NEWS FROM LUCKNOW: TRIXY'S DETERMINATION
For the next few weeks, however, there was little change. The household
in the palace dropped once more into a regular mode of living. Lady
Elton fell into her place at once. Anxious as she continued to be
about Grace, her sympathy and gentleness made her the friend and
adviser of everyone else. They called her smilingly 'the mother of
the zenana.' From Trixy, who would persist in looking upon the bright
side of everything, there emanated a spirit of courage and joyous
animation that was as refreshing as the morning breeze in the desert.
Captain Liston, who was presently to lead out a convoy of provisions
and ammunition to meet Sir Colin Campbell on his march up country,
became exceedingly popular both in the palace and in the city. Kit,
whose smart figure in its semi-oriental dress was, by this time, a
familiar sight in the streets and market-places of Gumilcund, followed
Bertie about like his shadow, and proved a most efficient guide. The
readiness, aplomb, and curious air of distinction that characterised
the child, made him particularly attractive to the Asiatic multitude,
so that he knew every nook and corner of the city, and was on the best
of terms with everyone. To display his knowledge before so fine and
complaisant a person as Bertie Liston was thoroughly agreeable to Kit,
while the defection of Aglaia, who could scarcely ever be persuaded now
to leave Grace, made the new companionship all the more delightful to
him.
Lucy's parents being shut up in the Lucknow Residency, with the heroic
survivors of that unparalleled defence, while her husband and Colonel
Durant were with Sir Colin Campbell, much anxiety was felt as to the
progress of the army and their efficiency to carry to a successful
issue the great work committed to them. But though often troubled and
depressed about their own individual friends, not one of this little
company entertained any doubts as to the final result. England was
bound to triumph. The slaughterers of women and children must bite the
dust.
The first great event after Lady Elton's arrival was the departure of
Bertie for the front. He went off in the highest spirits, promising
all sorts of glorious performances, with letters and messages as often
as he could find hands to carry them.
Trixy, of whom he used to say sometimes that she was game to the
very finger-tips, saw him go away as if he were going to a party of
pleasure. From the horse, on which she had ridden out, by the rajah's
side, to see the convoy start, she waved her young hero a gallant
farewell; and then, turning away, put her horse into a mad canter
to deaden the pain at her heart. Yet the next day she seemed almost
as joyous as ever. And indeed she was not unhappy. Awful qualms of
heart would come over her at moments, and a spirit of mad rebellion
against the world and things in general for such horrors as were being
allowed in their economy, would seize and shake her. But actually her
profound belief in her own and Bertie's good star prevented her from
being orthodoxly miserable. Bertie gone, her attention was more fully
concentrated upon Grace, with whom, as the days wore on, she began to
feel a little impatient. When they were together she managed to control
herself; but, now and then, she would let herself out to her mother.
'Grace ought to get better,' she would say. 'What is there to prevent
her? It is too bad. That poor fellow looks gloomier and gloomier every
day!'
It was useless for Lady Elton to argue that health and sickness are
not in our own hands, or to point out that Grace was making every
possible effort; Trixy would still insist: 'If there is nothing really
wrong, she ought to begin to be more like other people. If there is,
she should see a doctor. I could never give up without a fight,' said
Trixy, setting her teeth together.
Then, with tears in her eyes, Lady Elton would turn away. It was true,
too true! Grace was slipping away from them. It was not her own fault.
Her mother knew this well. Honestly, loyally, she strove to shake off
her invalid ways, to be amongst them, to belong to them. But, alas!
with every day the failure became more apparent. She was like a broken
flower that not even the sunshine can revive. Something within her had
snapped. The spirit of vitality that conquers pain and weakness, that
God-implanted love of the dear Earth and all her homely ways, which
will so often bring a sick soul back from the brink of the grave, had
gone never to return, even at the bidding of human love, with all its
passionate sweetness.
Now and then, after a sleepless night, the strain which she put on
herself would, for a moment, be relaxed, and then those who loved her
best would see a strange hunger in her eyes. It was as if she was
holding out her hands to them and imploring them to let her go.
One morning Tom saw, or fancied he saw, this in her eyes. They were
alone, for Aglaia, Grace's constant companion, after looking up
pleadingly into the rajah's face and receiving no responsive smile, had
slipped away. He flung himself on his knees by the couch, and catching
her hands, which were as soft as snow, and only a little warmer, gazed
speechlessly into her eyes. 'What is it, dear?' she said faintly.
'Grace,' he cried, 'what do you want? where are you going? what do you
see? oh, God! what do you see--that you should wish to leave us?'
An expression of pain and perplexity crossed her face. 'Wish?' she
echoed as if she had not understood the word.
He laid his burning face on her hands. 'Darling,' he said humbly, 'is
there anything we can do--anything we can give you? I would give my
life, Grace, all I have and am, for you.'
But still she looked at him dreamily; and then all at once the futility
of his prayers came home to him, and with a sob, which he could not
repress, he rose slowly to his feet. Fool! Will even a child be drawn
from its home by bribes and kisses? It was her _home_, the vision sweet
and awful of the Divine, that was beckoning to her, and he was trying,
by his poor love, to hold her to the little joys and sorrows of life.
But reason as he would with himself, his heart was sore. Like Trixy, he
could not give up without a fight, and, on the evening of that day, he
sent for a doctor. His messengers travelled night and day. The doctor,
a civilian of some experience, who had come out a year or two before,
to make his fortune, lost no time. A week after the message had been
despatched he was lodged in the palace.
He saw Grace, and was puzzled as men of his profession generally are
by what seem like abnormal ailments. Who has any right to be ill,
except by rule of thumb? Pushed into a corner, he spoke vaguely of
mental shock, recommended quiet, which she had been having, Tom said
despairingly, for weeks, and set himself to watch and take notes. Alas!
the notes did not help him much. When he had been in close attendance
upon her for a week he was further from that full understanding of
her case, which, he had said, would enable him to deal with it
satisfactorily, than he had been at the beginning.
And yet she was patient and perfectly submissive, taking everything he
prescribed and never refusing to answer his questions.
So the days wore on. October passed away and November opened. It was
such a November as has scarcely ever been seen even in Gumilcund. The
burning heat of the summer and early autumn were over, and the glory
and brightness of the Indian winter, the deep skies, the sunny days,
the entrancing mornings and evenings had begun to be felt. The garden,
with its overspreading foliage, its wildernesses of flowers, crimson
and purple and orange; its arbours, covered with azure-blue convolvulus
and lilac Bougainvillea, and its long avenues bordered with channels
of flowing water, was in perfection. It was a happiness to explore it,
a bliss to breathe its air. If anything could heal Grace, so they said
to one another, it would surely be the beauty of this Indian winter.
By the doctor's advice she spent her life in the open air. A wonderful
couch and carriage in one had been designed, for her by the rajah,
and skilfully executed by some of the clever Gumilcund mechanics. In
this she was wheeled from place to place, making new and delightful
discoveries every day. To those who watched her it would seem that, for
days, her life was nothing more than a dream. But there were moments
still when she was stirred up to a strong interest in life.
Such a moment was that when news came to Gumilcund of the final relief
of the Lucknow Residency.
It arrived late in the evening. None of the ladies in the palace will
ever forget that day. They were together in a little grove by the lake.
They had been having tea out of the jewelled cups, which with other
lovely things Tom had hunted out of his father's treasury to tempt
Grace to eat and drink. After tea, Trixy, who, expecting news, had been
in a state of irrepressible excitement for several days, seized upon
the tiny boat, rocking in front of them, spun it out into the lake,
and tried to quiet herself by pouring out some of her favourite songs.
Those in the grove listened silently. They had been talking, trying to
amuse one another and forget the intolerable ache of suspense. When
Trixy's clear young voice came thrilling out on the evening air they
all felt thankful for an excuse to be quiet.
A pretty group they made under the quivering light and shade of
the acacias; Grace, on her long couch, her hands and face almost
transparent now, but beautiful still, with a seraphic unearthly
loveliness that can scarcely be put into words; and near her sweet Lady
Elton, with Aglaia at her feet; then Kit, who had been a little sombre
since Bertie left, leaning against his mother, half asleep, she with
her arm round him, an expression of peace on her thin, worn face; in
the centre of the group Lucy, robed in the white cashmere that was now
her favourite wear, lying at full length on a tiger's skin, her pretty
head supported on her folded arms, as she gazed with wide-open eyes
into the waning glories of the evening sky; and at a little distance
from Lucy, holding on her knee, in a state of complete eclipse, rosy
baby Dick, whose mother had gone inside to prepare for the high
ceremony of his evening toilet, the slight figure of Mrs. Lyster, her
fingers playing absently with the baby's silken curls, as she looked
out before her with gloomy eyes. It was Kit who brought life into the
picture. He saw the rajah coming towards them, flourishing a letter in
his hand. 'Post! Post!' he cried, rushing to meet him. 'Post!' echoed
one and another; and in a moment all but Grace were on their feet.
Trixy heard the cry. For a second her brave heart almost failed her;
then, calling all her resolution to her aid, she threw herself upon
the oars, drew them through the water with the vigour of ten, and, in
less time than it takes to tell, was on shore and racing Kit down the
avenue. In the next instant she had seen Bertie's handwriting, had torn
the letter open, had understood at a glance that the news was good, and
was rushing back at full speed to the group by the lake.
When she reached them she was much too breathless to speak, but her
face spoke for her. Lady Elton got up, and put her arms round her, for
this brave, healthy young creature was swaying to and fro as if she
would fall. That was enough for her. 'Don't, mother,' she whispered
hoarsely, 'you will make me cry; and there's nothing to cry about.'
Then Grace, who had seemed to be asleep a moment before, held out her
arms, and Trixy fell into them with something like a sob. 'Let me go,
my sweet little Grace,' she murmured. 'I don't even know what the silly
boy has said yet.'
But by this time the rajah, who looked particularly young and handsome,
was amongst them.
'I don't know what Captain Liston says, of course,' he said, looking
round on them with a triumphant smile, 'but I have a message from Sir
Colin himself. It was a hard fight; but they have done their work, and
our Gumilcund guide-corps, as well as the men with the convoy, have
done splendidly. It will be good news in the city. I expect we shall
illuminate, and have all sorts of festivities to-morrow.'
'What fun!' said Lucy faintly; but she was looking towards Trixy with
anxious eyes. That young person, who was once more the mistress of
herself and the situation, had taken a seat under the swinging lamp,
which Hoosanee had been considerate enough to hang up among the trees,
and was unfolding Bertie's letter, parts of which she read aloud for
the benefit of everyone.
It had been begun on the evening of the day when Sir Henry Havelock and
the gallant Outram had shaken hands with Sir Colin Campbell. He had not
been able, however, to despatch it at once, and he added a few lines
on the following day. Several more important points had been gained;
the rebels were completely demoralised, and flying in every direction;
the line of retreat for the besieged had been organised, and the women
and children and invalids were then being carried out to the Dilkoosha,
where they were to rest for a night. Cawnpore, he believed, was to
be their next halt. Lucy's father and mother were safe. He had seen
her husband meeting them; they looked haggard and wasted; but already
they were on the fair way to revival. Colonel Durant had won honour in
the assault. He had himself had one glorious moment, about which he
would entertain Trixy later. Sir Colin Campbell was one of the best men
and finest soldiers it had ever been his lot to serve under. He would
willingly lay down his life for him. In the meantime, though smarting
in every joint from the exertions of the preceding day, he was thankful
to say that he was sound in mind and limb. The Gumilcund men were
trumps, every one of them. But of their gallant conduct the rajah would
no doubt hear from other sources. To him, and the rest of the English
society in the palace and Residency, he sent warmest greetings. The
messages to herself, whose perusal occupied a few moments, Trixy did
not think it necessary to give.
'That dear fellow gets more considerate every day,' she said, looking
round her with a glowing face, as she folded up her letter. 'He
doesn't forget anybody. I should like to answer his letter as soon as
possible'--to the rajah. 'When are you sending?'
'I shall send off my congratulations to-night,' said Tom, smiling.
'Oh! then, excuse me everybody. I must write at once,' said Trixy.
To what vagaries she committed herself in the solitary recesses of her
room, it would be unfair to relate here. All I can venture to say is
that the letter which resulted, and which arrived in camp on the eve of
the gallant fight that scattered Tantia Topee's army, broke the spirit
of the rebels in the North-West, and gave back Cawnpore to the English,
was received and read with a transport of admiring love and gratitude
that its recipient would always maintain carried him scatheless and
triumphant through the dangers of that tremendous day.
'I verily believe,' he said to Trixy later, when, after his own light
fashion, he was narrating the exploit that had won for him the English
soldier's dearest reward for gallantry--the Victoria Cross, 'I verily
believe that I was too happy and proud a creature to die that day.
There was no killing me.'
'The dark angel hovered over you, and had not the heart to strike,'
said Trixy, whose bright eyes were dim with tears.
But this belongs to the future, for before she met Bertie again Trixy
had some dark and bitter days to live through.
She was passionately attached to her mother, and while, without
understanding Grace in the least, she had always had a sisterly regard
for her, she had never loved her as she did now, when admiration,
tenderness, pride in her as a heroine, and some little sense of
exultation in the part she might play in the future had reinforced her
sisterly feeling. And now, since the brief revival which followed on
the news from Lucknow, inspired partly, as Trixy felt with a curious
throb of tenderness, by sympathy for herself and Bertie, there was
added to her love a devotion strong enough, the poor child believed, to
fight with and overcome the invisible forces that were preying upon her
sister's life. 'Grace shall not die, she shall not!' Trixy would say.
'I will prevent her.' For two or three days she would let no one but
herself do anything for Grace, scarcely speak to her. With the energy
and strong will that belonged to her, she would sweep them all away.
'She wants life--life, do you hear?' she would cry. 'You people are
sad. You let her brood and dream.'
Even Tom was only allowed to see her at Trixy's time and in Trixy's
presence. 'You will thank me some day,' she said to him one day,
pressing his hand with sisterly cordiality, and for the moment he
almost believed in her. 'If you bring her back to us, Trixy,' he said,
with a sob in his throat, 'there is nothing I will not do for you.'
'Ah, I shall remember that,' she said, nodding to him gaily, and then
she took her measures. Kit, the gayest and naturally the most effusive
of the party, was taken into her counsels. He was told that it was his
mission to be amusing, and he showed his sense of the honour conferred
upon him by being so delightfully important that Trixy would almost
forget her own mission in the amusement of watching him. Aglaia, on
whose little life the shadow which was enfolding those dearest to her
seemed to have fallen, was warned privately not to look solemn, and
she, too, began to be amusing in pretty prim ways that were charming to
behold. 'It is a perpetual little comedy with those children,' Trixy
said to her mother one day.
She herself was perfectly radiant. For hours she sat beside Grace,
chatting of the present and the future. She gave quiet humorous little
pictures of incidents at Meerut, Yaseen Khan's importance, and their
father's youthful vigour. She would even relate stories of scenes
between herself and Bertie, blushing in the prettiest way as she
repeated some of his silly speeches. She went back over the far past
when they were all children together, raking up funny old stories of
their nursery and schoolgirl days. She organised excursions to the
city, Grace in a palki, and she and Kit riding beside her. For more
than a week she was her sister's only physician, and even the doctor,
who had looked grave at first, began at last to think that the new
treatment was more successful than the old.
All sorts of rumours were in the meantime pouring in, and mostly of
the vengeance that was overtaking the rebels. From the neighbourhood
of Gumilcund, from Cawnpore, and, above all, from Delhi, came tales
of wholesale executions, of indiscriminate slaughter, of men blown
from guns in battalions, of dispossessed peasants and citizens dying
in their multitudes from famine. The ladies heard all these things at
the Residency, where there was stern exultation. The rajah--who was a
little sombre in these days, fearing that the reconcilement to which
he looked as a new and glorious era in the life of the nations might
be indefinitely delayed if the conquerors could not see the wisdom of
tempering justice with mercy--was urgent that from Grace all these dark
tales should be kept, and her friends, knowing how sensitive she was,
would not have been likely to disappoint his wish, even though Trixy,
who kept a fierce and friendly watch, had been absent.
As it was, no change was made, and yet, with the onward sweep of the
winter days, lovely beyond description, but burdened each one with its
ghastly tale of horror, a cloud of depression, for which there was
no accounting, dropped down upon her. Sleepless nights followed the
sad days. The doctor, saying she was too weak to stand the continued
strain, gave her anodynes that helped her through part of the night,
but left her more exhausted than before. Then her mother, who had let
herself be lulled by Trixy's determined hopefulness, grew alarmed. She
could sleep but little herself, and one night she sat up and watched.
Grace had been given a strong opiate. Through the early part of the
night she slept, with occasional starts. Then suddenly she opened her
eyes, and cried out like one in deadly pain. Her mother stooped over
her. 'It is a bad dream,' she said. 'Awake! I am here beside you.'
The girl looked at her. 'They are binding my eyes,' she cried with a
strange bitterness. 'They think I can't see, but I can--I can! Oh,
will no one do anything? Look! Do you see, do you see the horror in
those eyes?'
'Whose? Whose? What do you mean, darling? There is nothing here,' said
poor Lady Elton weeping.
'Nothing!' echoed the girl, 'nothing!' And she sank down on the bed
sobbing. But the next instant she had sprung up again. 'They are
going,' she cried--'a pillar of flame. It is killing the sweet blue of
the sky--and the stars--the stars--are fading. Oh! Where do they go?
What becomes of them? Some one told me once; but I have forgotten.'
Then, after a pause, during which her eyes seemed to be searching. 'It
is real,' she cried, 'the pain--the restlessness--the misery--it goes
on. They cannot destroy it--for ever and ever and ever.' Her voice
sank away to a sobbing sigh, and she sank back exhausted. Her mother
took advantage of her quietness to whisper words of Christian hope and
comfort.
'You forget, my darling,' she murmured. 'There _is_ a refuge--a refuge
for us all. He took the misery--He bore the pain. Look to Him--the
Crucified--our Saviour.'
The girl looked up. The familiar words had penetrated the cloud of her
delirium; but they brought with them no peace, rather a strange fierce
anger of impatience that pierced her gentle mother to the heart.
'Our Saviour! but who is theirs?' she cried piteously, and then again
came that awful heart-rending cry--inarticulate--the wail of a hurt and
bewildered child. Lady Elton was on her knees by the bedside, tears
raining from her eyes. 'It is breaking my heart,' she sobbed. 'Oh!
Grace, don't you know me?'
Slowly the girl seemed to come back to herself. 'Mother,' she said, 'is
it you?' Then with a strange smile: 'I was foolish to wish to see. Bind
my eyes! Hide me! I dare not look.'
'My child! there is nothing. But come to me. Hide your dear head. My
little darling! My baby! Oh! if I might hide you so always,' said the
poor woman, 'as I did when you were really a baby!'
Grace lay perfectly still, her head on her mother's arm.
'You are better, love?' she whispered, stroking her hair with trembling
fingers.
'Yes,' answered the girl. 'But it will come back again. Dear, you must
let me go.'
* * * * *
The next day she was too weak to rise. Everyone was distressed, and
Trixy's anguish was terrible. But after the first shock she persisted
that it was nothing.
'Sick people are subject to these fluctuations,' she said fiercely;
'Grace will be better to-morrow.'
But Lady Elton knew that the summons had come. She told Tom of the
scene of the night. As he listened a ghastly pallor overspread his
face, and he staggered like one who has received a blow.
'Some one has told her these hideous stories,' he cried with sudden
anger. 'The horror of them is killing her.'
Lady Elton put her tender, motherly hand on his shoulder. 'No, dear,'
she said sadly; 'I have watched; and Trixy, and the child, Aglaia, have
been with her from morning till night. _It is impossible!_'
For an instant he stood silent. Every particle of colour had fled
from his face, and his eyes had a strained, unnatural expression that
alarmed her.
'I will watch with you to-night,' he said.
'If she will let you.'
'She shall not see me. I will keep out of her way, while she is awake.
Mother, you must let me. It is my right, and,' he added in a choked
voice, as he turned from her,'perhaps I know more about these visions
than you do.'
Lady Elton went back sadly to her children. She found Aglaia curled up
on the cushions at Grace's feet, reading the New Testament to her, and
Trixy sitting beside them with swollen eyes.
With an unuttered prayer Lady Elton sat down and listened. It was one
of the beautiful, mystical chapters of St. John. The child read it
through, in her sweet tremulous voice, and then stopped.
'Grace is asleep,' she whispered.
They sat silent, watching her. Her face was almost transparent. The
blue-veined eyelids, fringed with long silken lashes, lay against her
cheeks. The breathing was soft and regular, like a child's. But she was
not asleep, and presently she opened her eyes, and looked round on them.
'How good everyone is to me!' she murmured. 'What have I done that you
should love me so?' Then in a lower tone, 'Mother, love is real.'
Her mother trembled, for she knew that the vision of the night before
was with her.
'Love is real; love will conquer,' said Trixy.
Grace turned to her, and for a moment there seemed to be on the dying
face some faint reflection of the fire and enthusiasm that shone from
that of the living. 'Thank you, Trixy,' she murmured, 'say that again.
It does me good.'
'But it is true--it is true--how could anything else be?' cried the
young girl. 'Love is real--it is strong--it is the strongest--it
conquers everything--we know it--we who have felt.' And then sudden
tears dimmed the lustre of her eyes, and she bent her head. 'Grace,
dearest,' she whispered. 'Our love is calling you. Won't you--won't
you--stay?' For an instant the large grey eyes, that were fixed on
Trixy's face, seemed to lose their steadfastness.
'Life is very sweet,' murmured Grace, 'to go on--to know--to love--to
see the world opening out----'
'Life is beautiful,' said Trixy. 'Life is divine. You shall not die. It
would be cruel.'
'Hush! Hush!' said Lady Elton. 'Do you see?'
A faint colour had tinged the white face on the pillow, and the large
eyes had filled with tears. Trixy turned away with a sob in her throat.
* * * * *
A little later they brought her food. She tried her hardest to eat, but
she could not. Presently her mother saw her lips moving and bent over
her. 'I have been thinking about it,' she said faintly. 'I am afraid my
heart and brain are weak. I can't bear things as others do. If I stayed
I should be a trouble to you. Tell Trixy,' and then again, in a still
lower voice, 'somewhere else I may understand better.'
They noticed that, throughout that day, she watched Aglaia with a
curious wistful expression in her eyes. Once when Tom, who was coming
in and going out helplessly all day long, sat down beside her bed, she
drew the child towards her, and put her little hand in his. But she
said very little, and none of them spoke to her much. All but Trixy
were abandoning hope; she hoped on still.
In the evening Grace seemed better and stronger; she asked for fruit,
and they brought her the richest and rarest that could be procured.
There were baskets of fragrant white flowers in the room. She asked
for one to be placed on her bed, and, for a few minutes, her thin pale
fingers strayed lovingly over the cool petals. One little white rose
she pressed to her lips.
'It is such a pleasant sensation to touch them,' she said; 'they are so
pure, so sweet.'
Late in the evening the doctor paid her a visit, gave her an anodyne
and spoke with doubtful cheerfulness. Kit, and Mrs. Lyster, and Mrs.
Durant, and baby Dick and his mother, and poor little Lucy came in, one
by one, to bid her good-night. They had been sternly drilled by Trixy,
and none of them wept or sighed. Trixy herself and Aglaia, who had
begged hard not to be sent away, sat with her until ten o'clock; then
Lady Elton insisted that they should rest, and they went into the inner
room where they slept together.
Tom had by this time crept in. By one of the marble lattices there
was a deep recess, shut off from the rest of the room by a screen.
In this recess he took up his station. The early hours of the night
passed quickly by. Grace seemed to be asleep. There was no movement,
not the least sound of life in all the palace. Even the chattering of
the chowkedars was silent, in obedience to the orders he had sent out
by Hoosanee. That faithful servant was keeping his watch in the hall of
the zenana; but he did not so much as move. Outside Tom could hear a
soft wind stirring in the heavy foliage of the trees, and silver arrows
of light, shot earthwards from shining worlds, myriads of miles away,
stole in through the lattice. Years afterwards he remembered, with a
throb of pain, how wide and how desolate the universe seemed to him
that night. Tired as he was when he began his watch, he did not feel
the least disposition to sleep; his mind was too busy, too poignantly
alive, his heart was too full. As the night wore on, dark and terrible
thoughts assailed him. Once he could have cried out like a hurt child.
The cruelty of life smote him, the piteous waste of force--hearts large
with love, souls aching with passionate pity, and able to do nothing!
Down the sheltered river the little boat might be brought, furthered
tenderly by guardian hands. Upon the sea, wide, fathomless,
undiscovered, the awful sea of eternity, it must launch out alone. This
was the mystery that oppressed him. Later he might think of himself,
his own sorrow and loss and disappointment. Now all his heart and
mind were with the sweet soul that was going out from them into the
invisible.
A sense of defeat and powerlessness, almost intolerable in its anguish,
came over him. He got up and struck his forehead against the marble
lattice, and the sharp pain of the blow seemed to bring him back to
himself.
Now and then he would rise from his seat behind the screen and look
back into the room. By the light of the shaded lamp he could see the
mother's bent form as she turned over the pages of her book, and the
white, white face upon the pillow, as still now as if death had frozen
it into the everlasting silence. Twice he saw Lady Elton rise swiftly
and lean over her, and then his heart beat so tumultuously that he
thought she must have heard it. But she returned to her seat, and he
knew that there was still breath.
So on for hours that seemed like a lifetime. At last the darkness began
to lift. Through the lattice by which he was standing he saw the stars
grow high and pale, and the grey light of early morning stealing over
the earth. The air came in with the chill of the morning in it, and
he drew the screen further round the lattice lest it should touch the
white face on the pillow.
Ah! what was that? A cry! In an instant he was by the bedside; Grace
was sitting up. Her eyes were wide open, her arms were extended, her
voice was clear and strong. 'Keep me awake, Kit,' she cried, 'keep me
awake!' Then in a voice lower, but thrilled through and through with
ecstasy, 'Tom! Tom!'
A mist was before his eyes. He did not see Lady Elton, who was chafing
the poor little feet that were deadly cold. The room, the bed, the
flowers, the rich and costly things that were scattered about her, had
vanished away. He was in the hermit's hut once more, and his darling,
torn from the jaws of death, was at his feet. With an inarticulate cry,
he threw himself on his knees and held out his arms. She sank into them
like a tired child, a smile of ineffable peace on her lips. But the
touch of her cold cheek recalled him to the present. 'She is worse,'
he said, looking at her with eyes full of anguish. 'Mother, for God's
sake, can nothing be done?'
Sorrowfully the poor mother shook her head. She had looked on death too
often not to know it.
At that moment there was another voice--a cry stifled but full of pain.
It was Trixy. With white gown and bare feet, her hair flying wildly
about her shoulders, she stood in the doorway between the two rooms. In
an instant she had taken it all in, and was rushing madly across the
room. 'You are dreaming, all of you,' she cried. 'She is in a swoon;
I know it is nothing else. Where is that cordial? She was nearly off
yesterday, and I brought her back with it. And the doctor. Aglaia, fly
for him! Tell him Grace is in a faint. Tom, give her this; she must
take it, she must. Heavens! how helpless men are! let me try! Grace,
sweetest, it is Trixy, your sister. For her sake! see love!'--her tears
were raining over the white hands--'Grace, I shall never be happy
again if you leave us! Try this once, and no one shall torture you
again as long as you live. One little drop if you love me!' The spoon
was between her lips, but it was in vain, she could not swallow. Yet
the sister's passionate agony had done what the lover's voice could
not. For an instant the heavy eyelids were lifted. Ah! what a look!
dumb pain! speechless entreaty! To the day of her death it will haunt
the sister's heart; she will see it in her dreams. The rest was like a
trance, a vision. She seemed to hear a voice whispering to her to be
still, and then a great chill struck her, and she smiled to think that
she was going away with Grace, and there was a confusion of many hands
and voices about her, and she thought with a vague pity of Bertie; and
the next thing she knew she was starting out of what seemed like a deep
sleep and seeing her mother sitting beside her; but when she tried to
get up, and said that she would go to Grace, her mother laid her hand
upon her. 'Grace died last night,' she said.
'Last night!' echoed Trixy, falling back.
'And you have slept all day, my poor little one,' said Lady Elton,
stooping to kiss her.
Trixy lay like one bewildered.
'And Tom?' she said presently.
'I have not seen him since. I hope he has been sleeping too.'
'Poor Tom!' said Trixy, her eyes filling with tears. 'His trouble is
greater than ours.'
'Yes; and think of all he has done for us. I shall thank God to the day
of my death that we had this quiet happy time together,' said poor Lady
Elton, with a little stifled sob.
'You are better than I am, mother. I can't feel anything but angry yet.
But not with Tom. Oh! not with Tom! He is a hero,' cried poor little
Trixy.