Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/420

412 shrugging her shoulders with a despairing gesture. “Are we to tell her?”

“Not yet,” Richard answered. “Keep her quiet; keep her as quiet as you can. And if it is positively necessary to tell her anything, say that her father has been taken ill, away from home, and cannot be brought back yet. Poor child! it seems so cruel to keep her in suspense, and still more cruel to deceive her.”

The butcher’s wife promised to do all in her power to keep her patient quiet. The doctor had sent an opiate. Miss Vane could not sleep too much, he said.

So another night passed, this time very peacefully for Eleanor, who lay in a heavy slumber broken by no cruel dreams. She was very, very weak the next day, for she had scarcely eaten anything since the roll and coffee which Richard had made her take; and though she was not exactly delirious, her mind seemed almost incapable of receiving any very vivid impression. She listened quietly when they told her that her father could not come home because he was ill.

Richard Thornton came to the Rue de l’Archevêque several times during this second day of Eleanor’s illness, but he only stayed a few minutes upon each occasion. He had a great deal to do, he told the butcher’s wife, who still kept faithfully to her post in the sick room, only stealing away now and then, while Eleanor was asleep, to attend to her business.

It was past eleven o’clock that night when the scene-painter came for the last time. Eleanor had grown worse as the evening advanced, and was by this time terribly feverish and restless. She wanted to get up and dress herself, and go to her father. If he was ill, how could they keep her from him, how could they be so cruel as to keep her from his side?

Then, starting up suddenly from her pillow, she would cry out wildly that they were deceiving her, and that her father was dead.

But help and comfort was near at hand. When Richard came, he did not come alone. He brought a lady with him; an elderly, grey-headed woman, dressed in shabby black.

When this lady appeared upon the threshold of the dimly-lighted little bedchamber, Eleanor Vane suddenly sprang up in bed, and threw out her arms with a wild cry of surprise and delight.

“The Signora!” she exclaimed, “the dear, kind Signora!”

The lady took off her bonnet, and then went close up to the bed, and seating herself on the edge of the mattress, drew Eleanor’s fair head upon her bosom, smoothing the tangled golden hair with unspeakable tenderness.

“My poor child!” she murmured again and again. “My poor, poor child!”

“But, dear Signora,” Eleanor cried, wonderingly, “how is it that you are here? Why didn’t Richard tell me that you were in Paris?”

“Because I have only just arrived, my darling.”

“Only just arrived! Only just arrived in Paris! But why did you come?”

“I came to see you, Eleanor,” the Signora answered, very gently. “I heard that you were in trouble, my dear, and I have come to you, to help and comfort you, if I can.”

The butcher’s wife had withdrawn into the little sitting-room where Richard sat in the darkness. Eleanor Vane and the Signora were therefore quite alone.

Hitherto the invalid’s head had rested very quietly upon her friend’s bosom, but now she lifted it suddenly and looked full in the Signora’s face.

“You came to me because I was in trouble,” she said. “How should I be in trouble so long as my father lives? What sorrow can come to me while he is safe? He is ill, they say, but he will get better; he will get better, won’t he? He will be better soon, dear Signora; he will be better soon?”

She waited for an answer to her breathless questioning, looking intently in the pale quiet face of her friend; then suddenly, with a low, wailing cry, she flung up her hands and clasped them wildly above her head.

“You have all deceived me,” she cried, “you have all deceived me: my father is dead!”

The Signora drew her arm caressingly round Eleanor Vane, and tried to shelter the poor burning head once more upon her shoulder; but Eleanor shrank from her with an impatient gesture, and, with her hands still clasped above her head, stared blankly at the dead wall before her.

“My dear, my dear,” the Signora said, trying to unclasp the rigid hands which were so convulsively clasped together. “Eleanor, my dear, listen to me; for pity’s sake try and listen to me, my own dear love. You must know, you must have long known, my dear, that heavy sorrows come to us all, sooner or later. It is the common lot, my love, and we must all bow before the Divine hand that afflicts us. If there were no sorrow in this world, Eleanor, we should grow too much in love with our own happiness; we should be frightened at the approach of grey hairs and old age; we should tremble at the thought of death. If there were no better and higher life than this, Eleanor, sorrow and death would indeed be terrible. You know how very much affliction has fallen to my share, dear. You have heard me speak of the children I loved; all taken from me, Nelly, all taken away. If it were not for my dear nephew, Richard, I should stand quite alone in the world, a desolate old woman, with no hope on this side of the grave. But when my sons were taken from me, God raised me up another son in him. Do you think that God ever abandons us, Eleanor, even when He afflicts us most heavily? I have lived a long life, my dear, and I tell you no!”

The Signora waited in vain for some change in the rigid attitude, the stony face. Eleanor Vane still stared blankly at the dead wall before her.

“You have all deceived me,” she repeated; “my father is dead!”

It was useless talking to her; the tenderest words were dull and meaningless jargon to her ears. That night the fever grew worse, and the delirium was at its height. The butcher’s wife was relieved by a very patient and accustomed