When Rosalind came to herself she had found little Amy in her white
nightgown standing by her, clinging round her, her pretty hair, all
tumbled and in disorder, hanging about the cheeks which were pressed
against her sister’s, wet with tears. For a moment they said nothing to
each other. Rosalind raised herself from her entire prostration and sat
on the carpet holding Amy in her arms. They clung to each other, two
hearts beating, two young souls full of anguish, yet exaltation; they
were raised above all that was round them, above the common strain of
speech and thought. The first words that Rosalind said were very low.
“Amy, did you see her?”
“Oh, yes, yes, Rosalind!”
“Did you know her?”
“Yes, Rosalind.”
“Have you seen her before?”
“Oh, every night!”
“Amy, and you never said it was mamma!”
They trembled both as if a blast of wind had passed over them, and
clasped each other closer. Was it Rosalind that had become a child again
and Amy that was the woman? She whispered, with her lips on her sister’s
cheek,
“How was I to tell? She came to me--to me and Johnny. We belong to her,
Rosalind.”
“And not I!” the girl exclaimed, with a great cry. Then she recovered
herself, that thought being too keen to pass without effect.
“Amy! you are hers without her choice, but she took me of her own will
to be her child; I belong to her almost more than you. Oh, not more, not
more, Amy! but you were so little you did not know her like me.”
Little Amy recognized at last that in force of feeling she was not her
sister’s equal, and for a time they were both silent. Then the child
asked, looking round her with a wild and frightened glance, “Rosalind,
must mamma be dead?”
This question roused them both to a terror and panic such as in the
first emotion and wonder they had not been conscious of. Instead of love
came fear; they had been raised above that tremor of the flesh, but now
it came upon them in a horror not to be put aside. Even Rosalind, who
was old enough to take herself to task, felt with a painful thrill that
she had stood by something that was not flesh and blood, and in the
intensity of the shuddering terror forgot her nobler yearning sympathy
and love. They crept together to the night-lamp and lit the candles from
it, and closed all the doors, shrinking from the dark curtains and
shadows in the corners as if spectres might be lurking there. They had
lit up the room thus when nurse returned from her evening’s relaxation
down-stairs, cheerful but tired, and ready to go to bed. She stood
holding up her head and gazing at them with eyes of amazement. “Lord,
Miss Rosalind, what’s the matter? You’ll wake the children up,” she
cried.
“Oh, it is nothing, nurse. Amy was awake,” said Rosalind, trembling. “We
thought the light would be more cheering.” Her voice shook so that she
could with difficulty articulate the words.
“And did you think, Miss Rosalind, that the child could ever go to sleep
with all that light; and telling her stories, and putting things in her
head? I don’t hold with exciting them when it is their bedtime. It may
not matter so much for a lady that comes in just now and then, but for
the nurse as is always with them-- And children are tiresome at the best
of times. No one knows how tiresome they are but those that have to do
for them day and night.”
“We did not mean to vex you. We were very sad, Amy and I; we were
unhappy, thinking of our mother,” said Rosalind, trying to say the words
firmly, “whom we have lost.”
“Oh, Rosalind, do you think so too?” cried Amy, flinging herself into
her sister’s arms.
Rosalind took her up trembling and carried her to bed. The tears had
begun to come, and the terrible iron hand that had seemed to press upon
her heart relaxed a little. She kissed the child with quivering lips. “I
think it must be so,” she said. “We will say our prayers, and ask God,
if there is anything she wants us to do, to show us what it is.”
Rosalind’s lips quivered so that she had to stop to subdue herself, to
make her voice audible. “Now she is dead, she can come back to us. We
ought to be glad. Why should we be frightened for poor mamma? She could
not come back to us living, but now, when she is dead--”
“Miss Rosalind,” said the nurse, “I don’t know what you are saying, but
you will put the child off her sleep and she won’t close an eye all the
night.”
“Amy, that would grieve mamma,” said the girl. “We must not do anything
to vex her now that she has come back.”
And so strong is nature and so weak is childhood, that Amy, wearied and
soothed and comforted, with Rosalind’s voice in her ears and the
cheerful light within sight, did drop to sleep, sobbing, before half an
hour was out. Then Rosalind bathed the tears from her eyes, and,
hurrying through the long passages with that impulse to tell her tale to
some one which to the simple soul is a condition of life, appeared
suddenly in her exaltation and sorrow amid all the noisy groups in the
hotel garden. Her head was light with tears and suffering, she scarcely
felt the ground she trod upon, or realized what was about her. Her only
distinct feeling was that which she uttered with such conviction,
leaning her entire weight on Uncle John’s kind arm and lifting her
colorless face to his--“Mamma is dead; and she has come back to the
children.” How natural it seemed! the only thing to be expected; but
Mrs. Lennox gave a loud cry and fell back in her chair, in what she
supposed to be a faint, good woman, having happily little experience. It
was now that young Everard justified her good opinion of him. He soothed
her back out of this half-faint, and, supporting her on his arm, led her
up-stairs. “I will see to her; you will be better alone,” he said, as he
passed the other group. Even John Trevanion, when he had time to think
of it, felt that it was kind, and Aunt Sophy never forgot the touching
attention he showed to her, calling her maid, and bringing her
eau-de-cologne after he had placed her on the sofa. “He might have been
my son,” Mrs. Lennox said; “no nephew was ever so kind.” But when he
came out of the room, and stood outside in the lighted corridor, there
was nothing tender in the young man’s face. It was pale with passion and
a cruel force. He paused for a moment to collect himself, and then,
turning along a long passage and up another staircase, made his way,
with the determined air of a man who has a desperate undertaking in
hand, to an apartment with which he was evidently well acquainted, on
the other side of the house.