'Billy is wonderfully helpful. Ah--' and Annaple's eyes lighted up as the step that had music in't came up the stair; and as Mark came in, Nuttie thought him grown older, his hair thinner, his shoulders rounded, and his office coat shabby, but she saw something in his countenance there had never been before. Ever since she had known him he had worn a certain air of depression, or perhaps more truly of failure and perplexity, which kept before her conscious mind the Desdichado on Ivanhoe's shield, even when he was a gentleman at ease at the luxurious Rectory; but there was now not only the settled air of a man who had found his vocation, but something of the self- respect and eagerness of one who was doing it well, and feeling himself valued.
'Is baby--' he began. 'Oh, Nuttie! Are you there? Mr. Dutton told me you were coming. How is my uncle?' And the voice was much brisker than in the days of lawn-tennis.
'Father, father, look!' cried the boy.
'Why, Billy-boy, you are set up! Zouaves and chasseurs! I see where they came from.'
During the mixture of greetings and inquiries, admiration of the flowers, and the exhibition of Billy's treasures, Annaple glided away, and presently placed before him a tray, daintily benapkinned and set forth with a little cup of soup.
'Baby is really asleep, and Emily as proud as a Hielandman,' she said. 'Now eat this, without more ado, for that good Nuttie is going to set you down at Charing Cross.'
'This is the way we spoil our husbands, Nuttie,' said Mark. 'Refections served up at every turn.'
'Only bones! The immortal pot au feu,' said Annaple. 'And you are to go on after you have interviewed your man of steel, and have tea with Nuttie, and pay your respects to your uncle, like a dutiful nephew.'
'No, that I can't, Nannie; I promised Dobbs to go and see a man for him, and I must come back as soon as I can after that.'
He looked--as to figure and air--much more like his old self when he had changed his coat. They fed him, almost against his will, with a few of the forced strawberries Nuttie had brought. Billy pressed on him wonders from a Paris bonbon box, and Annaple fastened a rose and a pink in his button-hole, and came down to the street door with her boy to see him off.
'What do you think of her?' was Mark's first inquiry.
'Think! As Mr. Dutton said long ago, never was braver lady!'
'Never was there a truer word! I meant as to her health? As to courage, spirits, and temper, there is no question; I never saw them fail; but are they not almost too much for the frame?' he asked anxiously.
It echoed Nuttie's fear, but she tried to frame a cheerful answer. 'She is very thin, but she seems well.'
'She never complains, but I am sure her strength is not what it was. She cannot walk out as she did at first. Indeed, she gets no real rest day nor night, and there's no relieving her!'
'She says you don't get much rest either.'
'More than my share,' said Mark. 'The poor little thing never sleeps except in someone's arms, and if awake, is not content for a moment except in her mother's.'
'And that has been going on four months?'
'Three. Ever since we brought her back from Redcastle. I have nearly determined to move into some suburb when I get a rise at Michaelmas, unless she improves.'
'Nurse might suggest something.'
'Or at any rate tell us what to think. We showed her to a doctor, and all he could propose was some kind of food, which was no more successful than the rest. Did you look at her, Nuttie? She is a pretty little thing when she is quiet, but she dwindles away--at least so it seems to me, though Annaple will not see it, and--and if we are not permitted to keep the little one, I dread what the effect may be on her.'
Nuttie said something about bravery and goodness, thinking in her heart that, if the blow fell, it would be better for all than the perpetual suffering of the poor little sickly being.
'Ah! you don't know what her affections are,' said Mark. 'You did not see her when she lost her mother, and there had been no strain on her powers then. However, I've no business to croak. Many a child gets over troubles of this kind, and, as Annaple says, little Jenny will be all the more to us for what we go through with her.'
The carriage stopped, and Nuttie asked him if it would delay him too long if she executed a commission about her father's glasses. He had plenty of time, but she was delayed longer than she expected, and on her return was surprised to find that he had dropped asleep.
'Ah! that's what comes of a moment's quiet;' he said, smiling.
'Fine quiet in the roar of Ludgate Hill!'
'To a Cockney 'tis as the mill to the miller! I like the full stir and tide,' he added, looking out upon it. 'I never knew what life was before!'
'I should have thought you never knew what hardness and hard work were.'
'That's just it,' he answered, smiling. 'The swing of it is exhilaration--very different from being a cumberer of the ground.'
'Oh, Mark, all the privations and anxiety!'
'The privation! that's nothing. Indeed I am afraid--yes, I am ashamed to say--it falls more on my dear wife than myself, but if we can only wear through a year or two we shall get a further rise, and my poor Annaple may get out of this drudgery. Please God, she and the little one can stand it for a time, and I think she has a spring within her that will;' then, as he saw tears in his cousin's eyes, he added, 'Don't be unhappy about it, Nuttie; I have had it in my mind ever so long to tell you that the finding you at Micklethwayte was the best thing that ever happened to me!'
Yes, so far as character went, Ursula could believe that it had been so. He was twice the man he would have been without the incentive to work, and the constant exercise of patience and cheerfulness; but her heart was heavy with apprehension that the weight of the trial might be too heavy. To her eyes the baby's life seemed extremely doubtful, and Annaple looked so fragile that the increase of her burthens, any saddening of the heart, might destroy her elasticity, and crush her outright; while even Mark seemed to her to be toiling so close within the limits of his powers that a straw might break the camel's back!
She longed to talk to Mr. Dutton about them, but she found herself doomed to a day that perhaps Annaple would have thought more trying than her harrowed life. She was a little later than she had intended, and her father had been waiting impatiently to have a note read to him, so he growled at her impatience to run after 'that Scotch girl.' And the note happened to be of an irritating nature; moreover, the cutlets at luncheon were said to be akin to indiarubber, and there was the wrong flavour in the sauce. Ursula let that cook do what she pleased without remonstrance.
Even Alwyn did not afford as much satisfaction as usual, for the boy was in high spirits and wanted to blow a little trumpet, which was more than his father could stand. He was very good when this was silenced, but he then began to rush round the room daring his sister to catch the wild colt as he went by. This had likewise to be stopped, with the murmur that Ursula spoilt the child.
She tried to compose matters by turning out the old toys in the ottoman, but Alwyn had outgrown most of them, and did not care for any except a certain wooden donkey, minus one ear and a leg, which went by the name of Sambo, and had absorbed a good deal of his affection. He had with difficulty been consoled for Sambo being left behind, and now turned over everything with considerable clatter in search of him. Alas! Sambo could nowhere be found in the room, and Alwyn dashed off to inquire of all the household after him. His father meanwhile growled at the child's noise, and went on trying the glasses Nuttie had brought, and pronouncing each pair in turn useless, vowing that it was no use to send her anywhere.
Upon this, back came Alwyn, terribly distressed and indignant, for he had extracted from the housemaid left in charge, who was as cross as she was trustworthy, 'What! that old broken thing, Master Egremont? I threw it on the fire! I'd never have thought a young gentleman of your age would have cared for such rubbish as that.'