Chapter 17

"As some lone bird at day's departing hour Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower, Forgetful though its wings are wet the while." BOWLES.

Happily possessed with the notion that there was some hidden mystery in Fleda's movements, Mrs. Pritchard said not a word about her having gone out, and only spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which she had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to have a carriage ordered to take her to the boat in the morning, the good housekeeper could not hold any longer.

"Miss Fleda," said she, with a look of very serious remonstrance — "I don't know what you're thinking of, but _I_ know you're fixing to kill yourself. You are no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were to be out till seven o'clock this evening; and if you saw yourself, you wouldn't want me to say any more. There is not the least morsel of colour in your face, and you look as if you had a mind to get rid of your body altogether as fast as you can! You want to be in bed for two days running, now this minute."

"Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda, smiling — "you are very careful of me, but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards."

The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence, and then said, "Don't, dear Miss Fleda!" with an energy of entreaty, which brought the tears into Fleda's eyes. But she persisted in desiring the carriage, and Mrs. Pritchard was silenced, observing, however, that she shouldn't wonder if she wasn't able to go, after all. Fleda herself was not without a doubt on the subject before the evening was over. The reaction, complete now, began to make itself felt, and morning settled the question. She was not able even to rise from her bed.

The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet, that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling — the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."

The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming up the stairs, and pattering along the entry to her room, and, with little ceremony, in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.

"You horrid little creature!" said Constance, "why didn't you come straight to our house? Just think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed us to! — to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."

Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her incredulous curiosity.

"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.

"We should never have known a breath about your being here," Constance went on. "We were sitting last night, in peaceful unconsciousness of there being any neglected calls upon our friendship in the vicinity, when Mr. Carleton came in and asked for you. Imagine our horror! We said you had gone out early in the afternoon, and had not returned."

"You didn't say that!" said Fleda, colouring.

"And he remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons — he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition — whom their friends ought not to lose sight of."

"But what brought you to town again, Fleda " said the elder sister.

"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.

"I haven't told you the half!" said Constance, demurely. "And then mamma excused herself as well as she could, and Mr. Carleton said, very seriously, that he knew there was a great element of headstrongness in your character; he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr. Stackpole."

"Constance, be quiet!" said her sister. "_Will_ you tell me, Fleda, what you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity."

"Then it's inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear," said Fleda, smiling.

"Tell me."

"I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended to at a distance."

"Who did you come with?"

"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York."

"Wasn't your uncle at home?"

"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring."

"But was there nobody else to do it but you?"

"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post — Fort Hamilton, is it? — I forget which fort — he is fast there."

"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and then in Broadway, shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence's worsted-work — (I've made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda) — or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that — I don't know which; and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or somewhere, to prosecute inquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him; she says he is wearing himself out."

The mixture of amusement, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her, and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.

"But where is your other cousin — Hugh?" said Florence.

"He was not well."

"Where is your uncle?"

"He will be at home to-day, I expect; and so should I have been — I meant to be there as soon as he was, but I found this morning that I was not well enough — to my sorrow."

"You were not going alone!"

"Oh, no! — a friend of ours was going to-day."

"I never saw anybody with so many friends, said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"

"Oh, by to-morrow," said Fleda, smiling; "but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here. I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity."

"But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you," said Constance. "I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits; and if we were to leave you here in an empty house, to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?"

What would he think? Oh, world! Is this it?

But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared that nature would take more revenge than a day's sleep for the rough handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the next morning; and instead of that, a kind of nondescript nervous fever set in, nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was, nevertheless, extremely glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience and quietness, thankful for everything, after the anxiety and the relief she had just before known.

Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her, indeed, what she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "business," seemed to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask her, furthermore, what had made her get sick; but this time he was satisfied more easily still, with a very curious, sweet smile, which was the utmost reply Fleda's wits, at the moment, could frame. "Well, get well," said he, kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I wont quarrel with you about it."

The getting well, however, promised to be a leisurely affair. Dr. Gregory staid two or three days, and then went on to Boston, leaving Fleda in no want of him.

Mrs. Pritchard was the tenderest and carefullest of nurses. The Evelyns did everything but nurse her. They sat by her, talked to her, made her laugh, and not seldom made her look sober too, with their wild tales of the world and the world's doings. But they were indeed very affectionate and kind, and Fleda loved them for it. If they wearied her sometimes with their talk, it was a change from the weariness of fever and silence that on the whole was useful.

She was quieting herself one morning, as well as she could, in the midst of both, lying with shut eyes against her pillow, and trying to fix her mind on pleasant things, when she heard Mrs. Pritchard open the door and come in. She knew it was Mrs. Pritchard, so she didn't move nor look. But, in a moment, the knowledge that Mrs. Pritchard's feet had stopped just by the bed, and a strange sensation of something delicious saluting her, made her open her eyes; when they lighted upon a huge bunch of violets just before them, and in most friendly neighbourhood to her nose. Fleda started up, and her "Oh!" fairly made the housekeeper laugh; it was the very quintessence of gratification.

"Where did you get them?"

"I didn't get them, indeed, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, gravely, with an immense amount of delighted satisfaction.

"Delicious! — Where did they come from?"

"Well, they must have come from a greenhouse, or hothouse, or something of that kind, Miss Fleda — these things don't grow nowhere out o' doors at this time."

Mrs. Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How kind!" was upon the end of Fleda's tongue, but it never got any further. Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.

"They must be put in water," said Fleda — "I must have a dish for them — Dear Mrs. Pritchard, will you get me one?"

The housekeeper went, smiling to herself. The dish was brought, the violets placed in it, and a little table, at Fleda's request, was set by the side of the bed, close to her pillow, for them to stand upon; and Fleda lay on her pillow and looked at them.

There never were purer-breathed flowers than those. All the pleasant associations of Fleda's life seemed to hang about them, from the time when her childish eyes had first made acquaintance with violets, to the conversation in the library a few days ago; and painful things stood aloof — they had no part. The freshness of youth, and the sweetness of spring- time, and all the kindly influences which had ever joined with both to bless her, came back with their blessing in the violets' reminding breath. Fleda shut her eyes and she felt it; she opened her eyes, and the little, double blue things smiled at her good-humouredly, and said, "Here we are — you may shut them again." And it was curious how often Fleda gave them a smile back as she did so.

Mrs. Pritchard thought Fleda lived upon the violets that day rather than upon food and medicine; or, at least, she said, they agreed remarkably well together. And the next day it was much the same.

"What will you do when they are withered?" she said, that evening. "I shall have to see and get some more for you."

"Oh, they will last a great while," said Fleda, smiling.

But the next morning Mrs. Pritchard came into her room with a great bunch of roses, the very like of the one Fleda had had at the Evelyns'. She delivered them with a sort of silent triumph, and then, as before, stood by to enjoy Fleda and the flowers together. But the degree of Fleda's wonderment, pleasure, and gratitude, made her reception of them, outwardly at least, this time rather grave.

"You may throw the others away now, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, smiling.

"Indeed, I shall not!"

"The violets, I suppose, is all gone," Mrs. Pritchard went on; "but I never did see such a bunch of roses as that since I lived anywhere. They have made a rose of you, Miss Fleda."

"How beautiful!" was Fleda's answer.

"Somebody — he didn't say who — desired to know particularly how Miss Ringgan was to-day."

"Somebody is _very_ kind!" said Fleda, from the bottom of her heart. "But, dear Mrs. Pritchard, I shall want another dish."

Somebody was kind, she thought more and more; for there came every day or two the most delicious bouquets, every day different. They were _at least_ equal in their soothing and refreshing influences, to all the efforts of all the Evelyns and Mrs. Pritchard put together. There never came any name with them, and there never was any need. Those bunches of flowers certainly had a physiognomy; and to Fleda were (not the flowers, but the choosing, cutting, and putting of them together) the embodiment of an amount of grace, refined feeling, generosity, and kindness, that her imagination never thought of in connection with but one person. And his kindness was answered, perhaps Mrs. Pritchard better than Fleda guessed how well, from the delighted colour and sparkle of the eye with which every fresh arrival was greeted as it walked into her room. By Fleda's order, the bouquets were invariably put out of sight before the Evelyns made their first visit in the morning, and not brought out again till all danger of seeing them any more for the day was past. The regular coming of these floral messengers confirmed Mrs. Pritchard in her mysterious surmises about Fleda, which were still further strengthened by this incomprehensible order; and at last she got so into the spirit of the thing, that if she heard an untimely ring at the door, she would catch up a glass of flowers and run as if they had been contraband, without a word from anybody.

The Evelyns wrote to Mrs. Rossitur, by Fleda's desire, so as not to alarm her; merely saying that Fleda was not quite well, and that they meant to keep her a little while to recruit herself; and that Mrs. Rossitur must send her some clothes. This last clause was the particular addition of Constance.

The fever lasted a fortnight, and then went off by degrees, leaving her with a very small portion of her ordinary strength. Fleda was to go to the Evelyns' as soon as she could bear it; at present she was only able to come down to the little back parlour, and sit in the doctor's arm-chair, and eat jelly, and sleep, and look at Constance, and, when Constance was not there, look at her flowers. She could hardly bear a book as yet. She hadn't a bit of colour in her face, Mrs. Pritchard said, but she looked better than when she came to town; and to herself the good housekeeper added, that she looked happier too. No doubt that was true. Fleda's principal feeling, ever since she lay down in her bed, had been thankfulness; and now that the ease of returning health was joined to this feeling, her face, with all its subdued gravity, was as untroubled in its expression as the faces of her flowers.

She was disagreeably surprised one day, after she had been two or three days down stairs, by a visit from Mrs. Thorn. In her well-grounded dread of seeing one person, Fleda had given strict orders that no _gentleman_ should be admitted; she had not counted upon this invasion. Mrs. Thorn had always been extremely kind to her, but though Fleda gave her credit for thorough good-heartedness, and a true liking for herself, she could not disconnect her attentions from another thought, and therefore always wished them away; and never had her kind face been more thoroughly disagreeable to Fleda than when it made its appearance in the doctor's little back parlour on this occasion. With even more than her usual fondness, or Fleda's excited imagination fancied so, Mrs. Thorn lavished caresses upon her, and finally besought her to go out and take the air in her carriage. Fleda tried most earnestly to get rid of this invitation, and was gently unpersuadable, till the lady at last was brought to promise that she should see no creature during the drive but herself. An ominous promise! but Fleda did not know any longer how to refuse without hurting a person for whom she had really a grateful regard. So she went, and doubted afterwards exceedingly whether she had done well.

She took special good care to see nobody again till she went to the Evelyns'. But then precautions were at an end. It was no longer possible to keep herself shut up. She had cause, poor child, the very first night of her coming, to wish herself back again.

This first evening she would fain have pleaded weakness as her excuse, and gone to her room, but Constance laid violent hands on her, and insisted that she should stay at least a little while with them. And she seemed fated to see all her friends in a bevy. First came Charlton; then followed the Decaturs, whom she knew and liked very well, and engrossed her, happily before her cousin had time to make any inquiries; then came Mr. Carleton; then Mr. Stackpole. Then Mr. Thorn, in expectation of whom Fleda's breath had been coming and going painfully all the evening. She could not meet him without a strange mixture of embarrassment and confusion with the gratitude she wished to express, an embarrassment not at all lessened by the air of happy confidence with which he came forward to her. It carried an intimation that almost took away the little strength she had. And if anything could have made his presence more intolerable, it was the feeling she could not get rid of, that it was the cause why Mr. Carleton did not come near her again, though she prolonged her stay in the drawing-room in the hope that he would. It proved to be for Mr. Thorn's benefit alone.

"Well, you staid all the evening, after all," said Constance, as they were going up stairs.

"Yes — I wish I hadn't," said Fleda. "I wonder when I shall be likely to find a chance of getting back to Queechy?"

"You're not fit yet, so you needn't trouble yourself about it," said Constance. "We'll find you plenty of chances."

Fleda could not think of Mr. Thorn without trembling. His manner meant — so much more than it had any right, or than she had counted upon. He seemed — she pressed her hands upon her face to get rid of the impression — he seemed to take for granted precisely that which she had refused to admit; he seemed to reckon as paid for that which she had declined to set a price upon. Her uncle's words and manner came up in her memory. She could see nothing best to do but to get home as fast as possible. She had no one here to fall back upon. Again that vision of father and mother, and grandfather, flitted across her fancy; and though Fleda's heart ended by resting down on that foundation to which it always recurred, it rested with a great many tears.

For several days she denied herself absolutely to morning visitors of every kind. But she could not entirely absent herself from the drawing-room in the evening; and whenever the family were at home there was a regular levee. Mr. Thorn could not be avoided then. He was always there, and always with that same look and manner of satisfied confidence. Fleda was as grave, as silent, as reserved, as she could possibly be, and not be rude; but he seemed to take it in excellent good part, as being half indisposition and half timidity. Fleda set her face earnestly towards home, and pressed Mrs. Evelyn to find her an opportunity, weak or strong, of going there; but for those days as yet none presented itself.

Mr. Carleton was at the house almost as often as Mr. Thorn, seldom staying so long, however, and never having any more to do with Fleda than he had that first evening. Whenever he did come in contact with her, he was, she thought, as grave as he was graceful. That was, to be sure, his common manner in company, yet she could not help thinking there was some difference since the walk they had taken together — and it grieved her.