CHAPTER VII.

SUMMONED.

THE "two or three days" of Lettice's enforced absence from Cecilia's room grew into a fortnight. She was allowed to dress, and even to creep into an adjoining room; but this was the utmost that she could be counted fit for. Prue sometimes wondered whether the strain of being with Cecilia could prove more harmful than the strain of not being with her; but the doctor was firm, and Bertha took his view of the matter.

Then upon Cecilia's slight improvement followed a severe relapse; and Lettice's presence was not to be thought of. Lettice submitted; resisting less than earlier. Perhaps the present prohibition seemed natural, since she had been kept away by Mrs. Crofton in the worst phases of Cecilia's first attack; but she grieved over having been forbidden the room when Cecilia was better.

Nan would sit staring at her, with light reddened eyes of girlish sympathy; and Prue would say: "No one could know that this was coming on, Lettice, dear." Sometimes Lettice turned from both of them, in her distress, refusing comfort; but later the whispered apology was sure to come: "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be vexed. You are all so kind."

During the early part of this fresh relapse, Cecilia was much disposed to wander. She ceased to ask after Lettice, evidently counting her out of reach. Generally she knew who came and went; but it was plain that she kept no count of time. Days might be weeks to her; weeks might be months. There was not a little rambling talk of the past, and her nurses learnt a good deal more of her history than she would willingly have divulged. It was a brokenly-told story, minus many links, containing much of sorrow and disappointment, with hard struggling to keep afloat, but lightened by a spirit of courage, endurance, and proud resolution, also of strong affection.

Sometimes she believed herself to be at Dr. Bryant's, and she would then speak distressfully of her obligations to the Valentines, by which she was tried precisely as Felix was tried. Sometimes she knew herself to be still at the Farm, and then she would complain of being hindered from going on to Bristol.

These were flitting surface fancies. Below the surface she seemed to live another life, bordering on that unseen world which at all times closely surrounds us. We know practically little of the experiences of sufferers, when they are too far removed by dire sickness to give expression to their thoughts. If they rally to health, they are apt to forget much that they have gone through, albeit they often come out from such an experience different from their former selves, transformed or to some extent remade. This comes about, not alone through bodily suffering, but, in some cases at least, doubtless through the silent touch of unseen influences, acting through the mind, and especially through awakened memories. It may be that "often" is too strong a word. The process is occasional rather than common; and perhaps it seldom if ever takes place, unless there has been an earnest desire to do rightly, and a sincere though blind feeling after Him Who is never far from any one of us.

From the first, Cecilia had turned from Bertha and had clung to Prue. No one could say why, except that she was possessed by the idea that Bertha alone was responsible for Lettice's long absence. She never blamed Prue. If Bertha spoke tenderly, Cecilia would show cold indifference; if Prue did the same, she would smile a response. It spoke well for Bertha that no tinge of jealousy troubled her. Prue could help where she could not; and Bertha was content.

So matters lasted, until another rally came. There were long hours of continuous sleep; and from this phase she emerged, altered. Not in face alone, but in herself. She had ceased to show dislike to Bertha, and her mind seemed far-away; while in manner she had become gentle and grateful. The old habit of reserve enveloped her still, but not to the same extent; and when alone with Prue it gave way.

For nearly two days it seemed to Prue, and perhaps also to Bertha, that recovery from this particular attack had fairly set in. The doctor spoke no word of hope, and his silence was afterwards remembered, though at the time not so much marked.

Prue was blaming herself much for an indiscretion. During Cecilia's long sleep, she had yielded to the younger sister's pleadings, and had on her own responsibility taken Lettice into the room for "one look." She had not realised what that brief glimpse would mean; because she did not realise how great an alteration had been wrought by this last relapse. It was not till she had to half carry Lettice away, shivering with the shock, that she knew how unwise she had been.

Prue confessed the deed frankly; and neither the doctor nor Bertha uttered reproaches. No need that they should. Now that for two days the sisters might have been together, Lettice was prostrated, a prisoner once more in her room. Strange to say, the unreasoning instinct of the child proved truer than the observation of Prue. From the moment of that one glimpse, Lettice never doubted that Cecilia was dying; though even Bertha had hopes of a respite; and Prue could honestly endeavour to cheer her up.

"Have I been here many weeks?" Cecilia asked, on the evening of the second day. "Or—is it months? I am so confused. I cannot remember." Then, as Prue made answer evasively, "Tell me, please. I should like to know. I came—when was it? Why did I not go on to Bristol?"

"You were too ill."

"I remember—yes. Somebody brought me. Nurse Valentine, she called herself. I cannot recall more. Only she went on with Lettice to Bristol; and you came in her place . . . That seemed so strange, when I was ill. Felix would not have left me."

"I think you a little misunderstand." Prim feared to excite her, by explaining that Lettice had been unwell; this fact having been hidden. "You shall see Lettice soon, and she will explain everything."

Cecilia moved her head slowly. "I shall never get to Bristol—now—" she said. "I should have imagined—that Lettice—But one never can know beforehand. It is all disappointment—in every one."

"Except in ONE!—Who never changes. Cannot you trust Him?"

"You mean—Christ?" after a pause. "Yes; He has been more real to me lately. I do not know how. But it is as if—"

"As if He had been showing Himself to you?"

"It may be that . . . Would He? . . . When I have lived so little for Him! . . . And yet—lately—I have felt the need. Not that I have not always tried to do my duty . . . But still—"

"Our duty is to love Him, first and best of all."

"I have not loved Him."

"But He has loved you; with love so great that He died for your sake."

"Somebody said so. Who was it? They told me that He would 'abundantly pardon.' Yes, that was it. If I would leave all evil thoughts. 'Abundantly!'"

"He will, indeed."

"I have tried so hard to do my duty. But now—it seems all failure."

"Must it not be so? Our best doings are worth nothing, when we step into the light that streams from Him . . . You know how the spots on a white dress show in sunlight, yet you may hardly have noticed them in a dark room. And He is willing to take all those spots away, 'abundantly!'"

"I have had so little leisure to think about Him."

"Perhaps now He has laid you aside, mercifully, that you might have leisure."

"Perhaps—yes. All these months of pain!" Poor thing! The two or three weeks might well look like months to her consciousness. Much experience may be compressed into a short space of time. "All these months, and I have been so alone . . . It may have been the teaching I needed . . . If Mr. Kelly were here now, I would listen; I would indeed. Tell him so, some day . . . I have thought of his words; the comfort that might be mine; and I think they helped me to ask . . . If it is not presumption, I do believe I have been heard—have been forgiven . . . Only If I could see Lettice again before I die! My heart is breaking for the child. If God would grant me this! And then I should be willing to go."

She closed her eyes, and one or two heavy tears forced their way through. It was the first time for years that she had let herself weep. "Such pain to be forsaken!" she whispered.

Prue could not bear this, and an explanation was on her lips, when Bertha stood by her side.

"I heard. Mr. Jasper is here. I will ask him, and it must be risked," Bertha said softly, and vanished.

Prue bent to kiss Cecilia.

"Yes, you are kind, very kind—you and Bertha too. But no one can take the place of Lettice; my child from her babyhood. If only once I might see her again!"

Prue was silent, not daring to promise, till a stir was heard outside, and Bertha came in leading a pale girl.

"Look!" Prue said.

And Cecilia gazed hungrily. "Lettice here! Not gone to Bristol! And I thought—"

"Now be quiet and good, both of you. No fuss or agitation," commanded the doctor.

He placed Lettice on the bed, close beside Cecilia, and the two were locked in a fast embrace, each struggling not to give way.

"And you have been ill too! Was that it? My poor little Lettice. And they never told me."

"Not ill, only out of sorts," interposed Bertha cheerfully; but Cecilia went on, unheeding—

"I thought you had gone quite away, not caring for the old sister any longer."

"O Sissie! How could you?"

"Never mind, it is all right now. If Felix too—but that cannot be. Come closer. I have something to say."

Mr. Jasper drew a pace off. "Five minutes only," he said to Bertha. "Bad for them both; but the other was getting to be worse."

"I don't like her look this evening," murmured Bertha.

"I did not this morning." The doctor then spoke in his ordinary voice. "Now, no crying, please. Don't let me have to regret the indulgence."

"So good of him, isn't it, Lettice?"

"But I may come again," Lettice tried to say.

"Dear little Lettice! Poor little Lettice!" Cecilia spoke in hasty uncertain accents. "When you see uncle Bryant—tell him—"

"Yes—"

"I forget! No, it's not that. I wanted to say—mind you go to him. Don't put off. That is your home. And you must be good to Felix—love him—do what he wants."

"I will, always."

Cecilia was breathing with difficulty: and Mr. Jasper would have removed Lettice, but there was resistance. Cecilia put him off with both hands, and clasped Lettice in a wild embrace.

"One word! Only one word. Dear one, tell Felix from me—there is nothing—nothing—nothing worth living for, but to serve God! Tell him so! I would give anything—anything—to have lived a different life . . . Too late now . . . Too late for that . . . There is forgiveness . . . abundant pardon . . . and He will not cast away! . . . But oh, to have lived for Him! To have served Him! . . . The pitifulness of living to oneself, and coming to Him only at last! . . . O the difference now, if I had only lived for Him! . . . Lettice, don't forget—don't put off! Pray to be shown! I shall look for you there! And tell Felix—tell Felix—"

Cecilia broke off: and those around her knew from her face that she could bear no more.

"O Sissie, one moment—"

"No, no. Good-bye, my dear. Tell Felix—he must come—"

Cecilia controlled herself to say so much. Then to the doctor: "Yes—take her, please."

Lettice was hurried away. The haste seemed to her cruel; and she could not see the mercifulness which would hide from her the sight of her sister's suffering. The whole interview with its abrupt termination half crushed her, and she lay for hours after, her face hidden, unable to look up or to bear being spoken to. But Cecilia Anderson was nearly at the end of her voyage. One more sharp tempest, and then her little vessel reached the harbour. Before midnight she had passed away.

The telegram announcing what had happened came heavily upon Felix. He had not allowed himself to think of danger, had not pictured to himself the possibility of any such ending. A letter written on the evening of Thursday, to tell of the fresh attack, did not arrive until after the brief message which said that all was over.

Felix had never known sorrow since his father's death, and then he had been a mere child. The cold touch of bereavement bewildered him. To hear of other people losing their friends was a matter of course, easily dismissed with a pitying word or two; but that he should lose Cecilia—Cecilia, with whom every inch of his life was associated, who had been parent, sister, protector, everything to him—that his Cecilia should have passed away beyond reach, into the world of the unseen, seemed incredible, even horrible. He felt a kind of indignant wrath that death should meddle with him and his, doing away with the pleasant future which he had pictured. Why should he suffer thus, when other people had their sisters spared to them?

Felix did not this time rush off to Mr. Kelly. He went to his work as usual, scarcely half-an-hour late, for the telegram had arrived early: and except that he looked pale and stern, no one would have supposed anything unusual to have occurred. It never so much as came into his mind to ask to remain away from work. Nothing could have been more distasteful than to sit still and think.

The shock did not affect his health; it only caused a species of mental dizziness. Life seemed to wear vague aspect, with all its ordinary curves altered, like the changed slant of a landscape, looked upon from the position of one lying prone on a hill-side. Such disorganised glimpses came to him from time to time, through unbending attention to work; and waves of angry sorrow rose, when by sheer force of habit his mind reverted to its accustomed aim—that little future home, which Cecilia now would never need. Yet none of his accounts were wrong.

A letter came from Prue next morning, containing many details. She spoke of the last meeting between the sisters, and she mentioned slightly Cecilia's agitation: but the direct message to Felix himself was through Lettice, and with that Prue would not meddle. The funeral was to be on Monday afternoon: and Dr. Bryant had telegraphed that he would be present.

"Mr. Anderson of course would go also. Could he not stay at the Farm from Saturday till Tuesday or Wednesday?"

"No: certainly not!" Felix decided this at once, with his unnecessary vehemence, crushing the sheet in his hand. Even for Lettice's sake, he would not be indebted to the Valentines further than was unavoidable. Things were bad enough already. If he had not feared to show disrespect to Cecilia's memory, he would have stayed away altogether. The thought of seeing Dr. Bryant would alone have been almost enough to deter him. But he knew what would be said: and a weak little pencil scrawl from Lettice implored him to go.

Felix was pre-disposed to dislike the Valentines. He objected much to certain things in this letter of Prue's. What business had she to speak of Cecilia's "hope" and "trust," in terms which distinctly implied that they were new, the outcome of a recent experience? If Cecilia had not before been so ready for the great change impending, this would at once leave him where she had stood, would place him apart from her in a kind of outside category, as requiring still what Sissie had somehow found. Felix would accept no such view of the question. He "pished" over it indignantly.

"A set of fanatics!" he declared, with the glib contempt of ignorance: and he flung the letter on the fire, careless that it contained a message to Mr. Kelly. He would not go in Mr. Kelly's way. Miss Valentine might write to Mr. Kelly herself, if she chose. Nor would he spend a long Sunday at the Farm, to be talked at and preached to. So he telegraphed that he would go on Monday; and he wrote a line to Lettice, making the excuse that he must wait for his mourning.

Then he went through a brief interview with Mr. Thompson, asking for Monday's absence, and uncomfortably begging an advance of salary to pay for the journey. Had it not been for the message to Mr. Kelly, which Felix would not give, he would have preferred to ask a loan in that direction.

"Why did you not tell me yesterday?" Mr. Thompson asked kindly. He offered another day or two beyond the Tuesday, which Felix declined, and he advanced the needful amount without hesitation.

Nan was the first to descry Felix's approach, before early dinner. She rushed out to meet him, blushing all over her plain face.

"Oh, we were so sorry you couldn't get here sooner," she cried. "It is such a dreadful disappointment to Lettice. And we are depending on you to put things right. Dr. Bryant can't come, after all—he has a cold or something—and Lettice is bent on going off to him this week: and we want to keep her here another month. Do, do please persuade her to stay."

"Nan!" a reproving voice said behind. And gentle Mrs. Valentine came forward; whereupon Nan subsided and vanished.

Felix had listened with an air of rigid reserve to Nan's outburst, attempting no response, and he met Mrs. Valentine's kind greeting in the same manner. Dinner would be ready in a few minutes, she said: and after that—But would Mr. Anderson like to see Lettice at once? Up in her room. She had not come down yet.

"I would rather wait," Felix answered.

And strange though the delay might seem to Mrs. Valentine, she had learnt the rare art of letting people be unhappy in their own way. She could believe that he dreaded anything which might cause him to lose his self-control before the sad ceremony near at hand: though she had never seen any one less likely in appearance to break-down, than this good-looking young fellow, with his confident and reserved air.

Dinner was a constrained meal, well over in everybody's opinion. A note from Dr. Bryant was given to Felix, which he read and pocketed without remark. Then followed the last sad office for "Sissie," and Felix comported himself as chief mourner, with a composure which might easily have been mistaken for lack of feeling.

When they returned to the house, Prue asked, "Will you not see Lettice now?" and Felix acquiesced. He followed Prue upstairs, and found himself alone with a quiet pallid girl in deep mourning, who met and kissed him, then sat down, visibly trembling.

"So you haven't been well either, Lettice?"

"No—" she said faintly.

"Nothing much wrong?"

"I don't know. I thought you would come—before—"

"Before lunch. I couldn't. There were all those people to see. And I—well, I felt I'd better not."

There was a sound of something like heartlessness in the tone: but Lettice would not hear it, would not believe it. She knew the reality of his affection, and the assumed manner did not take her in. Indeed her mind was so full of other thoughts, and so bent upon the present fight for self-command, that she noticed it less than might have been expected. Only, the absence of expressed sympathy brought a chill.

"You see, Lettice, it's no good to talk," he said. "Nothing can change—that! We have to keep up and go on. Things are as they are, and nobody can make them different. And you've got to be brave."

Her lips quivered. "Yes, I will," she said. "I do mean to be good, indeed, and not to give trouble. And I'll do—anything you tell me."

"Of course you will. Get well and strong, the first thing."

"I'll—try."

"I've got a note from Dr. Bryant. He couldn't come, and so much the better, perhaps. But he offers you a home still. And you must go the first possible day."

"Yes. She told me—"

"Of course," as voice failed. "That's the right thing. The Valentines are strangers, and we are too much indebted to them already. You can get off in a day or two?"

"If Mr. Jasper will let me. I am so tired now, with everything."

"Change will do you good. I can't have you put off. Only mind—you belong to me, not to the Bryants."

"Must I love nobody there?"

"You'll like them well enough. Quite as much as signifies. It's only for a time. Be sure you write to me once a week, and tell me everything. I mean to get on, and to have a home for you by-and-by."

Lettice was nerving herself to deliver the dying message of Cecilia, which she knew Felix had not yet heard. Twice she began to speak of it, and Felix led away to other subjects. The third time she held to her point, refused to be diverted from it, and with resolute tearlessness repeated the impassioned words which had made a vivid impression on her own mind. Felix heard in silence.

"Of course it has all been very trying for you," he said at length, finding some remark expected.

"Felix, what did she mean? I have not liked to ask anybody, but I don't understand. I want to do what she said, and I don't know how. What did she mean?"

"I wish she had never come to this house," was Felix's answer.

"O no—if we hadn't—and it made her so much happier—not afraid! I should be afraid." One sob, long pent-up, had at length its way, and Lettice pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "O Sissie! O Felix, I don't know how to bear it!"

"You've got to be brave," said Felix, by way of impotent comfort.

"I do try. I do try. But I shall be so lonely," sobbed the girl, and Felix had no help to offer.