"But what brought you to town again, Fleda " said the elder sister.
"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.
"I haven"t told you the half!" said Constance, demurely. "And then mamma excused herself as well as she could, and Mr.
Carleton said, very seriously, that he knew there was a great element of headstrongness in your character; he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr. Stackpole."
"Constance, be quiet!" said her sister. "_Will_ you tell me, Fleda, what you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity."
"Then it"s inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear," said Fleda, smiling.
"Tell me."
"I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended to at a distance."
"Who did you come with?"
"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York."
"Wasn"t your uncle at home?"
"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring."
"But was there n.o.body else to do it but you?"
"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post ?
Fort Hamilton, is it? ? I forget which fort ? he is fast there."
"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and then in Broadway, shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence"s worsted-work ? (I"ve made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda) ? or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that ? I don"t know which; and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor"s Island, or somewhere, to prosecute inquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him; she says he is wearing himself out."
The mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her, and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.
"But where is your other cousin ? Hugh?" said Florence.
"He was not well."
"Where is your uncle?"
"He will be at home to-day, I expect; and so should I have been ? I meant to be there as soon as he was, but I found this morning that I was not well enough ? to my sorrow."
"You were not going alone!"
"Oh, no! ? a friend of ours was going to-day."
"I never saw anybody with so many friends, said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"
"Oh, by to-morrow," said Fleda, smiling; "but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here. I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity."
"But you sha"n"t find an opportunity till we"ve had you," said Constance. "I"m going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits; and if we were to leave you here in an empty house, to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?"
What would he think? Oh, world! Is this it?
But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared that nature would take more revenge than a day"s sleep for the rough handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the next morning; and instead of that, a kind of nondescript nervous fever set in, nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was, nevertheless, extremely glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience and quietness, thankful for everything, after the anxiety and the relief she had just before known.
Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her, indeed, what she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "business," seemed to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask her, furthermore, what had made her get sick; but this time he was satisfied more easily still, with a very curious, sweet smile, which was the utmost reply Fleda"s wits, at the moment, could frame. "Well, get well," said he, kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I wont quarrel with you about it."
The getting well, however, promised to be a leisurely affair.
Dr. Gregory staid two or three days, and then went on to Boston, leaving Fleda in no want of him.
Mrs. Pritchard was the tenderest and carefullest of nurses.
The Evelyns did everything but nurse her. They sat by her, talked to her, made her laugh, and not seldom made her look sober too, with their wild tales of the world and the world"s doings. But they were indeed very affectionate and kind, and Fleda loved them for it. If they wearied her sometimes with their talk, it was a change from the weariness of fever and silence that on the whole was useful.
She was quieting herself one morning, as well as she could, in the midst of both, lying with shut eyes against her pillow, and trying to fix her mind on pleasant things, when she heard Mrs. Pritchard open the door and come in. She knew it was Mrs.
Pritchard, so she didn"t move nor look. But, in a moment, the knowledge that Mrs. Pritchard"s feet had stopped just by the bed, and a strange sensation of something delicious saluting her, made her open her eyes; when they lighted upon a huge bunch of violets just before them, and in most friendly neighbourhood to her nose. Fleda started up, and her "Oh!"
fairly made the housekeeper laugh; it was the very quintessence of gratification.
"Where did you get them?"
"I didn"t get them, indeed, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, gravely, with an immense amount of delighted satisfaction.
"Delicious! ? Where did they come from?"
"Well, they must have come from a greenhouse, or hothouse, or something of that kind, Miss Fleda ? these things don"t grow nowhere out o" doors at this time."
Mrs. Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How kind!" was upon the end of Fleda"s tongue, but it never got any further. Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.
"They must be put in water," said Fleda ? "I must have a dish for them ? Dear Mrs. Pritchard, will you get me one?"
The housekeeper went, smiling to herself. The dish was brought, the violets placed in it, and a little table, at Fleda"s request, was set by the side of the bed, close to her pillow, for them to stand upon; and Fleda lay on her pillow and looked at them.
There never were purer-breathed flowers than those. All the pleasant a.s.sociations of Fleda"s life seemed to hang about them, from the time when her childish eyes had first made acquaintance with violets, to the conversation in the library a few days ago; and painful things stood aloof ? they had no part. The freshness of youth, and the sweetness of spring- time, and all the kindly influences which had ever joined with both to bless her, came back with their blessing in the violets" reminding breath. Fleda shut her eyes and she felt it; she opened her eyes, and the little, double blue things smiled at her good-humouredly, and said, "Here we are ? you may shut them again." And it was curious how often Fleda gave them a smile back as she did so.
Mrs. Pritchard thought Fleda lived upon the violets that day rather than upon food and medicine; or, at least, she said, they agreed remarkably well together. And the next day it was much the same.
"What will you do when they are withered?" she said, that evening. "I shall have to see and get some more for you."
"Oh, they will last a great while," said Fleda, smiling.
But the next morning Mrs. Pritchard came into her room with a great bunch of roses, the very like of the one Fleda had had at the Evelyns". She delivered them with a sort of silent triumph, and then, as before, stood by to enjoy Fleda and the flowers together. But the degree of Fleda"s wonderment, pleasure, and grat.i.tude, made her reception of them, outwardly at least, this time rather grave.
"You may throw the others away now, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, smiling.
"Indeed, I shall not!"
"The violets, I suppose, is all gone," Mrs. Pritchard went on; "but I never did see such a bunch of roses as that since I lived anywhere. They have made a rose of you, Miss Fleda."
"How beautiful!" was Fleda"s answer.
"Somebody ? he didn"t say who ? desired to know particularly how Miss Ringgan was to-day."