CHAPTER XI
“Reine, is it long since you heard from Aunt Susan? Look here, I don’t want her tender little notes to the invalid. I am tired of always recollecting that I am an invalid. When one is dying one has enough of it, without always being reminded in one’s correspondence. Is there no news? I want news. What does she say?”
“She speaks only of the Farrel-Austins, – who had gone to see her,” said Reine, almost under her breath.
“Ah!” Herbert too showed a little change of sentiment at this name. Then he laughed faintly. “I don’t know why I should mind,” he said; “every man has a next-of-kin, I suppose, an heir-at-law, though every man does not die before his time, like me. That’s what makes it unpleasant, I suppose. Well, what about Farrel-Austin, Reine? There is no harm in him that I know.”
“There is great harm in him,” said Reine, indignantly; “why did he go there to insult them, to make them think? And I know there was something long ago that makes Aunt Susan hate him. She says Everard was there too – I think, with Kate and Sophy – ”
“And you do not like that either?” said Herbert, putting his hand upon hers and looking at her with a smile.
“I do not mind,” said Reine sedately. “Why should I mind? I do not think they are very good companions for Everard,” she added, with that impressive look of mature wisdom which the most youthful countenance is fond of putting on by times; “but that is my only reason. He is not very settled in his mind.”
“Are you settled in your mind, Reine?”
“I? I have nothing to unsettle me,” she said with genuine surprise. “I am a girl; it is different. I can stop myself whenever I feel that I am going too far. You boys cannot stop yourselves,” Reine added, with the least little shake of her pretty head; “that makes frivolous companions so bad for Everard. He will go on and on without thinking.”
“He is a next-of-kin, too,” said Herbert with a smile. “How strange a light it throws upon them all when one is dying! I wonder what they think about me, Reine? I wonder if they are always waiting, expecting every day to bring them the news? I daresay Farrel-Austin has settled exactly what he is to do, and the changes he will make in the old house. He will be sure to make changes, if only to show that he is the master. The first great change of all will be when the White ladies themselves have to go away. Can you believe in the house without Aunt Susan, Reine? I think, for my part, it will drop to pieces, and Augustine praying against the window like a saint in painted glass. Do you know where they mean to go?”
“Herbert! you kill me when you ask me such questions.”
“Because they all imply my own dying?” said Herbert. “Yes, my queen, I know. But just for the fun of the thing, tell me what do you think Farrel means to do? Will he meddle with the old almshouses, and show them all that he is Lord of the Manor and nobody else? or will he grudge the money and let Augustine keep possession of the family charities? That is what I think; he is fond of his money, and of making a good show with it, not feeding useless poor people. But then if he leaves the almshouses to her undisturbed, where will Augustine go? By Jove!” said Herbert, striking his feeble hand against his couch with the energy of a new idea, “I should not be in the least surprised if she went and lived at the almshouses herself, like one of her own poor people; she would think, poor soul, that that would please God. I am more sorry for Aunt Susan,” he added after a pause, “for she is not so simple; and she has been the Squire so long, how will she ever bear to abdicate? It will be hard upon her, Reine.”
Reine had turned away her head to conceal the bitter tears of disappointment that had rushed to her eyes. She had been so sure that he was better – and to be thus thrown back all at once upon this talk about his death was more than she could bear.
“Don’t cry, dear,” he said, “I am only discussing it for the fun of the thing; and to tell you the truth, Reine, I am keeping the chief point of the joke to myself all this time. I don’t know what you will think when I tell you – ”
“What, Bertie, what?”
“Don’t be so anxious; I daresay it is utter nonsense. Lean down your ear that I may whisper; I am half-ashamed to say it aloud. Reine, hush! listen! Somehow I have got a strange feeling, just for a day or two, that I am not going to die at all, but to live.”
“I am sure of it,” cried the girl, falling on her knees and throwing her arms round him. “I know it! It was last night. God did not make up His mind till last night. I felt it in the air. I felt it everywhere. Some angel put it into my head. For all this time I have been making up my mind, and giving you up, Bertie, till yesterday; something put it into my head – the thought was not mine, or I would not have any faith in it. Something said to me, God is thinking it all over again. Oh, I know! He would not let them tell you and me both unless it was true.”
“Do you think so, Reine? do you really think so?” said the sick boy – for he was but a boy – with a sudden dew in his large liquid exhausted eyes. “I thought you would laugh at me – no, of course, I don’t mean laugh – but think it a piece of folly. I thought it must be nonsense myself; but do you really, really think so too?”
The only answer she could make was to kiss him, dashing off her tears that they might not come upon his face; and the two kept silent for a moment, two young faces, close together, pale, one with emotion, the other with weakness, half-angelic in their pathetic youthfulness and the inspiration of this sudden hope, smiles upon their lips, tears in their eyes, and the trembling of a confidence too ethereal for common mortality in the two hearts that beat so close together. There was something even in the utter unreasonableness of their hope which made it more touching, more pathetic still. The boy was less moved than the girl in his weakness, and in the patience which that long apprenticeship to dying had taught him. It was not so much to him who was going as to her who must remain.
“If it should be so,” he said after awhile, almost in a whisper, “oh, how good we ought to be, Reine! If I failed of my duty, if I did not do what God meant me to do in everything, if I took to thinking of myself – then it would be better that things had gone on – as they are going.”
“As they were going, Bertie!”
“You think so, really; you think so? Don’t just say it for my feelings, for I don’t mind. I was quite willing, you know, Reine.”
Poor boy! already he had put his willingness in the past, unawares.
“Bertie,” she said solemnly, “I don’t know if you believe in the angels like me. Then tell me how this is; sometimes I have a thought in the morning which was not there at night; sometimes when I have been puzzling and wondering what to do – about you, perhaps, about mamma, about one of the many, many things,” said Reine, with a celestial face of grave simplicity, “which perplex us in life, – and all at once I have had a thought which made everything clear. One moment quite in the dark, not seeing what to do; and the next, with a thought that made everything clear. Now, how did that come, Bertie? tell me. Not from me – it was put into my head, just as you pull my dress, or touch my arm, and whisper something to me in the dark. I always believe in things that are like this, put into my head.”
Was it wonderful that the boy was easy to convince by this fanciful argument, and took Reine’s theory very seriously? He was in a state of weakened life and impassioned hope, when the mind is very open to such theories. When the mother came in to hear that Herbert was much better, and that he meant to go out in his wheeled-chair in the afternoon, even she could scarcely guard herself against a gleam of hope. He was certainly better. “For the moment, chérie,” she said to Reine, who followed her out anxiously to have her opinion; “for the moment, yes, he is better; but we cannot look for anything permanent. Do not deceive yourself, ma Reine. It is not to be so.”
“Why is it not to be so? when I am sure