And fever and faintness came upon me as she spoke. I rose and threw up the window for a moment’s breath, and then I turned to Alice, and cried upon her shoulder and asked her what I was to do – what I was to do?
With her kind hand upon my head, and her kind voice blessing her “dear child,” Alice soothed and calmed me – and the tears gave me some relief, and I gradually composed myself. “Do you think he will let me nurse him, Alice? He told me he was ill long ago, but I persuaded myself he was mistaken; and you think he is very bad – in great pain? oh! do you think he will let me nurse him, Alice?”
“I cannot tell. Miss Hester,” said Alice, “but, dear, you must try – did he tell you he was ill? – and I was doing him wrong, thinking he was too proud to let his own child see him in weakness: oh, we’re hard judges, every one of us. When was it, dear?”
“In spring, a long time ago; and we were not quite friends then,” said I. “I thought he was cruel; he spoke to me about – about – I mean he told me that I must soon be left alone, and that he wanted to find some one to take care of me. I cannot tell you about it, Alice; and I refused – I said no to my father; and we have never been very good friends since then.”
“Do you mean that your papa wanted you to marry, Miss Hester?” asked Alice.
“I suppose so – yes!” I said, turning away my head – she was looking full at me, and looking very anxiously – she had always been greatly privileged. I feared I might have been questioned, had she caught the expression of my eye.
“And did he say who? Was it M – ? Was it your cousin?” said Alice.
“No, it was not my cousin; but why do you speak of that? Alice, let me go to my father,” said I.
“He does not want you now, darling,” said Alice, detaining me. “Dear Miss Hester, don’t you think it wrong of me – you’re my own child. I took you out of your mother’s arms. Speak to me just one word. Is there any one, darling, any one? – Miss Hester, you’ll not be angry with me?”
“Then do not ask me such questions, Alice,” I said, in great shame and confusion, with a burning flush upon my cheek, “does it become us to speak of things like this, when my father so ill – why do you say he does not want me now! he may want me this very moment, let me go.”
“Dear, he’s sleeping,” said Alice, “he has been very ill, and now he’s at rest and easy, and lying down to refresh himself – you can’t go now, Miss Hester, for it would only disturb him – poor gentleman – won’t you stay, dear, and say a word to me?”
“I have nothing to say to you, Alice,” said I, half crying with vexation and shame and embarrassment, “why do you question me so? I have done nothing wrong – you ought rather to tell me how my father is, if you will not let me go to see.”
“The pain is here,” said Alice, putting her hand to her side, “here at his heart. I know what trouble at the heart is, Miss Hester, and your papa has known it many a day, but it isn’t grief or sorrow now, but sickness, and if the one has brought the other, I cannot tell. It comes on in fits and spasms, and is very bad for a time, and then it goes off again, and he is as well to look at as ever he was. But every time it comes he’s weaker, and it’s wearing out his strength day by day. Yes, dear, it’s cruel to say it, but it’s true.”
“And are you with him when he is ill, Alice?” said I anxiously.
“He rings his bell when he feels it coming,” said Alice, “though I know he has many a hard hour all by himself; and anxiety on his mind is very bad for him, dear,” she continued, looking at me wistfully, “and he is troubled in his spirit about leaving you. If you can give in to him, Miss Hester, dear, if it’s not against your heart – if you’re fancy-free, and think no more of one than of another – oh! darling, yield to him anything you can. He’s a suffering man, and is your father, and pride is the sin of the house; every one has it, less or more; and there are only two of you in the world, and you are his only child!”
Alice ran breathlessly through this string of arguments, while I listened with a disturbed and a rebellious heart. No, if this was true, – if my father was slowly dying – if he would soon be beyond the reach of all obedience and duty, I would not deny him anything – not even this. It was hard, unspeakably hard, to think of it. I could not see why he should ask such a bitter sacrifice from me. I knew of no self-sacrifice in his history – why should he think it was easy in mine?
Alice left me like a skilful general, when she had made this urgent appeal, and went away down stairs, saying she would call me when my father awoke. I remained at my window, where I had been dreaming before, but what a harsh interruption had come to my dreams – the sunshine without streamed down as full and bright as ever over the trees and flowers, and fresh enclosing greensward of our pretty garden; half an hour of time had come and gone, but it might have been half a year for the change it made in me. Alice had come to my Bower of Bliss, like Sir Guyon, and driven me forth from among the flowers and odors of the enchanted land. My heart became very heavy, I could not tell why. I resolved upon making my submission to my father, if I had an opportunity, and telling him to do what he would with me. This was not a willing or tender submission, but a forced and reluctant one; and I did not try to conceal from myself that I felt it very hard, though when I thought again of his recent suffering, and of the fantastic paradise of dreams in which I was wandering, while he wrestled with his mortal enemy, I felt suddenly humiliated and subdued. My father! my father! I had belonged to him all my life, I had no right to any love but his; I had lived at ease in his care, and trusted to him with the perfect confidence of a child. But now, when it was at last of importance that I should trust him, was this the time to follow my own fancies and leave him to suffer alone?
At that moment Alice called me, and I immediately went down stairs. I went with a tremulous and uncertain step, and an oppressed heart – to make any sacrifice he wished or asked – to do anything he desired of me. When I entered the library, my father looked up from his book with a momentary glance of surprise and inquiry; and with a heart beating so loud and so uneasily as mine it was hard to look unembarrassed and natural. I said breathlessly: “May I sit beside you, papa? I want to read a little,” but I did not dare to look at him as I spoke – the calm everyday tone of his voice struck very strangely upon my excited ear as he answered me: “Surely, Hester,” he said, with a slight quiet astonishment at the unnecessary question. He was perfectly unexcited – I could see neither care, nor anxiety, nor suffering in his calm and equable looks; and he did not perceive nor suspect the tumult and fever in my mind. Prepared as I was to yield to him with reluctance, and a feeling of hardship, I felt a shock of almost disappointment when I found that nothing was to be asked of me – I sank into the nearest chair and took up the first book I could find to cover my trembling and confusion. The stillness of the room overpowered me – I could hear my heart beating in the silence, and as my eye wandered over all these orderly and ordinary arrangements, and to the calm bright sunshine out of doors, and the shadow of the trees softly waving across the window, I was calmed into quieter expectancy and clearer vision. My father sat in his usual place at his usual studies, with the summer daylight full upon his face, and everything about him arranged with scrupulous propriety and care; if any of his habitual accessories had been disturbed – if he had occupied another seat, or sat in a different attitude, or if I could have detected the slightest sign of faltering or weakness in his manner, I would not have felt so strongly my sudden descent from the heights of terror, anxiety, and expectation, to the everyday level of repose and comfort; but there was no change in his stately person or dress, no perceptible difference in his appearance. He was not old – at this present moment he looked like a man in his prime, handsome, haughty, reserved, and fastidious. As I observed him under the shadow of my book, I felt like a spy watching to detect incipient weakness – was I disappointed that he did not look ill? Was this the man who half an hour ago