When Agnes went upstairs after this genial but interrupted meal she was
met by her sister’s maid, who begged her to go at once to Lady Frogmore.
“My lady’s very restless,” said the attendant, who was something more
than a maid, the same who had brought her home after her recovery. “You
don’t think there’s anything wrong?” said Agnes, breathless, for
notwithstanding the tranquillity of so many years, any trifle was enough
to arouse her anxieties. “Oh, I hope not,” said the maid. This was
enough, it need not be said, to send Miss Hill trembling to her sister’s
side. Mary was lying very quietly in bed, with some boxes on the table
beside her, and a miniature of her husband, which she always carried
about with her, in her hands. “You wanted me, Mary?” “No,” said Lady
Frogmore, gently; then, after a pause--“Yes: I hope you will not be
disappointed, dear Agnes, I think I must go home.”
“Home! but we came for Duke’s party.”
“I know; but I do not think I can remain any longer. Perhaps if you were
to stay----”
“I will not stay if you go, Mary.”
“I thought Letitia would not mind so much if one of us was here. I can’t
stay, I can’t,” said Mary, with a little sudden burst of tears. “Don’t
ask me. My head goes round and round----”
“No, indeed,” said her sister; “no one shall ask you. I feared it might
be too much; and then the tent was so hot this afternoon.”
“The tent?” said Lady Frogmore, with a bewildered look. “I am not
thinking of any tent. It is that the place is strange. I can’t look him
in the face, Agnes. Look! don’t you think he is changed? He seems to
reproach me.” She held the miniature out to her sister. “And I don’t
know what for,” she cried, weeping. “If I knew what it was for I could
do better. But I can’t tell, I can’t tell.” After a minute she dried her
eyes and looked at her sister again with a faint smile. “Don’t look so
frightened, Agnes, as if you thought I was--silly, or something. No, I
know it’s only a picture. I don’t mean the miniature has changed; but
when I see his face in my heart he always seems to reproach me. What
have I done? Oh, if I only knew what I had done!”
“Dear Mary,” said Agnes, “don’t trouble your mind with imaginations. It
is all fancy. Do you think Frogmore, who was so fond of you, would
trouble your poor innocent soul with a reproach? Oh no, oh no.”
“I think so, too,” said Mary, “but sometimes there comes a terror over
me as if I have neglected something or forgotten something. If he sees
us, Agnes, he must know I never meant it! He must know I never meant it!
People can’t grow less understanding but more understanding when they
die.”
“Surely,” said Agnes, “don’t you remember, dear, in ‘In Memoriam’--with
larger, other eyes than ours?”
“It must be so,” said Mary, holding her sister’s hand. “But I have such
a dreadful feeling as if I had done something wrong.”
“No, no, my dear; no, my poor dear.”
“If I have it has been in ignorance, Agnes. I have never
intended-- Look,” she said, suddenly turning to the table at the bedside,
“do these old things belong to me?”
Poor Agnes took this change of subject for a sign of still further
derangement of her sister’s troubled thoughts. She gave a slight glance
at the little common-place boxes. “Oh, my dear, don’t think of such
trifling things,” she said.
“Agnes, look. Do they belong to me?”
“These boxes? yes. I think so--they used to hold your work. They used
to----” Then Agnes paused, for she suddenly remembered where the larger
of the two, an Indian box in sandal wood, inlaid with ivory and silver,
had always stood, and the last use that had been made of it. “They are
not of any consequence. They can’t have anything to do with what we are
speaking of,” she said.
“You are sure they are mine?” said Mary, interrogating her face with
anxious eyes.
“Oh, Mary, dear! yes, I am sure enough. They were put into a cupboard, I
remember. There is a train about eleven, but perhaps to-morrow you may
think differently. It will be a great disappointment for the boys.”
Mary looked at her fixedly as if trying to understand. Then she said,
“Tell Martin, Agnes, to pack them up. I want to look into them, perhaps
there is something in them that will show-- But not here, not here!”
“It shall be just as you please,” said Agnes, kissing Lady Frogmore’s
pale face. Martin whispered that she would not go to bed, that she did
not like her lady’s looks, that she would call Agnes at once in case of
any need, thus securing for poor Agnes a wakeful and miserable night, as
it is the habit of careful attendants to do. But it turned out that
there was no occasion for this zeal. Mary slept, or at least was very
quiet all the night. But she had not changed her mind in the morning.
“Don’t ask me to stay,” she cried “I can’t, I can’t stay.” It was the
morning of the ball, and the household at the Park was so much absorbed
by that great event that so small a matter as the departure of a guest
did not tell much. Agnes found Duke out of doors, closely attended, like
his shadow, by Mar, just setting out upon some long expedition to cheat
the hours until it should be time for lunch. “The day before a ball is
always such a long day,” he said with simplicity. “We are going off to
pass the time.” “And I am going off,” said Agnes, “though not to pass
the time. I am glad I have found you two to say good-bye.”
“You are going away!” they both cried in consternation.
“I knew,” cried Agnes, with a certain relief in expressing her feeling,
“I knew it would be too much for her bringing her here. Oh, yes, it’s
true I was anxious to come. I wanted her to come, but I always felt it
was a risk. Dear boys, I’m going to take you into my confidence. You’re
such friends! Thank God, you’re such friends! Well, then, I can tell
you, I think she is beginning to awake.”
“Aunt Mary?” said Duke, with a tone of awe. Mar said nothing, but his
pale face crimsoned over, and he never took his eyes from his aunt’s
face.
“I think she’s been in a kind of sleep all this time. Yesterday had a
great effect upon her. She told me after, she had dreamed that there had
been a great dinner and toasts, and one was to her old Frogmore. It has
disturbed her mind, and she is going away.”
“Oh,” cried Duke, “that’s not nice of Aunt Mary. My ball! I’ll go and
beg her to stay.”
Mar said nothing, but kept his eyes on Agnes’ face, watching her looks.
“You may go and say good-bye to her; but not Mar. And don’t say anything
of Mar, especially not as Frogmore. And Mar, my dear, you must keep
away. She is so much excited already. You must not show yourself. She
has found some old things she had before you were born, and I think her
memory is beginning to awake. But, my dear, you must keep away.”
“She does not seem to notice whether I keep away or whether I show
myself,” said Mar. “Was ever such a thing dreamed of as that’s one
mother--one’s mother! should cast one off. In all the books I have ever
read there has never been anything like this.”
“Do you think it is her fault?” said Agnes, with sudden anger.
“How can I tell?” cried the boy. “It is no one’s fault, perhaps; but
that does not make it any easier to bear.”
“I could tell you whose fault it was,” cried Agnes. “Oh, nothing easier:
but it is not your poor mother, the unfortunate victim, who is to
blame.”
Mar’s eyes blazed in his pale face. “Who is it? Who is it?” he cried.
“Oh, what a wicked woman I am,” cried Agnes, suddenly coming to herself,
“that I should try to make you hate another person who perhaps had not
as bad a meaning as I think. Oh, Mar, don’t let us ask whose fault it
was. Pray God only that it may be coming right--that my poor Mary----
You don’t love your mother, Mar.”
The boy looked at her intently, keenly, with his bright, anxious eyes.
He looked for a moment as if about to speak, and then turned hastily
away.
“Ah, well,” said Agnes, with a sigh, “perhaps it is too much to expect:
but some time you will know better. She says that your father reproaches
her; that his face in his picture is changed; that she has done
something wrong and displeased him; but what it is she does not know. O,
my poor Mary, my poor Mary! And there is only me to stand by her in the
whole world.”
Mar turned round again with his big eyes all veiled and clouded with
tears. He tried to speak and could not. The boy was overwhelmed with
feelings which were too strong for him, which he could not either master
or understand.
“There is the carriage going to fetch her,” said Agnes, “and I must go
too. Good-bye, Mar. Oh, it’s a dreadful disappointment to me to go so
soon, not to have any more of you. I was your mother when you were
little, Mar. You were my baby, and now I don’t see you from year’s end
to year’s end. Nobody thinks it is anything to me.”
“Aunt Agnes----”
“Oh Mar, my dear, never mind me, but think sometimes of your poor mother
living in a dream and not knowing--and that she may wake up before she
dies. God bless you, God bless you, my little Mar.”
Mar was not to be found when Duke came back to look for him, half
touched, half triumphant, having given Lady Frogmore, he thought, a few
things to think of, though he had not mentioned her son. He had kept his
_consigné_ according to the letter of Agnes’ instructions, but he had
given a hint or two of someone who was waiting for him, and people whom
Aunt Mary would not care to see. “I know how particular you are,” the
young man had said. Lady Frogmore had not seemed to understand him, but
no doubt she understood him, and he hoped would feel ashamed of herself.
All this he meant to pour upon Mar, to indemnify him, by the fact that
other people cared for him, for his mother’s neglect; but Mar was
nowhere to be found. He did not appear at all till late in the
afternoon, when he came in very tired and pale, stumbling upstairs to
the schoolroom so fatigued that he could scarcely drag one foot after
the other. He said he had been in the woods, that he had not wanted any
luncheon, that he wanted nothing now except to lie down a little and
rest, when his cousins and the servants surrounded him open-mouthed.
“Oh, Mar, mamma is so angry. She will not let you come to the ball,”
cried Tiny; and Letty gave him a little lecture upon making everybody
anxious. But the worst of all was when Letitia herself appeared with a
basin of soup in her hand and wrath in her countenance. “I did not think
after all the fuss that has been made about you that you would choose
this day to put us all out,” she cried, “but I ought to have known that
it was just the fuss and nonsense that would turn your silly head. Take
this at once, and you can go to bed: for you certainly shan’t come down
again to-night.”
“I don’t want anything,” said Mar, turning his head from the light.
“Take it this moment,” cried Letitia; “I am not going to be trifled
with. Nourishment you must have, and you shall have it so long as I am
here to see after you. I have got a hundred things to do, but I shan’t
leave this room till you have taken it. You can do what you will with
the others, but you shall not overcome me.”
“Oh, take it, Mar, take it; and then we shall be by ourselves, and I
will sit with you,” said Tiny. Mar was too tired almost to lift his
head, but he had a forlorn sense of youthful dignity, and would not give
battle over the soup. And after he had swallowed it he dozed a little,
and was conscious for a time of the comforting presence of Tiny, who,
indeed, did a great deal for him in staying half-an-hour with him when
there was so many conflicting occurrences going on downstairs--the
decorations of the ballroom and the laying of the long tables, and the
flowers and all the preparations for the evening, which were fast
turning the sober everyday house into a fairy palace. She stole away as
soon as she had thought he had gone to sleep, not without a struggle
with her conscience, which she put to silence by asking it indignantly
what good she could do to Mar when he was asleep? The boy dozed most of
the evening, and when Duke and Letty rushed into the room to announce a
second victory over their mother, and that he must get up directly for
the ball, Mar only shook his head. He said they were to put his windows
open so that he might hear the music and that he would go to bed. And it
was thus that Mar spent the evening of the ball. He lay awake and heard
the music, and wondered to himself how they were enjoying it, and if it
was as beautiful as he had fancied it would be, and whether Letty was
dancing all the time, and if they ever thought of him lying upstairs
listening. They had all promised to come and see him from time to time,
but nobody came except Tiny on her way to bed, very angry to be sent
upstairs at twelve o’clock, and spoiling the effect of her toilette by
her rage and her tears. “They are going to keep it up for hours,” cried
Tiny, “and how is a person to sleep with all that row going on.” It
amused him faintly to see how angry Tiny was, and that she had entirely
forgotten that he had already lain awake listening to it for hours that
seemed to him endless. Then when fatigue began to conquer his
wakefulness, and he was nearly asleep, there flashed in a brilliant
couple, Letty and Duke, making a _tour de valse_ in Mar’s little room,
and bringing him sweetmeats from the supper table. They did not come at
the promised time, but as soon as they remembered, with the careless,
frank affectionateness of brothers and sisters--“It is nearly dawn,”
said Mar, lifting his dazzled eyes. “Oh not for hours yet,” they cried,
valsing off again, almost before he could say “How beautiful you are,
Letty.” It vexed the boy that she did not hear him say it, and the sound
of the carriages rattling up and down the avenue kept him awake for the
rest of the night. But it was no longer night; it was bright morning
when the visitors went away, and the house fell into uneasy silence at
last--silence that did not last long; for, of course, the servants had
to be up again to put everything straight, and prepare for the needs of
the new day. Poor Mar, he too had looked forward a little to the ball,
to see it, and decide whether it was as fine in reality as it was in
books, and to see Letty dancing, and to hear all the pleasant things
that would be said of Duke. It was not so bad for him as it would have
been for a girl, who would have wanted to dance and not merely to look
on; but still it was a forlorn way of spending the first night of
splendor that since ever he was born had taken place in his own house.