Peveril of the Peak | Page 8

support and attention, a little girl of eighteen months, who rolled and tottered along, keeping herself with difficulty upright by the assistance of her elder, stronger, and masculine companion.
Bridgenorth cast a hasty and fearful glance upon the countenance of his daughter, and, even in that glimpse, perceived, with exquisite delight, that his fears were unfounded. He caught her in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and the child, though at first alarmed at the vehemence of his caresses, presently, as if prompted by Nature, smiled in reply to them. Again he held her at some distance from him, and examined her more attentively; he satisfied himself that the complexion of the young cherub he had in his arms was not the hectic tinge of disease, but the clear hue of ruddy health; and that though her little frame was slight, it was firm and springy.
"I did not think that it could have been thus," he said, looking to Lady Peveril, who had sat observing the scene with great pleasure; "but praise be to God in the first instance, and next, thanks to you, madam, who have been His instrument."
"Julian must lose his playfellow now, I suppose?" said the lady; "but the Hall is not distant, and I will see my little charge often. Dame Martha, the housekeeper at Moultrassie, has sense, and is careful. I will tell her the rules I have observed with little Alice, and----"
"God forbid my girl should ever come to Moultrassie," said Major Bridgenorth hastily; "it has been the grave of her race. The air of the low grounds suited them not--or there is perhaps a fate connected with the mansion. I will seek for her some other place of abode."
"That you shall not, under your favour be it spoken, Major Bridgenorth," answered the lady. "If you do so, we must suppose that you are undervaluing my qualities as a nurse. If she goes not to her father's house, she shall not quit mine. I will keep the little lady as a pledge of her safety and my own skill; and since you are afraid of the damp of the low grounds, I hope you will come here frequently to visit her."
This was a proposal which went to the heart of Major Bridgenorth. It was precisely the point which he would have given worlds to arrive at, but which he saw no chance of attaining.
It is too well known, that those whose families are long pursued by such a fatal disease as existed in his, become, it may be said, superstitious respecting its fatal effects, and ascribe to place, circumstance, and individual care, much more perhaps than these can in any case contribute to avert the fatality of constitutional distemper. Lady Peveril was aware that this was peculiarly the impression of her neighbour; that the depression of his spirits, the excess of his care, the feverishness of his apprehensions, the restraint and gloom of the solitude in which he dwelt, were really calculated to produce the evil which most of all he dreaded. She pitied him, she felt for him, she was grateful for former protection received at his hands--she had become interested in the child itself. What female fails to feel such interest in the helpless creature she has tended? And to sum the whole up, the dame had a share of human vanity; and being a sort of Lady Bountiful in her way (for the character was not then confined to the old and the foolish), she was proud of the skill by which she had averted the probable attacks of hereditary malady, so inveterate in the family of Bridgenorth. It needed not, perhaps, in other cases, that so many reasons should be assigned for an act of neighbourly humanity; but civil war had so lately torn the country asunder, and broken all the usual ties of vicinage and good neighbourhood, that it was unusual to see them preserved among persons of different political opinions.
Major Bridgenorth himself felt this; and while the tear of joy in his eye showed how gladly he would accept Lady Peveril's proposal, he could not help stating the obvious inconveniences attendant upon her scheme, though it was in the tone of one who would gladly hear them overruled. "Madam," he said, "your kindness makes me the happiest and most thankful of men; but can it be consistent with your own convenience? Sir Geoffrey has his opinions on many points, which have differed, and probably do still differ, from mine. He is high-born, and I of middling parentage only. He uses the Church Service, and I the Catechism of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster----"
"I hope you will find prescribed in neither of them," said the Lady Peveril, "that I may not be a mother to your motherless child.