"Just got back yesterday," said Fleda.
"Why didn"t you stay longer?"
"I thought my friends at home would be glad to see me," said Fleda. "Was I mistaken?"
He made no answer for a minute, and then said ?
"Is your uncle at home?"
"No," said Fleda; "he went away this morning on business, and we do not expect him home before nightfall. Do you want to see him?"
"No," said Seth, very decidedly. "I wish he had staid in Michigan, or gone further west ? anywhere that Queechy"d never have heard of him."
"Why, what has he done?" said Fleda, looking up, half laughing, and half amazed at her cousin. But his face was disagreeably dark, though she could not make out that the expression was one of displeasure. It did not encourage her to talk.
"Do you know a man in New York by the name of Thorn?" he said, after standing still a minute or two.
"I know two men of that name," said Fleda, colouring and wondering.
"Is either on "em a friend of your"n?"
"No"
"He aint?" said Mr. Plumfield, giving the forestick on the fire an energetic kick, which Fleda could not help thinking was mentally aimed at the said New Yorker.
"No, certainly, what makes you ask?"
"Oh," said Seth, drily, "folks" tongues will find work to do; I heerd say something like that; I thought you must take to him more than I do."
"Why what do you know of him?"
"He"s been here a spell lately," said Seth, "poking round; more for ill than for good, I reckon."
He turned, and quitted the room abruptly; and Fleda bethought her that she must go home while she had light enough.
CHAPTER XII.
"Nothing could be more obliging and respectful than the lion"s letter was, in appearance; but there was death in the true intent."
L"ESTRANGE.
The landscape had grown more dark since Fleda came up the hill, or else the eyes that looked at it. Both, probably. It was just after sundown, and that is a very sober time of day in winter, especially in some states of the weather. The sun had left no largesses behind him; the scenery was deserted to all the coming poverty of night, and looked grim and threadbare already. Not one of the colours of prosperity left.
The land was in mourning dress; all the ground, and even the ice on the little mill-ponds, a uniform spread of white, while the hills were draperied with black stems, here just veiling the snow, and there on a side view making a thick fold of black. Every little unpainted workshop or mill showed uncompromisingly all its forbidding sharpness of angle and outline darkening against the twilight. In better days, perhaps, some friendly tree had hung over it, shielding part of its faults, and redeeming the rest. Now nothing but the gaunt skeleton of a friend stood there ? doubtless to bud forth again as fairly as ever, should the season smile. Still and quiet, all was, as Fleda"s spirit, and in too good harmony with it; she resolved to choose the morning to go out in future. There was as little of the light of spring or summer in her own mind as on the hills, and it was desirable to catch at least a cheering reflection. She could rouse herself to no bright thoughts, try as she would; the happy voices of nature that used to speak to her were all hushed, or her ear was deaf; and her eye met nothing that did not immediately fall in with the train of sad images that were pa.s.sing through her mind, and swell the procession. She was fain to fall back and stay herself upon these words, the only stand-by she could lay hold of: ?
"TO THEM WHO, BY PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING SEEK FOR GLORY, AND HONOUR, AND IMMORTALITY, ETERNAL LIFE!"
They toned with the scene and with her spirit exactly; they suited the darkening sky and the coming night; for "glory, honour, and immortality" are not now. They filled Fleda"s mind after they had once entered, and then nature"s sympathy was again as readily given; each barren, stern-looking hill in its guise of present desolation and calm expectancy seemed to echo softly, "patient continuance in well-doing." And the tears trembled then in Fleda"s eyes; she had set her face, as the old Scotchman says, "in the right airth."* [* Quarter, direction.] "How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where Christ is!"
"Well," said Hugh, who entered the kitchen with her, "you have been late enough. Did you have a pleasant walk? You are pale, Fleda."
"Yes, it was pleasant," said Fleda, with one of her winning smiles ? "a kind of pleasant. But have you looked at the hills? They are exactly as if they had put on mourning ?
nothing but white and black ? a c.r.a.pe-like dressing of black tree-stems upon the snowy face of the ground, and on every slope and edge of the hills the c.r.a.pe lies in folds. Do look at it when you go out! It has a most curious effect."
"Not pleasant, I should think?" said Hugh.
"You"ll see it is just as I have described it. No; not pleasant, exactly; the landscape wants the sun to light it up just now ? it is cold and wilderness-looking. I think I"ll take the morning in future. Whither are you bound?"
"I must go over to Queechy Run for a minute, on business ?
I"ll be home before supper ? I should have been back by this time, but Philetus has gone to bed with a headache, and I had to take care of the cows."
"Three times and out," said Barby. "I wont try again. [ didn"t know as anything would be too powerful for his head; but I find, as sure as he has apple dumplin" for dinner, he goes to bed for his supper, and leaves the cows without none. And then Hugh has to take it. It has saved so many Elephants ? that"s one thing."
Hugh went out by one door, and Fleda by another entered the breakfast-room, the one generally used in winter for all purposes. Mrs. Rossitur sat there alone in an easy-chair; and Fleda no sooner caught the outline of her figure than her heart sank at once to an unknown depth ? unknown before and unfathomable now. She was cowering over the fire ? her head sunk in her hands, so crouching, that the line of neck and shoulders instantly conveyed to Fleda the idea of fancied or felt degradation ? there was no escaping it ? how, whence, what, was all wild confusion. But the language of mere att.i.tude was so unmistakable ? the expression of crushing pain was so strong, that, after Fleda had fearfully made her way up beside her, she could do no more. She stood there tongue-tied, spell-bound, present to nothing but a nameless chill of fear and heart-sinking. She was afraid to speak ? afraid to touch her aunt, and abode motionless in the grasp of that dread for minutes. But Mrs. Rossitur did not stir a hair, and the terror of that stillness grew to be less endurable than any other.
Fleda spoke to her ? it did not win the shadow of a reply ?
again and again. She laid her hand then upon Mrs. Rossitur"s shoulder, but the very significant answer to that, was a shrinking gesture of the shoulder and neck away from the hand.
Fleda, growing desperate, then implored an answer in words ?
prayed for an explanation ? with an intensity of distress in voice and manner, that no one whose ears were not stopped with a stronger feeling could have been deaf to; but Mrs. Rossitur would not raise her head, nor slacken in the least the clasp of the fingers that supported it; that of themselves in their relentless tension spoke what no words could. Fleda"s trembling prayers were in vain ? in vain. Poor nature at last sought a woman"s relief in tears ? but they were heart- breaking, not heart-relieving tears ? racking both mind and body more than they ought to bear, but bringing no cure. Mrs.
Rossitur seemed as unconscious of her niece"s mute agony as she had been of her agony of words; and it was from Fleda"s own self-recollection alone that she fought off pain, and roused herself above weakness to do what the time called for.
"Aunt Lucy," she said, laying her hand upon her shoulder, and this time the voice was steady, and the hand would not be shaken off ? "Aunt Lucy, Hugh will be in presently ? hadn"t you better rouse yourself and go up stairs ? for awhile? ?
till you are better? ? and not let him see you so?" ?
How the voice was broken and quivering before it got through?
The answer this time was a low long-drawn moan, so exceeding plaintive and full of pain that it made Fleda shake like an aspen. But after a moment she spoke again, bearing more heavily with her hand to mark her words.
"I am afraid he will be in presently ? he ought not to see you now. Aunt Lucy, I am afraid it might do him an injury he might not get over" ?
She spoke with the strength of desperation; her nerves were unstrung by fear, and every joint weakened, so that she could hardly support herself. She had not, however, spoken in vain; one or two convulsive shudders pa.s.sed over her aunt, and then Mrs. Rossitur suddenly rose, turning her face from Fleda; neither would she permit her to follow her. But Fleda thought she had seen that one or two unfolded letters or papers of some kind ? they looked like letters ? were in her lap when she raised her head.
Left alone, Fleda sat down on the floor by the easy chair, and rested her head there, waiting ? she could do nothing else ?
till her extreme excitement of body and mind should have quieted itself. She had a kind of vague hope that time would do something for her before Hugh came in. Perhaps it did; for though she lay in a kind of stupor, and was conscious of no change whatever she was able, when she heard him coming, to get up and sit in the chair in an ordinary att.i.tude. But she looked like the wraith of herself an hour ago.
"Fleda!" Hugh exclaimed, as soon as he looked from the fire to her face; "what is the matter? ? what is the matter with you?"
"I am not very well ? I don"t feel very well," said Fleda, speaking almost mechanically; "I shall have a headache to- morrow." ?
"Headache! But you look shockingly: what has happened to you?
what is the matter, Fleda?"
"I am not ill ? I shall be better by and by. There is nothing the matter with me that need trouble you, dear Hugh."
"Nothing the matter with you," said he, and Fleda might see how she looked in the reflection of his face; "where"s mother?"