So the three girls were by themselves in the comfortable, elegant, well-lighted drawing-room; and, like many similarly situated young ladies, they did not exactly know what to do to while away the time until the tea-hour. The elder two had been at a dancing-party the night before, and were listless and sleepy in consequence. One tried to read “Emerson’s Essays,” and fell asleep in the attempt; the other was turning over a parcel of new songs, in order to select what she liked. Amy, the youngest, was copying some manuscript music. The air was heavy with the fragrance of strongly-scented flowers, which sent out their night odours from an adjoining conservatory.
The clock on the chimney-piece chimed eight. Sophy (the sleeping sister) started up at the sound.
“What o’clock is that?” she asked.
“Eight,” said Amy.
“O dear! how tired I am! Is Harry come in? Tea will rouse one up a little. Are you not worn out, Helen?”
“Yes; I am tired enough. One is good for nothing the day after a dance. Yet I don’t feel weary at the time; I suppose it is the lateness of the hours.”
“And yet, how could it be managed otherwise? So many don’t dine till five or six, that one cannot begin before eight or nine; and then it takes a long time to get into the spirit of the evening. It is always more pleasant after supper than before.”
“Well, I’m too tired tonight to reform the world in the matter of dances or balls. What are you copying, Amy?”
“Only that little Spanish air you sing, ‘Quien quiera.’”
“What are you copying it for?” asked Helen.
“Harry asked me to do it for him this morning at breakfast-time—for Miss Richardson, he said.”
“For Jane Richardson!” said Sophy, as if a new idea were receiving strength in her mind.
“Do you think Harry means anything by his attention to her?” asked Helen.
“Nay, I do not know anything more than you do; I can only observe and conjecture. What do you think, Helen?”
“Harry always likes to be of consequence to the belle of the room. If one girl is more admired than another, he likes to flutter about her, and seem to be on intimate terms with her. That is his way, and I have not noticed anything beyond that in his manner to Jane Richardson.”
“But I don’t think she knows it’s only his way. Just watch her the next time we meet her when Harry is there, and see how she crimsons, and looks another way when she feels he is coming up to her. I think he sees it, too, and I think he is pleased with it.”
“I dare say Harry would like well enough to turn the head of such a lovely girl as Jane Richardson. But I’m not convinced that he’s in love, whatever she may be.”
“Well, then!” said Sophy indignantly, “though it is our own brother, I do not think he is behaving very wrongly. The more I think of it, the more sure I am that she thinks he means something, and that he intends her to think so. And then, when he leaves off paying her attention”—
“Which will be as soon as a prettier girl makes her appearance,” interrupted Helen.
“As soon as he leaves off paying her attention,” resumed Sophy, “she will have many and many a heartache, and then she will harden herself into being a flirt, a feminine flirt, as he is a masculine flirt. Poor girl!”
“I don’t like to hear you speak so of Harry,” said Amy, looking up at Sophy.
“And I don’t like to have to speak so, Amy, for I love him dearly. He is a good, kind brother, but I do think him vain, and I think he hardly knows the misery, the crime, to which indulged vanity may lead him.”
Helen yawned.
“Oh! do you think we may ring for tea? Sleeping after dinner makes me so feverish.”
“Yes, surely. Why should not we?” said the more energetic Sophy, pulling the bell with some determination.
“Tea, directly, Parker,” said she authoritatively, as the man entered the room.
She was too little in the habit of reading expressions on the faces of others to notice Parker’s countenance,
Yet it was striking. It was blanched to a dead whiteness; the lips compressed as if to keep within some tale of horror; the eyes distended and unnatural. It was a terror-stricken face.
The girls began to put away their music and books, in preparation for tea. The door slowly opened again, and this time it was the nurse who entered. I call her nurse, for such had been her office in bygone days, though now she held rather an anomalous situation in the family. Seamstress, attendant on the young ladies, keeper of the stores; only “Nurse” was still her name. She had lived longer with them than any other servant, and to her their manner was far less haughty than to the other domestics. She occasionally came into the drawing-room to look for things belonging to their father or mother, so it did not excite any surprise when she advanced into the room. They went on arranging their various articles of employment.
She wanted them to look up. She wanted them to read something in her face—her face so full of woe, of horror. But they went on without taking any notice. She coughed; not a natural cough; but one of those coughs which asks so plainly for remark.
“Dear nurse, what is the matter?” asked Amy. “Are not you well?”
“Is mamma ill?” asked Sophy quickly.
“Speak, speak, nurse!” said they all, as they saw her efforts to articulate choked by the convulsive rising in her throat. They clustered round her with eager faces, catching a glimpse of some terrible truth to be revealed.
“My dear young ladies! my dear girls!” she gasped out at length, and then she burst into tears.
“Oh! do tell us what it is, nurse!” said one. “Anything is better than this. Speak!”
“My children! I don’t know how to break it to you. My dears, poor Mr. Harry is brought home”—
“Brought home—BROUGHT home—how?” Instinctively they sank their voices to a whisper; but a fearful whisper it was. In the same low tone, as if afraid lest the walls, the furniture, the inanimate things which told of preparation for life and comfort, should hear, she answered—
“Dead!”
Amy clutched her nurse’s arm, and fixed her eyes on her as if to know if such a tale could be true; and when she read its confirmation in those sad, mournful, unflinching eyes, she sank, without word or sound, down in a faint upon the floor. One sister sat down on an ottoman, and covered her face, to try and realise it. That was Sophy. Helen threw herself on the sofa, and burying her head in the pillows, tried to stifle the screams and moans which shook her frame.
The nurse stood silent. She had not told ALL.
“Tell me,” said Sophy, looking up, and speaking in a hoarse voice, which told of the inward pain, “tell me, nurse! Is he DEAD, did you say? Have you sent for a doctor? Oh! send for one, send for one,” continued she, her voice rising to shrillness, and starting to her feet. Helen lifted herself up, and looked, with breathless waiting, towards nurse.
“My dears, he is dead! But I have sent for a doctor. I have done all I could.”
“When did he—when did they bring him home?” asked Sophy.
“Perhaps ten minutes ago. Before you rang for Parker.”
“How did he die? Where did they find him? He looked so well. He always seemed so strong. Oh! are you sure he is dead?”