'If so-well; so much the better!' he said. 'It is a blessing to be allowed to be spent in that service. And for the children, I wish only for work and goodness for them-and for that I may well trust my good Master.'
CHAPTER IV. TWILIGHT AND DAWN
'Two Angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o'er the village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces; and beneath
The sombre houses capped with plumes of smoke.
LONGFELLOW.
'Don't, Ful!'
'That's nothing to you, Clem.'
'I say, this won't do. I must have some light.'
'Indeed, Ed, we must not light a candle before five o'clock.'
'Pish!'
'Oh please, Edgar, don't stir the fire. If you knew how few coals there are!'
'Stuff''
'No, I won't have it done if Wilmet says not;' and Felix reared up in the gloom, and struggled with his brother.
Felix-Edgar-Oh, don't.'
'Hsh-sh-Now, you girls are worse than all, screaming in that way.' A few moments' silence of shame. It had been a weary, long, wet day, a trial under any circumstances to eleven people under seventeen, on the 4th of January, and the more oppressive in St. Oswald's Buildings, because not only had their father been in a much more suffering state for some days past, but their mother, who had hoped to keep up for some weeks longer, had for the last two days been quite unlike herself. In the sick-room she was as tender and vigilant as ever in her silent way, but towards her children a strange fretful impatience, a jealousy of their coming near their father, and an intolerance of the least interruption from them even for the most necessary cause. Moreover, the one friend and helper who had never failed them before, Mr. Audley, had not been seen since he had looked in before early service; and altogether the wretchedness and perplexity of that day had been such, that it was no wonder that even Felix and Wilmet had scarcely spirits or temper for the only task that seemed at present left them, the hindering their juniors from making themselves obnoxious.
'Wilmet, do you think we shall go to the party at Centry Park?' reiterated Fulbert.
'Do hold your tongue about that. I don't believe there's the least chance,' said Alda fretfully.
'And I don't know how you can think of such a thing,' added Cherry.
'I want to see Cousin Marilda's Christmas tree,' whined Robina.
'Do ask Mamma again,' entreated another voice.
'I shall do no such thing,' said Wilmet, with absolute crossness in her tone.
Robina began to cry.
'Come here, Bobbie,' said Cherry's voice in the dark end of the room; 'I'll tell you a story.'
'I know all Cherry's stories, and they're rubbish,' said Fulbert.
'This is quite a new one. There was once a little match-girl-'
'Bosh! I know that little brute, and I hate her,' broke in Fulbert.
'Hold your tongue,' said Clement; 'but-'
'Oh no, don't let us have the match-girl,' cried several voices.
'Why can't you be good? There was once an old giant that lived in a cave-'
'I hate old giants,' said Cherry's critical public; and her voice grew melancholy.
'But this one had but one eye. Come, do listen; papa told me. He was in an island-' but the voice grew mournful, and was broken by a cry.
'Oh! Fulbert hurt me!'
'Fulbert, for shame! What is it, Angel dear?'
'I only laid hold of her pudding arm,' growled Fulbert. 'Oh! I say, Felix, that's too bad!'
'Hold your row, I say,' said Felix, after his application of fist law. 'Hollo! what's that?' and he sprang to his feet with Angela in his arms, as the door was opened by a hand groping, and Mr. Audley's voice said, 'Darkness visible.'
There was a general scrambling up all over the floor, and Edgar rushed across to light a candle. Wilmet alone had not stirred, as Bernard lay asleep across her lap. The flash of the match revealed a mass of light disordered heads, and likewise a black figure in the doorway.
'Here is a kind helper for you, Wilmet,' said Mr. Audley, 'from St. Faith's, at Dearport. You must call her Sister Constance.'
Wilmet did rise now, in some consternation, lifting her little brother, whose hand was still in the locks, the tangling of which had been his solace. There was a sweet warm kiss on her brow, and her lost net was picked up, her hair coiled into it by a pair of ready tender hands, but she faltered, 'Oh, thank you. Does Mamma know?'
'She was there when I got a sort of consent from your father,' said Mr. Audley.
'She has not said a word,' said Alda, half resentfully. 'We have hardly been in all day except just to fetch and carry.'
'Never mind,' said the Sister, 'it is much better that she did not think about it. Now, my dear, don't! I won't have anything done for me. You don't know how we Sisters sleep on nothing when we do sleep.'
'But you'll have some tea,' said Alda, the only smooth-haired one of the party.
'When you do, perhaps, thank you. Will you come to me, my dear!' relieving Felix from Angela. 'What is your name?' and the child, though ordinarily very shy, clung to her at once; while she, moving over to Cherry, found her in tears, shook up her cushion, arranged her rug, and made her comfortable in a moment. A sense came over them all that they had among them a head on whom they might rest their cares; and as the black bonnet and veil were taken off, and they saw a sweet fair, motherly face beaming on them from the white plain- bordered cap, they gathered round with an outpouring of confidence, small and great, while Mr. Audley went upstairs to announce what he had done. He presently returned, saying, 'All right! Perhaps you had better come up at once.'
There they sat, on either side of the hearth, he pillowed up and in a dressing-gown, more entirely the sick man than he had ever before given up himself to be. Mrs. Underwood rose, and with tears in her eyes, mutely held out her hand, while her husband at once recognised Sister Constance as Lady Herbert Somerville, the wife of the late rector of Dearport. He had last met her when, some six or seven years before he had been invited to preach at festivals at Dearport, and had seen her the sunbeam of her house. He knew that her husband, who was a connection of Mr. Audley's, had since died of the same malady as his own, and had left her, a childless widow, together with all else he had to leave, to the Sisterhood they had already founded in the seaport town. But his greeting was, 'This is very good in you; but surely it must be too painful for you.'
'The Superior saw how much I wished it,' she said.
'You are like Alexandrine de la Ferronays,' he said, remembering her love for tending a consumptive priest for her husband's sake.
'I am always wishing that I were!' she said.
So they perfectly understood each other, and poor Mrs. Underwood, who had, in her new and extraordinary petulance, fiercely resisted the doctor's recommendation of a nurse, found herself implicitly relying on and trusting Sister Constance with a wonderful sense of relief-a relief perhaps still greater to the patient himself, who had silently endured more discomforts and made more exertions than she knew, rather than tire her or vex her by employing even son or daughter, and who was besides set free from some amount of anxiety.
Indeed the widow had too perfect a sympathy to interfere with the wife's only comfort. When it could safely be done, she left the two alone together, and applied herself to winning the hearts and soothing the spirits of the poor children downstairs, and suggesting and compounding new nourishing delicacies.
She even persuaded Mrs. Underwood to go to the next room for a night's rest while she sat up, and learnt-what the silent wife had never told any one-how trying the nights were even to that spirit! At first the patient liked to talk, and drew out much of the hidden treasure of her spirit respecting her husband, who, though ailing for years, had finally passed away with only the immediate warning of a week-the final cause being harass from the difficulties from those above and below him that beset an earnest clergyman of his way of thinking.