Chapter 28

"Use your pleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter." MERCHANT OF VENICE.

On the way home, Mrs. Rossitur and Fleda went a trifle out of their road to say good-bye to Mrs. Douglass's family. Fleda had seen her aunt Miriam in the morning, and bid her a conditional farewell; for, as after Mrs. Rossitur's sailing she would be with Mrs. Carleton, she judged it little likely that she should see Queechy again.

They had time for but a minute at Mrs. Douglass's. Mrs. Rossitur had shaken hands, and was leaving the house when Mrs. Douglass pulled Fleda back.

"Be you going to the West Indies, too, Fleda?"

"No, Mrs. Douglass."

"Then why don't you stay here?"

"I want to be with my aunt while I can," said Fleda.

"And then do you calculate to stop in New York?"

"For a while," said Fleda, colouring.

"Oh, go 'long!" said Mrs. Douglass; "I know all about it. Now, do you s'pose you're agoing to be any happier among all those great folks than you would be if you staid among little folks?" she added, tartly; while Catherine looked with a kind of incredulous admiration at the future lady of Carleton.

"I don't suppose that greatness has anything to do with happiness, Mrs. Douglass," said Fleda, gently.

So gently, and so calmly sweet the face was that said it, that Mrs. Douglass's mood was overcome.

"Well, you aint agoing to forget Queechy?" she said, shaking Fleda's hand with a hearty grasp.

"Never — never!"

"I'll tell you what I think," said Mrs. Douglass, the tears in her eyes answering those in Fleda's; "it 'll be a happy house that gets you into it, wherever 't is! I only wish it wa'n't out o' Queechy."

Fleda thought on the whole, as she walked home, that she did not wish any such thing. Queechy seemed dismantled, and she thought she would rather go to a new place now that she had taken such a leave of everything here.

Two things remained, however, to be taken leave of — the house and Barby. Happily Fleda had little time for the former. It was a busy evening, and the morning would be more busy; she contrived that all the family should go to rest before her, meaning then to have one quiet look at the old rooms by herself — a leave-taking that no other eyes should interfere with. She sat down before the kitchen fire-place, but she had hardly realized that she was alone when one of the many doors opened, and Barby's tall figure walked in.

"Here you be," she half whispered. "I knowed there wouldn't be a minute's peace to-morrow; so I thought I'd bid you good-bye to-night."

Fleda gave her a smile and a hand, but did not speak. Barby drew up a chair beside her, and they sat silent for some time, while quiet tears from the eyes of each said a great many things.

"Well, I hope you'll be as happy as you deserve to be," — were Barby's first words, in a voice very altered from its accustomed firm and spirited accent.

"Make some better wish for me than that, dear Barby."

"I wouldn't want any better for myself," said Barby, determinately.

"I would for you," said Fleda.

She thought of Mr. Carleton's words again, and went on in spite of herself.

"It is a mistake, Barby. The best of us do not deserve anything good; and if we have the sight of a friend's face, or the very sweet air we breathe, it is because Christ has bought it for us. Don't let us forget that, and forget him."

"I do, always," said Barby, crying, "forget everything. Fleda, I wish you'd pray for me when you are far away, for I aint as good as you be."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, touching her shoulder affectionately, "I haven't waited to be far away to do that."

Barby sobbed for a few minutes, with the strength of a strong nature that rarely gave way in that manner; and then dashed her tears right and left, not at all as if she were ashamed of them, but with a resolution not to be overcome.

"There won't be nothing good left in Queechy, when you're gone, you and Mis' Plumfield — without I go and look at the place where Hugh lies —"

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, with softening eyes, "won't you be something good yourself?"

Barby put up her hand to shield her face. Fleda was silent, for she saw that strong feeling was at work.

"I wish't I could," Barby broke forth at last, "if it was only for your sake."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, "you can do this for me — you can go to church, and hear what Mr. Olmney says. I should go away happier if I thought you would, and if I thought you would follow what he says; for, dear Barby, there is a time coming when you will wish you were a Christian more then you do now, and not for my sake."

"I believe there is, Fleda."

"Then, will you? Won't you give me so much pleasure?"

"I'd do a'most anything to do you a pleasure."

"Then do it, Barby."

"Well, I'll go," said Barby. "But now just think of that, Fleda — how you might have stayed in Queechy all your days, and done what you liked with everybody. I'm glad you aint, though; I guess you'll be better off."

Fleda was silent upon that.

"I'd like amazingly to see how you'll be fixed," said Barby, after a trifle of ruminating. "If 't wa'n't for my old mother, I'd be 'most a mind to pull up sticks, and go after you."

"I wish you could, Barby; only I am afraid you would not like it so well there as here."

"Maybe I wouldn't. I s'pect them English folks has ways of their own, from what I've heerd tell; they set up dreadful, don't they?"

"Not all of them," said Fleda.

"No, I don't believe but what I could get along with Mr. Carleton well enough; I never see any one that knowed how to behave himself better."

Fleda gave her a smiling acknowledgment of this compliment.

"He's plenty of money, ha'n't he?"

"I believe so."

"You'll be sot up like a princess, and never have nothing to do no more."

"Oh, no!" said Fleda, laughing; "I expect to have a great deal to do; if I don't find it, I shall make it."

"I guess it 'll be pleasant work," said Barby. "Well, I don't care; you've done work enough since you've lived here that wa'n't pleasant, to play for the rest of your days; and I'm glad on't. I guess he don't hurt himself. You wouldn't stand it much longer to do as you have been doing lately."

"That couldn't be helped," said Fleda; "but that I may stand it to-morrow, I am afraid we must go to bed, Barby."

Barby bade her good-night, and left her; but Fleda's musing mood was gone. She had no longer the desire to call back the reminiscences of the old walls. All that page of her life, she felt, was turned over; and, after a few minutes' quiet survey of the familiar things, without the power of moralizing over them as she could have done half an hour before, she left them, for the next day had no eyes but for business.

It was a trying week or two before Mr. Rossitur and his family were fairly on shipboard. Fleda, as usual, and more than usual — with the eagerness of affection that felt its opportunities numbered, and would gladly have concentrated the services of years into days — wrought, watched, and toiled, at what expense to her own flesh and blood Mrs. Rossitur never knew, and the others were too busy to guess; but Mrs. Carleton saw the signs of it, and was heartily rejoiced when they were fairly gone and Fleda was committed to her hands.

For days, almost for weeks, after her aunt was gone, Fleda could do little but rest and sleep — so great was the weariness of mind and body, and the exhaustion of the animal spirits, which had been kept upon a strain to hide her feelings and support those of others. To the very last moment affection's sweet work had been done; the eye, the voice, the smile, to say nothing of the hands, had been tasked and kept in play to put away recollections, to cheer hopes, to soften the present, to lighten the future; and, hardest of all, to do the whole by her own living example. As soon as the last look and wave of the hand were exchanged, and there was no longer anybody to lean upon her for strength and support, Fleda showed how weak she was, and sank into a state of prostration as gentle and deep almost as an infant's.

As sweet and lovely as a child, too, Mrs. Carleton declared her to be — sweet and lovely as she was when a child; and there was no going beyond that. As neither this lady nor Fleda had changed essentially since the days of their former acquaintanceship, it followed that there was still as little in common between them, except, indeed, now the strong ground of affection. Whatever concerned her son concerned Mrs. Carleton in almost equal degree; anything that he valued she valued; and to have a thorough appreciation of him was a sure title to her esteem. The consequence of all this was, that Fleda was now the most precious thing in the world to her after himself; especially since her eyes, sharpened as well as opened by affection, could find in her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her, personally; country and blood, Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry — the strongest wish she had known for years — had grown so despairing, that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good- breeding could teach. And Fleda needed both, for she was slow in going back to her old health and strength; and, stripped on a sudden of all her old friends, on this turning-point of her life, her spirits were in that quiet mood that would have felt any jarring most keenly.

The weeks of her first languor and weariness were over, and she was beginning again to feel and look like herself. The weather was hot and the city disagreeable now, for it was the end of June; but they had pleasant rooms upon the Battery, and Fleda's windows looked out upon the waving tops of green trees and the bright waters of the bay. She used to lie gazing out at the coming and going vessels with a curious fantastic interest in them; they seemed oddly to belong to that piece of her life, and to be weaving the threads of her future fate as they flitted about in all directions before her. In a very quiet, placid mood, not as if she wished to touch one of the threads, she lay watching the bright sails that seemed to carry the shuttle of life to and fro, letting Mrs. Carleton arrange and dispose of everything and of her as she pleased.

She was on her couch as usual, looking out one fair morning, when Mrs. Carleton came in to kiss her and ask how she did. Fleda said, "Better."

"Better! you always say 'better'," said Mrs. Carleton; "but I don't see that you get better very fast. And sober — this cheek is too sober," she added, passing her hand fondly over it; "I don't like to see it so."

"That is just the way I have been feeling, Ma'am — unable to rouse myself. I should be ashamed of it if I could help it."

"Mrs. Evelyn has been here begging that we would join her in a party to the Springs — Saratoga. How would you like that?"

"I should like anything that you would like, Ma'am," said Fleda, with a thought how she would like to read Montepoole for Saratoga.

"The city is very hot and dusty just now."

"Very, and I am sorry to keep you in it, Mrs. Carleton."

"Keep me, love?" said Mrs. Carleton, bending down her face to her again; "it's a pleasure to be kept anywhere by you."

Fleda shut her eyes, for she could hardly bear a little word now.

"I don't like to keep _you_ here; it is not myself I am thinking of. I fancy a change would do you good."

"You are very kind, Ma'am."

"Very interested kindness," said Mrs. Carleton. "I want to see you looking a little better before Guy comes; I am afraid he will look grave at both of us." But as she paused and stroked Fleda's cheek, it came into her mind to doubt the truth of the last assertion, and she ended off with, "I wish he would come!"

So Fleda wished truly; for now, cut off as she was from her old associations, she longed for the presence of the one friend that was to take place of them all.

"I hope we shall hear soon that there is some prospect of his getting free," Mrs. Carleton went on. "He has been gone now — how many weeks? I am looking for a letter to-day. And there it is!"

The maid at this moment entered with the steamer despatches. Mrs. Carleton pounced upon the one she knew, and broke it open.

"Here it is! and there is yours, Fleda."

With kind politeness, she went off to read her own, and left Fleda to study hers at her leisure. An hour after she came in again. Fleda's face was turned from her.

"Well, what does he say?" she asked in a lively tone.

"I suppose, the same he has said to you, Ma'am," said Fleda.

"I don't suppose it, indeed," said Mrs. Carleton, laughing. "He has given me sundry charges, which, if he has given you, it is morally certain we shall never come to an understanding."

"I have received no charges," said Fleda.

"I am directed to be very careful to find out your exact wish in the matter, and to let you follow no other. So what is it, my sweet Fleda?"

"I promised," said Fleda, colouring and turning her letter over. But there she stopped.

"Whom, and what?" said Mrs. Carleton, after she had waited a reasonable time.

"Mr. Carleton."

"What did you promise, my dear Fleda?"

"That I would do as he said."

"But he wishes you to do as you please."

Fleda brought her eyes quick out of Mrs. Carleton's view, and was silent.

"What do you say, dear Fleda?" said the lady, taking her hand and bending over her.

"I am sure we shall be expected," said Fleda. "I will go."

"You are a darling girl!" said Mrs. Carleton, kissing her again and again. "I will love you for ever for that. And I am sure it will be the best thing for you — the sea will do you good — and _ne vous en déplaise_, our own home is pleasanter just now than this dusty town. I will write by this steamer and tell Guy we will be there by the next. He will have everything in readiness, I know, at all events; and in half an hour after you get there, my dear Fleda, you will be established in all your rights — as well as if it had been done six months before. Guy will know how to thank you. But, after all, Fleda, you might do him this grace — considering how long he has been waiting upon you."

Something in Fleda's eyes induced Mrs. Carleton to say, laughing —

"What's the matter?"

"He never waited for me," said Fleda, simply.

"Didn't he? But, my dear Fleda!" said Mrs. Carleton, in amused extremity — "how long is it since you knew what he came out here for?"

"I don't know now, Ma'am," said Fleda. But she became angelically rosy the next minute.

"He never told you?"

"No."

"And you never asked him?"

"Why, no, Ma'am!"

"He will be well suited in a wife," said Mrs. Carleton, laughing. "But he can have no objection to your knowing now, I suppose. He never told me but at the latest. You must know, Fleda, that it has been my wish for a great many years that Guy would marry — and I almost despaired, he was so difficult to please — his taste in everything is so fastidious; but I am glad of it now," she added, kissing Fleda's cheek. "Last spring — not this last, but a year ago — one evening at home I was talking to him on this subject; but he met everything I said lightly — you know his way — and I saw my words took no hold. I asked him at last in a kind of desperation, if he supposed there was a woman in the world that could please him; and he laughed, and said, if there was, he was afraid she was not in that hemisphere. And a day or two after he told me he was going to America."

"Did he say for what?"

"No; but I guessed, as soon as I found he was prolonging his stay, and I was sure when he wrote me to come out to him. But I never knew till I landed, Fleda, my dear, any more than that. The first question I asked him was who he was going to introduce to me."

The interval was short to the next steamer, but also the preparations were few. A day or two after the foregoing conversation, Constance Evelyn coming into Fleda's room, found her busy with some light packing.

"My dear little creature!" she exclaimed ecstatically, "are you going with us?"

"No," said Fleda.

"Where are you going, then?"

"To England."

"England? — Has — I mean, is there any addition to my list of acquaintances in the city?"

"Not that I know of," said Fleda, going on with her work.

"And you are going to England! Greenhouses will be a desolation to me! —"

"I hope not," said Fleda, smiling; "you will recover yourself, and your sense of sweetness, in time."

"It will have nothing to act upon! And you are going to England! I think it is very mean of you not to ask me to go too, and be your bridesmaid."

"I don't expect to have such a thing," said Fleda.

"Not? — Horrid! I wouldn't be married so, Fleda. You don't know the world, little Queechy; the art _de vous faire valoir_, I am afraid, is unknown to you."

"So it may remain with my good will," said Fleda.

"Why?" said Constance.

"I have never felt the want of it," said Fleda, simply.

"When are you going?" said Constance, after a minute's pause.

"By the 'Europa.' "

"But this is a very sudden move?"

"Yes; very sudden."

"I should think you would want a little time to make preparations."

"That is all happily taken off my hands," said Fleda. "Mrs. Carleton has written to her sister in England to take care of it for me."

"I didn't know that Mrs. Carleton had a sister. What's her name?"

"Lady Peterborough."

Constance was silent again.

"What are you going to do about mourning, Fleda? wear white, I suppose. As nobody there knows anything about you, you won't care."

"I do not care in the least," said Fleda, calmly; "my feeling would quite as soon choose white as black. Mourning so often goes alone, that I should think grief might be excused for shunning its company."

"And as you have not put it on yet," said Constance, "you won't feel the change. And then, in reality, after all, he was only a cousin."

Fleda's quiet mood, sober and tender as it was, could go to a certain length of endurance, but this asked too much. Dropping the things from her hands, she turned from the trunk beside which she was kneeling, and hiding her face on a chair, wept such tears as cousins never shed for each other. Constance was startled and distressed; and Fleda's quick sympathy knew that she must be, before she could see it.

"You needn't mind it at all, dear Constance," she said, as soon as she could speak — "it's no matter — I am in such a mood sometimes that I cannot bear anything. Don't think of it," she said, kissing her.

Constance, however, could not for the remainder of her visit get back her wonted light mood, which indeed had been singularly wanting to her during the whole interview.

Mrs. Carleton counted the days to the steamer, and her spirits rose with each one. Fleda's spirits were quiet to the last degree, and passive — too passive, Mrs. Carleton thought. She did not know the course of the years that had gone, and could not understand how strangely Fleda seemed to herself now to stand alone, broken off from her old friends and her former life, on a little piece of time that was like an isthmus joining two continents. Fleda felt it all exceedingly; felt that she was changing from one sphere of life to another; never forgot the graves she had left at Queechy, and as little the thoughts and prayers that had sprung up beside them. She felt, with all Mrs. Carleton's kindness, that she was completely alone, with no one on her side the ocean to look to; and glad to be relieved from taking active part in anything, she made her little Bible her companion for the greater part of the time.

"Are you going to carry that sober face all the way to Carleton?" said Mrs. Carleton one day pleasantly.

"I don't know, Ma'am."

"What do you suppose Guy will think of it?"

But the thought of what he would think of it, and what he would say to it, and how fast he would brighten it, made Fleda burst into tears. Mrs. Carleton resolved to talk to her no more, but to get her home as fast as possible.

"I have one consolation," said Charlton Rossitur, as he shook hands with her on board the steamer; "I have received permission, from head-quarters, to come and see you in England; and to that I shall look forward constantly from this time."