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 he mounted 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 that
gushed 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
of a 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 from Greenhurst 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.