"He knew it was your duty," said Anne. "We all were thankful you were kept from infection, and he said many little things, but the chief was that he trusted you too much to leave any special messages. Hark! that must be Mr. Charnock, Cecil's father! I must go and receive him. Stay back, Miles, you can't now-you know my room-"
He signed acquiescence, but lingered in the dark to look down and see how, though Rosamond had waited to spare them this reception, his wife's tall graceful figure came forward, and her kindly comforting gestures, as the two sisters-in-law took the newcomer into the drawing-room, and in another minute Anne flitted up to him again. "That good Rosamond is seeing to Mr. Charnock," she said; "will you come, Miles? I think it will do your mother good; only quietly, for Frank knows nothing."
Mrs. Poynsett still sat by Frank. To Miles's eyes he was a fearful spectacle, but to Anne there was hourly progress; the sunken dejected look was gone, and though there was exhaustion, there was rest; but he was neither sleeping nor waking, and showed no heed when his brother dropped on one knee by his mother's side, put an arm round her waist, and after one fervent kiss laid his black head on her lap, hiding his face there while she fondled his hair, and said, "Frank, Frankie dear, here's Miles come home." He did not seem to hear, only his lips murmured something like 'Anne,' and the tender hand and ready touch of his unwearied nurse at once fulfilled his need, while his mother whispered, "Miles, she is our blessing!"
Poor Miles! Never had sailor a stranger, though some may have had an even sadder, return. He had indeed found his wife, but hers was the only hand that could make Frank swallow the sustenance that he needed every half-hour, or who knew how to relieve him. Indeed, even the being together in the sick-room was not long possible, for Anne was called to the door. Mr. Charnock was asking to see Mrs. Poynsett. Would Mrs. Miles come and speak to him?
Mr. Charnock was a small and restless man with white hair, little black eyes, looking keener than they were, and a face which had evidently been the mould of Cecil's. He was very kind, with a full persuasion that the consolations of his august self must be infallible; but this was coupled with an inclination to reprove everybody for the fate that had left his cherished darling a childless widow at two-and-twenty. To take him to Frank's room was impossible, and he had to be roundly told so. Neither had he seen his daughter. She was very weak, but recovering, and Grindstone, whom he had seen and talked with, was as strenuous in deprecating any excitement as he was nervous about it. So he could only be disposed of in his room till dinner-time, when he came down prepared to comfort the family, but fulfilled his mission rather by doing such good as a blister, which lessens the force of the malady by counter-irritation.
Julius came up to be with Miles, and to help them through the dinner, the first which had been laid for many a long day. His enquiry for Cecil was answered: "She is progressing as favourably as there can be reason to expect, but I have not seen her. I follow the judgment of her faithful Grindstone."
"Then she still knows nothing-"
"Of her bereavement? No. Her state does not yet warrant it. In fact, I almost wish I had obeyed my original impulse, and brought down Venn to make the melancholy communication."
To every one's surprise Anne bristled up, saying, "Why, here is Julius, Mr. Charnock!"
Mr. Charnock bowed: "I understand that my Cousin Julius has been engrossed by his wife's family and by the adjoining parish, the care of which he has assumed."
Anne fairly coloured up, and exclaimed, "Julius has been our main-stay and help in everything-I can't think how he has done it. He has been here whenever we needed him, as well as at Wil'sbro', where people have been dying everywhere, the poor Vicar and all-"
"Far be it from me to discourage philanthropy," said Mr. Charnock, "only I would have it within due bounds. I am an old-fashioned squire, of a school, it may be, antiquated, an advocate of the parochial system; and I cannot help thinking that if this had been closely adhered to by hot-headed young clergymen, my poor child might not have been a childless widow at two-and-twenty."
Julius was too much tired and too sad-hearted to heed greatly what Mr. Charnock said. It was so strange to have Miles in sight, yet to feel so unable to be glad, that he scarcely heard anything. But Anne again took up the cudgels: "Mr. Charnock, you don't suppose that it was anything Julius did that brought this fever here. It was going to the town-hall among the drains."
"My dear Mrs. Miles Charnock, I am sure your husband will agree with me that sanitary arrangements and all connected with them are beyond the range of ladies, who are happily exempted from all knowledge of the subject."
Anne could not say aloud that she wished Cecil had held this opinion, but she subsided, while Mr. Charnock prosed on, asking questions about the arrangements, and seeming shocked to hear that the funeral must be early the next day, this being one of the prime injunctions of the doctors, and that the one had been asked to attend it. It made him sigh again for his poor daughter, as he handed Anne in to dinner. She did not stay half through it, for it was again the time for feeding Frank. Miles went half way up-stairs with her and returned, looking very wistful. Julius smiled at him, "Your wife is too valuable, Miles; she is every one's property."
"It must be very gratifying to you," added Mr. Charnock, "to find how example and superior society have developed the native qualities your discernment detected in the charming young lady who has just quitted us. It was a most commendable arrangement to send her to enjoy the advantages of this place."
"I sent her to be a comfort to my mother," said Miles, bluntly.
"And so she has been," said Julius, fervently, but sotto voce.
"I understand," said Mr. Charnock; "and as I was saying, my dear Cecil expressed from the first her desire to assist in forming her stranger sister-in-law, and I am happy to see the excellent effect. I should scarcely have guessed that she came from a colony."
"Indeed," Miles answered dryly.
Mr. Charnock might have it his own way, if he liked to think Anne had been a Hottentot till Cecil reclaimed her.
The two brothers did feel something like joy when a message at last informed Mr. Charnock that his daughter was awake and he might see her. They drew nearer together, and leant against one another, with absolute joy in the contact. They were singularly alike in outline, voice, and manner, in everything but colouring, and had always been one in spirit, except for the strong passion for adventure which had taken Miles to sea, to find he had chosen his profession too young to count the cost, and he held to it rather by duty than taste. Slight as had been his seniority, poor Raymond had always been on a sort of paternal pinnacle, sharing the administration with his mother, while Miles and Julius had paired on an equality.
"Poor mother!" sighed Miles. "How is she to live without him? Julius, did he leave any word for me with you?"
"Above all, that Anne is the daughter for my mother, and so she is."
"What, when this poor wife of Raymond's was said to be the superior creature?"
"You see her adoring father," said Julius. "My Rose has necessarily her own cares, but Anne has been my mother's silent aid and stay for months, and what she has been in the present need no words can say. My mother has had no power to take the direction of anything, her whole being has been absorbed, first in Raymond, now in Frank; and not only has Anne been Frank's constant nurse through these five weeks of the most frightful fever and delirium I have seen at all here, but she has had thought for all, and managed all the house and servants. We could do comparatively little, with Rose's brother ill at home, and the baby so young; besides, there have been eleven cases in the parish; and there was Wil'sbro'-but Anne has been the angel in the house."
"I knew-I knew she would be everything when once the first strangeness was over; but, poor girl, her heart is in Africa, and it has been all exile here; I could see it in every letter, though she tried to make the best of it. If there had but been a child here!"