THE house had never been a lively house, but it had turned into the dreariest of habitations now. All those comforts which Miss Hofland had felt to make up for so much did not compensate for the absence of Hetty, or what was worse, for the presence of Hetty, spell-bound in that great chair, and for the innocent questions of Rhoda, who asked and asked, every new demand being but an echo of the questions which already were thrilling through the governess’s heart. “But why?” Rhoda said. “What made her like that? What has happened to her? Things can’t happen, can they, without a cause? Why has Hetty turned like that? She was never like that before. If you will not tell me I will ask Mr. Darrell; he is the doctor, and he must know.”
“She got some dreadful fright, my dear. Don’t speak to Mr. Darrell, for I don’t think he knows; and if he does know, he would not tell a little girl like you.”
But this answer did not satisfy Rhoda. She caught Mr. Darrell, as it happened, exactly at this moment when he was going out. “Oh, Mr. Darrell, I want you to tell me what has made Hetty like that. What is the matter with Hetty? Oh, yes, I have seen her. Do you think they could shut her up and hide her from me? Mr. Darrell, what has happened to Hetty? You are the doctor, and you must know.”
“The doctor doesn’t know everything,” he said.
“But very near everything,” said Rhoda. “She is very ill, I am sure. Tell me what it is, and I won’t trouble you any more.”
“I can’t tell what it is,” said the young doctor. “I wish I could, then perhaps I might know how to make her better. I am going now to send for some one who perhaps can do it. It is only perhaps, but I am going to try.”
“Another doctor?” asked Miss Hofland. “I can understand that you don’t like the responsibility. I shouldn’t if I were in your place.”
“Not another doctor, at present, but her mother,” Mr. Darrell said; and he went off and left them, though it was scarcely civil to do so, when they had so many questions to ask.
“Her mother!” Rhoda said, pondering. “Is it a good thing to bring her mother? What good can her mother do her? She is not a doctor. I should think Mr. Darrell himself would be more good than that.”
“Oh, my dear, the very sight of your mother makes such a difference when there is anything the matter with you,” said Miss Hofland. “At least,” she added presently, “all the girls say so. I never had one, for my part.”
Rhoda looked up at her with intelligent but unfathomable eyes, and said nothing. It appeared that the words did not bring any warmer response from Rhoda’s heart.
But it would be vain to attempt to describe theagitation and trouble which was caused in the parsonage by Mr. Darrell’s telegram. “Will Mrs. Asquith come at once? Daughter ill, not dangerous, but critical. Carriage will meet nine-thirty train.”
“It must be something very bad,” Mary said.
“No, my dear, I hope not. ‘Not dangerous, but critical.’ You must not frighten yourself. You must husband your strength,” said the parson; but he spoke with a forced voice, and had grown very pale, paler indeed than she was; for she had so many things to think of, and he thought only of Hetty—poor little Hetty, papa’s pet, as they always called her—ill and far from home.
“You must take charge of the little ones, Janey. You must not let them make a noise or annoy papa; you must see that the boys have their breakfast in good time for school, and don’t let Mary Jane oversleep herself. Papa will let you have the little clock with the alarum in your room.”
“Oh yes, mamma! I will try and remember everything,” said Janey among her tears.
“Get in the books every week, and look over them carefully. Don’t let anything be put down that we haven’t had—you know how careless people are sometimes; and above all keep the house quiet when papa is in his study. You know the importance of that.”
“Oh, mamma!” said Janey, “do you think then that you shall be so very, very long away?”
“I hope I maybe back again to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow,” said Mary briskly. “It will depend upon how I find her. I don’t doubt in the least home will be the best thing for her; but in case I should be detained,” she said smiling, with her eyes very bright and liquid, each about to shed a tear, “it is so much better to mention everything. Of course I shall write; but, Janey dear, you know you have not the habit of minding everything as—as she had——”
“Oh, mamma, why don’t you say Hetty? Whydon’t you call her by her name? It is so awful to hear you sayshe, as if—as if——”
“Didn’t I call her by her name?—my dear little Hetty, my own little girl! Oh! and to think that it was I that sent her away!”
“It isn’t dangerous, Mary, we have got the doctor’s word for that,” said her husband.
“Oh yes, to be sure we have. I am not at all frightened. You know when anything is the matter with her she gets very down, and strangers would not understand. I am all ready, Harry. No, I don’t want a cab. One of the boys can carry my bag to the station, and I would rather walk. I shall have no fatigue, you know, in the railway; it will be quite a rest for me, sitting still for so many hours.”
“A third-class journey is not much of a rest,” said the parson, shaking his head.
“And the carriage to meet me when I get there,” said Mary with a smile; “I shall feel quite a lady again, like old times, stepping out of the third class.”
Half the family went with her to the station to see her off. Janey had to deny herself and stay at home with the little ones, and keep everything in order; for Mary Jane was young, and not to be trusted all by herself. Janey felt as if her heart was wrenched out of her when mamma went away to nurse Hetty, who was ill and perhaps dying, while she must stay here and watch the little ones playing, who knew nothing about it and could not understand. To have gone with her to the train and seen her go away, as the others did, would have been something, but even that solace was denied. To the younger ones it was something like an unexpected gaiety to see mamma off, and watch the bustle of the train. They had little or no doubt that Hetty would be all right as soon as mamma went to take care of her, and the boys could not help feeling a little important as they relieved each other in carrying the bag.
Mary, for her part, when she had got into the train and smiled for the last time at the eager group, and waved her last good-bye, had a verysad half-hour in the corner, with her veil down, crying and praying for her child. But after that she tried not to think, which is one of the hardest of the habitual processes through which a mind has to go which requires to be always fit for the service of a number of others, and consequently has to keep itself well in hand. She had been obliged to do this many times before, and though it was harder than usual, now that she was alone and had no immediate occupation to take off her thoughts, yet she did more or less succeed in the effort. There was a poor weakly young mother in the carriage, going to join her sailor husband somewhere, with a troublesome baby whom she could not manage. And this was a great help to Mrs. Asquith in keeping off thought and subduing the pain of anxiety. She said to herself this was one advantage of the third class. Had she been travelling luxuriously with a first-class compartment all to herself, she would not have been able to stop herself from thinking. This softened even the thrill of old associations which went throughher, when, looking up as the train stopped, she perceived the little station; and, beyond it, the familiar landscape which she had not seen for so long. Was it only sixteen years? It looked like centuries, and yet not much more than a day. Nothing, however, had ever been at Horton in her time like the spruce brougham which was waiting for her, with the smart footman—smarter than any one in the service of the Prescotts had ever been. Amid all the familiarity and the strangeness Mary’s heart sank within her when the servant came up. “The young lady’s just the same, madam,” the man said.
“Can you tell me what’s the matter? Oh! can you tell me?”
“I don’t know, as no one knows,” said the servant, as he arranged a rug over her knees.
“Oh, if you will be so kind—as fast as you can go,” said Mary.
He seemed to look at her pitifully, she thought. All better hopes, if she had any, flew at the sight. She felt now that Hetty must be dying, that thecase must be desperate. This delivered her from all feeling in respect to the old house where she had been brought up, the fields, the trees, the park—everything which she had known. What did she care about these associations now? She was as indifferent as if she had been but a week away, or as if she had never seen the place before.
The doctor met her at the door, looking so grave. She prepared herself for the worst again, and entered the old home without seeing or caring what manner of place it was. “Let me explain to you before you see her, Mrs. Asquith,” Darrell said, leading the way into the old library, which she knew so much better than he did.
“Oh, don’t keep me from her! Let me go to my child! Don’t break it to me! I can see—I can see in your face!”
“She is not in any danger,” he said.
Mrs. Asquith turned upon him with a gasp, having lost all power of speech: and then the self-control of misery gave way. She droppedinto the nearest chair, and saved her brain and relieved her heart by tears. “May I trust you?” she asked piteously, with her quivering lips; “Hetty, my child—is in no danger?” as soon as she was able to speak.
“None that I can discover; but she is in a very alarming state. She has had a fright. It seems to have paralysed her whole being. I hope everything from your sudden appearance.”
“Paralysed!”
“I don’t mean in the ordinary sense of the word—turned her to stone, I should say. Oh, Mrs. Asquith, I fear you will think we have ill discharged the trust you gave us. Your daughter has been frightened out of her senses, out of herself.”
Mary had risen from her seat to go to her Hetty; she stared at him for a moment, and dropped feebly back again. “Do you mean that my child—my child is—mad?” she said with horror, clasping her hands.
“Oh, no, no!” cried the young doctor. “Hermind, I hope, may not be touched. She is in a state I can’t explain. She takes no notice of anything. I thought it was catalepsy at first. You will be more frightened when you see her than perhaps there is any need for being——”
“Doctor—if you are the doctor—take me to her, take me to her! that is better than explanation.”
“Bear with me a little, Mrs. Asquith. I want you to come in suddenly. I want to try the shock of your appearance.”
“Take me to my child!” said Mary; “I cannot bear all these preliminaries. I have a right to be with Hetty, wherever she is. Where is she? Tell me what room she is in. I know my way.”
“Just one moment—one moment!” he said. He led the way to the room which had been the morning-room in Mary’s day, the brightest room in the house, looking out upon the flowers, and then left her at the door. “Come in,” he said, “in five minutes; throw open the door; make what noise you can—oh! forgive me—and let hersee you fully. Don’t come too quick. It is for her sake. If she knows you, all will go well.”
“If she knows me!” cried poor Mary. These terrible words subdued her in her impatience and almost anger. She stood at the door counting the time by the beatings of her heart. Then she pushed it open, as he told her. Hetty’s chair had been turned round to face the door, and she sat in it, her pale hands folded in her lap, her face, like marble, against the white pillow, her eyes looking steadily before her, with an extraordinary abstract gaze. Mary stood for a moment, herself paralysed by that strange sight, clasping her hands, with a cry of trouble and consternation. Then she flew forward and flung herself on her knees before this marble image of her child. “Hetty! Hetty! Speak to me,” she cried, clasping her arms round the inanimate figure. “Hetty!” Then, with a terrible cry, “Don’t you know your mother? don’t you know your mother, my darling, my poor child?”
Mary perceived none of the people behind,
“‘HETTY! HETTY! SPEAK TO ME.’”
“‘HETTY! HETTY! SPEAK TO ME.’”
“‘HETTY! HETTY! SPEAK TO ME.’”
watching so anxiously the effect of her entrance, which had been indeed far more effective, being entirely natural, than anything they had planned. She saw only the waxen whiteness, the unresponsive silence, of the poor little soul in prison. She went on kissing the white face, the little limp hands, pouring out appeals and cries. “Oh, my child! Oh, Hetty, Hetty! Don’t you know me? I’m your mother, my darling. I’ve come to fetch you, to take you home. Hetty, my sweet, papa’s breaking his heart for you; and poor Janey daren’t even cry, dear, for she must take care of them all while you and I are away. And, Hetty, the baby, your little baby—Hetty, Hetty! my own darling! Oh, Hetty, say a word to me—say a word!”
The statue moved a little; a faint tinge of colour came into the marble face; the limp little hands unfolded, fluttered a little, made as though they would go round the mother’s neck. “Mamma!” Hetty said, stammering as when a child begins to speak.
And then there awoke a chorus of voices saying, “Thank God!” The women were all over-joyed, thinking the worst was past. Darrell had said if she recognised her mother—and it was evident that she had done so. But he himself stood aloof, keeping his troubled looks out of their sight. And after Mrs. Asquith had sat by her daughter’s side for hours, telling her everything as if Hetty fully understood, saying a hundred things to her—news of home, caresses, tendernesses without end—it presently became evident to all that very little real advance had been made. Hetty said, “Mamma!” as she had said, “Thank you,” but she did no more.
MRS. ASQUITH kept to all appearance perfectly tranquil during the rest of that evening. It was a strange and affecting sight to see her by the side of Hetty’s chair, talking with a smiling countenance and every appearance of ease and an unburdened heart. She kept telling all the nursery stories, all the little family jokes, every kind of trifling happy circumstance, the commonplaces of the family, to her daughter’s dulled and heavy ear. The spectators could not understand this strange sight.Theywere anxious, but she seemed free from care. They contemplated that little marble image of poor little Hetty with piteous eyes, shaking their heads aside, and saying to each other that, after all, the appearanceof her mother had not done what was hoped. But the mother sat and smiled and talked as if she had been altogether unconscious that Hetty was not as she had been. Miss Hofland, though she could not understand, though she could not approve, this strange mode of action, got interested in spite of herself in all those unknown children, and found herself softly laughing in the background at the tricks of the boys, and Janey’s matronly demeanour, and the sweet little sayings of the baby. It all looked so pretty, and tender, and sweet. But how that woman could talk, and talk, and smile, and tell those stories with poor Hetty blanched and unresponsive like marble, wax—anything that you can think of which is most unlike flesh and blood, was what Miss Hofland could not understand. She felt very angry. She said to herself, “That woman has so many, she has no heart for this one;” and felt as if she loved poor Hetty better than her mother did, who showed so little feeling. Rhoda, who had stolen in when no one was looking, was,on the contrary, fascinated by Mrs. Asquith. She crept closer and closer, and at last curled herself up on the skirt of the stranger’s gown like a little dog, and listened, and laughed, and clapped her hands at all those stories. “Oh, tell me a little more about little Mary! Oh! what did baby say?” Rhoda cried, pushing closer and closer. Mrs. Asquith put one arm round the child, though without looking at her. She could think even of that strange child, who had been the cause of it all, with Hetty lying motionless there!
But all this had no effect upon Hetty, the lookers-on thought. An occasional faint smile came to the corners of her mouth, something so faint, so evanescent, that it could scarcely be called a smile; a faint little colour, almost imperceptible, came upon her marble paleness; now and then she said, “Mamma!” quite inconsequently, not as an answer to anything, and the tiny hands that had been folded in her lap were folded now in one of her mother’s hands, which seemed to communicate a little warmth, a little life—a poorresult to have effected by the heroic measure of sending for her, and admitting a stranger, against every rule, to this secluded house. The housekeeper was very impatient of the whole business. “You did it against everything I could say; and nothing has come of it,” she said.
“As for that, we can’t tell yet,” said the doctor, naturally taking his own part; but he was very anxious, and did not seem to have taken much comfort from the new arrival. He had gone into the library to talk it over with his coadjutor, while Hetty was being conveyed to bed. The house was very quiet, the room badly lighted, the lamp on the table bringing out the anxious expression on the young man’s troubled face, and half showing the figure of the housekeeper, who stood on the other side of the table. The light fell upon her hands clasped in front, and showed her person vaguely, but her face was in the shade.
“The right thing to do would have been to send the girl off to that man who treats hysteria,” she said; “he would soon have brought her toher senses. What good can the mother do?—a silly woman telling all that nonsense that the girl can’t hear, and would not care for if she did! Rhoda likes it, to be sure,” she said, with a short laugh; “and perhaps she thinks that to make an impression upon Rhoda, who will be an heiress, is always worth her while.”
“It is no part of your business, or mine either, to judge Mrs. Asquith,” young Darrell said impatiently; but there could be little doubt that he was disappointed too. The effect of the mother’s first appearance had not been what he hoped.
“And here we’ve brought in, against all our promises, just the last person in the world that ought to be admitted into this house.”
“I made no promises,” said the young doctor hurriedly. “How could I on this subject? No one could have foreseen such a combination of circumstances—a near relation when we expected a stranger.”
“Only a cousin,” the housekeeper said quickly; “but now the thing is to get rid of her as soon aspossible, and in the meantime to keep her completely in the—— Good gracious! I beg your pardon, ma’am,” cried Mrs. Mills, quickly stepping out of the way.
“I knocked, but you did not hear me,” said Mary. “You forget that I know my way about this house.” She passed the housekeeper by, and came up to where Darrell was sitting, and drew a chair to the table near him. “I have got my poor child to bed. She looks as if she had fallen asleep; whether it is sleep or stupor I can’t tell, but she is very quiet. Now will you tell me how it happened?” Mary said. Her voice was very quiet, but very serious—not the voice of one who was to be trifled with. Instinctively both the listeners perceived this. Darrell cast an anxious, almost imploring glance into the surrounding dimness of the half-lighted room, and the housekeeper stirred from one foot to the other with an involuntary motion. She had not thought much of Mrs. Asquith as an antagonist, but now she began to change her mind.
“How it happened?” said the young doctor, faltering. “I am afraid it was a fright. She got a—fright.”
“We cannot tell exactly how it happened,” said the housekeeper quickly, “for it happened in the middle of the night.”
“But you must have some sort of understanding. A thing like that can’t happen in a house without some one knowing. How was it? even if you can’t tell me what it was.”
“It all arose from this, ma’am,” said the housekeeper, “that Miss Asquith would have her window open at night. Some people I know have fads on that subject; if I asked her once, I asked her a dozen times not to do it, but she would. She would not be guided by me.”
“She left her window open all night? Well, and what happened?” Mary said.
Mr. Darrell cleared his throat. A kind of loathing of the glib woman, who was so ready to answer for him, quickened his speech. “So faras we can tell, something came into her room and frightened her,” he said.
“Something? Oh! this is trifling,” cried Mary impatiently. “Many, many a night have I slept in this house with my window open. The windows were always open. What is there about, to come in at an open window in the middle of the night?”
The two culprits exchanged a glance across the table. The housekeeper could see the doctor’s pale face full of revelations, but he could not see hers. “That’s what we don’t know,” she said. “Miss Hofland will tell you that she warned her just as I did. Supposing it was something quite innocent—as harmless as you please—one of the sheep in the park, or a cow! A cow’s an innocent thing, but it would give you a terrible fright in the middle of the night; or even a rabbit or a squirrel,” continued Mrs. Mills, getting confidence as she went on; “it was one of the animals about the place, for anything we know.”
“What do you know? will you tell me exactly?What roused you first? and when you went to her what did you see?”
The housekeeper shivered a little. “We found her lying on her bed, poor dear! with her eyes staring, the bedclothes clenched in her hands as if she had tried to cover her face. Oh, Mrs. Asquith! I thought the child was dead.” She stopped with a half sob. “And the half of the French window wide open—it’s not a sash window in that room—standing wide open, showing how it had come in.”
“How what had come in?” said Mary huskily, scarcely able to command her voice.
“How can I tell? Some wild creature out of the woods—some of the animals that had got loose about the farm.”
“Was there any trace of an animal? There must have been some trace!”
“Or it might,” said the housekeeper with a sob, the strong excitement of the moment gaining upon her, “have been a tramp that had hidden about the place.”
Mary pushed her chair from the table, and covered her face with her hands. But it was only for a moment. She came back to herself, and to the examination of these unwilling witnesses, before they could draw breath, but not before a low indignant outcry, “No, no!” had burst from the young doctor’s lips. She turned upon him with the speed of lightning. “Mr. Darrell!” she cried, “was it a tramp that got into my child’s room in the middle of the night? Speak the truth before God!”
What did she suspect or fear? The question flashed through his mind with a shock of strange sensation. “No,” he said, looking at her, “it was no tramp.”
“And you know who it was?”
She rose up and confronted him with her pale, set face, holding him with her eyes, which were like Hetty’s eyes, in the strain of the horrible gaze that had settled in them that night. He was helpless in her hands like a child. “Yes,” he said, “I know.”
She could not speak, but she made him an imperative gesture to go on. He was no longer the unwilling witness, he was the conscious criminal at the bar.
“Mrs. Asquith,” he said, with a shiver of nervous emotion, “it needs a long explanation. I would have to tell you many things to make you understand.”
“Many things which you have no right to tell any one, Mr. Darrell,” the housekeeper said.
Mary once more insisted with an imperious wave of her hand. The young man made a nervous pause. “I have an—invalid gentleman under my charge,” he said.
“Mr. Darrell!” cried the housekeeper again, “do you remember all you’ve promised? You’ve no right to go against them that support you, them that pay you.”
“What is that to me?” cried Mary quickly. “What do I want with your secrets? Tell me about my child!”
“I will tell you everything,” he said. “It hasbeen against my conscience always. I’ll have this burden no longer. He wanders about at night, we can’t help it, he slips from our hands. And I suppose he saw the open window. I—I was too late to keep him back. I found him there. He thought she was his child, whom he thinks he has lost. When I heard her scream I knew how it was, and I got him away.”
“Is this the truth?” Mrs Asquith said; “is thisallthe truth?”
“It is everything,” cried the young man; “there is nothing more to tell you, but there is more for me to do. I give up this charge, Mrs. Mills. I will do it no more, it is against my conscience. If he only knew a little better he could bring us both up for conspiracy. I will clear my conscience of it this very day.”
“If you are such a fool!” the housekeeper said in her excitement. She went round to him and caught him by the arm, and led him aside, talking eagerly. “She’llpay no attention. What does she care for anything but her girl?” the woman said.
Mary had seated herself again suddenly, her brain swimming, her heart beating. Thank God! she said to herself. She did not know what she had feared, but something more dreadful, worse than this; her relief was greater than words could say. She sat down to recover herself. What the housekeeper said was true. She cared for nothing but her girl. What were their secrets to her? If somebody was wronged Mary did not feel that it was her business to set it right. It was her child or whom, and of whom alone, she was thinking; and in all probability no further thoughts of the mysterious invalid would have crossed her mind, but for this incident which now occurred, and which for the moment was nothing but an annoyance to her, detaining her from Hetty. There was a knock at the door, to which the others in their preoccupation paid no attention. After a second knock the door was softly opened, and one of the women servants came in, a tidy person, in the dark gown and white cap and apron, which is a respectable maid-servant’s livery. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Oh, please, is Mrs. Asquith here?”
“Yes, I am here,” cried Mary, quickly getting up, with the idea that she was being called to Hetty. The woman came in, hurried forward, and made curtsey after curtsey—a little sniff of suppressed crying attending each—“Oh, ma’am, don’t you know me? Oh, ma’am, I’ve never forgotten you! Oh, please, I am Bessie Brown,” she said.
“Are you indeed Bessie Brown? I am very glad to see you,” said Mrs. Asquith. “And are you here in service? And how is it I never heard about you from my Hetty? You were the first nurse she ever had.”
“Oh, ma’am, is that our baby? and me never to know! I never heard her name right. I never knew. Oh, to think that poor young lady is our baby! And the dreadful, dreadful fright she got! But oh! ma’am, perhaps now you’ve come it is all for the best.”
“How can it be for the best that my childshould be so ill?” said Mary. “Oh, she is so ill! To see her is enough to break one’s heart.”
And in the softness of this sympathy, the first touch of the old naturalness and familiarity which she had yet felt, Mary too began to cry in the fulness of her heart.
“The house is dreadful changed, ma’am, and everything going wrong, I think, though it mayn’t be a servant’s place to speak.”
“I am afraid,” Mrs. Asquith said, “I am selfish. I think too much of my own. I can’t enter into the troubles of the new family. It’s only of the old I can think when I am here.”
“But oh! it’s no new family, ma’am; it’s the same family, it’s your own, own family,” cried Bessie Brown. “If you’re married ever so, you can’t give your natural relations up.”
“My natural relations!” Mary cried.
But the conversation by this time had caught the watchful ear of the housekeeper, who left Darrell and came back to see what was going on here.
“Brown,” she said, “what are you doing in this room? who told you to come and talk to a lady who is paying a visit in the house? I hope, Mrs. Asquith, you’ll excuse her. There is no rudeness meant,” the housekeeper said.
“My natural relations,” Mary repeated. “I don’t know what you mean. The house has passed into other hands. I don’t suppose there are any of my relations here.”
“Brown, you had better go to your work. I’ll answer the lady’s questions. We did not know till the other day that there was any relationship.”
“But,” said Mary bewildered, “it is Mrs. Rotherham——”
“Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham. My lady was an heiress. She married Mr. Prescott——”
The discovery was too bewildering and strange to convey itself distinctly to Mary’s troubled brain. She said only something which she felt to be entirely irrelevant.
“Who, then, is the invalid gentleman?” she cried.
MRS. ASQUITH took her place in Hetty’s room to keep watch there, with indescribable anxiety and alarm. She had been warned that every night since that mysterious occurrence Hetty had seemed to go over again in her dreams the midnight visit which had jarred her being. It had been the effort of her nurses to soothe and silence her, to get her, if possible, to forget; but every night the dreadful recollection had come back. Mary sat down to watch, feeling that this moment of return upon the cause of all the trouble might be the moment of recovery, if she but knew how to use it aright. But that was the question, of far more importance for the moment than those other wonders and anxietieswhich had arisen in her mind, and which she had not been able to satisfy. How was she to act that this moment might be the critical one, that she might be able to penetrate within the mist that enveloped Hetty? She tried to think, tried to form for herself a plan of action, but with trembling and doubt. The child’s life, the child’s reason, might depend upon her own presence of mind, her power to touch the right chord, her wisdom. Mary had never taken credit to herself for wisdom. She had never had to face the intricate problems of human consciousness; how to minister to a mind diseased had never been among her many duties. Out of all the simple calls of her practical life, out of her nursery, where everything was so innocent, how was she to reach at once to the height of such a crisis as this? She tried to apply all her unused faculties to it; but they eluded her, and ran into frightened anticipations, endeavours to realise what was about to happen. She had no confidence that she would keep her self-possession, or have herwits about her when the moment come. Oh, if Harry had but been here! But then she remembered all he had to do, and was glad to think that he would be quietly asleep and unconscious of what was going on; and that after all, the fatigue, and the disquietude and dreadful fear that she would not be equal to the necessities of the occasion, would be endured by herself alone. He had plenty to trouble him, she reflected. He would be wretched enough in his anxiety, without wishing him to share this vigil. And then Mary appealed silently to the only One Who is never absent in trouble, imploring Him to stand by her; and felt a little relief in that, and in the softening tears that came with her prayer.
The room was very still, and so was the house, all wrapt in sleep and silence. The housekeeper and Miss Hofland had both offered to sit up, but she had rejected all companionship. She could not have borne the presence of a stranger, or the possibility of any third person coming between her and her child. A nightlight burned faintly in acorner; the light of the fire diffused a soft glow. All was warm and still and breathless in the deep quiet of the night. And as the hours passed on so still, bringing no change with them, Mary’s thoughts wandered to the past, into which she seemed to have come back when she entered this house. Her youth seemed to come back: the familiar figures which she had not seen for years surrounded her once more. Hetty slept, or seemed to sleep, not moving in her bed; and in Mary’s thoughts the familiar room took back its old appearance. This was where the mother of the house had sat with her basket of coloured worsteds and her endless work, which was never done. And there the girls had their little establishments: Anna with her music, Sophie with her little drawings. Neither the drawings nor the music had been of high quality, but Mary’s anxious heart went away to them in the midst of this vigil, and got a moment’s refreshment and affectionate soft consolation out of their faded memory. She had not been of much accountin those days, but they had all been good to her. And now they were both at the other end of the world, knowing nothing of Mary, as Mary knew nothing of them. And Percy, where was he, the handsome, careless fellow? And John, poor John? Ah! that struck a different chord in her musings. Where was he, if this house was still his? and who was the wife that had made him rich, and then left him, and left her child in this mysterious way? Where was John? Was it true that he had lost his wits (he had so few, dear fellow, at the best of times!), and was shut up somewhere in a madhouse, as had been said? Shut up in a madhouse, he who never would have hurt a fly, shut up—shut up!
Mary’s thoughts had run away with her, had made her forget for a moment what was her chief object, her only object. The start she gave, when a new and alarming idea thus came into her mind, brought her back to herself. She had drifted towards that wondering suspicion, that undefined alarm on the evening before, afterBessie’s revelation, and Mrs. Mills’ evident desire to stave off all further questions. Who was the invalid gentleman? she had asked with an awakening of curiosity, of interest, and wonder. But the housekeeper and the doctor had been called most opportunely away, and she had got no answer to a question. She started when it came back thus in sudden overwhelming force. But the very keenness of the question, which felt almost like a discovery, brought her back to herself with a guilty sensation, as if she had forgotten Hetty in thus following out another train of thought. And what was all the world in comparison with Hetty, whose well-being now hung in the balance, and whom perhaps her mother, dreaming and thinking of others, might miss the moment to save? She recovered herself in an instant, and brought herself back with all her mind concentrated upon her child. Hetty lay still as in depths of sleep; but from time to time her eyes were opened, though only to close again, and the sight of those open eyes chilled the mother throughand through, and drove everything else out of her mind. It was now the most ghostly depth of night, the darkest and the coldest, when morning seems to begin to wake with a chill and shiver. Hetty’s eyes had closed again, and Mrs. Asquith had resumed her seat to watch, with a nervous anticipation of the crisis—when presently the bed shook with the nervous shuddering of the little form that lay on it; and starting up, she found Hetty with her eyes wide open, an agonised look upon her face, and her hands clutching the bedclothes, as had been described to her. The mother’s dress brushing the bed as she rose hastily, seemed to increase the dreamer’s horror. She began to move from side to side, moaning as in a nightmare, struggling to rise. And then a babble of broken words came to her lips. What was she saying? Mrs. Asquith listened with keen anguish, her faculties sharpened to their utmost strain. Was it some explanation, some complaint, that Hetty was trying to utter, something that would make this mystery clear?Her mother made out that it was the same thing over and over, now more now less clear. Her ears made out the words at last by dint of repetition—Heaven knows, the most innocent words!—“My child, my little darling! my child, my little darling! have I found you at last?”
When this had gone on for some time, Mary in her excitement could bear it no longer. She raised her child suddenly in her arms, clasping her close, taking possession of her in a transport of love and pity. “Hetty!” she cried, “Hetty!” almost with a shriek. “What is it? what is it? Tell me what it is!”
The girl uttered another cry, a wild and piercing shriek, as shrill as that which on the former occasion had roused the house. She started up in her bed, struggling, pushing Mrs. Asquith’s arms away, looking wildly round her with the frantic gaze of terror. Then all at once the contrast seemed to reach her stunned soul—not darkness and the awful visitant who had driven her out of herself, but light and that beloved facewhich poor Hetty thought she had not seen for years. She gave another cry of recognition, “Mother!” and flung herself upon her mother’s breast. Mrs. Asquith trembled with the shock, for Hetty plunged into her arms and buried her face as if she had fled into some place of refuge; but if it had been the weight of the great house, as well as that of Hetty, Mary could have borne it in the sudden hope and relief of her soul.
“My dearest!” she said, “my sweet, my own Hetty, I’m here. There’s nobody can touch you, I’m here! Don’t you know, my darling, your mother? There’s nobody can touch you while I am here!”
Hetty made no response in words, but she suspended her whole weight upon her mother, clinging to her, burrowing with her head on Mary’s bosom. It was no ordinary embrace; it was the taking of sanctuary, the entry into a city of refuge. So far as the child was aware, she had found her natural protector for the first time. She hid herself in Mary, disappearing almost inthe close clasping arms, in the soft shield and shelter of her mother’s form. Mary’s head was bowed down on Hetty’s; her shoulders curved about her; the girl’s slim white figure almost disappeared, all pressed, folded, enclosed in the mother’s embrace. This was what the housekeeper saw when she rushed to the door, roused by the scream, expecting some repetition of the former scene. Mary signed to her with her eyes, having no other part of her free, to go away. She made the same sign to Miss Hofland, who appeared in her nightdress, trembling and distressed, behind the well-clothed housekeeper. Mary felt that she dared not speak to them, dared not even move or say a word. The success of all depended on her being left alone with her child.
Even the movement of this interruption, however, though hushed and full of precaution, aided the clearing of Hetty’s brain. She raised her head for a moment, gave a furtive glance round. “Is he—is he—gone, mamma?”
“Yes, my darling; there is no one here but you and I.”
Hetty moved a little more, and cast a tremulous glance, holding her mother tighter and tighter, over her shoulders. “Is the window—shut? Is it safe? Are you sure? Are you sure”—with another passionate strain, under which Mary tottered, yet held up mechanically, she could not tell how—“that he can’t come back?”
To Hetty’s bewildered mind the terrible moment of that midnight visit had only just passed. She knew nothing of the interval; nor did she ask how it was that, miraculously, when she was most wanted, her mother had come to her; that is always natural in a child’s experience. She wanted no explanation of that, but only to make sure that the cause of her terror had disappeared.
“Darling, lie down and go to sleep. You are safe, quite safe. I am going to stay with you, don’t you see? Could any harm happen to you and me here?”
Hetty raised her head and turned her face upward for her mother’s kiss. It was warm and soft with returning life. “No!” she said, with a long-drawn breath, with that profound conviction of childhood. She had turned into a child after her trance, all other development disappearing for the moment. But her hands seemed incapable of disengaging themselves. She could not loosen her hold. “Oh, mamma, don’t let me go! oh, hold me fast! Oh, don’t let any one come, mamma!”
“Nobody, my love; I won’t leave you, not for a moment—not for a moment, Hetty.”
After a while the girl fell fast asleep, with her head upon her mother’s shoulder, and her arms so soft, yet clenched like iron round Mary’s neck. Hetty was far too profoundly dependent, too desperate in her absolute need, to be capable of thinking of the comfort of her shield and guardian. Cramped and aching, but happy and relieved beyond description in mind, Mary, too, after a while dozed and slept. When she opened her eyes,the chill grey of the morning was coming on. The night was over, with its dangers and fears. Hetty’s desperate clinging had relaxed; her head was falling back; the soft warmth and ease of sleep had softened all the rigidity of her trance away. Mary laid her down softly upon her pillow with a light heart, though every limb and every muscle was aching, and took her place once more by the bedside, that she might be the first object on which her child’s waking eyes should rest. And Hetty slept—how long she slept! Fatigue crept over Mrs. Asquith; she dozed, and dreamed, and woke with a start, half-a-dozen times before, in the full daylight, Hetty opened her eyes. There was a moment of awful suspense—the blank look of her stupefied state seemed to waver for an instant over her face, like a mist trembling, wavering, uncertain whether to go or stay. Then light broke out, and love and meaning in the girl’s eager look. “Oh, mamma!”
There had been by this time many anxioustappings at the door. Miss Hofland had looked in with an anxious face; and little Rhoda, with eyes full of awe, had peeped round the edge of the door; and the housekeeper, with whispers and signs and that invariable cup of tea which is intended to be the consolation of the watcher. But Mary would not be beguiled for a moment from her child’s side; the danger was too near, the deliverance too great, to be trifled with. And the other great questions which had almost distracted her mind from Hetty came back as she waited. Hetty’s murmurs in the hour of recollection had strangely, fantastically strengthened her suspicions. Could she dare to recall Hetty, waking and restored to reason, to that awful remembrance? Whatever happened she could not risk her child.
This question was put to rest later in the day by Hetty herself, who, very weak, scarcely able to move with physical exhaustion, lay still in her bed, regarding her mother with all a child’s beatitude. She had heard all the nursery storiesagain, Rhoda assisting as before, and laughed and cried and been happy in all the sweetness of convalescence over the little witticisms of baby. But later, when Rhoda, was sent away, Hetty lay very silent for a time, and then called her mother to her bedside.
“Mamma,” she said, growing paler and deeply serious, “I wanted to ask you, could he take me for Rhoda? Could he be—could he be—Rhoda’sfather, mamma?”
“Hetty,” said Mary, taking her child’s hands, “could you repeat to me, my darling, quietly, without exciting yourself, what you told me in the night? What he said?”
The colour came in a flood to Hetty’s face, then ebbed away, leaving her quite pale. She clasped her mother’s hands tight; and then she repeated slowly, like a lesson, “Oh, my child, my little darling! have I found you at latht?”
“Oh, Hetty! God bless you, my dearest! Why did you say ‘at latht’?” Mary cried.
Hetty looked at her mother with startled eyes. “I don’t know what I said. I said only what he said, mamma.”
“Hetty,” cried Mary in great agitation, “I think God has sent us here, both you and me.”