The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain

When she roused herself and turned her head, she perceived on Minna's pillow two eyes above the bed-clothes, intently fixed on her. Should she see, or should she not see? She believed that the loving heart was suffering a cruel wrong, she yearned to share all with the child, but she was chained by the command of one brother, and by that acquiescence of the other which to her was more than a command. She would not see, she turned away, and made her preparations for the night without betraying that she knew that the little one was awake, resuming the tedious guard on the expression of her face. But when her long kneeling had ended, and with it that which was scarcely so much conscious intercession as the resting an intolerable load on One who alone knew its weight, just as she darkened the room for the night, the low voice whispered, 'Ave, is it?'—

And Averil crept up to the little bed: 'Yes, Minna; he is well! He hopes you are bright and happy, but he says it is best you should forget him.' The brow was cold and clammy, the little frame chill and trembling, the arms clasped her neck convulsively. She lifted the child into her own bed, pressed tight to her own bosom, and though no other word passed between the sisters, that contact seemed to soothe away the worst bitterness; and Averil slept from the stillness enforced on her by the heed of not disturbing Minna's sleep.

Little that night had she recked of the plan needing so much deliberation! When she awoke it was to the consciousness that besides the arrival of Leonard's letter, something had happened—there was some perplexity—what was it? And when it came back she was bewildered. Her own fortune had always appeared to her something to fall back on in case of want of success, and to expend it thus was binding the whole family down at a perilous moment, to judge by the rumours of battle and resistance. And all she had ever heard at home, much that she daily heard at New York, inclined her to distrust and dislike of American speculations. It was Cora's father! Her heart smote her for including him in English prejudice, when Henry liked and trusted him! And she had disobeyed and struggled against Henry too long. She had promised to be submissive and yielding. But was this the time? And the boarding-house life—proverbially the worst for children—was fast Americanizing Ella, while Minna drooped like a snowdrop in a hot-house, and idleness might be mischievous to Henry.

Oh, for some one to consult! for some one to tell her whether the risk was a foolish venture, or if the terms were safe! But not a creature did she know well enough to seek advice from! Even the clergyman, whose church she attended, was personally unknown to her; Cora Muller was her sole intimate; there was a mutual repulsion between her and the other ladies, and still more with the gentlemen. A boarding-house was not the scene in which to find such as would inspire confidence, and they had no introductions. There was no one to turn to; and in the dreary indifference that had grown over her, she did not even feel capable of exerting her own judgment to the utmost, even if she had been able to gather certain facts, or to know prudent caution from blind prejudice—often woman's grievous difficulty. What could a helpless girl of one-and-twenty, in a land of strangers, do, but try to think that by laying aside the use of her own judgment she was trusting all to Providence, and that by leaving all to her brother she was proving her repentance for her former conduct.

There, too, were her sisters, clamorous with hopes of the forest life; and there was Cora, urging the scheme with all the fervour of girlish friendship, and in herself no small element in its favour, engaging for everything, adducing precedents for every kind of comfort and success, and making Ave's consent a test of her love. One question Averil asked of her—whether they should be utterly out of reach of their Church? Cora herself had been bred up to liberal religious ways, and was ready to attend whatever denomination of public worship came first to hand, though that which had descended from the Pilgrim Fathers came most naturally. She had been at various Sunday schools, and was a good conscientious girl, but had never gone through the process of conversion, so that Rosa Willis had horrified Ella by pronouncing her 'not a Christian.' She had no objection to show her English friends the way to the favourite Episcopal Church, especially as it was esteemed fashionable; and her passion for Averil had retained her there, with growing interest, drawn on by Averil's greater precision of religious knowledge, and the beauty of the Church system, displayed to her as the one joy and relief left to one evidently crushed with suffering. The use of Averil's books, conversations with her, and the teaching she heard, disposed her more and more to profess herself a member of the Episcopal Church, and she was unable to enter into Averil's scruples at leading her to so decided a step without her father's sanction. 'Father would be satisfied whatever profession she made. Did people in England try to force their children's consciences?' Cora, at Averil's desire, ascertained that Massissauga had as yet no place of worship of its own; but there was a choice of chapels within a circuit of five miles, and an Episcopal Church seven miles off, at the chief town of the county. Moreover, her father declared that the city of Massissauga would soon be considerable enough to invite every variety of minister to please every denomination of inhabitant. Averil felt that the seven miles off church was all she could reasonably hope for, and her mind was clear on that score, when Henry came to take her out walking for the sake of being able to talk more freely.

No longer afraid of being overheard, he gave kind attention to Leonard's letter; and though he turned away from the subject sooner than she wished, she was not exacting. Again he laid before her the advantages of their migration, and assured her that if there were the slightest risk he would be the last to make the proposal. She asked if it were safe to invest money in a country apparently on the eve of civil war?

He laughed the idea to scorn. How could the rebel states make war, with a population of negroes sure to rise against their masters? Where should their forces come from? Faction would soon be put down, and the union be stronger than ever. It was what Averil had been hearing morning, noon, and night, so no wonder she believed it, and was ashamed of a futile girlish fear.

And was Henry sure it was a healthy place? Had she not heard of feverish swamps in Indiana?

Oh yes, in new unsettled places; but there had hardly been an ailment in the Muller family since they had settled at Massissauga.

And Averil's last murmur was—Could he find out anything about other people's opinion of the speculation? did they know enough about Mr. Muller to trust themselves entirely in his hands?

Henry was almost angry—Could not his sister trust him to take all reasonable precaution? It was the old story of prejudice against whatever he took up.

Poor Averil was disarmed directly. The combats of will and their consequences rose up before her, and with them Leonard's charges to devote herself to Henry. She could but avow herself willing to do whatever he pleased. She only hoped he would be careful.

All thenceforth was pleasant anticipation and hope. Averil's property had to be transferred to America, and invested in shares of the land at Massissauga; but this was to cause no delay in arranging for the removal, they were only to wait until the winter had broken up, and the roads become passable after the melting of the snows; and meantime Mr. Muller was to have their house prepared. Cora would remain and accompany them, and in the intervening time promised to assist Averil with her judgment in making the necessary purchases for 'stepping westward.'

When Averil wrote their plans to her English friends, she felt the difficulty of pleading for them. She was sensible that at Stoneborough the risking of her property would be regarded as folly on her part, and something worse on that of her brother; and she therefore wrote with every effort to make the whole appear her own voluntary act—though the very effort made her doubly conscious that the sole cause for her passive acquiescence was, that her past self-will in trifles had left her no power to contend for her own opinion in greater matters—the common retribution on an opinionative woman of principle.

Moreover, it was always with an effort that she wrote to Mary May. A rejected offer from a brother is a rock in a correspondence with a sister, and Averil had begun to feel greatly ashamed of the manner of her own response. Acceptance would have been impossible; but irritating as had been Tom May's behaviour, insulting as had been his explanation, and provoking, his pertinacity, she had begun to feel that the impulse had been too generous and disinterested to deserve such treatment, and that bitterness and ill-temper had made her lose all softness and dignity, so that he must think that his pitying affection had been bestowed on an ungrateful vixen, and be as much disgusted with the interview as she was herself. She did not wish him to love her; but she regretted the form of the antidote, above all, since he was of the few who appreciated Leonard; and the more she heard of Ella's narrations of his kindness, the more ashamed she grew. Every letter to or from Mary renewed the uncomfortable sense, and she would have dropped the correspondence had it not been her sole medium of communication with her imprisoned brother, since Henry would not permit letters to be posted with the Milbank address.

CHAPTER XX

A little hint to solace woe,A hint, a whisper breathing low,'I may not speak of what I know.'—TENNYSON

At the pace at which rapid people walk alone, when they wish to devour both the way and their own sensations, Ethel May was mounting the hill out of the town in the premature heat assumed by May in compliment to Whitsun week, when a prolonged shout made her turn. At first she thought it was her father, but her glass showed her that it was the brother so like him in figure that the London-made coat, and the hair partaking of the sand instead of the salt, were often said to be the chief distinction. Moreover, the dainty steps over the puddles were little like the strides of the Doctor, and left no doubt that it was the one wedding guest who had been despaired of.

'O, Tom, I am glad you are come!'

'What a rate you were running away at! I thought you had done with your hurricane pace.'

'Hurricane because of desperate hurry. I'm afraid I can't turn back with you.'

'Where is all the world?'

'Blanche is helping Mary arrange the Hoxton—I mean her own drawing-room. Hector has brought a dog-cart to drive papa about in; Daisy is gone with Harry and Aubrey to the Grange for some camellias.'

'And Ethel rushing to Cocksmoor!'

'I can't help it, Tom,' she said, humbly; 'I wish I could.'

'What's this immense pannier you are carrying?'

'It is quite light. It is twelve of the hats for the children tomorrow. Mary was bent on trimming them all as usual, and I was deluded enough to believe she would, till last evening I found just one and a half done! I did as many as I could at night, till papa heard me rustling about and thumped. Those went early this morning; and these are the rest, which I have just finished.'

'Was there no one to send?'

'My dear Tom, is your experience of weddings so slight as to suppose there is an available being in the family the day before?'

'I'm sure I don't desire such experience. Why could not they be content without ferreting me down?'

'I am very glad you have come. It would have been a great mortification if you had stayed away. I never quite believed you would.'

'I had much rather see the operation I shall miss to-morrow morning. I shall go back by the two o'clock train.'

'To study their happiness all the way up to town?'

'Then by the mail—'

'I won't torment you to stay; but I think papa will want a talk with you.'

'The very thing I don't want. Why can't he dispose of his property like other people, and give Richard his rights?'

'You know Richard would only be encumbered.'

'No such thing; Richard is a reasonable being—he will marry some of these days—get the living after Wilmot, and—'

'But you know how papa would be grieved to separate the practice from the house.'

'Because he and his fathers were content to bury themselves in a hole, he expects me to do the same. Why, what should I do? The place is over-doctored already. Every third person is a pet patient sending for him for a gnat-bite, gratis, taking the bread out of Wright's mouth. No wonder Henry Ward kicked! If I came here, I must practise on the lap-dogs! Here's my father, stronger than any of us, with fifteen good years' work in him at the least! He would be wretched at giving up to me a tenth part of his lambs, and that tenth would keep us always in hot water. His old-world practice would not go down with me, and he would think everything murder that was fresher than the year 1830.'

'I thought he was remarkable for having gone on with the world,' said Ethel, repressing some indignation.

'So he has in a way, but always against the grain. He has a tough lot of prejudices; and you may depend upon it, they would be more obstinate against me than any one else, and I should be looked on as an undutiful dog for questioning them, besides getting the whole credit of every case that went wrong.'

'I think you are unjust,' said Ethel, flushing with displeasure.

'I wish I were not, Ethel; but when there is one son in a family who can do nothing that is not taken amiss, it is hard that he should be the one picked out to be pinned down, and, maybe, goaded into doing something to be really sorry for.'

There was truth enough in this to seal Ethel's lips from replying that it was Tom's own fault, since his whole nature and constitution were far more the cause than his conduct, and she answered, 'You might get some appointment for the present, till he really wants you.'

'To be ordered home just as I am making something of it, and see as many cases in ten years as I could in a month in town. Things are altered since his time, if he could only see it. What was the use of giving me a first-rate education, if he meant to stick me down here?'

'At least I hope you will think long before you inflict the cruel disappointment of knowing that not one of his five sons will succeed to the old practice.'

'The throne, you mean, Ethel. Pish!'

The 'Pish' was as injurious to her hereditary love for 'the old practice,' and for the old town, as to her reverence for her father. One angry 'Tom!' burst from her lips, and only the experience that scolding made him worse, restrained her from desiring him to turn back if this was the best he had to say. Indeed she wondered to find him still by her side, holding the gate of the plantation open for her. He peered under her hat as she went through—

'How hot you look!' he said, laying hold of the handles of the basket.

'Thank you; but it is more cumbrous than heavy,' she said, not letting go; 'it is not that—'

An elision which answered better than words, to show that his speech, rather than hill or load, had made her cheeks flame; but he only drew the great basket more decisively from her hand, put his stick into the handle, and threw it over his shoulder; and no doubt it was a much greater act of good-nature from him than it would have been from Richard or Harry.

'This path always reminds me of this very matter,' he said; 'I talked it over with Meta here, on the way to lay the foundation-stone at Cocksmoor, till Norman overtook us and monopolized her for good, poor little thing. She was all in the high romantic strain, making a sort of knight hospitaller of my father. I wonder what she is like by this time, and how much of that she has left.'

'Of the high romantic strain? I should think it was as much as ever the salt of life to her. Her last letter described her contrivances to make a knapsack for Norman on his visitation tour. Oh, fancy old June a venerable archdeacon!'

'You don't think a colonial archdeacon is like one of your great portly swells in a shovel hat.'

'It must be something remarkable that made Norman portly. But as for the shovel hat, Mrs. Meta has insisted on having it sent out. I was going to tell you that she says, "I do like such a good tough bit of stitchery, to fit my knight out for the cause."'

'Marriage and distance have not frozen up her effusions.'

'No; when people carry souls in their pens, they are worth a great deal more, if they are to go to a distance.'

Ah! by the bye, I suppose Cheviot has put a fresh lock on Mary's writing-case.'

'I suspect some of Mary's correspondence will devolve on me. Harry has asked me already.'

'I wished you had mentioned more about the letters of late. Leonard wanted to know more than I could tell him.'

'You don't mean that you have seen him? O, Tom, how kind of you! Papa has been trying hard to get a day now that these first six months are up; but there are two or three cases that wanted so much watching that he has not been able to stir.'

'I know how he lets himself be made a prisoner, and that it was a chance whether any one saw the poor fellow at all.'

'I am so glad'—and Ethel turned on him a face still flushed, but now with gratitude. 'How was he looking?'

'The costume is not becoming, and he has lost colour and grown hollow-eyed; but I saw no reason for being uneasy about him; he looked clear and in health, and has not got to slouch yet. It is shocking to see such a grand face and head behind a grating.'

'Could he talk'?

'Why, the presence of a warder is against conversation, and six months of shoe-making in a cell does not give much range of ideas. There was nothing to be done but to talk on right ahead and judge by his eyes if he liked it.'

'I suppose you could find out nothing about himself?'

'He said he got on very well; but one does not know that means. I asked if he got books; and he said there was a very good library, and he could get what gave him something to think of; and he says they give interesting lectures in school.'

'You could not gather what is thought of him?'

'No; I saw but a couple of officers of the place, and could only get out of them "good health and good conduct." I do not expect even his conduct makes much impression as to his innocence, for I saw it stated the other day that the worst prisoners are those that are always getting convicted for petty offences; those that have committed one great crime are not so depraved, and are much more amenable. However, he has only three months more at Pentonville, and then he will go to Portland, Chatham, or Gibraltar.'

'Oh, I hope it will not be Gibraltar! But at least that terrible solitude will be over.'

'At any rate, his spirit is not broken. I could see his eye light up after I had talked a little while, and he fell into his natural tone again. He would not try to put out his hand to me when he came down; but when I went away, he put it through and we had a good hearty shake. Somehow it made one feel quite small.'

Ethel could have pledged herself for the soundness of Tom's nature after those words; but all she did was in an unwonted tone to utter the unwonted exclamation—'Dear Tom.'

'If my father does not come up, I shall see him once more before he leaves Pentonville,' added Tom; 'and so you must mind and let me know all about his people in America. I found he had no notion of the row that is beginning there, so I said not a word of it. But what is all this about going to Indiana?'

'They are going at the end of April to settle in a place called Massissauga, where Henry is to farm till practice comes to him. It is towards the north of the State, in the county of Pulaski.'

'Ay, in one of the pestilential swamps that run up out of Lake Michigan. All the fertile ground there breeds as many fevers and agues as it does stalks of corn.'

'Indeed! how did you hear that?'

'I looked up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on. Some friend Leonard spoke of—a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to make a prey of them.'

'The father of their young lady friend at the boarding-house.'

'Oh! a Yankee edition of Mrs. Pugh!'

'And the worst of it is that this is to be done with poor Averil's fortune. She has written to Mr. Bramshaw to sell out for her, and send her the amount, and he is terribly vexed; but she is of age, and there are no trustees nor any one to stop it.'

'All of a piece,' muttered Tom; then presently he swung the basket round on the ground with a vehement exclamation—'If any man on this earth deserved to be among the robbers and murderers, I know who it is.' Then he shouldered his load again, and walked on in silence by his sister's side to the school door.

Richard had been obliged to go to a benefit club entertainment; and Ethel, knowing the limited literary resources of the parsonage, was surprised to find Tom still waiting for her, when the distribution and fitting of the blue-ribboned hats was over, and matters arranged for the march of the children to see the wedding, and to dine afterwards at the Grammar-school hall.

'O, Tom, I did not expect to find you here.'

'It is not fit for you to be walking about alone on a Whit Monday.'

'I am very glad to have you, but I am past that.'

'Don't talk nonsense; girls are girls till long past your age,' said Tom.

'It is not so much age, as living past things,' said Ethel.

'It was not only that, added Tom; 'but I've more to say to you, while one can be sure of a quiet moment. Have you heard anything about that place?' and he pointed in the direction of the Vintry Mill.

'I heard something of an intention to part with it, and have been watching for an advertisement; but I can see none in the Courant, or on the walls.'

'Mind he does not slip off unawares.'

'I don't know what to do now that old Hardy is cut off from us. I tried to stir up Dr. Spencer to go and investigate, but I could not tell him why, and he has not the same interest in going questing about as he used to have. People never will do the one thing one wants particularly!'

Tom's look and gesture made her ask if he knew of anything wrong with their old friend; and in return, she was told that Dr. Spencer's recent visit to London had been to consult Sir Matthew Fleet. The foundations of mortal disease had been laid in India, and though it might long remain in abeyance, there were from time to time symptoms of activity; and tedious lingering infirmity was likely to commence long before the end.

'And what do you think the strange old fellow charged me as we walked away from dining at Fleet's?'

'Secrecy, of course,' returned the much-shocked Ethel.

'One does keep a secret by telling you. It was to have my eye on some lodging with a decent landlady, where, when it is coming to that, he can go up to be alone, out of the way of troubling Dick, and of all of you.'

'Tom, how dreadful!'

'I fancy it is something of the animal instinct of creeping away alone, and partly his law to himself not to trouble Dick.'

'An odd idea of what would trouble Dick!'

'So I told him; but he said, after seeing what it cost my father to watch dear Margaret's long decay, he would never entail the like on him. It is queer, and it is beautiful, the tender way he has about my father, treating him like a pet to be shielded and guarded—a man that has five times the force and vigour of body and mind that he has now, whatever they may have been.'

'Very beautiful, and I cannot help telling you how beautiful,' said Ethel, greatly moved; 'only remember, it is not to be mentioned.'

'Ha! did he ever make you an offer? I have sometimes suspected it.'

'No indeed! It was much—much more beautiful than that!'

'Our mother then? I had thought of that too, and it accounts for his having always taken to you the most of us.'

'Why, I'm the least like her of us all!'

'So they say, I know, and I can't recollect enough to judge, except that'—and Tom's voice was less clear for a moment—'there was something in being with her that I've never found again, except now and then with you, Ethel. Well, he never got over it, I suppose.'