Rosamond's task was a comfortable one, for every hour of sleep, every mouthful of food seemed to do its work of restoration on the sound, healthy frame, and a smile and word of thanks met her whenever she roused her patient with the inevitable spoon.
When he awoke towards morning, he asked what day it was, and when she told him, answered, "So I thought. Then I have not lost count of time."
"No, you have been wonderfully clear-headed."
"I can't see how there can have been time to write," he said. "It is true that he is come, is it not?"
"Quite true; but he came independently on business," and Rosamond told of Julius's chase, bringing a look of amusement on his face.
Jenny came in with the rising sun, pale indeed, but another creature after her rest and in the sight of the restful countenance that greeted her with a smile. The moaning, hoarse voice was gone too, it was a faint shadow of Herbert's own tones that said, "Is not this good, Jenny? I didn't think to have seen it."
"My Herbert, you have given him back! You have given me the heart to be glad!"
"You must go and see him," said Herbert.
Jenny looked wistful and undecided; but Julius entered to say that she must come at once, for Archie must go back to London by the ten o'clock train to an appointment, and could not return for two days.
Herbert smiled her away, for he was still in a state where it was not possible to bear any engrossing of his head-nurse, and the lover's absence was, even to his unselfishness, good news.
Rosamond could not refrain from the pleasure of peeping down the little dark stair as Archie and his Jenny met in the doorway, and she walked demurely in their rear, wondering whether other eyes saw as much as she did in the manner in which Jenny hung on his arm. She left them to their dewy walk in the Rectory garden to the last minute at which breakfast could be swallowed, and told Jenny that she was to drive him in the pony-carriage to Hazlett's Gate; she would take care of Herbert.
"You ought to be asleep, you know," said Jenny.
"My dear, I couldn't sleep! There's a great deal better than sleep! Is not Herbert going to get well? and aren't you jolly again and Archie back again? Sleep!-why I want to have wings and clap them- and more than all, is not Mr. Charnock off and away to-morrow? Sleep indeed!-I should like to see myself so stupid."
"Mr. Charnock?" interrogatively said Archie.
"The head of the family-the original Charnock of Dunstone," said Rosamond, who was in wild spirits, coming on a worn-out body and mind, and therefore perfectly unguarded. "Don't shake your head at me, Jenny, Archie is one of the family, and that makes you so, and I must tell you of his last performance. You know he is absolutely certain that his dear daughter is more infallible than all the Popes, even since the Council, or than anybody but himself, and that whatever goes wrong here is the consequence of Julius's faith in Dr. Easterby. So, when poor Cecil, uneasy in her mind, began asking about the illness at Wil'sbro', he enlivened her with a prose about misjudging, through well-intentioned efforts of clerical philanthropy to interfere with the sanitary condition of the town- so that wells grew tainted, &c., all from ignorant interference. Poor man he heard a little sob, and looked round, and there was Cecil in a dead faint. He set all the bells ringing, and sent an express for me."
"But wasn't he furious with Anne for mentioning drains at all?"
"My dear Joan, don't you know how many old women there are of both sorts, who won't let other people look over the wall at what they gloat on in private? However, he had his punishment, for he really thought that the subject had been too much for her delicacy, and simply upset her nerves."
"When was this?"
"Four or five days ago. She is better, but has said not a word more about it. She is nothing like strong enough, even for so short a journey as to Portishead; but they say change will be the best thing for her, and the coming down into the family would be too sad."
"Poor thing! Yes indeed," said Jenny; and feeling universally benevolent, she added, "give her my love," a thing which so sincere a person could hardly have said a few weeks ago.
Reserve was part of Cecil's nature, and besides, her father was almost always with her; but when she had been for the first time dressed in crape up to her waist, with the tiniest of caps perched toy-like on the top of her passive head, the sight upset him completely, and muttering, "Good heavens!-a widow at twenty-two!" he hid himself from the sight over some business transactions with Mrs. Poynsett and Miles.
Rosamond seized the opportunity of bringing Julius in to pay his farewell visit, and presently Cecil said, "Julius, I should be much obliged if you would tell me the real facts about this illness."
"Do," said Rosamond. "Her half knowledge is most wearing."
He gently told her what science had pronounced.
"Then it was Pettitt's well?" she said.
"They tell us that this was the immediate cause of the outbreak; but there would probably have been quite as much fatal illness the first time any infectious disease came in. The whole place was in a shameful state, and you were the only people who tried to mitigate it."
"And did worse harm, because we would not listen to advice," said Cecil. "Julius, I have a great deal of money; can't I do anything now? My father wants me to give a donation to the church as a memorial of him, but, somehow, I don't feel as if I deserved to do that."
"I see what you mean, Cecil, but the town is being rated to set the drainage to rights, and it will thus be done in the most permanent and effectual way. There are some orphans who might be saved from the Union, about whom I thought of asking you to help."
Cecil asked the details of the orphans, and the consultation over them seemed to be prolonged by her because, even now, she could not resolve to go below the surface. It lasted until her father came to ask whether she were ready to go with him to Mrs. Poynsett's sitting-room. She looked very fragile and childish as she stood up, clinging to his arm to help her wavering, uncertain step, holding out her hand to Julius and saying, "I shall see you again."
He was a little disappointed to see her no older, and no warmer; having gone thus far, it seemed as if she might have gone further and opened more. Perhaps he did not understand how feelings, naturally slow, were rendered slower by the languor of illness, which made them more oppressive than acute. As Mr. Charnock and his daughter knocked, the door was opened by Miles, who merely gave his hand, and went down. Frank, who had been reading in a low easy- chair by the fire, drew it close to his mother for her, and retreated to another seat, and the mother and daughter-in-law exchanged a grave kiss. Cecil attempted some civility about the chair, to which poor Frank replied, "I'm afraid it is of no use to speak to me, Cecil, Miles can only just make me hear."
Regret for his misfortune, and inquiry as to the chance of restoration, were a possible topic. Mr. Charnock gave much advice about aurists, and examples of their success or non-success; and thence he diverged to the invalid-carriage he had secured, and his future plans for expediting his daughter's recovery. Meanwhile Mrs. Poynsett and Cecil sat grave, dry-eyed, and constrained, each feeling that in Mr. Charnock's presence the interview was a nullity, yet neither of them able to get rid of him, nor quite sure that she would have done so if she could.
He, meanwhile, perfectly satisfied with his own considerate tact, talked away the allotted half-hour, and then pronounced his daughter pale and tired. She let him help her to rise, but held Mrs. Poynsett's hand wistfully, as if she wished to say something but could not; and all Mrs. Poynsett could bring out was a hope of hearing how she bore the journey. It was as if they were both frozen up. Yet the next moment Cecil was holding Frank's hand in a convulsive clasp, and fairly pulling him down to exchange a kiss, when he found her tears upon his cheek. Were they to his misfortune, or to his much-increased resemblance to his brother?