Part 93 (2/2)

'Oh I am so glad! I wonder how Charlie gets on without her.'

'It is a great comfort,' said Guy.

'Now you will see what a nurse mamma is!'

'Now you will be properly cared for.'

'How nice it will be! She will take care of you all night, and never be tired, and devise everything I am too stupid for, and make you so comfortable!'

'Nay, no one could do that better than you, Amy. But it is joy indeed--to see mamma again--to know you are safe with her. Everything comes to make it easy!' The last words were spoken very low; and she did not disturb him by saying anything till he asked about the rest of the letter, and desired her to read Markham's to him.

This cost her some pain, for it had been written in ignorance of even Philip's illness, and detailed triumphantly the preparations at Redclyffe, hinting that they must send timely notice of their return, or they would disappoint the tenantry, who intended grand doings, and concluding with a short lecture on the inexpediency of lingering in foreign parts.

'Poor Markham,' said Guy.

She understood; but these things did not come on her like a shock now, for he had been saying them more or less ever since the beginning of his illness; and fully occupied as she was, she never opened her mind to the future. After a long silence, Guy said--

'I am very sorry for him. I have been making Arnaud write to him for me.'

'Oh, have you?'

'It was better for you not to do it, Arnaud has written for me at night.

You will send it, Amy, and another to my poor uncle.'

'Very well,' said she, as he looked at her.

'I have told Markham,' said he presently, 'to send you my desk. There are all sorts of things in it, just as I threw them in when I cleared out my rooms at Oxford. I had rather n.o.body but you saw some of them.

There is nothing of any importance, so you may look at them when you please, or not at all.'

She gazed at him without answering. If there had been any struggle to retain him, it would have been repressed by his calmness; but the thought had not come on her suddenly, it was more like an inevitable fate seen at first at a distance, and gradually advancing upon her. She had never fastened on the hope of his recovery, and it had dwindled in an almost imperceptible manner. She kept watch over him, and followed his thoughts, without stretching her mind to suppose herself living without him; and was supported by the forgetfulness of self, which gave her no time to realize her feelings.

'I should like to have seen Redclyffe bay again,' said Guy, after a s.p.a.ce. 'Now that mamma is coming, that is the one thing. I suppose I had set my heart on it, for it comes back to me how I reckoned on standing on that rock with you, feeling the wind, hearing the surge, looking at the meeting of earth and sky, and the train of sunlight.' He spoke slowly, pausing between each recollection,--'You will see it some day,'

he added. 'But I must give it up; it is earth after all, and looking back.'

Through the evening, he seemed to be dwelling on thoughts of his own, and only spoke to tell her of some message to friends at Redclyffe, or Hollywell, to mention little Marianne Dixon, or some other charge that he wished to leave. She thought he had mentioned almost every one with whom he had had any interchange of kindness at either of his homes, even to old nurse at Hollywell, remembering them all with quiet pleasure. At half-past eleven, he sent her to bed, and she went submissively, cheered by thinking him likely to sleep.

As soon as she could conscientiously call the night over, she returned to him, and was received with one of the sweet, sunny, happy looks that had always been his peculiar charm, and, of late, had acquired an expression almost startling from their very beauty and radiance. It was hardly to be termed a smile, for there was very little, if any, movement of the lips, it was more like the reflection of some glory upon the whole countenance.

'You have had a good night?' she said.

'I have had my wish, I have seen Redclyffe;' then, seeing her look startled, 'Of course, it was a sort of wandering; but I never quite lost the consciousness of being here, and it was very delightful. I saw the waves, each touched with light,--the foam--the sea-birds, floating in shade and light,--the trees--the s.h.a.g--the sky--oh! such a glory as I never knew--themselves--but so intensely glorious!'

'I am glad' said Amabel, with a strange partic.i.p.ation of the delight it had given him.

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