The Complete Works (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth GaskellЧитать онлайн книгу.
leaves off paying her attention," resumed Sophy, "she will have many and many a heart-ache, and then she will harden herself into being a flirt, a feminine flirt, as he is a masculine flirt. Poor girl!"
"I don't like to hear you speak so of Harry," said Amy, looking up at Sophy.
"And I don't like to have to speak so, Amy, for I love him dearly. He is a good, kind brother, but I do think him vain, and I think he hardly knows the misery, the crimes, to which indulged vanity may lead him."
Helen yawned.
"Oh! do you think we may ring for tea? Sleeping after dinner always makes me so feverish."
"Yes, surely. Why should not we?" said the more energetic Sophy, pulling the bell with some determination.
"Tea directly, Parker," said she, authoritatively, as the man entered the room.
She was too little in the habit of reading expressions on the faces of others to notice Parker's countenance.
Yet it was striking. It was blanched to a dead whiteness; the lips compressed as if to keep within some tale of horror; the eyes distended and unnatural. It was a terror-stricken face.
The girls began to put away their music and books, in preparation for tea. The door slowly opened again, and this time it was the nurse who entered. I call her nurse, for such had been her office in by-gone days, though now she held rather an anomalous situation in the family. Seamstress, attendant on the young ladies, keeper of the stores; only "Nurse" was still her name. She had lived longer with them than any other servant, and to her their manner was far less haughty than to the other domestics. She occasionally came into the drawing-room to look for things belonging to their father or mother, so it did not excite any surprise when she advanced into the room. They went on arranging their various articles of employment.
She wanted them to look up. She wanted them to read something in her face—her face so full of woe, of horror. But they went on without taking any notice. She coughed; not a natural cough; but one of those coughs which ask so plainly for remark.
"Dear nurse, what is the matter?" asked Amy. "Are not you well?"
"Is mamma ill?" asked Sophy, quickly.
"Speak, speak, nurse!" said they all, as they saw her efforts to articulate, choked by the convulsive rising in her throat. They clustered round her with eager faces, catching a glimpse of some terrible truth to be revealed.
"My dear young ladies! my dear girls," she gasped out at length, and then she burst into tears.
"Oh! do tell us what it is, nurse," said one. "Any thing is better than this. Speak!"
"My children! I don't know how to break it to you. My dears, poor Mr. Harry is brought home—"
"Brought home—brought home—how?" Instinctively they sank their voices to a whisper; but a fearful whisper it was. In the same low tone, as if afraid lest the walls, the furniture, the inanimate things which told of preparation for life and comfort, should hear, she answered,
"Dead!"
Amy clutched her nurse's arm, and fixed her eyes on her as if to know if such a tale could be true; and when she read its confirmation in those sad, mournful, unflinching eyes, she sank, without word or sound, down in a faint upon the floor. One sister sat down on an ottoman, and covered her face, to try and realise it. That was Sophy. Helen threw herself on the sofa, and burying her head in the pillows, tried to stifle the screams and moans which shook her frame.
The nurse stood silent. She had not told all.
"Tell me," said Sophy, looking up, and speaking in a hoarse voice, which told of the inward pain, "tell me, nurse! Is he dead, did you say? Have you sent for a doctor? Oh! send for one, send for one," continued she, her voice rising to shrillness, and starting to her feet. Helen lifted herself up, and looked, with breathless waiting, towards nurse.
"My dears, he is dead! But I have sent for a doctor. I have done all I could."
"When did he—when did they bring him home?" asked Sophy.
"Perhaps ten minutes ago. Before you rang for Parker."
"How did he die? Where did they find him? He looked so well. He always seemed so strong. Oh! are you sure he is dead?"
She went towards the door. Nurse laid her hand on her arm.
"Miss Sophy, I have not told you all. Can you bear to hear it? Remember, master is in the next room, and he knows nothing yet. Come, you must help me to tell him. Now be quiet, dear! It was no common death he died!" She looked in her face as if trying to convey her meaning by her eyes.
Sophy's lips moved, but nurse could hear no sound.
"He has been shot as he was coming home along Turner Street, to-night."
Sophy went on with the motion of her lips, twitching them almost convulsively.
"My dear, you must rouse yourself, and remember your father and mother have yet to be told. Speak! Miss Sophy!"
But she could not; her whole face worked involuntarily. The nurse left the room, and almost immediately brought back some sal-volatile and water. Sophy drank it eagerly, and gave one or two deep gasps. Then she spoke in a calm unnatural voice.
"What do you want me to do, nurse? Go to Helen and poor Amy. See, they want help."
"Poor creatures! we must let them alone for a bit. You must go to master; that's what I want you to do, Miss Sophy. You must break it to him, poor old gentleman. Come, he's asleep in the dining-room, and the men are waiting to speak to him."
Sophy went mechanically to the dining-room door.
"Oh! I cannot go in. I cannot tell him. What must I say?"
"I'll come with you, Miss Sophy. Break it to him by degrees."
"I can't, nurse. My head throbs so, I shall be sure to say the wrong thing."
However, she opened the door. There sat her father, the shaded light of the candle-lamp falling upon, and softening his marked features, while his snowy hair contrasted well with the deep crimson morocco of the chair. The newspaper he had been reading had dropped on the carpet by his side. He breathed regularly and deeply.
At that instant the words of Mrs. Hemans's song came full into Sophy's mind.
"Ye know not what ye do,
That call the slumberer back
From the realms unseen by you,
To life's dim, weary track."
But this life's track would be to the bereaved father something more than dim and weary, hereafter.
"Papa," said she, softly. He did not stir.
"Papa!" she exclaimed, somewhat louder.
He started up, half awake.
"Tea is ready, is it?" and he yawned.
"No! papa, but something very dreadful—very sad, has happened!"
He was gaping so loud that he did not catch the words she uttered, and did not see the expression of her face.
"Master Henry is not come back," said nurse. Her voice, heard in unusual speech to him, arrested his attention, and rubbing his eyes, he looked at the servant.
"Harry! oh no! he had to attend a meeting of the masters about these cursed turn-outs. I don't expect him yet. What are you looking at me so strangely for, Sophy?"
"Oh, papa, Harry is come back," said she, bursting into tears.
"What do you mean?" said he, startled into an impatient consciousness that something was wrong. "One of you says he is not come home, and the other says he is. Now that's nonsense! Tell me at once what's the matter. Did he go on horseback to town? Is he thrown? Speak, child, can't you?"
"No! he's not been thrown, papa," said Sophy, sadly.
"But he's badly hurt,"