Johnny throve, notwithstanding his visions. He woke up in the morning
altogether unaffected, so far as appeared, by what he saw at night. He
had always been more or less the centre of interest, both by dint of
being the only male member of the party and because he was the youngest,
and he was more than ever the master of the situation now. He did not
mind his baths, and he relished the importance of his position. So much
time as Mrs. Lennox had free from her “cure” was entirely occupied with
Johnny. She thought he wanted “nourishment” of various dainty kinds, to
which the little fellow had not the least objection. Secretly in her
heart Aunt Sophy was opposed to the idea of suppressed gout, and clung
to that of impaired digestion. Delicate fricassees of chicken, game, the
earliest products of _la chasse_, she ordered for him instead of the
roast mutton of old. He had fine custards and tempting jellies, while
Sophy and Amy ate their rice pudding; and in the intervals between his
meals Aunt Sophy administered glasses of wine, cups of jelly, hunches of
spongecake, to the boy. He took it all with the best grace in the
world--and an appetite which it was a pleasure to see--and throve and
grew, but nevertheless still saw the lady at intervals with a
pertinacity which was most discouraging. It may be supposed that an
incident so remarkable had not passed without notice in the curious
little community of the hotel. And the first breath of it, whispered by
nurse in the ear of some confidante, brought up the landlady from the
bureau in a painful condition of excitement, first to inquire and then
to implore that complete secrecy might be kept on the matter. Madame
protested that there was no ghost in her well-regulated house. If the
little boy saw anything it must be a ghost whom the English family had
brought with them: such things, it was well known, did exist in English
houses. But there were no ghosts in Aix, much less in the Hotel Venat.
To request ladies in the middle of their cure to find other quarters was
impossible, not to say that Madame Lennox and her charming family were
quite the most distinguished party at the hotel, and one which she would
not part with on any consideration; but if the little monsieur continued
to have his digestion impaired (and she could recommend a most excellent
_tisane_ that worked marvels), might she beg _ces dames_ to keep silence
on the subject? The reputation of a hotel was like that of a woman, and
if once breathed upon-- Mrs. Lennox remained in puzzling and puzzled
silence for some time after this visit was over. About a quarter of an
hour after her thought burst forth.
“Rosalind! I don’t feel at all reassured by what that woman said. Why
should she make all that talk about the house if there wasn’t some truth
in it? It is a very creepy, disagreeable thing to think of, and us
living on the very brink of it, so to speak. But, after all, what if
Johnny’s lady should be something--some--appearance, some mystery about
the house?”
“You thought it was Johnny’s digestion, Aunt Sophy.”
“So I did: but then, you know, one says that sort of thing when one
can’t think of anything else. I believe it is his digestion, but, at the
same time, how can one tell what sort of things may have happened in
great big foreign houses, and so many queer people coming and going?
There might have been a murder or something, for anything we know.”
This suggestion awoke a tremor in Rosalind’s heart, for she was not very
strong-minded, nor fortified by any consistent opinion in respect to
ghosts. She said somewhat faintly, with a laugh, “I never heard of a
ghost in a hotel.”
“In a hotel? I should think a hotel was just the sort of place, with all
kinds of strange people. Mind, however,” said Aunt Sophy after a pause,
“I don’t believe in ghosts at all, not at all; there are no such things.
Only foolish persons, servants and the uneducated, put any faith in them
(it was the entrance of Amy and Sophy in the midst of this discussion
that called forth such a distinct profession of faith); and now your
Uncle John is coming,” she added cheerfully, “and it will all be cleared
up and everything will come right.”
“Will Uncle John clear up about the lady?” said Sophy, with a toss of
her little impertinent head. “He will just laugh, I know. He will say he
wished he had ladies come to see him like that. Uncle John,” said this
small critic, “is never serious at all about us children. Oh, perhaps
about you grown-up people; but he will just laugh, I know. And so shall
I laugh. All the fuss that is made is because Johnny is the boy. Me and
Amy, we might see elephants and you would not mind, Aunt Sophy. It is
because Johnny is the boy.”
“You are a little impertinent! I think just as much about Amy--and the
child is looking pale, don’t you think so, Rosalind? But you are never
disturbed in your sleep, my pet, nor take things in your little head.
You are the quietest little woman. Indeed, I wish she would be naughty
sometimes, Rosalind. What is the matter with you, dear? Don’t you want
me to talk to you? Well, if my arm is disagreeable, Amy--”
“Oh, no, no, Aunt Sophy!” cried the child, with an impetuous kiss, but
she extricated herself notwithstanding, and went away to the farther
window, where she sat down on a footstool, half hidden among the
curtains. The two ladies, looking at her, began to remember at the same
moment that this had become Amy’s habitual place. She was always so
quiet that to become a little quieter was not remarked in her as it
would have been in the other children: she had always been pale, but not
so pale as now. The folds of the long white curtain, falling half over
her, added to the delicacy of her aspect. She seemed to shrink and hide
herself from their gaze, though she was not conscious of it.
“Dear me!” said Aunt Sophy, “perhaps there is something after all in the
doctor’s idea of suppressed gout being in the family. You don’t show any
signs of it, Rosalind, Heaven be praised! or Sophy either; but just look
at that child, how pale she is!”
Rosalind did not make any reply. She called her little sister to her
presently, but Amy declared that she was “reading a book,” which was,
under Mrs. Lennox’s sway, a reason above all others for leaving the
little student undisturbed. Mrs. Lennox had not been used to people who
were given to books, and she admired the habit greatly. “Don’t call her
if she is reading, Rosalind. I wonder how it is the rest of you don’t
read. But Amy always has her book. Perhaps it is because of reading so
much that she is so pale. Well, Uncle John is coming to-morrow, and he
will want the children to take long walks, and I dare say all this
little confusion will blow away. I wish John had come a little sooner;
he might have tried the ‘cure’ as well as me, for I am sure he has
rheumatism, if not gout. Gentlemen always have one or the other when
they come to your uncle’s age, and it might have saved him an illness
later,” said Aunt Sophy. She had to go away in her chair, in a few
minutes, for her bath, and it was this that made her think what an
excellent thing it would be for John.
When she had gone, Rosalind sat very silent with her two little sisters
in the room. Sophy went on talking, while Rosalind mused and kept
silent. She was so well accustomed to Sophy talking that she took little
notice of it. When the little girl said anything of sufficient
importance to penetrate the mist of self-abstraction in which her sister
sat, Rosalind would answer her. But generally she took little notice.
She woke up, however, in the midst of one of Sophy’s sentences which
caught her ear, she could not tell why.
“Think it’s a real lady?” Sophy said. It was at the end of a long
monologue, during which her somewhat sharp voice had run on monotonous
without variety. “Think it’s a real lady? There could be no ghost here,
or if there was, why should it go to Johnny, who don’t understand, who
has no sense. I think it’s a real lady that comes in to look at the
children. Perhaps she is fond of children; perhaps she’s not in her
right mind,” said Sophy; “perhaps she has lost a little boy like Johnny;
perhaps--” here she clapped her hands together, which startled Rosalind
greatly, and made little Amy, looking up with big eyes from within the
curtain, jump from her seat; “I know who it is--it is the lady that gave
him the toy.”
“The toy--what toy?”
“Oh, you know very well, Rosalind. That is what it is--the lady that had
lost a child like Johnny, that brought him that thing that you wind up,
that runs, that nurse says must have cost a mint of money. She says mint
of money, and why shouldn’t I? I shall watch to-night, and try if I
can’t see her,” cried Sophy; “that is the lady! and Johnny is such a
little silly he has never found it out. But it is a _real_ lady, that I
am quite certain, whatever the children say.”
“But Amy has never seen anything, Sophy, or heard anything,” Rosalind
said.
“Oh, Rosalind, how soft you are! How could she help hearing about it,
with Aunt Sophy and you rampaging in the room every night! You don’t
know how deep she is; she would just go on and go on, and never tell.”
“Amy, come here,” said Rosalind.
“Oh, please, Rosy! I am in such an interesting part.”
“Amy, come here--you can go back to your book after. Sophy says you have
heard about the lady Johnny thinks he sees.”
“Yes, Rosalind.”
“You have known about her perhaps all the time, though we thought you
slept so sound and heard nothing! You don’t mean that you have seen her
too?”
Amy stood by her sister’s knee, her hand reluctantly allowing itself to
be held in Rosalind’s hand. She submitted to this questioning with the
greatest reluctance, her little frame all instinct with eagerness to get
away. But here she gave a hasty look upward as if drawn by the
attraction of Rosalind’s eyes. How strange that no one had remarked how
white and small she had grown! She gave her sister a solemn, momentary
look, with eyes that seemed to expand as they looked, but said nothing.
“Amy, can’t you answer me?” Rosalind cried.
Amy’s eyelids grew big with unwilling tears, and she made a great effort
to draw away her hand.
“Tell me, Amy, is there anything you can’t tell Rosalind? You shall not
be worried or scolded, but tell me.”
There was a little pause, and then the child flung her arms round her
sister’s neck and hid her face. “Oh, Rosalind!”
“Yes, my darling, what is it? Tell me!”
Amy clung as if she would grow there, and pressed her little head, as if
the contact strengthened her, against the fair pillar of Rosalind’s
throat. But apparently it was easier to cling there and give vent to a
sob or two than to speak. She pressed closer and closer, but she made no
reply.
“She has seen her every time,” said Sophy, “only she’s such a story she
won’t tell. She is always seeing her. When you think she’s asleep she is
lying all shivering and shaking with the sheet over her head. That is
how I found out. She is so frightened she can’t go to sleep. I said I
should tell Rosalind; Rosalind is the eldest, and she ought to know. But
then, Amy thinks--”
“What, Sophy?”
“Well, that you are only our half-sister. You _are_ only our
half-sister, you know. We all think that, and perhaps you wouldn’t
understand.”
To Rosalind’s heart this sting of mistrust went sharp and keen,
notwithstanding the close strain of the little girl’s embrace which
seemed to protest against the statement. “Is it really, really so?” she
cried, in a voice of anguish. “Do you think I am not your real sister,
you little ones? Have I done anything to make you think--”
“Oh, no, no! Oh, Rosalind, no! Oh, no, no!” cried the little girl,
clasping closer and closer. The ghost, if it was a ghost, the “lady”
who, Sophy was sure, was a “real lady,” disappeared in the more
immediate pressure of this poignant question. Even Rosalind, who had now
herself to be consoled, forgot, in the pang of personal suffering, to
inquire further.
And they were still clinging together in excitement and tears when the
door was opened briskly, and Uncle John, all brown and dusty and
smiling, a day too soon, and much pleased with himself for being so,
suddenly marched into the room. A more extraordinary change of sentiment
could not be conceived. The feminine tears dried up in a moment, the
whole aspect of affairs changed. He was so strong, so brown, so cordial,
so pleased to see them, so full of cheerful questions, and the account
of what he had done. “Left London only yesterday,” he said, “and here I
am. What’s the matter with Amy? Crying! You must let her off, Rosalind,
whatever the sin may be, for my sake.”