Chapter XXXIII: Little Emmy’s Visitors

Oswald had found his particular pursuit interrupted by his father’s death. He could not go that day, which happened to be the hospital day, to meet Agnes at the gate; indeed, for once, his own inclinations were, for the moment, driven out of his head; and, in the many things there were to think of, from hatbands upwards, he forgot that this was the day on which alone he could secure a little conversation with the object of his thoughts. When the recollection flashed upon him in the evening, he was more disturbed than was at all usual to his light-hearted nature. What would she think of him? that he had deserted her, after compromising her; an idea equally injurious to his pride and to his affection; for he had so much real feeling about Agnes, that he was not self-confident where she was concerned, and shrank from the idea of appearing in an unfavourable light. Ordinarily, Oswald did not suppose that anyone was likely to look at him in an unfavourable light. And then there was the fear which sprang up hastily within him that this day which he had missed might be the last hospital day. Little Emmy had been gradually getting better, and when she was discharged, what means would he have of seeing Agnes? This thought took away all the pleasure from his cigar, and made him pace back and forward in his room, in all the impatience of impotence, ready to upbraid his father with dying at such an inconvenient moment. Yesterday would not have mattered, or to-morrow--but to-day! How often, Oswald reflected, it happens like this in human affairs. Given an unoccupied day, when an anything might occur without disturbing your arrangement--when, indeed, you have no engagements, and are perfectly free and at the command of fate--nothing, even under the most favourable circumstances, happens; but let it be a moment when something very urgent is on your hands, when you have an opportunity that may never occur again, and immediately earth and heaven conspire to fill it with accidents, and to prevent its necessary use. At that hour, however, nothing could be done. It was nearly midnight, and the House, with all its swarms of children and kindly attendants, must be wrapped in the sleep of the innocent. Would Agnes, he asked himself, share that sleep, or would any troubled thoughts be in her mind touching the stranger who had so sought her society, and who had exposed her to reproof, and then left her to bear it as she might? This, it is to be feared, drove out of Oswald’s mind any feeling he might have had for his father. In any case, such feeling would have been short-lived. He had no visionary compunctions, such as Edward had, though it was Oswald, not Edward, who was supposed to be the poetical one of the brothers; but then Edward was not ‘in love,’ at least not in Oswald’s way.

A week had to elapse before the day on which he could hope to see Agnes again, and this contrariety made him more earnest in his determination to let nothing stand in his way a second time. He was so eager, indeed, that he neglected what would otherwise have been so important in his eyes--the arrival of the mail, which brought definite information as to Mr. Meredith’s property, and must settle what his own prospects were to be.

No man could give a warmer evidence of his love than this he felt within himself as he took his way towards the hospital. During the intervening week he had seen the little teacher almost daily, accompanying the procession of school-girls, and she had, he thought, been conscious that he was there, though she would not look at him. Naturally, Oswald made all he could of his deep hatband, his black gloves, and even the black border of his handkerchief, as he crossed the line; and once he felt that Agnes perceived these indications of woe in a quick glance she gave at him, though she avoided his eyes. This then was a point in his favour--if only little Emmy were still at the hospital. This time he was more bold than usual, and asked to be admitted to see the child, explaining who he was, and what was his connection with the accident. In this respect he took upon himself more than was necessary, blaming himself for being the cause of it--and at length got admittance, his mourning naturally standing him in stead with all the officials. Little Emmy had been by this time transported into the convalescent ward, and was lying on a sofa there, very bright-eyed and pale, looking eagerly, as Oswald saw, with a leap of his heart, for some visitor. When she perceived him a cloud of disappointment passed over her little face, then a glimpse of surprise and recognition, then the swift-rising colour of weakness.

‘Do you know me?’ said Oswald, taking the chair the nurse offered him.

‘Oh, yes!’ cried the child, with a mixture of awe and delight. No further preliminaries were necessary.

He listened, with patience, to an account of all the stages of her recovery, and delicately introduced his own inquiries. The ladies at the House had been very kind to her; had they not? They had come to see her?

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ cried little Emmy. ‘Miss Burchell came every week, and Sister Mary Jane has been twice. Miss Burchell is the kindest of all. I thought she was coming to-day; oh, isn’t she coming to-day?’ the child added, after a pause, looking at him with rising tears. ‘Did she send you instead, please?’ and though Oswald was so grand a gentleman, and his inquiries filled her with pride, yet his possible substitution for her more beloved visitor made Emmy ready to cry. Oswald did not like to be thus thrust into a secondary place, even with a child. A momentary irritation arose in his mind; then he laughed and forgave Emmy, remembering who it was that she preferred to him.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said; ‘I have not come instead of Miss--did you say Burchell? Is she one of the Sisters?’ he asked, hypocritically. ‘I thought you called them by their Christian names.’

‘Oh, sir, Miss Burchell is not a Sister. She is the teacher. I am in the third division,’ said the child, with pride; ‘and she teaches us. She is a lady--not like Miss Davies, in the infant school, you know; but a real, real lady. And all the Sisters are ladies. It is for goodness they take care of us, and not because they are obliged. Such a trouble as they take!’ said little Emmy, with the _naïve_ surprise of her class, ‘and for nothing at all! And Miss Burchell is the kindest of them all.’

‘She has come to see you very often?’

‘Oh, sir, every open day! and she told me that--that--you had come to ask for me. She said it was so good and kind. She said, sir, as you were a very kind gentleman, and took an interest in poor children--especially orphans like me.’

‘Yes; I take a great interest in you, my poor little Emmy,’ said Oswald, blushing with pleasure. ‘I think you ought to have change of air after your long illness. Is there not a place where the children at the House go to when they have been ill?’

‘Oh!’ cried the little girl, with eyes as round as her exclamation, ‘Nelly Brown went to Margate after the fever. She used to tell us about the sands and the shells, and riding on donkeys; but Nelly had a kind lady who took an interest in her,’ said Emmy, her countenance falling, ‘and paid for her. There are such a many orphans, sir,’ she added, with a wistful look at him. ‘Such a many! They would do more for us, if there wasn’t such a many of us, Sister Mary Jane says.’

A certain half-aggrieved and serious wonder was in the child’s eyes. Why there should be so many orphans puzzled little Emmy; and she felt that it was a special grievance to her, as one of them, debarred from the privileges which a smaller number might have shared.

‘And you have a kind gentleman, Emmy,’ said Oswald. ‘I hope it comes to the same thing. This is what I came to talk to you about----’

‘Ah, there she is!’ said little Emmy, growing red with delight.

Oswald got up precipitately from his chair. What would she say to find him here already installed before her? She came up, light-footed, in her nun’s dress; her face looked doubly sweet, or so, at least, her young lover thought, in the close circle of the poke-bonnet, to meet the rapture in the child’s eyes.

Agnes had no thought that Oswald was likely to penetrate here; therefore, she did not see him or think of him as she came up to the child, and he was a witness of the clinging to the little orphan’s arms, the tender sweetness of the salutation. Agnes could not have said anything more homely than the ‘How have you been, dear?’ but it sounded like the very softest utterance of loving kindness--maternal, dove-like murmurings, tender and caressing, to Oswald’s ear.

‘Oh, I am well--almost well; and here is the kind gentleman come to see me!’ cried little Emmy.

Agnes turned quickly, and looked at him. She thought it was the surgeon, who was young too, and had shown an almost unprofessional eagerness to explain to her all the peculiarities of this interesting case. When she saw who it really was she turned crimson, gave him a look which was half reproach and half satisfaction, and went away to the other side of the sofa, keeping the little patient between them. This suited both parties very well: for while Agnes felt it at once a demonstration of displeasure and flight out of a dangerous vicinity, it brought her face to face with him, and gave him a favourable point of view for all her changes of countenance. And who could object to his visit here, which charity--only charity--could have brought about? By little Emmy’s sofa, Oswald felt brave enough to defy all the Sisters in the world.

‘I came to inquire into Emmy’s prospects of convalescence,’ said Oswald, insinuatingly; ‘and she tells me there is some place in Margate where children are sent to from the House. If the Sisters will let me pay for the child--she wants sea breezes, I think,’ and he looked at her in a serious parental way, ‘before she can be fit for work again.’

‘Oh, I think they will be very glad!’ said Agnes, somewhat breathless. She did not want him to know that she had as much as remarked his absence; and yet, in spite of herself, there was a slight tone of coldness and offence in her voice.

‘May I ask you to arrange it for me? I don’t know when she will be able to be moved; but when she is--summer is coming on, and the weather is quite genial already.’ (The weather _is_ quite genial generally, one time or other, in April, to take the unwary in.)

‘Oh, yes,’ said Agnes again, assenting out of sheer timidity and embarrassment. Then she said, hesitating a little, ‘Perhaps it would be better to send word to the Sister Superior yourself.’

‘Is it necessary? I have been in great trouble lately, which is why I could not ask for poor Emmy last week,’ he said; and so managed as that the deep hatband should catch the eye of Agnes. Her face softened at once, as he saw, and her eyes, after a momentary glance at the hatband, returned inquiring and kind, not furtive or offended, to his face.

‘I am very sorry,’ she said, looking again at the hat, and in an eager, half-apologetic tone. ‘I will speak of it, if you wish. It is very kind of you to think of her--very kind.’

‘Kind! How can I be sufficiently grateful to Emmy?’ he said, low and quickly, in a tone which the child could not hear; and then he took the little girl’s thin small hand into his, and folded the fingers on a gold coin.

‘This is to hire donkeys on the sands, Emmy,’ he said, ‘but mind you must tell me all about it when you come back.’

‘Oh, sir! Oh, Miss Burchell! look what he has given me,’ said the child in ecstasy. But Oswald knew how to beat a retreat gracefully. He gave a little squeeze to Emmy’s fist, keeping it closed over the sovereign, and, bowing to Agnes, went away.

Was that the last of him? Better, far better, that it should be the last of him, poor Agnes felt, as her heart contracted, in spite of herself, at his withdrawal; but the surprise, and that pang of disappointment, which she would have gone to the stake rather than acknowledge, made her incapable of speech for the moment. It is very wicked and wrong to speak to a gentleman to whom you have never been introduced; but, then, when that gentleman has a legitimate opportunity of making a little acquaintance in a natural way, how strange, and rather injurious, that he should not take advantage of it! This failure of all necessity for resistance at the moment when she was buckling on her best armour to resist, gave an extraordinary twist to Agnes Burchell’s heart. It almost would have brought the tears to her eyes, had not she started in instant self-despair--though she would not have shed such tears for all the treasures of the world.

‘Oh, look what he has given me!’ cried little Emmy, ‘a sovereign, a whole sovereign--all to myself!’

‘He is--very kind,’ said Agnes, stiffly, and she was restrained even in her intercourse with Emmy, not saying half so much to her as she did on ordinary occasions, which was wrong; for, in fact, Emmy could not justly bear blame for anything committed, neither for his coming nor his going away. The child was quite cast down by Miss Burchell’s coldness. She began to inquire if Agnes was ill, if she was tired, if she thought the Sisters would object to let her go to Margate; thus plainly showing that she perceived her visitor’s abstraction, which was, of all things in the world, the last thing which Agnes wished to be remarked. And poor Agnes could not conceal how worried she was by these questions; she could not account for the discouragement, the sickness of heart, that had come over her. She was tired all at once--overcome by the heat or the cold; which was it?

‘It is the spring, miss,’ said the nurse.

And she was very willing to allow that it must be the spring.

‘I will send you word as soon as I have spoken to the Sister,’ she said, kissing little Emmy as she went away; ‘and forgive me, dear--for I have a headache. I have not been able to talk to you to-day.’

‘Oh, have you a headache?’ cried poor little Emmy, ready to cry for sympathy. What perverse things hearts are when they are young! Agnes walked away through the wards the emblem, of peaceful quiet, in her black bonnet, her soft face breathing serenity and ease, as one sufferer and another thought as she passed, but under that conventual drapery a hundred thoughts rustling and stinging, so that the girl was afraid lest they should be heard. Oh, she was glad that he was gone! Glad to be spared the struggle and the necessity for telling him that he must haunt her steps no more. Glad to be let alone, to do her work in peace; her work, that was what she lived for, not absurd romances which she was ashamed even to dream of. Her mind was brimful and running over with these thoughts. It was like carrying a hive full of bees, or a cage full of birds through the place, to walk through it like this, her heart beating, and so many voices whispering in her ears. But suddenly, all at once, as she came out of the great doors, they all hushed in a moment. Her heart stopped (she thought); her thoughts fled like frightened children. She was stilled. Why? It was all for no better reason than that Oswald Meredith was visible at the gate, in his black clothes, looking (the hospital nurses thought) like an interesting young widower, bereaved and pensive, yet not inconsolable. He had put on a look in conformity with his hatband, and stood there waiting for her as she came out, claiming her sympathy. Agnes grew still in a moment, the tumult and the commotion ceasing in her mind as by magic. She tried to look as if she did not see him, and then to pass him when she got out beyond the gate; but he stepped forward quickly into her path.

‘May I ask if you will speak for me about little Emmy?’ he said. ‘The child looks weak and rather excitable. I should like, if the authorities will permit me, to pay her expenses to the sea.’

‘Oh, yes, they will permit you,’ said Agnes, smiling in spite of all her terrors. ‘You are very kind. I will speak--if you wish it.’

‘And write to me,’ said Oswald, eagerly. ‘It will be necessary to write to me to let me know.’

But Agnes demurred to this easy settlement of the matter. ‘Sister Mary Jane will write. She manages these things herself. But she will be pleased. Good morning,’ she said, making am attempt to quicken her steps.

‘I am going this way,’ said Oswald. ‘I could not come last week. We had bad news.’

She looked up at him, half alarmed, half sympathetic. She was sorry, very sorry, that he should suffer. It was not possible (she thought) to be like the priest and the Levite, pass on on the other side, and pretend to care nothing for one’s neighbour. But then she ought to tell him to go away. So Agnes compounded with her conscience by uttering nothing; all she did was to look up at him with tender brown eyes, so full of pity and interest, that words would have been vain to express all they were able to say.

‘My father is dead in India,’ said Oswald. ‘You may fancy how hard it is upon us to hear of it without any details, without knowing who was with him, or if he was properly cared for. I have not had time for anything since but to attend upon my mother, and see to what had to be done.’

He felt that this was a quite correct, description; for had he not sacrificed the last hospital day to the shock of the news, if not to the service of his mother; and there had been things to do, hatbands, &c., which had kept him occupied.

‘I am very sorry,’ said Agnes, with downcast eyes.

‘You who are so tender and sympathetic, I knew you would feel for--my mother,’ said Oswald; upon which name the girl looked up at him again. To feel for his mother--surely there could not be anything more natural, more right, than this.

‘You would like my mother--everyone does. It is amusing the way in which people run after her. Not that there is any room for amusement in our mournful house at present,’ said Oswald, correcting himself. ‘This is the first day the sun has seemed to shine or the skies to be blue since I saw you last.’

‘I am very sorry,’ said Agnes again; and then, after a pause, she added nervously, ‘It is not that I think anything--and, oh, I hope you will not be vexed now that you are in trouble!--but you must not come with me. The Sister thinks it is not right, and neither do I.’

‘Not right!’ said Oswald, with an ingenuous look of surprise.

Agnes was driven to her wit’s end. ‘I do not want to seem absurd,’ she said, trembling, ‘and indeed there is no need for explanation. Please, you must not wait for me at the hospital, or walk back with me any more.’

‘Alas! have we not been planning to send little Emmy away? That means that I shall not have the chance, and that the brightest chapter in my life is almost over. Must it be over? You don’t know what it has been to me. You have made me think as I never thought before. Will you abandon me now, just when I feel on the threshold of something better?’

‘You must not talk so,’ said Agnes, roused to something like anger. ‘You know very well that, meeting me as you have done, it is wrong; it is not the part of a gentleman to talk so.’

‘Is it not the part of a gentleman to admire, to reverence--to love?’ Oswald said the last words almost under his breath, and yet she heard them, notwithstanding the noises in the street.

‘Mr. Meredith!’ She gave him an indignant look, but it ended in a blush, which ran like a warm suffusion all over her, and checked further words on her lips.

‘I know your name, too,’ he said. ‘And it is not love only, but reverence, that is in my heart. Oh, Agnes! don’t turn me away! May not my mother come, when she is well enough to go anywhere, and plead my cause? She might speak if I may not.’

‘Oh, go away, please, go away,’ said Agnes, in distress. ‘We are almost at the House again.’

‘And why should not we be at the House, if you will let me hope?’ cried Oswald. ‘I don’t want to skulk away! Yes, I will go and hide myself somewhere if you will not hear me. I shall not care what becomes of me. But Agnes----’

‘Oh, Mr. Meredith! Go, please. I cannot think it is right. I--don’t understand you. I ought not to listen to you--in this dress; and I have only begun the work.’

‘There are other kinds of work. There is the natural work. Is not a wife better than a sister?’

Agnes lighted up with the sudden flash which was characteristic of her. She raised her eyes to him glowing with indignant fire, her face suffused with colour. ‘Better?’ she said; ‘better to live for one’s self and one other than for the poor and helpless and the miserable! Oh! do you know what you say? You are a tempter; you are not a true Christian! Better! when there are so many who are wretched and friendless in the world, with no one to care whether they live or die? Do you think a woman does better who tries to make _you_ happy than one who gives herself up for _them_?’

In the heat of this sudden burst of controversial eloquence, she turned aside into another street, which led out of the way of the House. Nothing else would have tempted her to such a curious breach of decorum; but the argument did, which filled her with indignant fervour. She did it only half consciously, by impulse, burning to know what he would answer, what plea he could bring up against her. But here Oswald’s cleverness failed him. He was not wise enough to see that a little argument would have led her on to any self-committal. He answered softly, with mistaken submission.

‘I will retract. I will say anything you please. No, not better; only happier. You would make me the most blessed of men; and what can you do for the poor? So little; everybody says, so little! But for me there would be no limit to what you could do. I have the most need of conversion. Ah! let your mission be me!’

Agnes started and came to herself. She looked round her, alarmed and scared, when she knew, yet only half knew, that she had left the direct road. ‘I have taken the wrong turn,’ she said, with confusion. ‘Mr. Meredith, let us forget that we have ever met. How could I turn back, having just put my hand to the plough? Oh, it is very weak and wicked of me, but I do not want the Sister to see you. She will think--but you have been kind, and I will say good-by here.’

‘Do you want to say good-by? Why should we forget we have ever met? Tell me to forget that I am born!’

‘Oh, no, no; it is not like that. Mr. Meredith, we have only known each other four or five--a few weeks.’

‘Six--I have kept closer count than you.’

‘And what does that matter in a life?’ said Agnes, looking up at him with a courageous smile. ‘Nothing! no more than a moment. We have not done any harm,’ she added, collecting all her strength. ‘We have not neglected our work nor wasted our time. And we never meant anything. It was all an accident. Mr. Meredith, good-by. I shall pray that you may be happy.’

‘Ah! that is like what the world says of saints,’ he said, sharply. ‘You make me wretched, and then pray that I may be happy.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ she cried, the tears coming to her eyes. ‘How can I have made you wretched? It was only an accident. It has been only a moment. You will not refuse to say good-by.’

Foolish Agnes! she had nothing to do but to leave him, having said her say. But, instead of this she argued, bent upon making a logical conclusion to which he should consent, convinced, though against his will. On the whole she preferred that it should be against his will--but convinced she had determined that he must be. They walked away softly through the little street into the sunset, which sank lower every moment, shedding a glory of slant light upon the two young figures so sombre in garb, so radiant in life. Where they were going they did not know, nor how the charmed moments were passing. Every shade of the coming evening lay behind them, but all the glory of the rose tints and glowing purple, the daffodil skies and gates of pearl, before.