"I have credit in Cadiz," said he, "but none here, owing to this wretchedchange of name. Why did my father leave Helstone? That was theblunder."
"It was no blunder," said Margaret gloomily. "And above all possiblechances, avoid letting papa hear anything like what you have just beensaying. I can see that he is tormenting himself already with the idea thatmamma would never have been ill if we had stayed at Helstone, andyou don"t know papa"s agonising power of self-reproach!"
Frederick walked away as if he were on the quarter-deck. At last hestopped right opposite to Margaret, and looked at her drooping anddesponding attitude for an instant.
"My little Margaret!" said he, caressing her. "Let us hope as long as wecan. Poor little woman! what! is this face all wet with tears? I will hope.
I will, in spite of a thousand doctors. Bear up, Margaret, and be braveenough to hope!"
Margaret choked in trying to speak, and when she did it was very low.
"I must try to be meek enough to trust. Oh, Frederick! mamma wasgetting to love me so! And I was getting to understand her. And nowcomes death to snap us asunder!"
"Come, come, come! Let us go up-stairs, and do something, rather thanwaste time that may be so precious. Thinking has, many a time, mademe sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life. My theory is a sortof parody on the maxim of "Get money, my son, honestly if you can;but get money. My precept is, "Do something, my sister, do good if youcan; but, at any rate, do something.""
"Not excluding mischief," said Margaret, smiling faintly through hertears.
"By no means. What I do exclude is the remorse afterwards. Blot yourmisdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, assoon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate,where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better thanwetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears hadto be waited for, and a better effect at last."
If Margaret thought Frederick"s theory rather a rough one at first, shesaw how he worked it out into continual production of kindness in fact.
After a bad night with his mother (for he insisted on taking his turn as asitter-up) he was busy next morning before breakfast, contriving a leg-rest for Dixon, who was beginning to feel the fatigues of watching. Atbreakfast-time, he interested Mr. Hale with vivid, graphic, rattlingaccounts of the wild life he had led in Mexico, South America, andelsewhere. Margaret would have given up the effort in despair to rouseMr. Hale out of his dejection; it would even have affected herself andrendered her incapable of talking at all. But Fred, true to his theory, didsomething perpetually; and talking was the only thing to be done,besides eating, at breakfast.
Before the night of that day, Dr. Donaldson"s opinion was proved to betoo well founded. Convulsions came on; and when they ceased, Mrs.
Hale was unconscious. Her husband might lie by her shaking the bedwith his sobs; her son"s strong arms might lift her tenderly up into acomfortable position; her daughter"s hands might bathe her face; but sheknew them not. She would never recognise them again, till they met inHeaven.
Before the morning came all was over.
Then Margaret rose from her trembling and despondency, and becameas a strong angel of comfort to her father and brother. For Frederick hadbroken down now, and all his theories were of no use to him. He criedso violently when shut up alone in his little room at night, that Margaretand Dixon came down in affright to warn him to be quiet: for the housepartitions were but thin, and the next-door neighbours might easily hearhis youthful passionate sobs, so different from the slower tremblingagony of after-life, when we become inured to grief, and dare not berebellious against the inexorable doom, knowing who it is that decrees.
Margaret sate with her father in the room with the dead. If he had cried,she would have been thankful. But he sate by the bed quite quietly;only, from time to time, he uncovered the face, and stroked it gently,making a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some mother-animal caressing her young. He took no notice of Margaret"s presence.
Once or twice she came up to kiss him; and he submitted to it, givingher a little push away when she had done, as if her affection disturbedhim from his absorption in the dead. He started when he heardFrederick"s cries, and shook his head:--"Poor boy! poor boy!" he said,and took no more notice. Margaret"s heart ached within her. She couldnot think of her own loss in thinking of her father"s case. The night waswearing away, and the day was at hand, when, without a word ofpreparation, Margaret"s voice broke upon the stillness of the room, witha clearness of sound that startled even herself: "Let not your heart betroubled," it said; and she went steadily on through all that chapter ofunspeakable consolation.