Volume Ii Part 91 (1/2)
”It will have nothing to act upon! And you are going to England! I think it is very mean of you not to ask me to go too, and be your bridesmaid.”
”I don't expect to have such a thing,” said Fleda.
”Not? ? Horrid! I wouldn't be married so, Fleda. You don't know the world, little Queechy; the art _de vous faire valoir_, I am afraid, is unknown to you.”
”So it may remain with my good will,” said Fleda.
”Why?” said Constance.
”I have never felt the want of it,” said Fleda, simply.
”When are you going?” said Constance, after a minute's pause.
”By the 'Europa.' ”
”But this is a very sudden move?”
”Yes; very sudden.”
”I should think you would want a little time to make preparations.”
”That is all happily taken off my hands,” said Fleda. ”Mrs.
Carleton has written to her sister in England to take care of it for me.”
”I didn't know that Mrs. Carleton had a sister. What's her name?”
”Lady Peterborough.”
Constance was silent again.
”What are you going to do about mourning, Fleda? wear white, I suppose. As n.o.body there knows anything about you, you won't care.”
”I do not care in the least,” said Fleda, calmly; ”my feeling would quite as soon choose white as black. Mourning so often goes alone, that I should think grief might be excused for shunning its company.”
”And as you have not put it on yet,” said Constance, ”you won't feel the change. And then, in reality, after all, he was only a cousin.”
Fleda's quiet mood, sober and tender as it was, could go to a certain length of endurance, but this asked too much. Dropping the things from her hands, she turned from the trunk beside which she was kneeling, and hiding her face on a chair, wept such tears as cousins never shed for each other. Constance was startled and distressed; and Fleda's quick sympathy knew that she must be, before she could see it.
”You needn't mind it at all, dear Constance,” she said, as soon as she could speak ? ”it's no matter ? I am in such a mood sometimes that I cannot bear anything. Don't think of it,” she said, kissing her.
Constance, however, could not for the remainder of her visit get back her wonted light mood, which indeed had been singularly wanting to her during the whole interview.
Mrs. Carleton counted the days to the steamer, and her spirits rose with each one. Fleda's spirits were quiet to the last degree, and pa.s.sive ? too pa.s.sive, Mrs. Carleton thought. She did not know the course of the years that had gone, and could not understand how strangely Fleda seemed to herself now to stand alone, broken off from her old friends and her former life, on a little piece of time that was like an isthmus joining two continents. Fleda felt it all exceedingly; felt that she was changing from one sphere of life to another; never forgot the graves she had left at Queechy, and as little the thoughts and prayers that had sprung up beside them. She felt, with all Mrs. Carleton's kindness, that she was completely alone, with no one on her side the ocean to look to; and glad to be relieved from taking active part in anything, she made her little Bible her companion for the greater part of the time.
”Are you going to carry that sober face all the way to Carleton?” said Mrs. Carleton one day pleasantly.
”I don't know, Ma'am.”
”What do you suppose Guy will think of it?”
But the thought of what he would think of it, and what he would say to it, and how fast he would brighten it, made Fleda burst into tears. Mrs. Carleton resolved to talk to her no more, but to get her home as fast as possible.