CHAPTER XXIV.A PARADISE OF REST.
Turner walked fast, without speaking, till the shadow of some tall trees fell over us, then his step grew heavier, and he looked in my face from time to time, with an expression of strange tenderness.
“Do you remember me?” he said at last, but in a hesitating whisper.
I struggled hard with my weakness, and tried to think. “Speak, little one, we are all alone, don’t be afraid of me, old Turner you know.”
“Yes, yes,” I murmured faintly enough, “she called you Turner.”
“She! what she are you talking of, little one?”
“The tall lady up yonder with the dog,” I answered; for struggle as I would, my mind refused to go farther back.
He looked at me with a strange expression.
“Then it was not your—your mother?”
Instantly that face half buried in clouds came before me.
“She—my mother never speaks,” I said, “she looks at me through the clouds, but does not say a word.”
He stopped, gazed at me wistfully a moment, and then bending his head closer to mine, whispered, “Tell me, tell old Turner, where is she?”
“She—who?” I whispered back.
“Your mother, Aurora—your mother, child.”
“I don’t know, she was here just now.”
“Here!” he said, looking around, “here?”
“Did you not see her face among the clouds, close down here, a minute ago? I did.”
He felt my cheek with his palm, took hold of my hands and feet—“She has no fever,” he muttered, “what does all this mean?”
“Tell me,” he said, after a little, “where did you go—you and your mother?”
“Nowhere.”
“What, was she in the neighborhood?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not—speak, child! not within a few weeks, not since Lady Clare died?”
“I think she is always with me, but the lark fed her young ones when they wanted something to eat, but she never fed me, and I was very, very hungry. Why did she look upon me from the clouds, but never give me one morsel to eat or a drop to drink?”
“Poor child—poor, poor child,” said the old man, kissing me, oh, how tenderly—“try and think—make one effort—I do so want to know the truth—where have you been these many months?”
I tried to think, but it confused me, and at last I answered, with starting tears,
“Indeed, I do not know.”
He bent his face close to mine, and kissed away the tears that stood on my cheeks—then he questioned me again.
“Is your mother dead?”
Dead! the word struck like cold iron upon my heart. I shuddered on the old man’s bosom. My brain ached with the weight of some painful memory, but it gave back no distinct answer. It seemed as if his question had heaped mountains of snow around me, but I could only reply,
“Dead, what is that?”
He heaved a deep groan and walked on, muttering strangely to himself.
I knew that he was carrying me over innumerable flower beds, for the air was rich with the scent of heliotrope and flowering daphnas, the breath of my old playmates. Then hemounted up some steps, tearing his way through a quantity of vines, and forcing open a sash window with his foot, carried me in.
It was a luxurious apartment, but very gloomy, and silent as a catacomb. The shutters were closed, the air unwholesome and heavy with the odor of dead flowers. I saw nothing distinctly, though my eyes roved with a sort of fascination from object to object. Something deeper than memory stirred in my soul. A chillness seized me, and I longed to go away.
Turner passed on, evidently glad to leave the chamber, and did not pause again till we reached a room that was smaller and more cheerful. He held me with one arm, and with his right hand threw open the shutters.
The sash was a single piece of plate glass, transparent as water. Curtains of gossamer lace and rose-colored silk fell over it, through which the morning sunshine glowed like the dawning of a rainbow.
The old man made me sit up in his arms and look around while he curiously regarded my face. I have said the room was flooded with soft light. The walls were covered with hangings of a delicate tint, sprinkled with rose buds. A carpet of snowy ground, with bouquets of gorgeous flowers scattered over it, as if in veritable bloom, covered the floor. A diminutive easy-chair and sofa, cushioned with rose-colored silk stood opposite to a small bed of gilded ivory, gleaming through a cloud of gossamer lace, which fell in soft, snowy waves from a small hoop of white and gold, like the bedstead, swung to the ceiling by a cord and tassel of silk, twisted with golden threads.
Turner looked at me anxiously, as my eyes wandered around this beautiful room, fitted up evidently for a child—for the bedstead was scarcely larger than a crib, and everything bore evidence of a very youthful occupant.
A pleasant sensation crept over me, as I gazed languidly around. The atmosphere seemed familiar, and I felt a smile stealing to my mouth.
Turner saw it, and almost laughed through the tears that were clouding his eyes.
“Do you like this?” he whispered, softly.
“Oh, yes, so much!”
“Shall I put you into that pretty bed?”
“No, no!” I shrieked, with a sudden pang, “it is white like a snow-drift; I would rather go back to the meadow and sleep with the larks.”
The old man looked sad again. He carried me close to the bed, and put some folds of the curtain in my hand; but I shrank back appalled by their unmixed whiteness. He could not comprehend this shuddering recoil, but sought to remove the cause. Curtains of silk, like those at the window, were looped through the ivory hoop. These he shook loose till they mingled in bright blossom colored waves with the lace. Then I began to smile again, and a sweet home feeling stole over me.
Turner carried me in his arms to the door and called aloud. A woman answered, and came into the room. When her eyes fell upon me they dilated, grew larger, and she uttered a few rapid words in some language that I did not understand. Turner answered her in the same tongue, then all at once she fell upon her knees, and raising her clasped hands began to weep.
Turner addressed her again, and with eager haste she prepared a bath, brought forth night clothes of the finest linen, and laid me in the bed exhausted, but tranquil and sleepy.
I heard Turner and the woman moving softly around my bed. I knew that tears and kisses were left upon my face, and then I slept, oh, how sweetly!
Ah, what heavenly dreams possessed me during the days and weeks which I spent in that delightful little chamber! The delirium which accompanied my relapse into fever was like an experience in fairy land. Fantastic as the visions that haunted me were, the most glowing changes of beauty broke through them all. Music floated by me on each breath of air thatgushed through the windows. Every sunbeam that stole through the gossamer curtains arched over me like a rainbow. It seemed to me that whole clouds of humming-birds floated through the room, filling it with the faint music of their wings. Then the pretty myths were chased away by fantastic little creatures in human form; smiling, fluttering, and full of the most exquisite fun, they trampled over my bed, and nestled, mischievously, among the blossom colored hangings. I became wild with admiration of their rosy bloom, of their comical ways. I laughed at their pranks by the hour, and strove with insane glee to catch them with my hand, or imprison them under the bed-clothes. But they always evaded me, making the most grotesque faces at my baffled efforts. I could see them waltzing in dozens upon the counterpane, and sitting upon my pillow tangling their tiny hands and feet in my hair, shouting, laughing, and turning summersets like little mad-caps whenever I made a dart at them with my hands. So we kept it up, these exquisite little imps, night and day, for we never slept—not we! the fun was too good for that!
There were only two of these creatures that did not seem to enjoy themselves, and they were so odd, such droll, tearful, melancholy things, that somehow their faces always made us stop laughing, though we could not suppress a giggle now and then at their solemn and sentimental way of doing things.
One was a queer little sprite, that looked so exquisitely droll with that tiny hat set upon his powdered hair, and the face underneath so comically anxious, that it quite broke my heart to look at the little fellow standing there with the tears in his eyes.
I remember puzzling myself a long time regarding the materials which composed his vest and small clothes, and of satisfying myself that they must have been made from the leaves of a tiger lily, peony, or some other great crimson blossom. The grave, drab coat, with its red facings, the golden buckles and hat, defied my imagination altogether; but the face, that anxious face, was dear old Turner’s, withered up to the size ofa crab-apple. It seemed so sad, so mournful, I quite pitied him, but somehow couldn’t keep from laughing at the priggish little figure he cut. Then there was a funny little woman, just the least bit shorter, in a blue dress and large cap, held up by the queerest high-backed comb that spread out the crown like a fan. Her face was older and darker than the rest, a Spanish face, with something kind in it that sometimes kept me quiet minutes together. These two figures really saddened us—the rosy troop of sprites and myself—with their grave faces and muttered consultations with each other, as if life and death depended on what they were talking about.
Then the scene would change. These elfin revellers disappeared. Flashes of lightning and clouds of cold white snow came slowly over me, drifting, drifting, drifting; and in their midst that beautiful face, so icy, so white, with its great, mournful eyes looking down into mine, hour after hour—it haunted me then, it has haunted me ever since. Yet no fear ever came upon me; no superstitious dread crept through my frame; but a chillness, as if mountain snow were around me, nothing more.
At last this strange phantasmagoria cleared away; the elves gave up their gambols and disappeared, all but the old man and the woman. They gradually grew larger, and I knew that they were the good Spanish woman and Turner.
How tenderly these two persons nursed me during the slow convalescence that followed! How ardent was the love I gave back for this care, for mine was an impassioned nature! Every sensation that I knew, love, hate, grief, fear—nay, not fear, I think that was unknown to my nature from the first!—but all other sensations were passions in me. Generous sentiments predominated with me always. I say this when my life lies before me like a map, and every impulse of my soul has been analyzed with impartiality, and knowledge more searching than any man or woman ever gathered from the actions of his fellow man.
I saw Turner at stated periods, when he could escape fromGreenhurst to inquire after my comforts, and caress me in his quaint, tender fashion. I had learned to watch for the hour of his coming with the most ardent impatience. He always brought me some pretty gift, if it were only a branch of hawthorn in flower, an early crocus, or a hatful of violets. He was an old, kind-hearted bachelor, and the poor child who had crept to his feet from the wayside, became the very pet and darling of a heart that had but one other idol on earth, and that was Lord Clare, his master.
Maria and I were alone in the house. The language in which she addressed me was not that which I spoke with Turner, but her caresses, her eager love were even more demonstrative than his. There was a pathos and power in her expressions of tenderness that he doubtless felt, but could not manifest in his own rougher language. She carried me in her arms while I was unable to walk, and sat by me as I played wearily with the rich toys, of which she found an endless variety in the closets and hidden places about the cottage.
I spoke her language well and without effort, for it seemed more native to my tongue than the English; and sometimes I would address Turner in some of its rich terms of endearment, but he always checked me with a grimace, as if the sound were hateful.
There was another language, too, of which I had learned the sounds, but whether it was of human origin, or something that I had gathered from the wild birds, I could not tell. It had a meaning to me, but no one else understood it, and so, like the feelings to which this strange gift alone gave utterance, it was locked up in my heart to be hoarded and pondered over in secret.