Read the book: «Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster», page 40
Miss Fennimore insisted on the night-watching for her share. Phœbe divided with her and Lieschen the morning cares; and Miss Charlecote came in the forenoon and stayed till night, but slept at home, whither Maria was kindly invited; but Phœbe did not like to send her away without herself or Lieschen, and Robert undertook for her being inoffensive to Mervyn. In fact, she was obliging and unobtrusive, only speaking when addressed, and a willing messenger. Mervyn first forgot her presence, then tolerated her saucer eyes, then found her capable of running his errands, and lastly began to care to please her. Honora had devised employment for her, by putting a drawer of patchwork at her disposal, and suggesting that she should make a workbag for each of Robert’s 139 school girls; and the occupation this afforded her was such a public benefit, that Robert was content to pay the tax of telling her the destination of each individual bag, and being always corrected if he twice mentioned the same name. When Mervyn dozed in his chair, she would require from Robert ‘stories’ of his scholars; and it even came to pass that Mervyn would recur to what had then passed, as though he had not been wholly asleep.
Mervyn was chiefly dependent on his brother for conversation, entertainment, and assistance in his affairs; and though not a word passed upon their differences and no professions were made, the common anxiety, and Mervyn’s great need of help, had swept away all traces of unfriendliness. Not even when children in the nursery had they been so free from variance or bitterness as while waiting the issue of their sister’s illness; both humbled, both feeling themselves in part the cause, each anxious to cheer and console the other—one, weak, subdued, dependent—the other, considerate, helpful, and eager to atone for past harshness. Strange for brothers to wait till the ages of twenty-nine and twenty-seven to find out that they really did prefer each other to every one else, in spite of the immense differences between their characters and habits!
‘I say,’ asked Mervyn, one day, when resting after having brought on giddiness and confusion by directing Robert how to answer a letter from the office, ‘what would you do with this bore of a business, if it came to you?’
‘Get rid of it,’ said Robert, surveying him with startled eyes.
‘Aye—sell it, and get the devilry, as you call it, multiplied to all infinity.’
‘Close it.’
‘Boil soup in the coppers; bake loaves in the furnaces? It makes you look at me perilously—and a perilous game you would find it, most likely to swallow this place and all the rest. Why, you, who had the making of a man of business in you, might reflect that you can’t annihilate property without damage to other folks.’
‘I did not reflect,’ said Robert, gravely; ‘the matter never occurred to me.’
‘What is the result of your reflection now?’
‘Nothing at all,’ was the somewhat impatient reply. ‘I trust never to have to consider. Get it out of my hands at any sacrifice, so as it may do the least harm to others. Had I no other objection to that business, I should have no choice.’
‘Your cloth? Well, that’s a pity, for I see how it could be mitigated, so as to satisfy your scruples;’ and Mervyn, whose head could work when it was not necessary, detailed a scheme for gradually contracting the most objectionable traffic, and adopting another branch of the trade.
‘Excellent,’ said Robert, assenting with delight at each pause. ‘You will carry it out.’
‘I? I’m only a reprobate distiller.’
There it ended, and Robert must have patience.
The guardian, Mr. Crabbe, came as soon as his gout would permit, and hemmed and grunted in reply to the strange narrative into which he had come to inquire. Acting was as yet impossible; Mervyn was forbidden to transact business, and Bertha was far too ill for the removal of the young ladies to be attempted. Miss Fennimore did indeed formally give in her resignation of her situation, but she was too necessary as a nurse for the time of her departure to be fixed, and Mr. Crabbe was unable to settle anything definitively. He found Robert—who previously had spurred him to strong measures—bent on persuading him to lenity, and especially on keeping Phœbe with Mervyn; and after a day and night of perplexity, the old gentleman took his leave, promising to come again on Bertha’s recovery, and to pacify the two elder sisters by representing the condition of Beauchamp, and that for the present the Incumbent of St. Matthew’s and Miss Charlecote might be considered as sufficient guardians for the inmates. ‘Or if their Ladyships thought otherwise,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘why did they not come down themselves?’
Mervyn made a gesture of horror, but all knew that there was little danger. Augusta was always ‘so low’ at the sight of illness, and unless Phœbe had been the patient out of sight, Juliana would not have brought her husband; obvious as would have been the coming of an elder sister when the sickness of the younger dragged on so slowly and wearily.
No one went through so much as Miss Fennimore. Each hour of her attendance on Bertha stamped the sense of her own failure, and of the fallacies to which her life had been dedicated. The sincerity, honour, and modesty that she had inculcated, had been founded on self-esteem alone; and when they had proved inadequate to prevent their breach, their outraged relics had prompted the victim to despair and die. Intellectual development and reasoning powers had not availed one moment against inclination and self-will, and only survived in the involuntary murmurs of a disordered nervous system. All this had utterly overthrown that satisfaction in herself and her own moral qualities in which Miss Fennimore had always lived; she had become sensible of the deep flaws in all that she had admired in her own conduct; and her reason being already prepared by her long and earnest study to accept the faith in its fulness, she had begun to crave after the Atoning Mercy of which she sorely felt the need. But if it be hard for one who has never questioned to take home individually the efficacy of the great Sacrifice, how much harder for one taught to deny the Godhead which rendered the Victim worthy to satisfy Eternal Justice? She accepted the truth, but the gracious words would not reach her spirit; they were to her as a feast in a hungry man’s dream. Robert alone was aware of the struggles through which she was passing, and he could do little in direct aid of her; the books—even the passages of Scripture that he found for her—seemed to fall short; it was as though the sufferer in the wilderness lay in sight of the brazen serpent, but his eyes were holden that he could not see it.
Only the governess’s strong and untaxed health could have carried her through her distress and fatigue, for she continued to engross the most trying share of the nursing, anxious to shield Phœbe from even the knowledge of all the miseries of Bertha’s nights, when the poor child would start on her pillow with a shriek, gaze wildly round, trembling in every limb, the dew starting on her brow, face well-nigh convulsed, teeth chattering, and strange, incoherent words—
‘A dream, only a dream!’ she murmured, recovering consciousness.
‘What was only a dream?’ asked Miss Fennimore, one night.
‘Oh, nothing!’ but she still shivered; then striving to catch hold of the broken threads of her philosophy, ‘How one’s imagination is a prey to—to—what is it? To—to old impressions—when one is weak.’
‘What kind of impressions?’ asked Miss Fennimore, resolved to probe the matter.
Bertha, whose defect of speech was greatly increased by weakness, was long in making her answer comprehensible; but Miss Fennimore gathered it at last, and it made her spirit quake, for it referred to the terrors beyond the grave. Yet she firmly answered—
‘Such impressions may not always result from weakness.’
‘I thought,’ cried Bertha, rising on her elbow, ‘I thought that an advanced state of civilization dispenses with sectarian—I mean superstitious—literal threats.’
‘No civilization can change those decrees, nor make them unmerited,’ said Miss Fennimore, sadly.
‘How?’ repeated Bertha, frowning. ‘You, too? You don’t mean that? You are not one of the narrow minds that want to doom their fellow-creatures for ever.’ Her eyes had grown large, round, and bright, and she clutched Miss Fennimore’s hand, gasping, ‘Say, not for ever!’
‘My poor child! did I ever teach you it was not?’
‘You thought so!’ cried Bertha; ‘enlightened people think so. O say—only say it does not last!’
‘Bertha, I cannot. God forgive me for the falsehoods to which I led you, the realities I put aside from you.’
Bertha gave a cry of anguish, and sank back exhausted, damps of terror on her brow; but she presently cried out, ‘If it would not last! I can’t bear the thought! I can’t bear to live, but I can’t die! Oh! who will save me?’
To Miss Fennimore’s lips rose the words of St. Paul to the jailer.
‘Believe! believe!’ cried Bertha, petulantly, ‘believe what?’
‘Believe that He gave His Life to purchase your safety and mine through that Eternity.’
And Miss Fennimore sank on her knees, weeping and hiding her face. The words which she had gazed at, and listened to, in vain longing, had—even as she imparted them—touched herself in their fulness. She had seen the face of Truth, when, at Mrs. Fulmort’s death-bed, she had heard Phœbe speak of the Blood that cleanseth from all sin. Then it had been a moment’s glimpse. She had sought it earnestly ever since, and at length it had come to nestle within her own bosom. It was not sight, it was touch—it was embracing and holding fast.
Alas! the sight was hidden from Bertha. She moodily turned aside in vexation, as though her last trust had failed her. In vain did Miss Fennimore, feeling that she had led her to the brink of an abyss of depth unknown, till she was tottering on the verge, lavish on her the most tender cares. They were requited with resentful gloom, that the governess felt to be so just towards herself that she would hardly have been able to lift up her head but for the new reliance that gave peace to deepening contrition.
That was a bad night, and the day was worse. Bertha had more strength, but more fever; and the much-enduring Phœbe could hardly be persuaded to leave her to Miss Charlecote at dusk, and air herself with her brothers in the garden. The weather was close and misty, and Honora set open the door to admit the air from the open passage window. A low, soft, lulling sound came in, so much softened by distance that the tune alone showed that it was an infant school ditty sung by Maria, while rocking herself in her low chair over the school-room fire. Turning to discover whether the invalid were annoyed by it, Honor beheld the hard, keen little eyes intently fixed, until presently they filled with tears; and with a heavy sigh, the words broke forth, ‘Oh! to be as silly as she is!’
‘As selig, you mean,’ said Honor, kindly.
‘It is the same thing,’ she said, with a bitter ring in her poor worn voice.
‘No, it is not weakness that makes your sister happy. She was far less happy before she learnt to use her powers lovingly.’
With such earnestness that her stuttering was very painful to hear, she exclaimed, ‘Miss Charlecote, I can’t recollect things—I get puzzled—I don’t say what I want to say. Tell me, is not my brain softening or weakening? You know Maria had water on the head once!’ and her accents were pitiably full of hope.
‘Indeed, my dear, you are not becoming like Maria.’
‘If I were,’ said Bertha, certainly showing no such resemblance, ‘I suppose I should not know it. I wonder whether Maria be ever conscious of her Ich,’ said she, with a weary sigh, as if this were a companion whence she could not escape.
‘Dear child, your Ich would be set aside by living to others, who only seek to make you happier.’
‘I wish they would let me alone. If they had, there would have been an end of it.’
‘An end—no indeed, my poor child!’
‘There!’ cried Bertha; ‘that’s what it is to live! To be shuddered at!’
‘No, Bertha, I did not shudder at the wild delusion and indiscretion, which may be lived down and redeemed, but at the fearful act that would have cut you off from all hope, and chained you to yourself, and such a self, for ever, never to part from the shame whence you sought to escape. Yes, surely there must have been pleading in Heaven to win for you that instant’s relenting. Rescued twice over, there must be some work for you to do, something to cast into shade all that has passed.’
‘It will not destroy memory!’ she said, with hopeless indifference.
‘No; but you may be so occupied with it as to rise above your present pain and humiliation, and remember them only to gather new force from your thankfulness.’
‘What, that I was made a fool of?’ cried Bertha, with sharpness in her thin voice.
‘That you were brought back to the new life that is before you.’
Though Bertha made no answer, Honor trusted that a beginning had been made, but only to be disappointed, for the fever was higher the next day, and Bertha was too much oppressed for speech. The only good sign was that in the dusk she desired that the door should be left open, in case Maria should be singing. It was the first preference she had evinced. The brothers were ready to crown Maria, and she sang with such good-will that Phœbe was forced to take precautions, fearing lest the harmony should lose ‘the modest charm of not too much.’
There ensued a decided liking for Maria’s company, partly no doubt from her envied deficiency, and her ignorance of the extent of Bertha’s misdemeanour, partly because there was less effort of mind in intercourse with her. Her pleasure in waiting on her sister was likewise so warm and grateful, that Bertha felt herself conferring a favour, and took everything from her in a spirit very different from the dull submission towards Miss Fennimore or the peevish tyranny over Phœbe. Towards no one else save Miss Charlecote did she show any favour, for though their conversation was never even alluded to, it had probably left a pleasant impression, and possibly she was entertained by Honor’s systematic habit of talking of the world beyond to the other nurses in her presence.
But these likings were far more scantily shown than her dislikes, and it was hard for her attendants to acquiesce in the physician’s exhortations to be patient till her spirits and nerves should have recovered the shock. Even the entrance of a new housemaid threw her into a trepidation which she was long in recovering, and any proposal of seeing any person beyond the few who had been with her from the first, occasioned trembling, entreaties, and tears.
Phœbe, after her brief heroineship, had lapsed into quite a secondary position. In the reaction of the brothers’ feeling towards each other, they almost left her out. Both were too sure of her to be eager for her; and besides, as Bertha slowly improved, Mervyn’s prime attention was lavished on the endeavour to find what would give her pleasure. And in the sick room, Miss Fennimore and Miss Charlecote could better rule; while Maria was preferred as a companion. Honor often admired to see how content Phœbe was to forego the privilege of waiting on her sister, preparing pleasures and comforts for her in the background, and committing them to the hands whence they would be most welcome, without a moment’s grudge at her own distastefulness to the patient. She seemed to think it the natural consequence of the superiority of all the rest, and fully acquiesced. Sometimes a tear would rise for a moment at Bertha’s rude petulance, but it was dashed off for a resolute smile, as if with the feeling of a child against tears, and she as plainly felt the background her natural position, as if she had never been prominent from circumstances. Whatever was to be done, she did it, and she was far more grateful to Mervyn for loving Robert and enduring Maria, than for any preference to herself. Always finding cause for thanks, she rejoiced even in the delay caused by Bertha’s illness, and in Robert’s stay in his brother’s home, where she had scarcely dared to hope ever to have seen him again. Week after week he remained, constantly pressed by Mervyn to delay his departure, and not unwillingly yielding, since he felt that there was a long arrear of fraternal kindness to be made up, and that while St. Matthew’s was in safe hands, he might justly consider that his paramount duty was to his brother and sisters in their present need. At length, however, the Lent services claimed him in London, and affairs at Beauchamp were so much mended, that Phœbe owned that they ought no longer to detain him from his parish, although Bertha was only able to be lifted to a couch, took little notice of any endeavour to interest her, and when he bade her farewell, hardly raised eye or hand in return.
CHAPTER XXII
When all is done or said,
In th’ end this shall you find,
He most of all doth bathe in bliss
That hath a quiet mind.
—Lord Vaux
Robert had promised to return in the end of March to be present at the Assizes, when the burglars would be tried, and he did not come alone. Mr. Crabbe judged it time to inspect Beauchamp and decide for his wards; and Lady Bannerman, between Juliana’s instigations, her own pride in being connected with a trial, and her desire to appropriate Phœbe, decided on coming down with the Admiral to see how matters stood, and to give her vote in the family council.
Commissions from Mervyn had pursued Robert since his arrival in town, all for Bertha’s amusement, and he brought down, by special orders, a musical-box, all Leech’s illustrations, and a small Maltese dog, like a spun-glass lion, which Augusta had in vain proposed to him to exchange for her pug, which was getting fat and wheezy, and ‘would amuse Bertha just as well.’ Lady Bannerman hardly contained her surprise when Maria, as well as Mervyn and Phœbe, met her in the hall, seemingly quite tame and at her ease. Mervyn looked better, and in answer to inquiries for Bertha, answered, ‘Oh, getting on, decidedly; we have her in the garden. She might drive out, only she has such a horror of meeting any one; but her spirits are better, I really thought she would have laughed yesterday when Maria was playing with the kitten. Ha! the dog, have you got him, Robert. Well, if this does not amuse her, I do not know what will.’
And at the first possible moment, Mervyn, Maria, and the Maltese were off through the open window. Robert asked what Phœbe thought of Mervyn. She said he was much stronger, but the doctor was not satisfied that the mischief was removed, and feared that a little want of care or any excitement might bring on another attack. She dreaded the morrow on his account.
‘Yes,’ said the elder sister, ‘I don’t wonder! A most atrocious attempt! I declare I could hardly make up my mind to sleep in the house! Mind you swear to them all, my dear.’
‘I only saw Smithson clearly.’
‘Oh, never mind; if they have not done that, they have done something quite as bad; and I should never sleep a night again in peace if they got off. Was it true that they had packed up all the liqueurs?’
Phœbe exonerated them from this aggravated guilt.
‘I say, my dear, would you tell the butler to bring up some of the claret that was bought at Mr. Rollestone’s auction. I told Sir Nicholas that he should taste it, and I don’t like to mention it to poor Mervyn, as he must not drink wine.’
‘There is some up,’ said Phœbe; ‘Mervyn fancies that Bertha liked it.’
‘My dear, you don’t give Bertha that claret! you don’t know what poor papa gave for it.’
‘If Bertha would only enjoy anything, Mervyn would be overjoyed.’
‘Yes, it is as Juliana says; it is nothing but spoiling that ails her,’ said Augusta. ‘Did you say she was in the garden? I may as well go and see her.’
This Phœbe withstood with entreating looks, and representations that Bertha had as yet seen no fresh face, and was easily startled; but her sister insisted that she was no stranger, and could do no harm, till Phœbe had no choice but to run on and announce her, in the hope that surprise might lessen the period of agitation.
In the sunniest and most sheltered walk was a wheeled chair over which Miss Fennimore held a parasol, while Mervyn and Maria were anxiously trying to win some token of pleasure from the languid, inanimate occupant to whom they were displaying the little dog. As the velvet-bordered silk, crimson shawl, and purple bonnet neared the dark group, a nervous tremor shot through the sick girl’s frame, and partly starting up, she made a gesture of scared entreaty; but Lady Bannerman’s portly embrace and kind inquiries were not to be averted. She assured the patient that all was well since she could get out of doors, the air would give her a famous appetite, and if she was able to drink claret, she would be strong enough in a day or two to come up to Juliana in London, where change and variety would set her up at once.
Bertha scarcely answered, but made an imperious sign to be drawn to the west wing, and as Phœbe succeeded in turning Augusta’s attention to the hothouses Mervyn beckoned to Robert, rather injudiciously, for his patient was still tremulous from the first greeting. Her face had still the strangely old appearance, her complexion was nearly white, her hair thin and scanty, the almost imperceptible cast of the eye which had formerly only served to give character to her arch expression, had increased to a decided blemish; and her figure which had shot up to woman’s height, seemed to bend like a reed as Mervyn supported her to the sofa in the school-room. With nervous fright she retained his hand, speaking with such long, helpless hesitation that Robert caught only the words ‘Juliana—never—’
‘Never, never,’ answered Mervyn; ‘don’t fear! We’ll prevent that, Robert; tell her that she shall not fall into Juliana’s hands—no, nor do anything against her will.’
Only after repeated assurances from both brothers that Augusta should not carry her off in her present state, did she rest tranquilly on the sofa, while Mervyn after waiting on her assiduously, with touching tenderness, as if constantly imploring her to be pleased, applied himself to playing with the dog, watching her face for some vestige of interest, and with so much gratification at the slightest sign of amusement as to show how melancholy must have been the state compared with which this was improvement.
After slowly attaining her present amount of convalescence, she had there stopped short, without progress in strength or spirits, and alarms constantly varying for her head, spine, and lungs, as if the slightest accidental cause might fix permanent disease in either quarter; and to those who daily watched her, and knew the miserable effects produced by the merest trifles, it was terrible to think that her destination was in the hands of a comparative stranger, urged on by the dull Augusta and the acid Juliana. Mervyn needed no severer penalty for having forfeited his right to protect his sisters; attached to them and devoted to Bertha as the anxieties of the spring had rendered him. The sight of Bertha had so far modified Lady Bannerman’s scheme, that she proposed herself to conduct the three to Brighton, and there remain till the London season, when the two younger could be disposed of in some boarding-school, and Phœbe conducted to Albury-street. Mr. Crabbe did not appear averse to this offer, and there was a correctness about it which rendered it appalling to those who had not Phœbe’s quiet trust that no part of it would be allowed to happen unless it were good for them. And she found her eldest brother so much subdued and less vituperative, that she thought him quite obliged by her experienced counsel on his housekeeping and cookery, breaking up his present establishment and letting the house for a year, during which she promised him all facilities for meeting a young widow, the wealth of whose stockbroking husband would be exactly what his business and estate required, and would pay off all his debts.
Phœbe saw indications on Mervyn’s countenance which made it no surprise that he was in such a condition in the morning that only copious loss of blood and the most absolute rest to the last moment enabled him to go to W– for the trial. Miss Charlecote had undertaken the care of Bertha, that Miss Fennimore might take charge of Maria, who was exceedingly eager to see her brother and sister give evidence.
There is no need to dwell on the proceedings. It was to Phœbe on a larger scale what she had previously gone through. She was too much occupied with the act before God and her neighbour to be self-conscious, or to think of the multitudes eagerly watching her young simple face, or listening to her grave clear tones. A dim perception crossed Lady Bannerman’s mind that there really might be something in little Phœbe when she found the sheriff’s wife, the grande dame of the hunting field, actually shedding tears of emotion.
As soon as Mervyn’s own evidence had been given he had been obliged to go to the inn and lie down; and Phœbe wished to join him there and go home at once. Both Robert and Sir John Raymond were waiting for her at the door of the witness-box, and the latter begged to introduce the sheriff, who pressed her to let him take her back into court to Lady Bannerman, his wife wished so much to see her there and at luncheon. And when Phœbe declared that she must return to her brother, she was told that it had been settled that she was to come with Sir Nicholas and Lady Bannerman to dine and sleep at the sheriff’s next day, after the assize was over, to meet the judges.
Phœbe was almost desperate in her refusals, and was so little believed after all, that she charged Robert—when the sheriff had taken leave—to assure Augusta of the impossibility of her accepting the invitation. Sir John smiled, saying, ‘Lady Caroline scarcely deserved her,’ and added, ‘Here is another who wishes to shake hands with you, and this time I promise that you shall not be persecuted—my brother.’
He was a thin, spare man, who might have been taken for the elder brother, with a gentle, dreamy expression and soft, tender voice, such as she could not imagine being able to cope with pupils. He asked after her brother’s health, and she offered to ascertain whether Mervyn felt well enough to see him, but he thanked her, saying it was better not.
‘It could not have been his doing,’ thought Phœbe, as she went up-stairs. ‘How strong-minded Cecily must be! I wonder whether she would have done Bertha good.’
‘Whose voice was that?’ exclaimed Mervyn, at his door above.
‘Sir John Raymond and his brother.’
‘Are they coming in?’
‘No; they thought it might disturb you.’
Phœbe was glad that these answers fell to the share of the unconscious Robert. Mervyn sat down, and did not revert to the Raymonds through all the homeward journey. Indeed, he seemed unequal to speaking at all, went to his room immediately, and did not appear again when the others came home, bringing tidings that the verdict was guilty, and the sentence penal servitude. Lady Bannerman had further made a positive engagement with the sheriff’s lady, and was at first incredulous, then highly displeased, at Phœbe’s refusal to be included in it. She was sure it was only that Phœbe was bent on her own way, and thought she should get it when left at home with her guardian and her brothers.
Poor Phœbe, she did not so much as know what her own way was! She had never so much wished for her wise guardian, but in the meantime the only wisdom she could see was to wait patiently, and embrace whatever proposal would seem best for the others, though with little hope that any would not entail pain and separation from those who could spare her as ill as she could spare them.
Dr. Martyn was to come over in the course of the ensuing day to examine Bertha, and give her guardian his opinion of her state. There was little danger of its being favourable to violent changes, for Augusta made a descent on the school-room after dinner, and the morbid agitation thus occasioned obliged Miss Fennimore to sit up with the patient till one o’clock. In the morning the languor was extreme, and the cough so frequent that the fear for the lungs was in the ascendant.
But Augusta, knowing of all this, believed her visit to have been most important, and immediately after breakfast summoned Robert to a conference, that he might be convinced that there must be no delay in taking measures for breaking up the present system.
‘We must hear what Dr. Martyn says.’
‘I never thought anything of Dr. Martyn since he advised me to leave off wine at supper. As Juliana says, a physician can always be taken in by an artful woman, and he is playing into her hands.’
‘Into whose?’ said Robert, unable to suppose it could be Phœbe’s.
‘Come, Robert, you ought not to let yourself be so blinded. I am sure it is more for your interest than my own, but I see you are as simple as ever. Juliana said any one could hoodwink you by talking of altar-cloths and Anglo-Saxons.’
‘Anglo-Catholics, possibly.’
‘Well, it is all the same! It is those nonsensical distinctions, rather than your own interests; but when you are cut out, and depend upon it, she will lose no time in his state of health—’
‘Of whom or what are you talking?’
‘I never thought well of her, pretending to drink nothing but water; and with that short, dry way, that I call impertinence; but I never thought she could be so lost till last night! Why, when I thought I would just go and see how the child was—there, after calling himself too ill to come in to dinner, there sat Mervyn, actually drinking tea. I promise you they looked disconcerted!’
‘Well they might be! Bertha suffered half the night from that sudden visit.’
