CHAPTER IX.

AN ERRAND OF MERCY.

"Speak gently to the aged one; Grieve not the careworn heart: The sands of life are nearly run, Let such in peace depart." _Christian Lyrics._

Caleb Runciman had told Queenie that Mr. Calcott was seriously ill; but the girl had received the news with indifference, making no comments. "What was his life--his useless, loveless life--in comparison with Emmie's?" she thought with bitterness.

Presently, when her trouble had lightened a little, and Emmie was slowly advancing towards convalescence, she remembered her hardness with some compunction; and her heart grew soft and pitiful over the thought of that lonely sick-room.

"I wonder if Mr. Calcott remembers my visit?" she said once to Caleb, but Caleb only shook his head in silence. He had not as yet been admitted to his employer's presence. The illness was enveloped in mystery, and all sorts of reports were current with respect to it.

Neither of them guessed the truth, or knew the strange thoughts and memories that haunted the sick man's pillow. The past was ever before him; conscience, so long dormant, had roused at last, and had laid hold of him with fierce and angry grip; he saw himself the victim of a hypochondria so fell and senseless that it had warped and scathed his better nature.

His past life was mapped out before him: a youth of disease and suffering, soothed only by a sister's love; a querulous, discontented manhood, darkened by fits of strange melancholy; then years of loneliness and brooding.

Why had he failed with his life? Other men had suffered as well as he; other men had experienced the same passionate sorrows, had reaped disappointment where they had expected happiness, had battled with chronic disease, and yet had borne themselves bravely before the world! Why had he grown so hardened and exasperated against his kind that his very servants trembled in his presence?

What words were those that rung in his ear till the very air seemed to vibrate with them: "I am sorry for you, because you are old and lonely; because you have only miserable thoughts to keep you company; because when you are ill no one will comfort you, when you die no one will shed tears over your grave."

Curses on that girl! How dared she stand and pity him to his face! him--Andrew Calcott--whom every one feared and respected--the man so outwardly prosperous that the world never guessed at the strange fiend that gnawed at his vitals!

"It must be so dreadful not to want love, to be able to do without it;" and again, "Emmie never forgets you, sir. She does not love you; how can she? but she still says the prayer mamma taught her--'God bless poor Uncle Andrew.'" Ah! merciful heavens, would those words never leave him?

By-and-bye the torment he suffered became unbearable; whole sentences of that conversation seemed stamped and burned upon the brain. He would say them aloud sometimes, to the terror of those who watched him, and thought his mind was wandering.

"You are refusing to help me in my bitter strait; you are leaving me, young and single-handed, to fight in this cruel, cruel world; you have disowned your own niece, and are sending me back to her almost broken-hearted; but I will not reproach you;" and then she had come closer to his chair, and had stood beside him, almost touching him with her hand.

He could see her clearly; the whole scene seemed photographed in his memory. Was he dreaming, or was she there really beside his bed?

He could recall every expression of her countenance, every trick of her speech. What a young creature she had looked in her shabby dress, sitting there before him. How eloquently she had spoken, and with what self-possession and dignity. Once or twice her voice had faltered, and the tears had gathered in her large brown eyes, as she pleaded for Emmie, but she had brushed them away hastily, and had gone on speaking.

If he had ever had a daughter he would have liked her to have looked at him with those clear honest glances. The girl was absolutely without guile. Hard as he was, his heart had yearned over her, and yet he had driven her from his presence. Now and then a strange fancy, almost a longing, seized him, to hear her speak again, if it were only to tell him that she was sorry for him. He called himself a fool, and chid himself for his weakness; but, nevertheless, the longing was there and he knew it.

One evening, as Queenie was correcting some themes in the class-room, she was told Mr. Runciman wished to speak to her.

Caleb's visits were rare now, but he sometimes came to bring a few snowdrops or violets to his favorite. To-night he was later than usual, and Emmie was asleep.

"I am not come to see Emmie to-night; it is you I want, Miss Queenie. You might have knocked me down with a feather when he gave me the message. But I suppose he is in his right mind?" continued Caleb, his blue eyes becoming very round and wide, and his rosy face a trifle paler than usual.

"A message from whom?" enquired Queenie, with some degree of curiosity. She was pleased to see her old friend; any break in the monotony of her day was welcome.

"Ay, you'll never guess. Why, my dear young lady, when he told me to come and fetch you I was that flabbergasted--if you know the meaning of such an outlandish word--that I could not tell whether I was standing on my head or my heels. 'I want you to fetch me Frank Marriott's daughter,' he says, in a queer off-hand way, and he shut his eyes and laid quite quiet."

"Do you mean Mr. Calcott has sent for me?" gasped Queenie for the moment. She looked quite frightened.

"Ay, sure enough, though I never thought you would have guessed it so soon," returned Caleb admiringly; "but women's wits beat men's hollow. Well, I couldn't believe my ears, and no wonder; so I waited for him to open his eyes, and then I ventured to ask him to be so good as to repeat his speech, fearing I hadn't rightly understood him."

"'You have understood me very well, Runciman,' he said in a quiet meaning sort of way, not quite pleased at my hesitation, you may be sure. It is 'do this, or go there, and be sharp about it,' with Mr. Calcott, always. 'Please lose no time over your errand, but bring Frank Marriott's daughter back with you; I want to see if can get to sleep to-night.' That's all, on my word and honor, Miss Queenie."

"It is very strange, but I suppose I must go; perhaps he has repented his unkindness, and wants to tell me so. Wait a minute, Caleb, while I tell Miss Titheridge. Emmie is asleep, and so I shall not mind leaving for half-an-hour."

"It is a wet night, I warn you; it is all of a piece with his usual selfishness sending for you on a night like this," fretted Caleb, who was much perplexed and exercised in his mind by the whole proceeding; but Queenie met this additional trial with her usual cheerfulness, and struggled along bravely under her old umbrella.

This time they were not kept waiting. Gurnel eyed them quite as morosely, but he ushered Caleb at once into a comfortable-looking dining-room with a blazing fire, and wine and biscuits on the table; while he begged Queenie civilly to follow him, which she did, naïvely admiring the carved balustrades and soft rich carpets as she did so.

"My master is up, but he cannot leave his room," explained the servant, as he ushered Queenie into a large handsomely-furnished bedroom, where Mr. Calcott lay on a couch beside the fire, in his Indian dressing-gown, with an eider-down quilt over him. A respectable looking woman sat with needle-work at a little round table beside him. At Queenie's entrance she curtsied and withdrew.

Queenie quietly took her place.

"You have sent for me," she said softly. "I am sorry to hear you have been so ill. It is a wet night, but I could not help coming," she continued, trying to speak naturally, but she could not; the change in the sick man appalled her. She understood, as she looked at him, that he was slowly but surely dying.

"They tell me I have some months still before me; that's bad hearing for those who wait upon me, as I am likely to trouble them for some time," with a touch of his old grimness. "Well, girl, so you have come through the wet and dark, just to gratify a sick man's whim?"

"I would do more than that to oblige you, sir," returned Queenie, with genuine compassion in her voice. The wan suffering face, the wasted hand, stirred a world of pity in her soul. Lonely, unloved, and dying--resentment faded out of her memory at a spectacle so pathetic, so truly pitiful.

"What! do more than be sorry for me?" with sardonic humor in his voice. "You would give more than a drop of water to poor Dives in torment? Do you remember, girl, that you dared to pity me before?"

"My pity will not harm you, sir."

"Ay, why not?"

"Now you are so very ill, it may even do you good to remember that we feel no bitterness towards you, that we forgive all the wrong done to us. Why do you look towards that door? do you want anything?"

"That woman has forgotten my medicine," he muttered, "and I have the strange sinking again. Hirelings are not worth the price of the bread they eat."

"Let me give it you," returned Queenie, rising, and mixing the draught; but he shook his head. "You must call her; I cannot raise myself, and the least movement gives me pain."

"She has gone downstairs; let me try what I can do. You must not wait, indeed, Mr. Calcott; your lips are turning blue and livid. I am used to nursing; I could lift mamma, and I have carried Emmie about so much lately." As she spoke Queenie skilfully raised the invalid and put the glass to his lips.

"If thine enemy hunger, feed him; and if he thirst, give him drink." Why did these words come into the sick man's mind as he felt the support of the strong young arm, and drank the reviving draught from her hand?

"There, you are better now," went on Queenie cheerfully, putting the pillow comfortably under his head. Mr. Calcott looked at her strangely, and then he was silent for a long time.

"You are poor," he began at last.

"Yes, we are very poor; you remember I told you so."

"Ah, true! I forgot all that. You are used to nursing too. Mrs. Morton is a very capable person, but I should like some one who would read to me and amuse me. I--" hesitating slightly--"I would pay you handsomely if you would come to me."

Queenie turned pale, and her eyes filled with tears. "Come to you at once?"

"To be sure. Do you think a dying man can talk about the future? I would make it worth your while," he continued, as though anticipating some objection. "You shall ask your own sum; I will buy your services at your own price."

"Hush! please don't talk so, you are only paining me; it is impossible. What? now! come at once! I could not leave Emmie."

"What folly!" he interrupted harshly. "Have you not told me that you are fighting single-handed against the world; that Emmie, as you call her, is next door to starving? Were these falsehoods? were you imposing on my credulity that you refuse real tangible help when it comes?"

"I only refuse what is impossible for me to accept," returned Queenie in a choking voice. "Ah, you cannot understand, you do not know, that since that terrible night I have nearly lost Emmie." And then she told him, as well as emotion would allow her, of all she had been through.

"Humph! that's why you have grown thin and unsubstantial-looking. I thought there was some change in you. You ought to get heavy damages from those women; but the child is getting well, you say?"

"Yes; but she is not strong, and requires the greatest care. No one could watch over her as I do; I understand her; I know her every look; I see directly she is weary or overdone. It will be months before I can safely leave her, even with Mr. Runciman and Molly."

"I should think the atmosphere of that precious school could not be conducive to the welfare of a nervous invalid," interrupted Mr. Calcott irritably.

"We shall not be there much longer," returned Queenie quietly. "At Easter we are going to Mr. Runciman's for a little visit; and as soon as the warm weather comes I'm going to take Emmie into the country to get strong."

"Indeed I did not know you could afford such luxuries," with biting sarcasm.

Queenie colored, but she went on steadily--

"Neither can we. We are indebted to the kindness of a school friend, who has offered to take us home. I have barely money for our railway journey there and back; but we shall manage somehow."

Mr. Calcott glanced at the girl's shabby dress and cloak, then at the brave face, and somehow his sarcasm vanished.

"I suppose you are too proud to take a five-pound note?" somewhat brusquely.

Queenie hesitated, and then her face grew crimson.

"Speak out; you are too proud, eh?"

"I would not take it for myself, but for Emmie's sake I should be thankful."

"I know nothing about Emmie," with a frown. "If you take it it is for yourself mind; the child is nothing to me; I cannot and will not recognize her."

"If I take it it will be to buy her comforts," replied Queenie, scrupulously.

"Spend it how you will, it is nothing to me," was the irritable answer. "I have made you a good offer to-night. By the sacrifice of a few months you could earn enough to maintain both the child and yourself for more than a year to come, and you choose to refuse the offer. I can say no more."

"I dare not accept it. If anything were to happen to Emmie, I should never forgive myself. Mamma always told me that we must never leave a certain duty for an uncertain one; and Emmie is my duty."

"Pshaw! female sophistry. The child would do well enough; children always do."

Queenie shook her head.

"It goes to my heart to refuse you. If I were free I would come and serve you, not only for the sake of the money, but because mamma loved you so dearly."

"There, there; I can bear no more," returned the invalid impatiently.

Queenie took the hint and rose.

"I am sorry if I have tired you. May I come again?"

"Yes; come again to-morrow at the same time. Tell Runciman that he is to bring the business letters here in the morning instead of Smiler. Please ring the bell for Mrs. Morton, and be careful to close the door very carefully, as the least noise jars on me. What are you waiting for now, child?"

"I only thought I should like to shake hands with you, sir."

"There, good-night," was the brusque response; but the hand was cold and shaking, as the warm girlish one closed round it.

"Good-night, and thank you for Emmie," returned Queenie, brightly.

Caleb sat up and rubbed his eyes drowsily as the girl entered. "How long you have been, Miss Queenie, dear! What has he been saying to you?"

"Hush! I will tell you as we go along. He is very ill--dying, Caleb, and it is very, very sad to see him. Look what he has given me," opening her hand and showing the crisp bank-note; "I think he meant it as a sort of return for bringing me out in the wet, but of course I shall not keep it; it is all for Emmie."

Queenie's visits to Mr. Calcott became almost a daily recurrence. It soon became a rule for Caleb to fetch her when lessons were over and Emmie was asleep, to sit with the invalid an hour before he retired to rest. Miss Titheridge had probably received some private hint from Caleb, for she made no objection to these frequent absences; but, on the contrary, encouraged them by gracious enquiries after Mr. Calcott's health when she encountered Queenie.

The girl soon grew used to these visits. Mr. Calcott, it is true, never varied in his manner. He still received her brusquely, and his remarks were as pungent and sarcastic as ever, with a strange bitterness that often brought tears to her eyes; but still, in a vague, uncertain sort of way, she felt he liked to have her there beside him. Once or twice she fancied his eyes had brightened at her approach, even while he scolded her querulously for being late. He accepted her services reluctantly, and often found fault with her for feminine awkwardness. Her efforts never gave him pleasure. No word of commendation crossed his lips, no thanks for the unselfishness that brought her out evening after evening, after a hard day's work, to minister to a discontented old man; and yet Queenie felt rewarded if his eyes turned wistfully to the door as she entered, or a sigh of relief betrayed that his loneliness was at an end.

"Master has been that restless that Morton can do nothing to please him," Gurnel informed her once when she was unusually late. Queenie smiled and quickened her steps; she knew what she had to expect.

"I suppose you have got tired of your good work," was the only welcome she received: but Queenie had learned how to parry such remarks without rousing the old man's jealous temper. She turned the subject laughingly, by telling him of the purchases she had made out of the money he had given her.

"What! all those things out of five pounds!" he grunted incredulously; "frock, jacket, and hat, and I don't know what beside. I thought I said the money was for yourself."

"Emmie is so delighted with everything," she went on. "The pleasure brought a tinge of color to her face; it would have done you good to have seen her."

"Humph! I dare say there will be much good done to me to-night, after being kept an hour waiting for other folk's pleasure."

"Work must be done, you know," returned Queenie lightly. "The term is nearly over, and then I shall be more at leisure."

"Indeed, is the grand visit to be given up?"--sarcastically; but there was suppressed eagerness in his voice.

"Oh, there is a whole month before that; we need not talk of that yet. Now let me read to you;" but though the book was an interesting one, and Queenie read in her best manner, Mr. Calcott's thoughts seemed wandering.

When the last day of the term arrived the sisters left Granite Lodge. Emmie, who had been in a state of pleasurable excitement all the morning, grew a little tearful and silent towards the close of the day.

Queenie, who was overwhelmed with business, and had scarcely time to bid her friend good-bye, and add a few words as to future arrangement, at parting, suddenly missed Emmie in her usual corner. She had searched the house without success, and was becoming terribly frightened, when a maid informed her that she had seen Emmie toiling up the garret stairs with the kitten in her arms.

The little girl was curled up in her usual place, gazing dreamingly out of the window, when Queenie entered. The little face looked small and white under the cap-border; the soft yellow down peeping out here and there gave her an infantile appearance.

"Dear Emmie, why have you come here?" began her sister, reprovingly; but Emmie held up her finger and stopped her.

"Hush! of course we ought to say good-bye to the poor old place; don't you know prisoners sometimes kiss the walls of their cell, though they are really not sorry to leave it. We have had nice times here, Queen, though we have been so very unhappy. As I sat here before you came up, I felt as though there must be two Emmie's; I feel so different to the old one that used to hide her face and cry when it got dark."

"Then we will not stay and make ourselves miserable in this gloomy place," interrupted Queenie, anxiously. "Caleb will be here directly, and we must go and say good-bye to Miss Titheridge. Come, Em, come," and Emmie obeyed reluctantly.

Miss Titheridge looked embarassed and nervous, and Queenie purposely shortened their leave-taking. When Emmie's turn came she held up her face to be kissed.

"Good-bye," she said, looking at the governess with her large serious blue eyes. "Thank you for being kind to me at last. I am so sorry you could not love me; but I dare say it was my fault;" and as Miss Titheridge bent over her something beside a kiss was left on the child's thin cheek.

Caleb's little house seemed a perfect haven of refuge that night. Queenie felt almost too happy as she arranged their effects in the little dark room that Caleb had set apart for his guests. It seemed wrong of her to be so light-hearted while the future was so uncertain.

Emmie lay in the big brown bed, with ugly drab curtains edged with green, and watched her as she moved about actively, singing over her work. The room had a side window looking over a stone-mason's yard; the white monuments gleamed in the red evening light; a laburnum shook long sprays of gold against the panes; Molly's linnet sung against the wall; Caleb in his old coat walked contentedly up and down the narrow garden path between his currant-bushes; some children were playing among the slabs and ledges of stone. How humble it was, and yet how peaceful; a quiet waiting-place until the new work came ready to her hand. One evening, as she was sitting sewing at the open window, Caleb beckoned her mysteriously to join him in his favorite walk between the currant-bushes.

"My dear," he began, his eyes becoming round as usual, and betraying a tendency to hesitate slightly between his words, "I want your advice, your assistance, indeed. I have--hem--I may say--I have a delicate and peculiar commission on hand,--hem,--and I--in short, a lady's advice would be most suitable, and, I may say, satisfactory. Molly is a good creature," he continued, after a pause, "an admirable creature, of course; but in this her advice is of such a nature that I must own I should hesitate to adopt it. She is fond of bright colors, you see; and as long as there is plenty of red and green in a pattern she would find no fault."

"Do you want me to choose a new dress for Molly? I suppose that is what you mean."

"Molly! oh dear, no! nothing of the kind, Miss Queenie dear. The fact is, a young friend of mine, is--hem--is, in short, going to be married, that is, she is going to be married some day, no doubt."

"Indeed! a friend of yours, do you say?" Caleb nodded still more mysteriously.

"The circumstances are peculiar; yes, I am certainly right in saying they are peculiar," continued Caleb, reflecting; "but she--that is, he--has commissioned me to get her some things suitable to a lady in such a position, as the same peculiar circumstances prevent her from choosing the articles herself. She is not going to be married yet," rubbing his head with a little vexed perplexity; "but she is going on a visit to his friends, and he--the young man I mean. Ah! that's it," with a chuckle, as though he had discovered a way out of some difficulty--"he, the young man, my dear, has a proper pride, and wants her to make a favourable impression on his relations; do you see, Miss Queenie."

"Is she so very poor?" returned Queenie, innocently, and not at all suspecting the veracity of Caleb's garbled-up tale.

"Poor! well I may say that she is poor--extremely so," with a burst of candor; "but a lady,--dear, dear,--as much a lady as yourself, Miss Queenie."

"I should have thought her lover could have chosen some pretty things for her himself," observed Queenie, a little incredulously, at this juncture. "He must be a poor sort of lover," she thought, "to devolve such an interesting duty on her old friend."

Caleb coughed, and stopped to inspect a promising gooseberry bush; and then he discovered his pipe was out, and must replenish it; it was quite five minutes, too, before it would draw properly, and Queenie got impatient for her question to be answered.

"Why cannot he get them himself?" she enquired, a little scornfully; "he need not have troubled you."

"Well, you see, a man with a broken leg is not particularly active, and shopping does not suit the complaint," was the oracular answer, as Caleb puffed volumes of smoke, bravely. "No, no, that sort of thing is not good for the complaint," continued the old man, with another chuckle; "so you see, Miss Queenie dear, if you don't help me a bit with your advice I shall have to go to Molly after all, and shall come back with a plaid satin, or something that wouldn't suit the pretty creature at all. Come, now,"--coaxingly,--"what should you think she would like best?"

Queenie wrinkled her white forehead reflectively,--poor and pretty, and with a lover laid up at a distance. This began to get interesting; she must do her best to help this unknown girl.

"Well, if I were judging for myself," she returned at last, "I should think a nice useful black silk--"

"Ah! that is just it," interrupted Caleb, enthusiastically. "I ought to have thought of that; of course, a black silk."

"And," continued Queenie, now thoroughly absorbed in a mental review of this ideal wardrobe, "a pretty spring suit,--brown, I think, if it would suit her,--and a brown hat with a pheasant wing. I think she would look nice in that."

"Brown, of course; the idea of my never thinking of brown," repeated Caleb, clapping his hands, "the very color of all others that would suit her. Go on, Miss Queenie dear."

"Well, I suppose her lover does not wish to be extravagant, it is not her trousseau, you see; some nice collars and cuffs and ties, and perhaps handkerchiefs, and some brown gloves--and, oh! she must have a box to put them in. If she be so very poor, you see, it will not do for her to dress too handsomely," observed the young girl, sententiously.

Caleb dashed down his pipe, and very nearly executed a _pas de seul_ on the garden path; his blue eyes danced with glee.

"There now, there now; did I not say you had a wise head, Miss Queenie! The very thing of all other! a box!--and Molly and I would never have thought of it--a really good handsome box that would make the luggage porters stare, eh?" enquiring.

"Well no; a nice black leather one, like Cathy's, I think," returned Queenie, with quiet relish. During the remainder of the evening, as she sat over some plain sewing she was doing for Emmie, she thought of Caleb's friend a little enviously, and wondered how she would like the nice things. She wished Caleb would tell her a little more about her; but, to her surprise, he did not recur again to the subject.

About a fortnight after this conversation, as she returned from her usual evening visit to Mr. Calcott, she paused for a moment at the door of her room, transfixed in surprise.

A large leathern trunk blocked up the room; two white letters, Q.M., stared her full in the face; a sudden revelation of the truth drove the flush to her very brow.

Could it really be? She lifted the lid gingerly, almost trembling with excitement; her hand came in contact with the folds of a black silk; lower down lay the brown dress and jacket; the little hat with its pheasant plume nestled snugly in one division. Queenie had just a hurried peep at piles of snowy handkerchiefs, and collars, and cuffs, at French gloves, and soft streaks of color in the shape of silken scarfs, and then she rushed breathlessly down into the parlor, where Emmie was reading fairy tales to Caleb.

Emmie put down her book and clapped her hands at the sight of Queenie's face. Caleb's eyes twinkled over his pipe, but he said nothing.

"Oh, Queen, isn't it lovely! better even than Cinderella's pumpkin coach. Isn't it a dear, dear secret, for Caleb and me to have kept all this time?"

"Do you think the young man with the broken leg will be satisfied with my taste," chuckled the old man. Queenie put her arms round his neck, her face was rosy with pleasure.

"Oh, Caleb, is it for me! really for me! the box with all those beautiful things? Did you buy it for me, dear, because you knew I was so poor and shabby, and you did not like me to go among those strange people with my old clothes? Oh, Caleb, how could you, how could you, and you so poor yourself?" caressing him gratefully.

"Miss Queenie, dear," confessed the old man, with tears in his eyes, "if I had the money I would not begrudge you satin and diamonds; nothing would be too good for you, my pretty; nothing that old Caleb would not get you; but it is not me, bless your dear heart, that you have to thank for all your things."

Queenie's face fell, her arms dropped to her side.

"Not you, Caleb?"

"Why no," he returned, slightly embarrassed; "I would have bought them and gladly if I had had the money, which I am free to confess is not the case. You have another and a richer friend at court than old Caleb."

"Do you mean to tell me," replied Queenie, sitting down, quite pale with the surprise, "that--that--"

"Ah, I knew you would guess it!" interrupted Caleb, sagaciously. "'Find out what she requires for her visit, and get it, Runciman,' he said to me; and, as I observed once before on a similar occasion, you might have knocked me over with a feather. 'Ask some woman to help you, for we neither of us know much of a girl's farthingales and furbelows, I fancy,' he said, grimly enough; and so, my dear, I made bold, and invented that pleasing little fiction in order to get at some of your ideas."

"Mr. Calcott has given me all those things?" she repeated; and then for the moment she could say no more.