Chapter X: Sudden Peril

"A LETTER for you, Aunt Julia."

Mittie danced into the room, holding out an envelope; then danced back, holding it still. Julia started up.

"Mittie! give it to me," she cried.

"It's from Uncle Harvey! I know his writing. And it has got the English postmark."

"Mittie! how dare you? Give it to me this instant!"

Julia made a forward step, and Mittie sprang to the open door, where she stood as if meditating flight.

"Don't get cross, Aunt Julia, 'cause, if you're cross, I won't give it you at all," the child said saucily, and she shook her great mane of flaxen hair, looking out from the bush with soft black eyes. "Mother always says people have got to keep good-tempered, whatever anybody does. It isn't lady-like to be cross, you know."

"Francesca! make her give it to me!" gasped Julia, not daring to advance, lest child and letter should vanish.

Mrs. Trevor laughed. "Come, Mittie, don't be a little plague," she said.

"I like being a little plague," asserted Mittie.

"I daresay you do; but just give the letter up now, without any fuss— there's a good child."

"Then Aunt Julia isn't to be cross."

"Of course she won't. Do be quick, Mittie."

Mittie hesitated still, and Julia could endure the suspense no longer. She made a rush forward, and caught the child's dress. Mittie struggled furiously, broke loose, and fled to the window. Before Julia could overtake her, she was out in the balcony, hanging over the slight parapet.

"Aunt Julia, if you touch me, I'll drop the letter! I declare I will."

But Julia's grasp was on the hand which held the letter. Mittie fought fiercely, her lissom figure bending more and more outwards. Suddenly she overbalanced herself. There was a scream, a clutch, a sound of something tearing,—and Mittie was all but precipitated on the pavement below. She had actually gone so far as to hang suspended, with no support but Julia's arms. Even the letter could not be thought of in that moment. Julia held on with all her force, in response to the child's convulsive clinging; but to lift her back over the parapet unassisted was not possible, Julia's muscular powers being less than one might have expected from her height and build. Fortunately Francesca at hand. Mittie's shrill cry drew an answering shriek from her as she ran forward, and after one moment of terrible suspense the child was safely landed.

For three seconds no one spoke, only each looked at the deathly white faces of the other two. It had been a frightfully near escape. Julia seemed stunned, hardly able to stand, and Mrs. Trevor was panting.

Mittie broke the silence. "It's gone!" she said. "It's down in the street. And I'm glad! Aunt Julia nearly killed me."

The excitable child flung herself on her mother in a tumult of sobs, and Francesca too was in tears. Julia still said nothing. She did not feel as if she could speak. The peril had been so very imminent, and the results might have been so very terrible. Her throat felt rigid, and black specks were dancing still before her eyes. But the letter— Harvey's letter—that must not be lost! Julia went downstairs slowly, her limbs shaking under her, and was met at the foot of the stairs by a waiter.

"Mademoiselle had dropped something," he said, presenting her with a muddy envelope. "It had been seen to fall from the window." Julia thanked him, and returned to the sitting-room.

"So you have got it," Francesca said coldly, as she entered. The child was clinging to her, and sobbing still. "I think you might have been content to wait half-a-minute, instead of behaving like a wild cat. Poor darling Mittie! It was awful."

Julia sat down, the letter pressed between her hands. "Mittie was wrong," she said.

"I dare say! A little innocent fun! And you were right, of course, as you always are."

"No. But—"

"Well, you may as well read your precious document now you have got it. After all this fuss! Mittie, my sweet, don't cry any more. You will make such a fright of yourself. Come, it's all right now. We'll have a drive to-morrow, and you shall have a franc to spend in chocolate."

This proved consoling, and Mittie's weeping ceased with astonishing speed. She sat up and began to smile, casting curious glances at her aunt, who had not yet opened the letter, but remained with fixed eyes and cheeks white as paper.

"What is the matter with you?" Francesca asked at length, and Mittie echoed the question in another form— "Aunt Julia, are you cross still?"

Julia could not have answered the first question. She did not know what was the matter with her. It was not crossness, but the moment's horror had stunned her faculties. Suppose Mittie had gone over, and suppose—suppose—only a little corpse had been brought up from the street below! What would life have been after? and how must Francesca have felt? and what would Harvey have thought—nay, what must he not think now? Of course the child was wrong—wilful, pert, disagreeable; but what of her own ungoverned excitement? Julia grew paler and sadder as she thought. And it was all on account of this letter, of her love for Harvey! She did not feel worthy to open and read it yet, though her heart was craving for news.

"Do see what Harvey says, and don't sit staring at nothing in that absurd way," Francesca at length said impatiently.

To Julia's surprise, Mittie spoke up in her defence. "Mother, Aunt Julia isn't absurd. I expect she's only sorry."

Mittie quitted her mother, and went across to the chair in which Julia sat.

"Are you sorry, Aunt Julia?" she asked. "You're not cross with me now? I won't plague you again."

"Kiss me, Mittie," whispered Julia.

A cloud of flaxen hair descended round her in prompt reply; but the very pressure of those little soft arms only brought up more vividly than ever the terrible thought of what might have been the child's condition if—only if—Julia's strength had not sufficed to hold her up. Julia shuddered as she pressed her lips to the smooth cheek.

"Why, you are quite cold, I do declare; and I'm as hot as fire with kicking you," Mittie asserted, with childish frankness and exaggeration. "Is that why you're so pasty-coloured? If I had a letter I wouldn't keep it shut all this time."

Julia became conscious that she could "keep it shut" no longer, and her fingers broke open the closed envelope. As she read the sheet within, she drew one or two long breaths of relief, and a glow rose in her cheeks.

"He could not help it," she said.

"Couldn't help what? The delay?" asked Francesca. "Of course not. What man ever could, if he wished to stay away longer?"

"Francesca, you don't understand. He has not stayed for pleasure. He could not get away."

"Of course not," repeated Mrs. Trevor.

"His uncle is dead—suddenly."

"Julia!"

"Yes; early on Monday."

"Strange! What did he die of?"

"He was not well on Sunday. Then on Monday he woke quite early, and said something about his head, about not wanting to be disturbed. After that he never spoke again. Some sort of attack like apoplexy, Harvey believes. Poor fellow!"

"Poor old Mr. Dalrymple?"

"Yes—no—I meant Harvey. He has had to go through all this, and I have been thinking—"

Julia did not end the self-reproachful sentence.

"Why did he not write sooner?"

"He says he could not, and he thought a telegram would frighten me."

"He doesn't think you a greater goose than you are, my dear." Then, after a break, "Was this what made you look so happy over your letter? To be sure!—Westford will belong to your husband now."

"Francesca! how can you?"

"Well, if you had seen your own face—"

"I never thought of that or of any such thing. I was only glad to know that he had good reason for staying away—not glad, of course, for what has happened."

"What about Miss Rivers?"

"Harvey does not say much. Only that she bears up well, and that he cannot possibly get away till after the funeral. Nothing can be settled till then."

"And then—hélas!—we shall all have to be buried alive. Don't look so dismayed; I only mean a figurative burial. What else can life at Westford be?"

"I don't see—" Julia began, and stopped.

"You very soon will see, my dear. Depend upon it, that is to be our future." Francesca sighed audibly again.

"Mother, shall we live in England?" asked Mittie.

"In a horribly triste country place, Mittie, with nothing but muddy lanes and cows and sheep. I never did think I should come to that, but beggars can't be choosers."

"Harvey always speaks of Westford as such a beautiful place."

"There's an ancestral glamour about it for him—not for me! I detest ancestors almost as much as cows."

"I like lanes better than streets," announced Mittie, as if her opinion were conclusive.

Julia did not care to enter into an argument. For her part she was content to be anywhere in the world, so long as Harvey was there too. Paris, Westford, Kamskatka, or Zululand, mattered little. A few minutes later she slipped away to her own room, and re-read more than once the hurriedly-written letter-one sentence especially.

"I am much afraid from what I hear that Hermione is left totally unprovided for. I do not think she is aware of this herself, and it is almost inexplicable with a man of such business habits as my uncle; but it appears that he has constantly put off, waiting for my return. I could wish now that I had gone back sooner. Regrets are useless, however. We shall have of course to give Hermione a home, though you need not at present mention this to Francesca, as it will not be known until after the reading of the will. Hermione is a pretty creature, and quite a saint, only perhaps a shade difficile in some of her ways. She bears up splendidly, and one cannot but admire her fortitude. I do not know how she and Francesca will suit, still I have no doubt that we shall shake down together somehow. I must stay here till after the funeral, as it is impossible to leave Hermione alone. You will understand this, my dear Julia, and will, I know, bear the disappointment bravely. After that we shall see what to do."

Julia sat long by the window, thinking. Hermione occupied but a small share of her attention. This sudden death in her husband's family touched her keenly, coming so soon after the shock of little Mittie's narrow escape. She could not yet turn from that recollection, could not shake off the horror of it. A sense of insecurity crept over her, of personal helplessness, of a wide surrounding abyss into which at any moment she or her husband might drop away from the other. For after all, life is not meant only for self-pleasing; and a butterfly existence cannot satisfy; and human love may fail; and there is a beyond to the present which may not be always ignored. Julia had a glimpse of the far beyond in that quiet hour, even while the next few days without Harvey seemed to her apprehension hopelessly long to wade through.