"What is he doing on the floor?" exclaimed Barbara, in her astonishment. "He should not lie on the floor, Madame Vine."
"He lays himself down there at the dusk hour, and I cannot get him up again. I try to persuade him to use the sofa, but it is of no use."
"The floor will not hurt him," said Mr. Carlyle. /This/ was the dark shade: his boy's failing health.
William opened his eyes. "Who's that--papa?"
"Don't you feel well, William?"
"Oh, yes, I'm very well; but I am tired."
"Why do you lie down here?"
"I like lying here. Papa, that pretty white rabbit of mine is dead."
"Indeed. Suppose you get up and tell me all about it."
"I don't know about it myself yet," said William, softly rising. "The gardener told Lucy when she was out just now: I did not go; I was tired. He said--"
"What has tired you?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle, taking hold of the boy's hand.
"Oh, nothing. I am always tired."
"Do you tell Mr. Wainwright that you are tired?"
"No. Why should I tell him? I wish he would not order me to take that nasty medicine, that cod liver oil."
"But it is to make you strong, my boy."
"It makes me sick. I always feel sick after it, papa. Madame Vine says I ought to have cream. That would be nice."
"Cream?" repeated Mr. Carlyle, turning his eyes on Madame Vine.
"I have known cream to do a great deal of good in a case like William's," she observed. "I believe that no better medicine can be given; that it has in fact no substitute."
"It can be tried," said Mr. Carlyle.
"Pray give your orders, Madame Vine, for anything you think may be beneficial to him," Mrs. Carlyle added. "You have had more experience with children than I. Joyce--"
"What does Wainwright say?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle, speaking to his wife, in his low tone.
"I do not always see him when he comes, Archibald. Madame Vine does, I believe."
"Oh, dear!" cried Lucy, "can't we have tea? I want some bread and jam."
Mr. Carlyle turned round, smiled and nodded at her. "Patience is good for little girls, Miss Lucy. Would you like some bread and jam, my boy?"
William shook his head. "I can't eat jam. I am only thirsty."
Mr. Carlyle cast a long and intent look at him, and then left the room. Lady Isabel followed him, her thoughts full of her ailing child.
"Do you think him very ill, sir?" she whispered.
"I think he looks so. What does Mr. Wainwright say?"
"He says nothing to me. I have not inquired his true condition. Until to-night it did not come to me that there was any apprehension."
"Does he look so much worse to-night?"
"Not any worse than customary. Latterly he had looked just like this in the evening. It was a remark of Hannah's that roused my alarm: she thinks he is on the road to death. What can we do to save him?"
She clasped her hands as she spoke, in the intensity of her emotion. She almost forgot, as they stood there together talking of the welfare of the child, their child, that he was no longer her husband. Almost, not quite, utterly impossible would it be for her wholly to forget the dreadful present. Neither he nor the child could again belong to her in this world.
A strange rising of the throat in her wild despair, a meek courtesy, as she turned from him, his last words ringing in her ears: "I shall call in further advice for him, Madame Vine."
William was clinging round Mrs. Carlyle, in a coaxing attitude, when she re-entered the gray parlor. "I know what I could eat, mamma, if you'd let me have it," cried he, in answer to her remonstrance that he must eat something.
"What could you eat?"
"Some cheese."
"Cheese! Cheese with tea!" laughed Mrs. Carlyle.
"For the last week or two he has fancied strange things, the effect of a diseased appetite," exclaimed Madame Vine; "but if I allow them to be brought in he barely tastes them."
"I am sure, mamma, I could eat some cheese now," said William.
"You may have it," answered Mrs. Carlyle.
As she turned to leave the room, the impatient knock and ring of a visitor was heard. Barbara wondered who could be arriving at that, their dinner hour. Sailing majestically into the hall, her lips compressed, her aspect threatening, came Miss Carlyle.
Now it turned out that Miss Corny had been standing at her own window, grimly eyeing the ill doings of the street, from the fine housemaid opposite, who was enjoying a flirting interview with the baker, to the ragged urchins, pitch-polling in the gutter and the dust. And there she caught sight of the string, justices and others, who came flowing out of the office of Mr. Carlyle. So many of them were they that Miss Corny involuntarily thought of a conjuror flinging flowers out of a hat--the faster they come, the more it seems there are to come. "What on earth is up?" cried Miss Corny, pressing her nose flat against the pane, that she might see better.
They filed off, some one way, some another. Miss Carlyle's curiosity was keener than her appetite, for she stayed on the watch, although just informed that her dinner was served. Presently Mr. Carlyle appeared and she knocked at the window with her knuckles. He did not hear it; he had turned off at a quick pace toward home. Miss Corny's temper rose.
The clerks came out next, one after another; and the last was Mr. Dill. He was less hurried than Mr. Carlyle had been, and heard Miss Corny's signal.
"What in the name of wonder, did all that stream of people want at the office?" began she, when Mr. Dill had entered in obedience to it.
"That was the deputation, Miss Cornelia."
"What deputation?"
"The deputation to Mr. Archibald. They want him to become their new member."
"Member of what?" cried she, not guessing at the actual meaning.
"Of parliament, Miss Corny; to replace Mr. Attley. The gentlemen came to solicit him to be put in nomination."
"Solicit a donkey!" irascibly uttered Miss Corny, for the tidings did not meet her approbation. "Did Archibald turn them out again?"
"He gave them no direct answer, ma'am. He will consider of it between now and to-morrow morning."
"/Consider/ of it!" shrieked she. "Why, he'd never, never be such a flat as to comply. He go into parliament! What next?"
"Why should he not, Miss Corny? I'm sure I should be proud to see him there."
Miss Corny gave a sniff. "You are proud of things more odd than even John Dill. Remember that fine shirt front! What has become of it? Is it laid up in lavender?"
"Not exactly in lavender, Miss Corny. It lies in the drawer; for I have never liked to put it on since, after what you said."
"Why don't you sell it at half-price, and buy a couple of good useful ones with the money?" returned she, tartly. "Better that than keep the foppish thing as a witness of your folly. Perhaps he'll be buying embroidered fronts next, if he goes into that idle, do-nothing House of Commons. I'd rather enter myself for six months at the treadmill."
"Oh, Miss Corny! I don't think you have well considered it. It's a great honor, and worthy of him. He will be elevated above us all, as it were, and he deserves to be."
"Elevate him on a weathercock!" raged Miss Corny. "There, you may go. I've heard quite enough."
Brushing past the old gentleman, leaving him to depart or not, as he might please, Miss Carlyle strode upstairs, flung on her shawl and bonnet, and strode down again. Her servant looked considerably surprised, and addressed her as she crossed the hall.
"Your dinner, ma'am?" he ventured to say.
"What's my dinner to you?" returned Miss Corny, in her wrath. "You have had yours."
Away she strode. And thus it happened that she was at East Lynne almost as soon as Mr. Carlyle.
"Where's Archibald?" began she, without ceremony, the moment she saw Barbara.
"He is here. Is anything the matter?"
Mr. Carlyle, hearing the voice, came out and she pounced upon him with her tongue.
"What's this about your becoming the new member for West Lynne?"
"West Lynne wishes it," said Mr. Carlyle. "Sit down, Cornelia."
"Sit down yourself," retorted she, keeping on her feet. "I want my question answered. /Of course/ you will decline?"
"On the contrary, I have made up my mind to accept."
Miss Corny untied the strings of her bonnet, and flung them behind her.
"Have you counted the cost?" she asked, and there was something quite sepulchral in her solemn tone.
"I have given it consideration, Cornelia; both as regards money and time. The expenses are not worth naming, should there be no opposition. And if there is any--"
"Ay!" groaned Miss Corny. "If there is?"
"Well? I am not without a few hundred to spare for the playing," he said, turning upon her the good-humored light of his fine countenance.
Miss Carlyle emitted some dismal groans.
"That ever I should have lived to see this day! To hear money talked of as though it were dirt. And what's to become of your business?" she sharply added. "Is that to be let run to rack and ruin, while you are kicking up your heels in that wicked London, under plea of being at the House night after night?"
"Cornelia," he gravely said, "were I dead, Dill could carry on the business just as well as it is being carried on now. I might go into a foreign country for seven years and come back to find the business as flourishing as ever, for Dill could keep it together. And even were the business to drop off--though I tell you it will not do so--I am independent of it."
Miss Carlyle faced tartly round upon Barbara.
"Have you been setting him on to this?"
"I think he had made up his mind before he spoke to me. But," added Barbara, in her truth, "I urged him to accept it."
"Oh, you did! Nicely moped and miserable you'll be here, if he goes to London for months on the stretch. You did not think of that, perhaps."
"But he would not have me here," said Barbara, her eyelashes becoming wet at the thought, as she unconsciously moved to her husband's side. "He would take me with him."
Miss Carlyle made a pause, and looked at them alternately.
"Is that decided?" she asked.
"Of course it is," laughed Mr. Carlyle, willing to joke the subject and his sister into good-humor. "Would you wish to separate man and wife, Cornelia?"
She made no reply. She rapidly tied her bonnet-strings, the ribbons trembling ominously in her fingers.
"You are not going, Cornelia? You must stay to dinner, now that you are here--it is ready--and we will talk this further over afterward."
"This has been dinner enough for me for one day," spoke she, putting on her gloves. "That I should have lived to see my father's son throw up his business, and change himself into a lazy, stuck-up parliament man!"
"Do stay and dine with us, Cornelia; I think I can subdue your prejudices, if you will let me talk to you."
"If you wanted to talk to me about it, why did you not come in when you left the office?" cried Miss Corny, in a greater amount of wrath than she had shown yet. And there's no doubt that, in his not having done so, lay one of the sore points.
"I did not think of it," said Mr. Carlyle. "I should have come in and told you of it to-morrow morning."
"I dare say you would," she ironically answered. "Good evening to you both."
And, in spite of their persuasions, she quitted the house and went stalking down the avenue.
Two or three days more, and the address of Mr. Carlyle to the inhabitants of West Lynne appeared in the local papers, while the walls and posts convenient were embellished with various colored placards, "Vote for Carlyle." "Carlyle forever!"
Wonders never cease. Surprises are the lot of man; but perhaps a greater surprise had never been experienced by those who knew what was what, than when it went forth to the world that Sir Francis Levison had converted himself from--from what he was--into a red-hot politician.
Had he been offered the post of prime minister? Or did his conscience smite him, as was the case with a certain gallant captain renowned in song? Neither the one nor the other. The simple fact was, that Sir Francis Levison was in a state of pecuniary embarrassment, and required something to prop him up--some snug sinecure--plenty to get and nothing to do.
Patch himself up he must. But how? He had tried the tables, but luck was against him; he made a desperate venture upon the turf, a grand /coup/ that would have set him on his legs for some time, but the venture turned out the wrong way, and Sir Francis was a defaulter. He began then to think there was nothing for it but to drop into some nice government nest, where, as I have told you, there would be plenty to get and nothing to do. Any place with much to do would not suit him, or he it; he was too empty-headed for work requiring talent; you may have remarked that a man given to Sir Francis Levison's pursuits generally is.
He dropped into something good, or that promised good--nothing less than the secretaryship to Lord Headthelot, who swayed the ministers in the upper House. But that he was a connection of Lord Headthelot's he never would have obtained it, and very dubiously the minister consented to try him. Of course a condition was, that he should enter parliament the first opportunity, his vote to be at the disposal of the ministry--rather a shaky ministry--and supposed, by some, to be on its last legs. And this brings us to the present time.
In a handsome drawing-room in Eaton Square, one sunny afternoon, sat a lady, young and handsome. Her eyes were of violet blue, her hair was auburn, her complexion delicate; but there was a stern look of anger, amounting to sullenness, on her well-formed features, and her pretty foot was beating the carpet in passionate impatience. It was Lady Levison.
The doings of the past had been coming home to her for some time now-- past doings, be they good or be they ill, are sure to come home, one day or another, and bring their fruits with them.
