The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations. Yonge Charlotte Mary
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Richard!”
“Then see, you can raise it up for reading or writing; here’s a corner for your ink to stand flat; and there it is down for your dinner.”
“Charming, you have made it go so easily, when it used to be so stiff. There—give me my work-basket, please, Ethel; I mean to make some more white puffs.”
“What’s the matter now, Ethel?” said Flora; “you look as if you did not approve of the table.”
“I was only thinking it was as if she was settling herself to lie in bed for a very long time,” said Ethel.
“I hope not,” said Richard; “but I don’t see why she should not be as comfortable as she can, while she is there.”
“I am sure I hope you will never be ill, Ethel,” said Flora. “You would be horrid to nurse!”
“She will know how to be grateful when she is,” said Margaret.
“I say, Richard,” exclaimed Ethel, “this is hospital-meeting day, so you won’t be wanted to drive papa.”
“No, I am at your service; do you want a walk?”
So it was determined that Richard and Ethel should walk together to Cocksmoor.
No two people could be much more unlike than Richard and Etheldred May; but they were very fond of each other. Richard was sometimes seriously annoyed by Ethel’s heedlessness, and did not always understand her sublimities, but he had a great deal of admiration for one who partook so much of his father’s nature; and Ethel had a due respect for her eldest brother, gratitude and strong affection for many kindnesses, a reverence for his sterling goodness, and his exemption from her own besetting failings, only a little damped by compassionate wonder at his deficiency in talent, and by her vexation at not being always comprehended.
They went by the road, for the plantation gate was far too serious an undertaking for any one not in the highest spirits for enterprise. On the way there was a good deal of that desultory talk, very sociable and interesting, that is apt to prevail between two people, who would never have chosen each other for companions, if they were not of the same family, but who are nevertheless very affectionate and companionable. Ethel was anxious to hear what her brother thought of papa’s spirits, and whether he talked in their drives.
“Sometimes,” said Richard. “It is just as it happens. Now and then he goes on just like himself, and then at other times he will not speak for three or four miles.”
“And he sighs?” said Ethel. “Those sighs are so very sad, and long, and deep! They seem to have whole volumes in them, as if there was such a weight on him.”
“Some people say he is not as much altered as they expected,” said Richard.
“Oh! do they? Well! I can’t fancy any one feeling it more. He can’t leave off his old self, of course, but—” Ethel stopped short.
“Margaret is a great comfort to him,” said Richard.
“That she is. She thinks of him all day long, and I don’t think either of them is ever so happy as in the evening, when he sits with her. They talk about mamma then—”
It was just what Richard could not do, and he made some observation to change the subject, but Ethel returned to it, so far as to beg to know how the arm was going on, for she did not like to say anything about it to papa.
“It will be a long business, I am afraid,” said Richard. “Indeed, he said the other day, he thought he should never have the free use of the elbow.”
“And do you think it is very painful? I saw the other day, when Aubrey was sitting on his knee and fidgeting, he shrank whenever he even came towards it, and yet it seemed as if he could not bear to put him down.”
“Yes it is excessively tender, and sometimes gets very bad at night.”
“Ah,” said Ethel; “there’s a line—here—round his eyes, that there never used to be, and when it deepens, I am sure he is in pain, or has been kept awake.”
“You are very odd, Ethel; how do you see things in people’s faces, when you miss so much at just the same distance?”
“I look after what I care about,” said Ethel. “One sees more with one’s mind than one’s eyes. The best sight is inside.”
“But do you always see the truth?” said Richard gravely.
“Quite enough. What is less common than the ordinary world?” said Ethel.
Richard shook his head, not quite satisfied, but not sure enough that he entered into her meaning to question it.
“I wonder you don’t wear spectacles,” was the result of his meditation, and it made her laugh by being so inapposite to her own reflections: but the laugh ended in a melancholy look. “Dear mamma did not like me to use them,” she said, in a low voice.
Thus they talked till they arrived at Cocksmoor, where poor Mrs. Taylor, inspirited by better reports of her husband and the hopes for her daughter, was like another woman. Richard was very careful not to raise false expectations, saying it all depended on Miss May and nurse, and what they thought of her strength and steadiness, but these cautions did not seem capable of damping the hopes of the smooth-haired Lucy, who stood smiling and curtseying. The twins were grown and improved, and Ethel supposed they would be brought to church on the next christening Sunday, but their mother looked helpless and hopeless about getting them so far, and how was she to get gossips? Ethel began to grow very indignant, but she was always shy of finding fault with poor people to their faces when she would not have done so to persons in her own station, and so she was silent, while Richard hoped they would be able to manage, and said it would be better not to wait another month for still worse weather and shorter days.
As they were coming out of the house, a big, rough-looking, uncivilised boy came up before them, and called out, “I say—ben’t you the young doctor up at Stoneborough?”
“I am Dr. May’s son,” said Richard; while Ethel, startled, clung to his arm, in dread of some rudeness.
“Granny’s bad,” said the boy; proceeding without further explanation to lead the way to another hovel, though Richard tried to explain that the knowledge of medicine was not in his case hereditary. A poor old woman sat groaning over the fire, and two children crouched, half-clothed, on the bare floor.
Richard’s gentle voice and kind manner drew forth some wonderful descriptions—“her head was all of a goggle, her legs all of a fur, she felt as if some one was cutting right through her.”
“Well,” said Richard kindly, “I am no doctor myself, but I’ll ask my father about you, and perhaps he can give you an order for the hospital.”
“No, no, thank ye, sir; I can’t go to the hospital, I can’t leave these poor children; they’ve no father nor mother, sir, and no one to do for them but me.”
“What do you live on, then?” said Richard, looking round the desolate hut.
“On Sam’s wages, sir; that’s that boy. He is a good boy to me, sir, and his little sisters; he brings it, all he gets, home to me, rig’lar, but ‘tis but six shillings a week, and they makes ‘em take half of it out in goods and beer, which is a bad thing for a boy like him, sir.”
“How old are you, Sam?”
Sam scratched his head, and answered nothing. His grandmother knew he was the age of her black bonnet, and as he looked about fifteen, Ethel honoured him and the bonnet accordingly, while Richard said he must be very glad to be able to maintain them all, at his age, and, promising to try to bring his father that way, since prescribing at second hand for such curious symptoms was more than could be expected, he took his leave.
“A wretched place,” said Richard, looking round. “I don’t know what help there is for the people. There’s no one to do any thing for them, and it is of no use to tell them to come to church when it it so far off, and there is so little room for them.”
“It is miserable,” said Ethel; and all