Part 21 (1/2)
Nathan bowed, but made no reply.
”To-day,” continued the squire, ”though my visit has to do with the same circ.u.mstances, I should not wish you to think or hope that my views on the former matter have undergone any change.”
”Pardon me,” said Nathan, ”I neither hope so nor think so, and have no wish--indeed I must ask you not to refer to that subject again. My daughter knows her duty as I know mine, and you need be under no apprehension that”----
”Don't be angry, if you please,” said the squire, in a strangely humble and deprecating voice, for Nathan had spoken with some degree of spirit. ”I have no such suspicion. Let me come to the point, Nathan Blyth. My only son is dangerously ill,”--here his voice faltered, and his face a.s.sumed a deathly pallor--”and I have a thousand fears for his life. He has had a malignant attack of brain fever, and though, thanks to the skill of Dr. Jephson, the fever has subsided, it has left him at the very door of death.” Again the agonising truth was too much for the speaker, and he laid his white head in his hands in silent grief.
Nathan's heart was always near his lips; with a swimming in his eyes he said with deep feeling, ”From my heart, I'm sorry.”
”Dr. Jephson,” said the squire, recovering his self-command, ”declares that medical skill is powerless to do more for him, and he commands me to ask that your daughter, who, he says, is the most effective sick-nurse in the district, will come and help to bring him back to life.”
”My daughter, Squire Fuller? You must know that that is impossible.
How can she, how can he, be subjected to a test and trial like this, after all that they have done to show their filial obedience--after all that we have done to keep them apart? It cannot be. Besides, think what would be said by those who are only too ready to impute motives and suspect evil. The fair fame of my girl is dearer to me than life.
Mr. Fuller, n.o.body esteems Master Philip more than I; n.o.body can pray for his recovery more earnestly than will I. But the thing you ask is quite impossible, and can't be done.”
”I know it all, Nathan Blyth. I feel the force of all that you have said. On the other hand, my boy is dying. Like a drowning man I am catching at a straw; and I beseech you, I who never asked a favour of a living man, I beseech you do not deny me my request. If you can trust your daughter, I can trust my son, and as for the gossip of little minds, that will die away as soon as it is born. Nathan Blyth, for the sake of a life more precious than my own, grant me my request.”
Nathan Blyth was in a quandary, he was grievously perplexed, and could not see his way out of the difficulty. Then the thought suddenly struck him that, after all, this was a case in which Lucy herself ought to be consulted.
”If you will excuse me a few moments,” said he, ”I will consult my daughter.”
”Let me see her, Nathan Blyth!” said the squire, eagerly, and stretching out his hands in strong entreaty.
Nathan went and told Lucy all that had transpired, and if that honest man had nursed the delusion that his darling had succeeded in, even partially, dislodging Philip Fuller from her heart, the pitiful yearning, the longing look that flashed from her bright hazel eye, the blood-forsaken cheek and lip, as he told of her lover's danger, drove the fond delusion away for ever.
”The squire asks to see you, Lucy. But you can decline it, if you like, my darling.”
Lucy thought for a moment, and then, with a woman's quick intuition as to what is best, said, ”I'll see him.”
Casting aside her ap.r.o.n, in which she had been attending to household duties and standing a little--was there ever a woman that did not?--before the kitchen looking-gla.s.s to a.s.sure herself that she was not a perfect fright, Lucy entered the parlour, and for the first time Squire Fuller saw the fairy who had so bewitched his son that the effect of her glamour was his only hope of life. He rose to his feet, stepped back a pace or two, and bowed as respectfully as he had ever done in royal drawing-room to lady of high degree. Habited in a light morning dress of printed calico, with collar and cuffs of purest white, and a small crimson bow beneath her throat, her piquant beauty and grace were quite sufficient to excuse either Philip Fuller, or anybody else, for plunging head over ears in love so deeply that emerging again was an impossibility.
”Good-morning, Miss Blyth,” said the squire. ”Your father has informed you of my errand.”
”Is Master Philip _very_ ill, sir?” and tone and eye and cheek betrayed how much the question meant.
”Unto death, I fear!” The words were a wail. The proud lips quivered, and a couple of tears forced their way, in spite of him, and both Nathan Blyth and his daughter saw something of the all-absorbing love he bore for his only son.
”Did he--does he know that you have come?”
”He knows nothing of it, and scarce of any other thing,” said the troubled father. ”He lies almost unconscious, and as though he had already done with time. Dr. Jephson says there is but one hope. My dear young lady, his father asks you with a breaking heart, 'Come and help to save my boy!'”
A consent was about to leap from her sympathetic heart, but still, mindful of honour, truth and duty to the last, she only said, ”Send Dr. Jephson here.”
Both the squire and her father read decision in her face; the former bowed and took his departure. He owned to himself that he had been in presence of a grace and beauty such as he had never seen since those days long gone by, when his own first and only love, to whom he saw a strong resemblance in the radiant form before him, was yet untorn from his young heart by the unpitying hand of Death.
In a little while, for there was no time to be lost, Dr. Jephson drove up to the Forge in a little low phaeton belonging to the Hall, and in which, with his usual prompt.i.tude and energy, he intended to spirit off Lucy, bag and baggage, to the side of the helpless invalid who lay in the last degree of weakness, moaning out the name of Lucy so constantly that all could see how strong a hold she had upon his life and love.
”Well, Miss Lucy,” said the genial doctor, ”are you ready? My horse will not stand long, and,” said he, with great seriousness, ”every hour is a dead loss to us in a hand-to-hand fight between life and death.”
Lucy was about to repeat the self-evident objections before mentioned, but the doctor interposed,--