Lydia Trent (5 page)

“
Leave
that for the time being, Maisy dear.” she said gently. “Come and
sit down for a moment while I speak to you.” and she pulled forward
a chair invitingly.

Maisy
gratefully took the chair, and looked expectantly at her young
mistress. Lydia was grieved to see the great dark circles around
those still-childish eyes, and the weary droop of those small limbs.

“
Maisy,
I have been greatly troubled to find you have been endangering your
health and well-being by sitting up half the night, in hope of being
of some service to your master. Dear girl, it is not in the least
necessary, for Nurse and I are in constant attendance, and can
provide anything needful.

“
At
your age, a time when you are still growing and laying up health for
the future, such habitual exhaustion could do great damage.”

Lydia
found the young woman most obstinate upon this point.

“
For
you see, what if you needed something from the kitchen? you might not
be able to lay your hand upon the precise thing, while I know where
everything is kept and you wouldn't need to disturb Cook. Or if you
needed someone to run for the doctor? If you woke one of the men, it
would take him some minutes to get dressed and ready to go, while I
can run fast – I won races in the village when I were younger, and
I'm already dressed and at hand, as it were, to set off without loss
of time. I heard that sometimes a delay of a minute can mean the
difference between life and...” here she broke off, with an
unwillingness to shape even the very word of what all in that house
feared and expected daily, as if to name the thing were to bring it
sooner.

Finding
herself unable to shake the girl's resolution, she merely kissed her
and decreed that in that case she must have two hours in each
afternoon, in which to rest and recruit her strength, and excused her
from morning service on Sundays, that she might sleep a little
longer,

“
for
you can still go to afternoon service, and health of body is
paramount if you are to do God's work here on Earth.”

She
also ordered that the kitchen fire was left to burn instead of being
banked by Cook when that formidable person retired – Maisy would do
that herself, and Lydia or Nurse would check that it had been done
correctly when they collected the master's beef tea (this last in
answer to Cook's stolid declaration that they'd all be burnt in their
beds).

And
so the number of watchers was increased to four. Lydia and Nurse,
counting the dreary hours in the sickroom by doses of medicine and
draughts of port-wine and beef tea, though these days it was as much
as the combined efforts of the two could do to coax the sick man to
swallow more than a spoonful of either strengthening beverage.
Adeline, ostensibly asleep in her bed, in reality softly pacing her
room in the darkness, unable to sleep, her face wan and miserable in
the moonlight. And Maisy, nodding over some piece of plain sewing by
the kitchen fire, but jerking into life and attention at the faintest
sound.

If
patient watching could have availed anything, if devoted nursing and
daily visits from the doctors would have done aught, then William
Trent would be a living man. But doctors' remedy after doctors'
remedy had failed, and all the baffled physicians could hope for now
was to keep the poor sufferer comfortable in his last Earthly days.
He slept almost constantly now, but late one night Lydia was
disturbed by her father calling her.

“
Lydia,
Lydia dear! Where are you?” and he groped before him blindly.

“
Here
I am, Papa.” She sprang to the bed-side and grasped his questing
hand.

“
Lydia
dear, take care of your sister, won't you. And your stepmother too –
she has not been the kindest of mothers, I know, but...”

“
Yes
Papa, I will do everything in my power, if she will let me.”

“
You
are a good girl, Lydia. God bless you.” Here he lapsed into
silence.

He
was silent for some minutes, and Lydia began to think he had fallen
back to sleep, when he spoke again. He seemed to take her for her
mother.

“
Sylvia!
Sylvia, my darling!” Lydia had begun to withdraw her hand, but he
clasped it with fierce energy.

“
No,
dearest, don't let go, don't let go. I need you to guide me, I can't
see you, but I'm coming my love. Don't let go.”

Lydia
suffered her hand to remain, but he did not speak again. He never
spoke again on Earth. All that long night Lydia sat clasping his
hand, as he slipped deeper into sleep, and then from sleep to
unconsciousness, and from thence to that bourne from which no
traveller returns.

As
the sun rose on that winter morning, it's first rays fell on a
pathetic scene. On that pillow lay two heads. One was that of an
exhausted young woman in dark brown cashmere, her sandy hair fallen
from its pins and tumbled about her, her face turned toward the
occupant of the bed, fast asleep. The other was the thin and wasted
face of a man still in the prime of life, and six short months ago so
hearty and full of vitality. Now he too slept, the sleep from which
none shall awake until the Last Trump sounds. And on the air floated
the sound of gaily pealing church bells – it was Christmas.

How
sorrowfully dawned that New Year for Lydia and Adeline. They sat
together on the morning of New Years Day, reading the funeral service
from the prayer book. Their new black dresses were stiff and
uncomfortable, but the greater pain within their hearts caused them
to forget mere bodily discomfort. Both were pale and wan from the
long months of care, their white faces looked the paler against the
ground of black caps and black gowns. Outside the window, the bright,
pale January sun glittered off a hard frost, and the doleful tolling
of the church bell sounded clearly through the cold, still air.

“
Do
you think they will be long now?” asked Adeline, speaking of the
funeral party, expected back from the church shortly.

“
No,
perhaps a half-hour more. I do hope we have enough cold meat to give
them – I have asked James to tap a barrel of beer for the
villagers, and there is sherry for the gentlemen, though I know not
if there will be glasses enough. I did not quite realise how much
respected Papa was in the village, nor quite how well attended his
funeral would be.”

“
And
so when we should be left in peace with our sorrow, we are expected
to work and entertain those who did not love him half so well.”
This was a bitter speech indeed from the gentle Adeline.

“
Nay,
dearest, I am glad of it. I need work and bustle, and to think of
others. I do believe that if I were left alone with my thoughts for
more than an hour together I should go melancholy mad, dwelling on
how bleak the future seems just now. Ah, will we ever see bright days
again?”

At
this, Adeline coloured slightly, for her own bright days that were to
come seemed a little closer than Lydia's.

On
that joyless Christmas morn, Alfred had found her, walking alone in
the garden. Lydia was busy attending to all the dreadful arrangements
necessary at such a time, so Alfred had sought out Adeline in the
hope he could comfort her a little.

“
Oh
Alfred, he is gone. Papa... my Papa...” and in a paroxysm of grief
she flung herself on his breast, her slender body wracked by great,
dry, convulsive sobs. There was no help for it, and Alfred's strong
arms stole around her shoulders, until she was nestled in his
protecting embrace. Gradually, Adeline's sobs grew less, until she
was still, but she did not move to put him away.

“
Adeline,”
whispered Alfred tenderly, and she looked up at him. Her changeful
eyes looked navy blue and as bottomless as the sea at that moment,
and in those wide, troubled, wild eyes, Alfred suddenly read the
whole secret of her heart. She loved him – she had always loved
him, although perhaps she had not always known it. How could he help
but kiss that sweet pale face, that leaned on his shoulder, clinging
to him as protector and friend? Nothing was said – Adeline
withdrew, but gently, with no sign of anger or distress at this
liberty. No words were necessary – an unspoken understanding now
lay between them, a tie as binding as a royal betrothal-contract.

Adeline
was awakened from this bitter-sweet recollection by a bustle in the
entrance-hall, and by the rustle of silk as Evelyn swept into the
morning-room. This lady had kept her chambers the past few days, it
being her pleasure to maintain the fiction that she was prostrated by
grief, but now thought it best to bestir herself, and so she appeared
in magnificent mourning. Gone were the simple, luxurious gowns of her
wifehood. Now, as a widow, as if freed from some restraint, she
veritably glittered with lustrous black silk and jet beads,
voluminous flounces of black lace, and fringed shawl. Her auburn
hair, which as yet showed no hint of grey, was surmounted by a
complicated widow's cap, trimmed with yet more black lace, velvet
ribbon and jet beadwork.

Contrast
this picture of elegant grief with the simple round gowns of black
merino her daughters wore, with no ornament save a simple jet cross
tied round each slender throat by a narrow black velvet ribbon –
these last being Alfred's first gift to his lady, and her sister, as
an accepted lover. They were exactly suited to the tastes of both
girls, and had been received with affectionate tears.

The
magnificent widow had just time enough to arrange herself in an
attitude of patient suffering upon a straight-backed chair, and open
the tiny morocco-bound prayer-book she carried in her black silk
mittened hand, before the entrance of the first of the funeral party.

The
first to enter was Mr John Trent, the London stockbroker, brother of
William and his junior by three years. He was taller and somewhat
stouter than his brother had been, even in his prime. His hair was
darker and his face somewhat more angular, with a heavy brow and a
decided chin, but he had the same honest eye as his brother, and the
same air of intelligence and good humour. This gentleman made his
obeisance to the widow, with a polite mumur, then approached his
neice and step-neice with an air of kindly solicitude.

“
Well
now, my dears, and how are you bearing up? As well as can be
expected, I hope. You have had a hard time of it, poor girls - poor
girls.”

“
Thank-you,
Uncle, we are as well as we can be. Your part in the arrangements has
certainly made this hard time easier.” said Lydia – Adeline was
too touched by his sympathy, which was expressed in his tone and
manner more, even, than by his kindly words, to make any reply beyond
a graceful bow and a brief, wan smile.

“
Alas,
I never looked to lose my poor brother – only three years my
senior, and still in his prime. It is sobering indeed, a very sad
business. And Mrs Trent? How does she bear it?”

“
She
is as well as can be expected,” said Lydia tactfully, painfully
aware that in truth her stepmother was little affected by her loss.
“You know this sad event has been expected for some weeks now, and
no doubt she has grieved much in private.”

“
Aye,
no doubt – no doubt.”

Alfred
now came forward, having followed John Trent into the room, and spent
a few moments exchanging commonplace condolences with Mrs Trent, who
sighed dolefully and often raised a lace handkerchief to her dry
eyes. He pressed each girl's hand with a warm, sympathetic grasp, and
then offered Adeline his arm. John Trent likewise escorted Lydia, and
the small party, after receiving the condolences of the gentlemen
there assembled – friends, neighbours, the rector, both the unhappy
physicians who had fought in vain for William Trent's life – moved
out into the hallway, where mourners of a humbler class had gathered.
The family had never been reluctant to share their wealth with those
in need, and, worth more than money, had spread kindness and good
cheer wherever they went. William Trent, though elevated by wealth
into a fine gentleman, had not forgotten that he had once been in
trade, and was not above sharing a pipe, a tankard of ale, and a
comfortable chat with some farmer or yeoman. There were some
intelligent, well-read men in that village, though they had never set
foot near a University, and it was with these that Mr Trent loved to
talk, arguing out some thorny problem of politics or trade, lending
books, advising, guiding and learning as much from their converse as
they did from his.

Lydia
and Adeline were now to find just how greatly respected and loved
their father had been, and how much good he had done in that little
neighbourhood. Each man had some fond recollection to share with the
girls, of kindness and good fellowship, of some problem or trouble
relieved by the good gentleman's capacious purse or more capacious
mind. Each woman – for these humbler orders did not share in the
popular prejudice which forbad women a place at the funerary rites –
had some kind word to say of the true gentleman whose old-fashioned
courtesy had treated even the lowest of these 'like as if I was a
duchess at St James', Miss.' The girls were consoled in some measure
by the discovery that their Papa, though his life had been cut
cruelly short, had not lived in vain, that he had died a richer man,
in the true treasures of life, than one whose balance at the bankers
stood at ten - nay, a hundred - times as many thousands. They might
well cry with Venus – 'Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou
lost'.