Had grief come to be forgotten and cast aside without effecting any mission? Yet Ethel could not believe that the presence of the awful messenger was unfelt, when she heard poor George's heavy sigh, or when she looked at Flora's countenance, and heard the peculiar low, subdued tone of her voice, which, when her words were most cheerful, always seemed to Ethel the resigned accent of despair.
Ethel could not talk her over with Margaret, for all seemed to make it a point that Margaret should believe the best. Dr. May turned from the subject with a sort of shuddering grief, and said, "Don't talk of her, poor child--only pray for her!"
Ethel, though shocked by the unwonted manner of his answer, was somewhat consoled by perceiving that a double measure of tenderness had sprung up between her father and his poor daughter. If Flora had seemed, in her girlhood, to rate him almost cheaply, this was at an end now; she met him as if his embrace were peace, the gloom was lightened, the attention less strained, when he was beside her, and she could not part with him without pressing for a speedy meeting. Yet she treated him with the same reserve; since that one ghastly revelation of the secrets of her heart, the veil had been closely drawn, and he could not guess whether it had been but a horrible thought, or were still an abiding impression. Ethel could gather no more than that her father was very unhappy about Flora, and that Richard understood why; for Richard had told her that he had written to Flora, to try to persuade her to cease from this reserve, but that he had no reply.
Norman was not at home; he had undertaken the tutorship of two schoolboys for the holidays; and his father owned, with a sigh, that he was doing wisely.
As to Meta, she was Ethel's chief consolation, by the redoubled assurances, directed to Ethel's unexpressed dread, lest Flora should be rejecting the chastening Hand. Meta had the most absolute certainty that Flora's apparent cheerfulness was all for George's sake, and that it was a most painful exertion. "If Ethel could only see how she let herself sink together, as it were, and her whole countenance relax, as soon as he was out of sight," Meta said, "she could not doubt what misery these efforts were to her."
"Why does she go on with them? " said Ethel.
"George," said Meta. "What would become of him without her? If he misses her for ten minutes he roams about lost, and he cannot enjoy anything without her. I cannot think how he can help seeing what hard work it is, and how he can be contented with those dreadful sham smiles; but as long as she can give him pleasure, poor Flora will toil for him."
"It is very selfish," Ethel caught herself saying.
"No, no, it is not," cried Meta. "It is not that he will not see, but that he cannot see. Good honest fellow, he really thinks it does her good and pleases her. I was so sorry one evening when I tried to take her place at that perpetual ecarte, and told him it teased her; he went so wistfully to her, and asked whether it did, and she exerted herself into such painful enjoyment to persuade him to the contrary; and afterwards she said to me, 'Let me alone, dearest--it is the only thing left me.'"
"There is something in being husband and wife that one cannot understand," slowly said Ethel, so much in her quaint way that Meta laughed.
Had it not been for Norman's absence, Ethel would, in the warm sympathy and accustomed manner of Meta Rivers, have forgotten all about the hopes and fears that, in brighter days, had centred on that small personage; until one day, as she came home from Cocksmoor, she found "Sir Henry Walkinghame's" card on the drawing-room table. "I should like to bite you! Coming here, are you?" was her amiable reflection.
Meta, in her riding-habit, peeped out of Margaret's room. "Oh, Ethel, there you are! It is such a boon that you did not come home sooner, or we should have had to ride home with him! I heard him asking for the Miss Mays! And now I am in hopes that he will go home without falling in with Flora and George."
"I did not know he was in these parts."
"He came to Drydale last week, but the place is forlorn, and George gave him a general invitation to the Grange."
"Do you like him?" said Ethel, while Margaret looked on, amazed at her audacity.
"I liked him very much in London," said Meta; "he is pleasant enough to talk to, but somehow, he is not congruous here--if you understand me. And I think his coming oppresses Flora--she turned quite pale when he was announced, and her voice was lower than ever when she spoke to him."
"Does he come often?" said Ethel.
"I don't think he has anything else to do," returned Meta, "for our house cannot be as pleasant as it was; but he is very kind to George, and for that we must be grateful. One thing I am afraid of, that he will persuade us off to the yachting after all."
"Oh!" was the general exclamation.
"Yes," said Meta. "George seemed to like the plan, and I very much fear that he is taking a dislike to the dear old Grange. I heard him say, 'Anything to get away.'"
"Poor George, I know he is restless," said Margaret.
"At least," said Ethel, "you can't go till after your birthday, Miss Heiress."
"No, Uncle Cosham is coming," said Meta. "Margaret, you must have your stone laid before we go!"
"Dr. Spencer promises it before Hector's holidays are over," said Margaret, blushing, as she always did, with pleasure, when they talked of the church.
Hector Ernescliffe had revived Margaret wonderfully. She was seldom downstairs before the evening, and Ethel thought his habit of making her apartment his sitting-room must be as inconvenient to her as it was to herself; but Hector could not be de trop for Margaret. She exerted herself to fulfil for him all the little sisterly offices that, with her brothers, had been transferred to Ethel and Mary; she threw herself into all his schemes, tried to make him endure Captain Gordon, and she even read his favourite book of Wild Sports, though her feelings were constantly lacerated by the miseries of the slaughtered animals. Her couch was to him as a home, and he had awakened her bright soft liveliness which had been only dimmed for a time.
The church was her other great interest, and Dr. Spencer humoured her by showing her all his drawings, consulting her on every ornament, and making many a perspective elevation, merely that she might see the effect.
Richard and Tom made it their recreation to construct a model of the church as a present for her, and Tom developed a genius for carving, which proved a beneficial interest to keep him from surliness. He had voluntarily propounded his intended profession to his father, who had been so much pleased by his choice, that he could not but be gratified; though now and then ambitious fancies, and discontent with Stoneborough, combined to bring on his ordinary moody fits, the more, because his habitual reserve prevented any one from knowing what was working in his mind.
Finally the Rivers' party announced their intention of going to the Isle of Wight as soon as Meta had come of age; and the council of Cocksmoor, meeting at tea at Dr. May's house, decided that the foundation stone of the church should be laid on the day after her birthday, when there would be a gathering of the whole family, as Margaret wished. Dr. Spencer had worked incredibly hard to bring it forward, and Margaret's sweet smiles, and liquid eyes, expressed how personally thankful she felt.
"What a blessing this church has been to that poor girl," said Dr. Spencer, as he left the house with Mr. Wilmot. "How it beguiles her out of her grief! I am glad she has the pleasure of the foundation; I doubt if she will see the consecration."
"Indeed!" said Mr. Wilmot, shocked. "Was that attack so serious?"
"That recumbent position and want of exercise were certain to produce organic disease, and suspense and sorrow have hastened it. The death of Mrs. Rivers's poor child was the blow that called it into activity, and, if it last more than a year, I shall be surprised."