Volume I Part 13 (1/2)

'Thank you, there is not much difference.' But the plaintive sound was gone, the suffering was not the sole thought.

'Walby is coming with the leeches at two o'clock,' said Lord Ormersfield: 'I reckon much on them.'

'Thank you.' Silence again, but his face spoke a wish, and his aunt Catharine said, 'What, my dear?'

'I should like to see Mr. Holdsworth,' said Louis, with eyes appealing to his father.

'He has been here to inquire every day,' said the Earl, choosing neither to refuse nor understand. 'Whenever it is not too much for you--'

'It must be quickly, before I am weaker,' said Louis. 'Let it be before Walby returns, father.'

'Whatever you wish, my dear--' and Lord Ormersfield, turning towards the table, wrote a note, which Mrs. Frost offered to despatch, thinking that her presence oppressed her elder nephew, who looked bowed down by the intensity of grief, which, unexpressed, seemed to pervade the whole man and weigh him to the earth: and perhaps this also struck Louis for the first time, for, after having lain silent for some minutes, he softly said, 'Father!'

The Earl was instantly beside him, but, instead of speaking, Louis gazed in his face, and sighed, as he murmured, 'I was meant to have been a comfort to you.'

'My dear boy--' began Lord Ormersfield, but he could not trust his voice, as he saw Louis's eyes moist with tears.

'I wish I had!' he continued; 'but I have never been anything but a care and vexation, and I see it all too late.'

'Nay, Louis,' said his father, trying to a.s.sume his usual tone of authority, as if to prove his security, 'you must not give way to feelings of illness. It is weak to despond.'

'It is best to face it,' said the young man, with slow and feeble utterance, but with no quailing of eye or voice. 'But oh, father! I did not think you would feel it so much. I am not worth it.'

For the Earl could neither speak nor breathe, as if smothered by one mighty unuttered sob, and holding his son's hand between both his own, pressed it convulsively.

'I am glad Mrs. Ponsonby is here,' said Louis; 'and you will soon find what a nice fellow Edward Fitzjocelyn is, whom you may make just what--'

'Louis, my own boy, hus.h.!.+ I cannot bear this,' cried his father, in an accent wrung from him by excess of grief.

'I may recover,' said Louis, finding it his turn to comfort, 'and I should like to be longer with you, to try to make up--'

'You will. The leeches must relieve you. Only keep up your spirits: you have many years before you of happiness and success.'

The words brought a look of oppression over Louis's face, but it cleared as he said, 'I am more willing to be spared those years!'

His father positively started. 'Louis, my poor boy,' he said, 'is it really so? I know I have seemed a cold, severe father.'

'Oh, do not say so!' exclaimed Louis; 'I have deserved far less-idle, ungrateful, careless of your wishes. I did not know I could pain you so much, or I would not have done it. You have forgiven often, say you forgive now.'

'You have far more to forgive than I,' said the Earl.

'If I could tell you the half-waywardness, discontent, neglect, levity, wasted time--my treatment of you only three days back. Everything purposed--nothing done! Oh! what a life to bring before the Judge!'

And he covered his face, but his father heard long-drawn sobs.

'Compose yourself, my dear boy,' he exclaimed, exceedingly grieved and perplexed. 'You know there is no cause to despond; and even--even if there were, you have no reason to distress yourself. I can say, from the bottom of my heart, that you have never given me cause for real anxiety, your conduct has been exemplary, and I never saw such attention to religion in any young man. These are mere trifles--'

'Oh, hush, father!' exclaimed Louis. 'You are only making it worse; you little know what I am! If Mr. Holdsworth would come!'

'He could only tell you the same,' said his father. 'You may take every comfort in thinking how blameless you have been, keeping so clear of all the faults of your age. I may not have esteemed you as you deserved, my poor Louis; but, be a.s.sured that very few can have so little to reproach themselves with as you have.'

Louis almost smiled. 'Poor comfort that,' he said, 'even if it were true; but oh, father!' and there was a light in his eye, 'I had thought of 'He hath blotted out like a cloud thy transgressions.''