How they loved him, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Fenella reached the cottage with her head filled with the unexpected encounter that had taken place, and ready to rush into Bennett’s presence and tell her all about it, but Martha met her at the door with a portentous countenance that made her at once ask what was wrong.

‘Well, miss, I’m sorry to say as poor ’Liza’s been took worse this afternoon, and I’ve been obliged to send into Lynwern for the doctor, and I was just looking up the road to see if there was any signs of ’im.’

‘What is the matter with her?’ exclaimed Fenella. ‘How is she worse? Why didn’t you send for me?’

‘Well, miss, what would have been the good of that—spoiling your pleasure and all for nothing, as the less people about in sickness the better. ’Liza wasn’t so well this mornin’—I see that plain enough; but this afternoon she went right off her head with pain, and her leg swelled dreadful, so I thought the sooner Dr Redfern saw ’er the better. And when Benjamin came home with the cart, I sent him straight back to Lynwern again to tell the doctor, and I expect it won’t be long now afore we see ’im.’

‘Will he come in the cart?’ demanded Fenella.

‘Bless you, no, miss. He’ll drive over in his own gig—he’s quite the gentleman, is Dr Redfern.’

‘Let me go up and see poor Bennett—she would like to see me!’ said the girl, as she attempted to pass into the cottage.

‘Better not, miss, please, if it’s all the same to you. I give ’er some tea just now, and she seemed a bit easier, and dropt off to sleep, and I wouldn’t have ’er roused before the doctor come, for anything.’

So Fenella sat down on one of the wooden chairs in the sanded parlour, with a heart full of apprehension. But it was all for the sick woman upstairs; she never thought twice of herself, nor what would become of her if Bennett were going to be really ill, and she were left stranded in a place like Ines-cedwyn, far from everybody that belonged to her. She kept on thinking how the accident could have been avoided, and blaming herself that it had ever occurred, until the rattle of wheels outside the cottage door announced the doctor’s arrival from Lynwern, and Martha obsequiously ushered a portly and authoritative looking individual through the little parlour and up the narrow stairs.

The doctor threw a glance towards Fenella as he passed her, and started as he did so. He could not imagine what such a fair, delicate girl could be doing in Benjamin Bennett’s cottage. But he had no time for questions before he found himself in the presence of his patient.

‘Hullo! what’s this!’ he exclaimed, as he examined the injured limb. ‘Why, the woman’s broken her leg—what were you thinking of not to have sent for me before?’

‘Broke her leg, sir!’ cried Martha, who was trembling with fright at the news. ‘You don’t never mean to go to tell us that! Dear, dear me! Why, we thought it was nothing worse than a sprained ankle!’

‘Sprained ankle! Rubbish! There’s no more the matter with her ankle than there is with yours. She’s broken her leg, I tell you. It’s a simple fracture, and would have been a trifle if you’d sent for me at first, but I can do nothing with it now.’

‘Lor’ bless me, sir! you don’t mean to say as it’s to be broken all my life?’ said poor Bennett, with eyes of horror.

‘No, no! Nonsense! But I mean I can’t set it till this swelling has subsided. Why, your leg’s like a bolster! You must have suffered a great deal of pain.’

‘Oh, I have, sir—dreadful!’

‘Yes; and you have a bit of fever into the bargain. Now, look here, Mrs Bennett. You must keep your sister-in-law perfectly quiet and perfectly still till I’ve got that leg down to its proper size. Don’t let her be worried about anything, and don’t you talk too much, but feed her on slops, and leave her alone. I’ll give her a fever-draught now to make her sleep, and I’ll look in again to-morrow morning. Good evening to you,’ and Dr Redfern turned on his heel and walked downstairs again. As he entered the parlour, Fenella was standing by the table, with a face full of anxiety.

‘Is she better?’ she inquired. ‘Will she soon be well?’

The old doctor looked at her with interest.

‘Yes, yes!’ he said soothingly. ‘Don’t alarm yourself, my dear. She’ll soon be all right again, and I’m coming to see her to-morrow morning.’

‘Oh, I am so glad! I am so thankful!’ replied Fenella fervently.

Dr Redfern regarded her with curiosity. He did not like to ask her what possible connection there could be between herself and the woman he had been summoned to see, but when he had climbed into his gig again, he stooped down and addressed Martha Bennett, who had accompanied him to the door.

‘Who’s that young lady in the parlour?’ he whispered.

‘That’s Miss Barrington, sir, ’Liza’s young mistress. She had just brought her down here for the sea air when she broke her leg in this terrible manner.’

‘Ah! I see—I understand,’ replied the doctor, as he gathered up the reins. ‘Well, keep her out of the sick-room. I must have no talking there.’

‘No, doctor; certainly not. And you’ll be over in the morning, sir?’

‘Yes; about ten o’clock. Good-night.’ And away drove the doctor to Lynwern.

‘Here’s a sad business, miss,’ said Martha, as she returned to Fenella’s side. ‘Poor ’Liza’s been and broke her leg, and it can’t even be splintered till all that nasty swellin’s gone down.’

Fenella’s distress was genuine.

‘Oh, poor Bennett!’ she exclaimed. ‘What pain she must have suffered! And she wouldn’t let me write to my mother, and now it is too late!’

‘How’s that, miss?’

‘Because mamma leaves London to-morrow morning, and we don’t know where she is going. She said she would write to us when she was settled, but that may not be for a long time.’

‘Well, never mind, miss. Your ma wouldn’t have been no manner of use here, and we’ll take good care of ’Liza, never fear. It’s done, and it can’t be helped. So, as soon as I’ve made ’er comfortable, I’ll come down and lay the supper, and then we’ll all go to bed and have a good night’s rest.’

‘Mayn’t I go and bid Bennett good night?’ pleaded the girl.

‘Well, it must be good-night then, miss, and nothing more, for Dr Redfern gave particular orders there was to be no talkin’ of any sort, so you must please to remember that.’

Fenella did remember it. She crept into her nurse’s room on tip-toe, and gave her one kiss upon the forehead.

Bennett’s eyes sought those of her young lady gratefully, but she was in too much pain to speak. So there was no opportunity—no possibility, indeed—of Fenella informing her of the encounter she had had with Mr Geoffrey Doyne upon the sands.

Dr Redfern was punctual to his appointment the following morning, and, finding his patient still in a high fever, he stayed and applied leeches to the inflamed leg; but it was still quite impossible to do anything towards re-setting the broken bone. He was employed for nearly an hour in Bennett’s room before he descended again to the parlour, where Fenella sat by the open casement with her work.

‘And why are you not down on the sands this beautiful morning, young lady?’ he demanded facetiously, as she rose to greet him.

‘I was waiting, sir, to hear your report of Bennett,’ she answered.

‘Ah! your nurse, is she not?’

‘Yes; she was my nurse, and sometimes I call her so still.’

‘Well, I’m afraid it will be a long job you know—a very long job. She’s at an awkward age to go tumbling about in this fashion—bones don’t set so readily after forty as before—and she is rather of an inflammatory disposition. She’ll have to be kept very quiet, and for some time too; and I should advise you, Miss Barrington, to write and let your friends know my opinion at once.’

‘But—but—’ said Fenella, with her eyes downcast, ‘I can’t do that, because I don’t know where my mother is!’

‘You don’t know where she is!’ repeated the doctor, with surprise.

‘No, sir; for she starts to-day with a party of friends for the Continent, and will be moving about for some time. She does not even know herself where she will be, and she told us not to write until we heard from her.’

‘Just so; but Mrs Barrington could not have anticipated your servant meeting with such an accident. It makes it very awkward for you, young lady. What will you do in this outlandish place alone? If you had only been at Lynwern now, you might have found some amusement; but this village is dulness itself. Have you no other friends except your mother?’

Fenella blushed.

‘Oh yes, of course I have; only I don’t know them, and I would rather not write to them. What could any one do for me?—unless it were to take me away from Ines-cedwyn; and I would not leave Bennett on any account. I must nurse her until she is well again.’

‘Very good; if that’s your decision, you must abide by it. You’ll be quite safe here; there is no doubt of that. Only you must understand one thing, Miss Barrington. If you wish to see your nurse recover quickly, you must leave her alone. Don’t go into her room; don’t remain in the cottage more than you can help—the quieter the house is the better. Take your work and books down to the beach, and stop there all day. It’ll do you good as well as her, for you are not over-strong. Now, I can see you are a sensible girl, and I’m sure you understand me.’

‘Yes, I understand you perfectly, and I will do all I can to aid her recovery. When will you be able to set her leg and stop that dreadful pain?’

‘I hope to do it this evening or to-morrow morning, if the leeches do their duty. And now I must run away, and don’t let me catch you in the house when I come back again.’

He drove off laughing, and Fenella felt comforted by the circumstance. If a doctor laughed, she thought there couldn’t be anything very serious the matter with his patient. So she took a book from one of the boxes that Benjamin Bennett had brought over from Lynwern the day before; and as soon as Martha had given her the midday meal, which she dignified by the name of dinner, she put on her little black hat and cape, and strolled down to the sands.

As she went along, did Fenella think of the stranger whom she had met there the day before? Possibly! but she certainly never expected to see him again so soon. When she had passed the ruined bungalow, and came within full sight of the open sea, she was almost as much surprised to perceive his figure stretched full length on the sands, with his felt hat over his face to shelter it from the midday sun, as she had been on the first occasion of their meeting. For why had he come back so soon, she asked herself—so very soon—to such a stupid place as Ines-cedwyn! Mr Doyne evidently did not hear her approach—her footsteps left no sound behind them on the yielding sand—but Trap did. Trap, with the unerring canine instinct that puts our human perceptiveness to shame, had pricked his ears for full half-a-minute before the girl appeared; and as he caught sight of her, he stirred and whined with eagerness to salute his new acquaintance.

‘What’s that, old boy?’ said Geoffrey Doyne, as he tilted his hat from off the corner of one eye.

In another moment he was on his feet—bareheaded, and besprinkled with sand; and Trap, given the cue, was barking vociferously, and wheeling round in airy circles of delight. Fenella’s cheeks had suddenly bloomed like the rose.

‘Oh, how funny you look!’ she exclaimed childishly—‘just as if you were covered with brown sugar!’

‘This is very hard upon me,’ said Mr Doyne; ‘we have met but twice, and each time your first remark has been, “How funny!”’

Fenella laughed, and sat down on the sand.

‘But so you are, you know; and so is Trap—the funniest little dog I ever saw. Just look at him now, all covered with sea-weed.’

‘Yes; I ventured to bring him over again to see you, Miss Barrington, since you were kind enough to give me leave; and we have been waiting for you such a time, more than two hours. Haven’t we, Trap?’

‘But how did you know I should be here at all?’ demanded Fenella, with open eyes. ‘I didn’t say so, Mr Doyne.’

‘Perhaps not; but I hoped so, and you see my hope has come true. “All things come to him who knows how to wait.”’

‘But where is your dear little boat?’ said Fenella. ‘I don’t see it anywhere.’

‘The dear little boat, as you call it, is in harbour at Lynwern. I rode over to Ines-cedwyn this morning.’

‘You rode!’ exclaimed Fenella—‘on a horse?’

The young man laughed.

‘The Hussars are not in the habit, generally speaking, of riding anything but horses, Miss Barrington.’

‘No, no; of course! How stupid you must think me,’ said the girl, colouring; ‘but I have been so long shut up at Ansprach, that I seem to know nothing.’

‘What do they ride at Ansprach?’ he asked—‘cows, or donkeys?’

‘Oh! now you are laughing at me, Mr Doyne; but I suppose I deserve it. Why, we never rode anything at Ansprach, of course. There was nothing but the convent there. You never saw nuns riding on donkeys, did you? How funny they would look!’

‘Or a fat old lady abbess on a cow; that would be funnier still,’ suggested Geoffrey Doyne.

Fenella took all he said au pied de la lettre.

‘We did not call them “lady abbesses” at Ansprach,’ she answered; ‘they were called “reverend mother,” or “chère mère;” and they were very good to me—oh! very, very good. I shall never forget all their kindness as long as I live.’

Her loyal heart would not permit even a shadow of ridicule to be cast upon its absent friends, and Geoffrey Doyne saw and appreciated the feeling.

‘You were happy at the convent,’ he said.

‘Yes, I was, in a way,’ replied Fenella, with some hesitation; ‘but school can never be quite like home, you know; and five years was a long time to be away from my mother.’

‘Do you mean to say that you never came home for five years?’ demanded the young man, in surprise.

Fenella was afraid she had gone too far; she had no wish to betray her mother.

‘It was inconvenient,’ she stammered; ‘I mean, it was impossible for mamma to have me home. She was busy, you see, and moving about, and I had my education to finish.’

‘And now you have only been with her for two days,’ said Geoffrey Doyne.

The girl bit her lip to prevent the tears starting to her eyes, and looked nervously away from her companion.

‘How warm the sun is,’ she said irrelevantly, ‘and how lazy it makes one feel. I meant to be very studious to-day and read Molière, but I don’t seem inclined to do anything.’

Geoffrey Doyne knew too much of the world to be taken in by her apparent indifference. As she tried to divert his attention from the subject under discussion, he was summing up the absent mother’s character. ‘Selfish and worldly,’ he thought, ‘and jealous of her daughter’s budding attractions. And so she may well be, by Jove!’ But all he said was,—

‘Were you going to read, Miss Barrington? I was going to draw. What two busy people we are. Happy thought! suppose you read to me whilst I sketch that fishing smack.’

‘But my book is in French,’ said Fenella. ‘Le Malade Imaginaire, by Molière.’

‘All the better! I love plays, and French plays above all others.’

‘Do you speak French, then?’

‘I do. Not quite so well, perhaps, as a young lady fresh from a convent school; but still I speak it.’

‘And will you speak it with me?’ cried Fenella, clasping her hands. ‘That will be delightful. I cannot bear English, it is so rough on the tongue.’

‘I will speak anything with you that you will allow me,’ said Geoffrey Doyne; and from that moment most of their conversation was carried on in French.

Fenella commenced chattering it at once; all her hesitation vanished as she indulged in the language most familiar to her, and a new vivacity appeared to add a charm to her conversation. Her speaking looks, her little foreign gestures, her volubility, delighted her companion. He seemed to have suddenly called a statue to life by his ‘happy thought.’

‘Let me see your drawing,’ commenced Fenella rapidly. ‘Ah! how beautiful it must be to draw like that! It is quite perfect—it is ravissante. Now I, for my part, cannot draw at all—is it not stupid? I only sing and play. Do you sing, Mr Doyne?’

‘Yes! I am fonder of singing than drawing; but I cannot get much practice out in India.’

‘How is that?’

‘We move about so often, and just as some lady has got into the way of accompanying my songs, she is whisked off to another station.’

‘How provoking! I have been taught to accompany from sight, and can do it easily. If we lived near each other, I could always accompany you, and sing with you too. Would it not be pleasant?’

‘It would be too delightful. How I should like to hear your voice. Couldn’t you sing me a song whilst I draw?’

Fenella drew backward.

‘Oh no! not here; every one would hear me.’

‘Where is every one?’ said Mr Doyne, smiling, as he looked from right to left at the solitude that surrounded them. ‘But never mind, we will go to the landslip together some day, and there, perhaps, I may persuade you to sing me a song. Have you walked over there yet?’

‘No; but Martha Bennett says it is very pretty just now—all covered with apple blossoms.’

‘Yes; it was an orchard of wild apple trees, and one night the whole concern tumbled into the sea. Half of the trees are uprooted, but they blossom still. Shall we go and picnic there some day?’

‘What is a picnic?’

‘A dinner in the open air, under the trees. I will bring it over in my boat from Lynwern, if you’ll be there to eat it with me.’

‘Oh, how lovely it would be—a dinner in the woods!’ cried Fenella. ‘And Martha gives me such nasty dinners too,’ she added confidentially, ‘bacon and beans—only fancy!—and Irish stew—oh, not at all nice! I don’t like them. But I am not sure if Bennett will let me dine at the landslip with you.’

‘Never mind Bennett; she’s not to be worried, you know’ (for Fenella had given him the account of her servant’s increased illness), ‘and I will take the very greatest care of you, Miss Barrington.’

‘I know you’ll do that,’ she said, with bright, confident eyes.

The young man gazed at her admiringly; at that moment there was no more guile in his soul than hers.

‘How much you looked like poor Edith when you said that,’ he ejaculated, with a sigh.

‘Who was Edith, Mr Doyne?’

‘She was my sister—my favourite sister—and she died two years ago, whilst I was in India.’

‘Oh, that was very sad! Cannot you bear to talk of her? Shall I say no more?’

‘Say what you like. I don’t think you could wound me. But the subject is a very tender one.’

‘You loved each other?’ said Fenella softly.

‘We did—most truly; as much as a brother and sister ever did. She was my world, and since she has left me I have had none.’

‘But you will meet her again?’

‘Yes, I feel that—I know it—but these life partings are very bitter, and heaven seems such a long way off.’

‘You have other sisters?’

‘Yes; I have three; but none like Edith. She was my confidante, my counsellor, my true friend. I went to her in all my difficulties. She saved me from so much folly and weakness. No one cares for me as she did, and she has left me. Sometimes I feel as if it were too hard to bear.’

He bent his head over his sketching-block as she spoke, that she might not see the moisture that bedewed his eyes; for Geoffrey Doyne’s nature was a very sentimental one—weak, emotional, and easily impressed for either right or wrong. His soul was filled with a sort of poetical, dreamy religion, that on occasions could raise him to the heights of enthusiasm, but was seldom strong enough to shield him in the hour of temptation.

Fenella longed to comfort him, but she was too inexperienced to know how. She could only suggest gently,—

‘But your mother, Mr Doyne—you have still your mother to go to in your trouble?’

He shook his head.

‘My mother died before I can remember her. Had she lived she might have been to me what my sister was. But I am not happy enough to have a mother!’

Fenella was shocked that she had touched on such a theme, but she could not retrieve the error. At the idea of his unhappiness and loneliness, so akin to her own, her soft eyes beamed with the tenderest sympathy. Geoffrey Doyne, sitting beside her on the sand, with his handsome profile clearly defined against the sky, looked such an embodiment of melancholy that her heart yearned to tell him that she too knew what it was to lose a mother. He seemed to discern her feelings, for in another moment he had turned to address her.

‘I know that you pity me,’ he said. ‘I am sure that you can understand what it is to look for love and not to find it for—(forgive me if I am too bold)—you too are motherless!’

The girl did not reply, but her hand dropped at her side. He laid his own upon it.

‘Will you come down here to-morrow?’ he asked. ‘Will you let me hear your voice again and see your face? Will you let me feel if my troubles are too hard to bear—that some one will be here for me to tell them to?’

‘Yes’ said Fenella simply. ‘I will be here.’

Had Geoffrey Doyne entertained a deep design against her heart, he could not have thought of a better plan by which to effect its subjugation.

‘Come and tell me everything,’ she said softly, ‘if it comforts you in the least degree to talk; for I too am lonely and—very sad!’

He raised the hand he held lightly to his lips, and laid it by her side again.

‘That is a compact,’ he replied. ‘We both need consolation. We will try and console each other.’

He looked at her. There was no thought of coquetry in her heart. All was clear there as the light of heaven. Yet with that innocent invitation she had sealed her fate.

Sympathy—pity—a kindred grief! Could three ties more powerful be found to knit two young hearts in a bond that should never more be broken? Many meet and are attracted to each other in the midst of merriment, to the sounds of music and laughter, midst the braying of trumpets and the proud revelry of success. But such may part as easily. Those only who are drawn together by a mutual sorrow find it impossible to free themselves.