Ethel Churchill/Chapter 71
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A REQUEST REFUSED.
Age is a dreary thing when left alone:
It needs the sunshine brought by fresher years;
It lives its youth again while seeing youth,
And childhood brings its childhood back again.
But for the lonely and the aged man
Left to the silent hearth, the vacant home
Where no sweet voices sound, no light steps come
Disturbing memory from its heaviness—
Wo for such lot! 'tis life's most desolate!
Age needeth love and youth to cheer the path—
The short dark pathway leading to the tomb.
"Is Lord Marchmont not yet come in?" asked the countess, with a degree of impatience which her husband's return was not commonly in the habit of calling forth.
"No, my lady," replied the servant.
"You will let me know the moment he comes in."
"Yes, my lady;" and he disappeared.
"How I do hate," exclaimed Henrietta, "those mechanical 'yeses' and 'noes!' I wish every body else was as impatient as myself. Though, perhaps," added she, half-smiling, "it is as well that they are not."
A few hasty turns up and down the luxurious room, and she resumed her seat, and began again to read the letter, which lay open on a table beside. It was from Sir Jasper; and, for the first time, he asked her to come and see him. The letter was written with cheerful words; but, to the quick eye of affection, there lacked the cheerful spirit.
"It is selfish," wrote her uncle, "to ask you to leave all your gaiety, all your triumphs, to share an old man's solitude; but I wish it very much: and my dear child must, indeed, be changed, if it be not a pleasure to gratify that wish. Summer is now in great beauty, but I cannot enjoy our green walks without a companion; and I want you to see how all your favourite flowers have prospered under my care. You must come and be grateful. Ethel Churchill—it was very kind of her to write to me—says, that I shall find you equally altered and improved; so you see, dear Henrietta, I need to refresh my memory even of you. Come you must,—or, rather, you will; for I have already made all kinds of preparations for your arrival."
"Why," exclaimed Henrietta, "have I left it to him to ask me? why have I not proposed going to him? why have I allowed Lord Marchmont's trivial excuses for delay, to postpone a visit which would have made my uncle so happy? But I will go at once."
Again she began to read her letter, when, suddenly letting it fall, she turned pale. A terrible fear had entered into her mind: the handwriting was certainly more tremulous than usual. He was ill, and would not tell her so. At once her imagination conjured up a thousand shapes of suffering. She saw her uncle—sick, lonely, and pining for his child. She could not bear the picture; and, covering her face with her hands, as if to exclude it, began to weep bitterly.
At this moment Lord Marchmont entered the room in a very bad humour; for one of the servants, sent by Lady Marchmont to seek him, had, by giving his message aloud, that Lady Marchmont requested him to come home immediately, as she wanted to speak to him on a matter of the utmost consequence, placed him under the decent and disagreeable necessity of returning at once, before a bet was decided, whether his own cook, or that of Lord Montagle's, would prepare a single dish to the greatest perfection. The jury of taste had been impanelled, and here was he summoned away ten minutes before the dishes came up. It was a trying circumstance, if not to his philosophy, to his temper.
"What is the matter?" asked he, on entering the drawing-room, and finding Henrietta sobbing; "what can induce you to disfigure yourself so by crying?"
"My uncle is ill, very ill!" exclaimed Henrietta, speaking, however, more from the fears of her excited fancy than from the actual contents of the letter.
"Sir Jasper ill!" replied Lord Marchmont, with the most decorous expression of distress; "I am grieved to hear of it. When did you receive the truly painful intelligence?"
"Oh, may I not go to him at once?"cried Henrietta, alive to nothing but her own alarm.
"I should, of course, however ill-timed and inconvenient to myself, wish you to do what was most proper on the occasion. But you know," continued he, "that you are apt to exaggerate: perhaps you will allow me again to repeat my question of, When did you receive the information of Sir Jasper's alarming illness?"
"Read his letter," exclaimed the countess, wringing her hands impatiently.
Lord Marchmont deliberately took up the epistle, first smoothing, with great care, a crease that had been made by folding it up in a different form to the original one. Twice, then, he changed its position, till the light fell upon it exactly as he liked; while Lady Marchmont watched him in a perfect fever of anxiety.
"There is nothing relative to indisposition in the first page," said he, after taking time enough, as his wife thought, to have read twenty letters. "But Sir Jasper has a great talent for epistolary correspondence—to be sure he has nothing else to do; but my time is of great importance. Perhaps your ladyship will have the kindness to point out the passage referring to his illness."
"Read the end," said Henrietta, more feverish, and more irritable every moment.
Lord Marchmont slowly turned over the pages, smoothing them as he went along. "I cannot say much for your ladyship's care of Sir Jasper's letters."
"Never mind; only, do read it," interrupted the countess.
Again his lordship began his long and deliberate perusal, while Henrietta watched the slow motion of his eyes with a degree of impetuosity she could scarcely repress.
"Why, surely," cried she, "you are not going to read it again!"
"Indeed, I need to do so; for I cannot find that Sir Jasper makes the slightest allusion to his illness."
"He is too kind, too good!" exclaimed Lady Marchmont: "I know he would not alarm me for the world; but I see it in his unsteady writing."
"Sir Jasper is advanced in life, you could not expect his hand to be as steady as mine," returned her husband, very calmly.
"But his anxiety to see me," interrupted Henrietta.
"Is exceedingly natural. There never was any thing so dull as Meredith Place. I shall never forget the few weeks that I spent there."
"It was our honeymoon," thought his beautiful wife to herself; but she said nothing.
"I really must, once for all" added Lord Marchmont, in an unusually solemn tone, "request that your ladyship will not give way to these whims and caprices. Nothing could be more inconvenient than the way in which you sent for me this morning. You never consider what you interrupt: and, after all, Sir Jasper's illness exists only in your own fancy."
"Well, well," returned Lady Marchmont, whose patience was fairly exhausted, "at least you will allow me to judge for myself. I purpose leaving London to-night."
"Leaving London to-night!" ejaculated her husband—are you mad? Why, we dine at the prince's to-day."
"What do I care for the prince?" cried Henrietta: "I must and will go to my uncle."
"Must and will, Lady Marchmont, are words which my own proper sense of my authority cannot permit you to use. I beg to state, definitely, that I cannot permit you to leave London at present. It is very obvious how much his royal highness admires you; and court favour is too fleeting not to be made the most of while it lasts."
"But think how anxious my poor uncle is to see me!" said Henrietta, in a most pleading tone.
"It is fortunate that you have a calmer judgment to direct you than your own!" replied Lord Marchmont. "I have an idea"
"Have you really?" thought Henrietta; "take care of it, for it is your first!"
"Instead of going to see Sir Jasper, let us ask him to come and see us: of course, the invitation ought to be from the master of the house; I shall, therefore, write to him myself."
"My uncle will never leave home," cried Henrietta.
"I am sure," returned Lord Marchmont, "there is nothing so very delightful in Meredith Place, that I remember, to induce its master always to stay there; so let me beg you to compose yourself. No woman who has the least respect for herself should ever cry, it is peculiarly unbecoming; and now I have the honour to wish you a good morning. Have you any commands when I write to your uncle?"
"None!" replied Henrietta: and, as the door closed, she flung herself back among the cushions, exclaiming, "Oh, that I had never married!"