Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she was not absolutely spoiled – that her better nature did not quite leave her. Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion of the absentee; but that she had not quite forgotten him – that she still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest – seemed proved by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert’s, to whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool reserve and docile respect – now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed schoolgirls are wont to accost their stern professors; bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to inflict penalties in case of contumacy.
Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.
He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap – too light to be that of Mrs. Gill or the housemaid – summoned young Sympson to the door.
“How is Mr. Moore tonight?” asked a low voice from the dark gallery.
“Come in and see him yourself.”
“Is he asleep?”
“I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley.”
“He would not like it.”
But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.
The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar’s form but imperfectly; yet it revealed her in elegant attire. There was a party assembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing room, and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry’s tutor. Her pure white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold circling her throat and quivering on her breast, glistened strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive. She spoke gently.
“Mr. Moore, how are you tonight?”
“I have not been very ill, and am now better.”
“I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes; can you taste one?”
“No; but I thank you for remembering me.”
“Just one.”
From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand she severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face.
“But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit; yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?”
“Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best.”
Silence fell for some minutes.
“Do you suffer? – have you pain?”
“Very little.”
“What made you ill?”
Silence.
“I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?”
“Miasma, perhaps – malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers.”
“I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise.”
“That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is infectious. I scarcely fear”—with a sort of smile—“you will take it; but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me.”
“Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you before I depart – any little service.”
“They will miss you below.”
“No; the gentlemen are still at table.”
“They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I hear him just now pass from the dining room to the drawing room.”
“It is a servant.”
“It is Sir Philip; I know his step.”
“Your hearing is acute.”
“It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at present. Sir Philip was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which he had brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven o’clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star.”
“You must be nervously sensitive.”
“I heard him kiss your hand.”
“Impossible!”
“No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door; the sash was a little raised, for I felt feverish. You stood ten minutes with him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word, and I heard the salute. – Henry, give me some water.”
“Let me give it him.”
But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined her attendance.
“And can I do nothing?”
“Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night’s peaceful rest, and it is all I at present want.”
“You do not sleep well?”
“Sleep has left me.”
“Yet you said you were not very ill?”
“I am often sleepless when in high health.”
“If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid slumber – quite deep and hushed, without a dream.”
“Blank annihilation! I do not ask that.”
“With dreams of all you most desire.”
“Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death.”
“Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary.”
“Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps, quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be.”
“That is possible. But this sleep – I should like to woo it to your pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down and read some pages? I can well spare half an hour.”
“Thank you, but I will not detain you.”
“I would read softly.”
“It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft, cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me.”
“Well, I will go.”
“And no good night?”
“Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good night.” (Exit Shirley.)
“Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some repose.”
“Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night.”
“Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go.”
“Give me your blessing, sir.”
“God bless you, my best pupil!”
“You never call me your dearest pupil!”
“No, nor ever shall.”
Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher’s rejection of her courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as her light step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did not again pause at his door; nor did her “cooing, vibrating voice” disturb a second time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased to be; Mr. Moore’s good constitution quickly triumphed over his indisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties as tutor.
That “Auld Lang Syne” had still its authority both with preceptor and scholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes promptly passed the distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her high reserve with a firm, quiet hand.
One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society, had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business – a little letter-writing – was soon dispatched after the yard gates had closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden.
It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow, through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted its woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its time of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling of apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.