papa and mamma, they would let me stay with Miss Young? I know she would make room for me; for she did for Phoebe, when Phoebe nursed her; and I should like to stay and help her, and read to her, even if she should not be ill. I think papa and mamma might let me stay, if you asked them.”

“I do not think they would, Mary: and I had rather not ask them. But I promise you that we will all take the best care we can of Maria. We will try to help and amuse her as well as you could wish.”

“Come, Mary, we must go!” cried Fanny. “There is papa giving Mr Hope some money for the poor; people always go away quick after giving money. Good bye, cousin Margaret. We shall bring you some shells, or something, I dare say, when we come back. Now let me kiss the baby once more. I can’t think why you won’t let him go with us: we should like so to have him!”

“So do we,” said Hester, laughing.

As the door closed behind the Greys, the three looked in each other’s faces. That glance assured each other that they had done right. In that glance was a mutual promise of cheerful fidelity through whatever might be impending. There was no sadness in the tone of their conversation; and when, within two hours, the Greys went by, driven slowly, because there was a funeral train on each side of the way, there was full as much happiness in the faces that smiled a farewell from the windows, as in the gestures of the young people, who started up in the carriage to kiss their hands, and who were being borne away from the abode of danger and death, to spend several weeks without doing any lessons. Often, during this day, was the voice of mirth even heard in this dwelling. It was not like the mirth of the well-known company of prisoners in the first French revolution—men who knew that they should leave their prison only to lose their heads, and who, once mutually acknowledging this, agreed vainly and pusillanimously to banish from that hour all sad, all grave thoughts, and laugh till they died. It was not this mirth of despair; nor yet that of carelessness; nor yet that of defiance. Nor were theirs the spirits of the patriot in the hour of struggle, nor of the hero in the crisis of danger. In a peril like theirs, there is nothing imposing to the imagination, or flattering to the pride, or immediately appealing to the energies of the soul. There were no resources for them in emotions of valour or patriotism. Theirs was the gaiety of simple faith and innocence. They had acted from pure inclination, from affection, unconscious of pride, of difficulty, of merit; and they were satisfied, and gay as the innocent ought to be, enjoying what there was to enjoy, and questioning and fearing nothing beyond.

From a distant point of time or place, such a state of spirits in the midst of a pestilence may appear unnatural and wrong; but experience proves that it is neither. Whatever observers may think, it is natural and it is right that minds strong enough to be settled, either in a good or evil frame, should preserve their usual character amidst any changes of circumstance. To those involved in new events, they appear less strange than in prospect or in review. Habitual thoughts are present, familiarising wonderful incidents; and the fears of the selfish, the repose of the religious, the speculations of the thoughtful, and the gaiety of the innocent, pervade the life of each, let what will be happening.

Yet to the prevailing mood the circumstances of the time will interpose an occasional check. This very evening, when Margaret was absent at the cottage in the lane, and Hope, wearied with his toils among the sick all the night, and all this day, was apparently sleeping for an hour on the sofa, Hester’s heart grew heavy, as she lulled her infant to rest by the fire. As she thought on what was passing in the houses of her neighbours, death seemed to close around the little being she held in her arms. As she gazed in his face, watching the slumber stealing on, she murmured over him—

“Oh, my child, my child! if I should lose you, what should I do?”

“Hester! my love!” said her husband, in a tone of tender remonstrance, “what do you mean?”

“I did not think you would hear me, love; but I thank you. What did I mean? Not exactly what I said; for God knows, I would strive to part willingly with whatever he might see fit to take away. But, oh, Edward! what a struggle it would be! and how near it comes to us! How many mothers are now parting from their children!”

“God’s will be done!” cried Hope, starting up, and standing over his babe.

“Are you sure, Edward may we feel quite certain that we have done rightly by our boy in keeping him here?”

“I am satisfied, my love.”

“Then I am prepared. How still he is now! How like death it looks!”

“What, that warm, breathing sleep! No more like death than his laugh is like sin.”

And Hope looked about him for pencil and paper, and hastily sketched his boy in all the beauty of repose, before he went forth again among the sick and wretched. It was very like; and Hester placed it before her as she plied her needle, all that long solitary evening.

Chapter Forty Two.

Church-Going.

Hester went to church the next Sunday, as she wished, to hear Dr Levitt’s promised plain sermon on the duties of the times. Margaret gladly staid at home with the baby, thankful for the relief from the sight of sickness, and for the quiet of solitude while the infant slept. Edward was busy among those who wanted his good offices, as he now was, almost without intermission. Hester had to go alone.

Everything abroad looked very strange—quite unlike the common Sunday aspect of the place. The streets were empty, except that a party of mourners were returning from a funeral. Either people were already all in church, or nobody was going. She quickened her pace in the fear that she might be late, though the bell seemed to assure her that she was not. Widow Rye’s little garden-plot was all covered with linen put out to dry, and Mrs Rye might be seen through the window, at the wash-tub. The want of fresh linen was so pressing, that the sick must not be kept waiting, though it was Sunday. Miss Nares and Miss Flint were in curl-papers, plying their needles. They had been up all night, and were now putting the last stitches to a suit of family mourning, which was to enable the bereaved to attend afternoon church. Miss Nares looked quite haggard, as she well might, having scarcely left her seat for the last fortnight, except to take orders for mourning, and to snatch a scanty portion of rest. She had endeavoured to procure an additional work-woman or two from among her neighbours, and then from Blickley: but her neighbours were busy with their domestic troubles, and the Blickley people wanted more mourning than the hands there could supply; so Miss Nares and Miss Flint had been compelled to work night and day, till they both looked as if they had had the sickness, and were justified in saying that no money could pay them for what they were undergoing. They began earnestly to wish what they had till now deprecated—that Dr Levitt might succeed in inducing some of his flock to forego the practice of wearing mourning. But of this there was little prospect: the people were as determined upon wearing black, as upon having the bell tolled for the dead; and Miss Nares’s heart sank at the prospect before her, if the epidemic should continue, and she should be able to get no help.

Almost every second house in the place was shut up. The blank windows of the cottages, where plants or smiling faces were usually to be seen on a Sunday morning, looked dreary. The inhabitants of many of the better dwellings were absent. There were no voices of children about the little courts; no groups of boys under the churchyard wall. Of those who had frequented this spot, several were under the sod; some were laid low in fever within the houses; and others were with their parents, forming a larger congregation round the fortune-tellers’ tents in the lanes, than Dr Levitt could assemble in the church.

Hester heard the strokes of the hammer and the saw as she passed the closed shop of the carpenter, who was also the undertaker. She knew that people were making coffins by candlelight within. Happening to look round after she had passed, she saw a woman come out, wan in countenance, and carrying under her cloak something which a puff of wind showed to be an infant’s coffin—a sight from which every young mother averts her eyes. As Hester approached a cottage whose thatch had not been weeded for long, she was startled by a howl and whine from within; and a dog, emaciated to the last degree, sprang upon the sill of an open window. A neighbour who perceived her shrink back, and hesitate to pass, assured her that she need not be afraid of the dog. The poor animal would not leave the place, whose inmates were all dead of the fever. The window was left open for the dog’s escape; but he never came out, though he looked famished. Some persons had thrown in food at first; but now no one had time or thought to spare for dogs.

Mr Walcot issued from a house near the church as Hester passed, and he stopped her. He was roused or frightened out of his usual simplicity of manner, and observed, with an air of deep anxiety, that he trusted Mr Hope had better success with his patients than he could boast of. The disease was most terrific: and the saving of a life was a chance now seemingly too rare to be reckoned on. It really required more strength than most men had to stand by their duty at such a time, when they could do little more than see their patients die. Hester thought him so much moved, that he was at this moment hardly fit for business. She said:

“We all have need of all our strength. I do not know whether worship gives it to you as it does to me. Will it not be an hour, or even half an hour, well spent, if you go with me there?” pointing to the church. “You will say you are wanted elsewhere; but will you not be stronger and calmer for the comfort you may find there?”

“I should like it... I have always been in the habit of going to church... It would do me good, I know. But, Mrs Hope, how is this? I thought you had been a dissenter. I always said so. I have been very wrong—very ill-natured.”

“I am a dissenter,” said Hester, smiling, “but you are not; and therefore I may urge you to go to church. As for the rest of the mystery, I will explain it when we have more time. Meanwhile, I hope you do not suppose that dissenters do not worship and need and love worship as other people do!”

Mr Walcot replied by timidly offering his arm, which Hester accepted, and they entered the church together.

The Rowlands were already in their pew. There was a general commotion among the children when they saw Mrs Hope and Mr Walcot walking up the aisle arm-in-arm. Matilda called her mother’s attention to the remarkable fact, and the little heads all whispered together. The church looked really almost empty. There were no Hunters, with their train of servants: there were no Levitts. The Miss Andersons had not entered Deerbrook for weeks; and Maria Young sat alone in the large double pew commonly occupied by her scholars. There was a sprinkling of poor; but Hester observed that every one in the church was in mourning but Maria and herself. It looked sadly chill and dreary. The sights and sounds she had met, and the aspect of the place she was in, disposed her to welcome every thought of comfort that the voice of the preacher could convey.

There were others to whom consolation appeared even more necessary than to herself. Philip Enderby had certainly seen her, and was distressed at it. He could not have expected to meet her here; and his discomposure was obvious. He looked thin, and grave,—not to say subdued. Hester was surprised to find how she relented towards him, the moment she saw he was not gay and careless, and how her feelings grew softer and softer under the religious emotions of the hour. She was so near forgiving him, that she was very glad Margaret was not by her side. If she could forgive, how would it be with Margaret?

The next most melancholy person present, perhaps, was Mr Walcot. He knew that the whole family of the Rowlands remained in Deerbrook from Mrs Rowland’s ostentation of confidence in his skill. He knew that Mr Rowland would have removed his family when the Greys departed, but that the lady had refused to go; and he felt how groundless was her confidence: not that he had pretended to more professional merit than he had believed himself to possess; but that, amidst this disease, he was like a willow-twig in the stream. He became so impressed with his responsibilities now, in the presence of the small and sad-faced congregation, that he could not refrain from whispering to Hester, that he could never be thankful enough that Mr Hope had not left Deerbrook long ago, and that he hoped they should be friends henceforth,—that Mr Hope would take his proper place again, and forgive and forget all that had passed. He thought he might trust Mr Hope not to desert him and Deerbrook now. Hester smiled gently, but made no reply, and did not appear to notice the proffered hand. It was no time or place to ratify a compact for her husband in his absence. All this time, Mr Walcot’s countenance and manner were sufficiently subdued: but his agitation increased when the solemn voice of Dr Levitt uttered the prayer—

“Have pity upon us, miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality.”

Here the voice of weeping became so audible from the lower part of the church, that the preacher stopped for a moment, to give other people, and possibly himself, time to recover composure. He then went on—

“That, like as Thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

Every voice in the church uttered ‘Amen,’ except Mr Walcot’s. He was struggling with his sobs. Unexpected and excessive as were the tokens of his grief, Hester could not but respect it. It was so much better than gross selfishness and carelessness, that she could pity and almost honour it. She felt that Mr Walcot was as far superior to the quacks who were making a market of the credulity of the suffering people, as her husband, with his professional decision, his manly composure, and his forgetfulness of the injuries of his foes in their hour of suffering, was above Mr Walcot. The poor young man drank in, as if they were direct from Heaven, the suggestions contained in the preacher’s plain sermon on the duties of the time. Plain it was indeed,—familiarly practical to an unexampled degree; so that most of his hearers quitted the church with a far clearer notion of their business as nurses and neighbours than they had ever before had. The effect was visible as they left their seats, in the brightening of their countenances, and the increased activity of their step as they walked.

“There, go,” said Hester, kindly, to her companion. “Many must be wanting you: but you have lost no time by coming here.”

“No, indeed. But Mr Hope—”

“Rely upon him. He will do his duty. Go and do yours.”

“God bless you!” cried Walcot, squeezing her hand affectionately.

Mrs Rowland saw this, as she always saw everything. She beckoned to Mr Walcot, with her most engaging smile, and whispered him with an air of the most intimate confidence, till she saw that her presence was wanted elsewhere, when she let him go.

Mr Rowland, followed by Philip, slipped out of his pew as Hester passed, and walked down the aisle with her. He was glad to see her there; he hoped it was a proof that all her household were well in this sickly time. Philip bent forward to hear the answer. Mr Rowland went on to say how still and dull the village was. The shutters up, or the blinds down, at all the Greys’ windows, looked quite sad; and he never saw any of his friends from the corner-house in the shrubbery now. They had too many painful duties, he feared, to allow of their permitting themselves such pleasures: but his friends must take care not to overstrain their powers. They and he must be very thankful that their respective households were thus far unvisited by the disease; and they should all, in his opinion, favour their health by the indulgence of a little rational cheerfulness. Hester smiled, aware that never had their household been more cheerful than now.

Whether it was that Hester’s smile was irresistible, or that other influences were combined with it, it had an extraordinary effect upon Philip. He started forward in front of her, and offered his hand, saying, so as to be heard by her alone—

“Will you not?—I have no quarrel with you.”

“And can you suppose,” she replied, in a tone more of compassion than of anger, “that I have none with you?—How strangely you must forget!” she added, as he precipitately withdrew his offered hand, and turned from her.

“Forget! I forget!” he murmured, turning his face of woe towards her for one instant. “How little you know me!”

“How little we all know each other!” said Hester, for the moment careless what construction might be put upon her words.

“Even in this place,” said Dr Levitt, who had now joined them, and had heard the last words: “even in this place, where all hearts should be open, and all resentments forgotten. Are there any here who refuse to shake hands—at such a time as this?”

“It is not for myself,” said Hester, distressed: “but how can I?”

“It is true; she cannot. Do not blame her, Dr Levitt,” said Philip; and he was gone.

It was this meeting which had cut short Mrs Rowland’s whispers with Mr Walcot, and brought her down the aisle in all her stateliness, with her train of children behind her.

When Hester went home, she thought it right to tell Margaret exactly what had happened.

“I knew it?” was all that Margaret said; but her heightened colour during the day told what unspeakable things were in her heart.

Hester was occupied with speculations as to what might have been the event if Margaret had been to church instead of herself. Her husband would only shake his head, and look hopeless: but she still thought all might have come right, under the influences of the hour. Whether it were to be wished that Philip and Margaret should understand each other again, was another question. Yesterday Hester would have earnestly desired that Margaret should never see Enderby again. To-day she did not know what to wish. She and Margaret came silently to the same conclusion; “there is nothing for it but waiting.” If he had heard this, Hope would have shaken his head again.

Chapter Forty Three.

Working Round.

Several days passed, and there was no direct news of Enderby. Maria never spoke of him, though many little intervals in Margaret’s busy life occurred when the friends were together, and Maria ought have taken occasion to say anything she wished. It was clear that she chose to avoid the subject. Her talk was almost entirely about the sick, for whom she laboured as strenuously as her strength would permit. She could not go about among them, nor sit up with the sufferers: but she cooked good things over her fire for them, all day long; and she took to her home many children who were too young to be useful, and old enough to be troublesome in a sick house. Between her cooking, teaching, and playing with the children, she was as fully occupied as her friends in the corner-house, and perhaps might not really know anything about Mr Enderby.

Each one of the family had caught glimpses of him at one time or another. There was reason to think that he was active among Mr Walcot’s poor patients; and Hope had encountered him more than once in the course of his rounds, when a few words on the business of the moment were exchanged, and nothing more happened. Margaret saw him twice: once on horseback, when he turned suddenly down a lane to avoid her; and at the Rowlands’ dining-room window, with Ned in his arms. She never now passed that house when she could help it: but this once it was necessary; and she was glad that Philip had certainly not seen her. His back was half-turned to the window at the moment, as if some one within was speaking to him. Each time, his image was so stamped in upon her mind, that, amidst all the trials of such near neighbourhood without intercourse, his presence in Deerbrook was, on the whole, certainly a luxury. She had gained something to compensate for all her restlessness, in the three glimpses of him with which she had now been favoured. A thought sometimes occurred to her, of which she was so ashamed that she made every endeavour to banish it. She asked herself now and then, whether, if she had been able to sit at home, or take her accustomed walks, she should not have beheld Philip oftener:—whether she was not sadly out of the way of seeing him at the cottage in the lane, and the other sordid places where her presence was necessary. Not for this occasional question did she stay away one moment longer than she would otherwise have done from the cottage in the lane; but while she was there, it was apt to recur.

There she sat one afternoon, somewhat weary, but not dreaming of going home. There lay the three sick creatures still. The woman was likely to recover; the boy lingered, and seemed waiting for his father to go with him. Platt had sunk very rapidly, and this day had made a great change. Margaret had taken the moaning and restless child on her lap, for the ease of change of posture: and she was now shading from his eyes with her shawl, the last level rays of the sun which shone in upon her from the window. She was unwilling to change her seat, for it seemed as if the slightest movement would quench the lingering life of the child: and there was no one to draw the window-curtain, the old woman having gone to buy food in the village. Mrs Platt slept almost all the day and night through, and she was asleep now: so Margaret sat quite still, holding up her shawl before the pallid face which looked already dead. Nothing broke the silence but the twitter of the young birds in the thatch, and the mutterings of the sick man, whom Margaret imagined to be somewhat disturbed by the unusual light that was in the room. It had not been the custom of the sun to shine into any houses of late; and the place full of yellow light, did not look like itself. She knew that in a few minutes the sun would have set; and she hoped that then poor Platt would be still. Meantime she appeared to take no notice, but sat with her eyes fixed on the boy’s face, marking that each sigh was fainter than the last. At length a louder sound than she had yet heard from the sick man, made her look towards him; and the instant throb of her heart seemed to be felt by the child, for he moved his head slightly. Platt was trying to support himself upon his elbow, while in the other shaking hand, he held towards her her turquoise ring. She remembered her charge, and did not spring to seize it; but there was something in her countenance that strongly excited the sick man. He struggled to rise from his bed, and his face was fierce. Margaret spoke gently—as calmly as she could—told him she would come presently—that there was no hurry, and urged him to lie down till she could put the child off her lap; but her voice failed her, in spite of herself; for now, at last, she recognised in Platt the tall woman. This was the look which had perplexed her more than once.

“Patience! a little further patience!” she said to herself, as she saw the ring still trembling in the sick man’s hand, and felt one more sigh from the little fellow on her lap. No more patience was needed. This was the boy’s last breath. His head fell back, and the sunlight, which streamed in upon his half-closed eyes, could now disturb them no more. Margaret gently closed them and laid the body on its little bed in the corner, straightening and covering the limbs before she turned away.

She then gently approached the bed, and took her ring into a hand which trembled little less than the sick man’s own. She spoke calmly, however. She strove earnestly to learn something of the facts: she tried to understand the mutterings amidst which only a word here and there sounded like speech. She thought, from the earnestness with which Platt seized and pressed her hand, that he was seeking pardon from her; and she spoke as if it were so. It grew very distressing—the earnestness of the man, and the uncertainty whether his mind was wandering or not. She wished the old woman would come back. She went to the door to look for her. The old woman was coming down the lane. Margaret put on her ring, and drew on her gloves, and determined to say nothing about it at present.

“Mr Platt has been talking almost ever since you went,” said Margaret; “and I can make out nothing that he says. Do try if you can understand him. I am sure there is something he wishes me to hear. There is no time to lose, I am afraid. Do try.”

The woman coaxed him to lie down, and then turning round, said she thought he wanted to know what o’clock it was.

“Is that all? Tell him that the sun is now setting. But if you have a watch, that will show more exactly. Are you sure you have no watch in the house?”

The old woman looked suspiciously at her, and asked her what made her suppose that poor folks had watches, when some gentlefolks had none? Margaret inquired whether a watch was not a possession handed down from father to son, and sometimes found in the poorest cottages. She believed she had seen such at Deerbrook. The old woman replied by saying, she believed Margaret might have understood some few things among the many the poor sick creature had been saying. Not one, Margaret declared; but it was so plain that she was not believed, that she had little doubt of Hester’s watch having been harboured in this very house, if it was not there still.

The poor boy, who had had little care from his natural guardians while alive from the hour of his being doomed by the fortune-teller, was now loudly mourned as dead. Yet the mourning was strangely mixed with exultation at the fortune-teller having been right in the end. The mother, suddenly awakened, groaned and screamed, so that it was fearful to hear her. All efforts to restore quiet were in vain. Margaret was moved, shocked, terrified. She could not keep her own calmness in such a scene of confusion: but, while her cheeks were covered with tears, while her voice trembled as she implored silence, she never took off her glove. In the midst of the tumult, Platt sank back and died. The renewed cries had the effect of bringing some neighbours from the end of the lane. While they were there, Margaret could be of no further use. She promised to send coffins immediately—that stage of pestilence being now reached when coffins were the first consideration—and then slipped out from the door into the darkness, and ran till she had turned the corner of the long lane. She usually considered herself safe abroad, even in times like these, as she carried no property of value about with her: but now that she was wearing her precious ring again, she felt too rich to be walking alone in the dark.