My mother was in danger and my baby brother dead. The gloom that lay
over our house was something never to be forgotten; the silence that was
never broken by one laugh or one cheerful word, the scared faces--for
every one loved "my lady." One fine morning, when the snowdrops had
grown more plentiful, and there was a faint sign of the coming spring in
the air, they took my baby brother to bury him. Such a tiny coffin, such
tiny white wreaths, a little white pall covered with flowers. My father
would not let black come near him.
My father wept bitter tears.
"There sleeps my little son and heir, Laura," he said to me--"my little
boy. It is as though he had just peeped out of Heaven at this world,
and, not liking it, had gone back again."
A pretty little white monument was put up to the baby Gerald. My mother
chose the epitaph, which I had always thought so pretty. It was simply
this--"The angels gather such lilies for God."
By degrees some little sunshine stole back, the dreadful silence
lessened, the servants began to walk about without list slippers, the
birds were carried back to the beautiful aviary--my mother's favorite
nook; the doctors smiled as they came down the grand staircase. I heard
Sir Roland whistling and singing as he had done weeks ago.
At last I was admitted to see her. One fine March morning, when the wind
was blowing freshly and tossing the big, bare branches, I was taken to
her room. I should not have known her; a pale, languid lady lay there in
the place of my laughing, beautiful mother; two large blue eyes full of
tears looked at me; two thin, white arms clasped me, and then I was
lying on my mother's heart. Oh, my darling, if we could have died then.
"My little Laura, I was afraid I should never see you again," whispered
a faint voice.
Ah, me, the ecstasy of the next half-hour! I sat close by her side and
told her how the snowdrops were growing and the purple and golden
crocuses made the garden seem quite gay. I told her where I had found
the first violets, some of which I had brought to her. I cannot tell
what it was like to me to feel my mother's hand on my head once more.
Then came a brief time of happiness. My mother improved a little, and
was carried from the bedroom where she had spent so many weeks to her
boudoir, and I was allowed to be with her all day.
"She would be better soon and able to go out," my father said, and then
the happy old times would come back again. My mother would walk with me
through the picture gallery at sunset, and more, she would dance with
flying feet and run races with me in the wood. Oh, how I longed for the
time when she would regain the color in her face and light in her eyes!
They said I must be patient, it would come in time. But, alas! it was
weary waiting; the days seemed as weeks to me, and yet my dear,
beautiful mother was still confined to her room and to her bed. So it
went on.
The ash buds grew black in March, the pine thorns fell in April, and yet
she was still lying helpless on the sofa.
One day papa and I were both sitting with her. She looked better, and
was talking to us about the nightingales she had heard last May in the
woods.
"I feel better this morning," she said. "I am quite sure, Roland, that I
could walk now if those tiresome doctors would let me."
"It is better to be careful, my darling," said papa; "they must know
best."
"I am sure I could walk," said my mother, "and I feel such a restless
longing to put my foot to the ground once more."
There was a bright flush on her face, and suddenly, without another
word, she rose from her recumbent position on the sofa and stood quite
upright. My father sprang from his chair with a little anxious cry. She
tried to take one step forward, and fell with her face on the ground.
Ah, me! it was the old story over again, of silent gloom and anxious
care. The summer was in its full beauty when she came down amongst us
once more. Then the crushing blow came. Great doctors came from England
and France; they lingered long before they gave their decision, but it
came at length.
My mother might live for years, but she would never walk again; the
flying feet were stilled for the rest of her life. She was to be a
hopeless, helpless cripple. She might lie on the sofa, be wheeled in a
chair, perhaps even driven in a carriage, but nothing more--she would
never walk again.
My father's heart almost broke. I can see him now crying and sobbing
like a child. He would not believe it. He turned from one to the other,
crying out:
"It cannot be true! I will not believe it! She is so young and so
beautiful--it cannot be true!"
"It is most unfortunately true," said the head physician, sorrowfully.
"The poor lady will dance and walk no more."
"Who is to tell her?" cried my father. "I dare not."
"It will be far better that she should not know--a hundred times better.
Let her live as long as she can in ignorance of her fate; she will be
more cheerful and in reality far better than if she knew the truth; it
would hang over her like a funeral pall; the stronger her nerve and
spirit the better for her. She would regain neither, knowing this."
"But in time--with care--she is so young. Perhaps there may be a
chance."
"I tell you plainly," said the doctor, "that most unfortunately there is
none--there is not the faintest," and, he added, solemnly, "may Heaven
lighten your afflictions to you!"
They went away, and my father drew me to his arms.
"Laura," he said, "you must help me all your life to take care of
mamma."
"I will, indeed," I cried. "I ask nothing better from Heaven than to
give my life to her--my beautiful mother."
And then he told me that she would never walk again--that her flying
feet were to rest forever more--that in her presence I must always be
quite bright and cheerful, and never say one word of what I knew.
No more difficult task could have been laid on the heart of a child. I
did it. No matter what I suffered, I always went into her room with a
smile and bright, cheerful words.
So the long years passed; my beautiful mother grew better and happier
and stronger--little dreaming that she was never to walk out in the
meads and grounds again. She was always talking about them and saying
where she should go and what she should do when she grew well.
Roses bloomed, lilies lived and died, the birds enjoyed their happy
summer, then flew over the sea to warmer climes; summer dew and summer
rain fell, the dead leaves were whirled in the autumn winds, and still
my mother lay helpless. If this one year seemed so long, what would a
lifetime be?
As some of her strength returned it seemed to me that mother grew more
and more charming. She laughed and enjoyed all our care of her, and when
the wonderful chair came from London, in which she could go round the
garden, and could be wheeled from one room to another, she was as
delighted as a child.
"Still," she said to my father, "it seems to me a pity almost, Roland,
to have sent to London for this. I shall surely be able to walk soon."
He turned away from her with tears in his eyes.
A month or two afterward we were both sitting with her, and she said,
quite suddenly:
"It seems a long time since I began to lie here. I am afraid it will be
many months before I get well again. I think I shall resign myself to
proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and
we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and
she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten
minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about
it. I know it in all its moods--when the wind hurries it and the little
wavelets dash along; when the tide is deep and the water overflows among
the reeds and grasses; when it is still and silent and the shadows of
the stars lie on it, and when the sun turns it into a stream of living
gold, I know it well."
"You will see it again soon," said my father, in a broken voice. "I will
drive you down any time you like."
But my mother said nothing. I think she had seen the tears in Sir
Roland's eyes. From that day she seemed to grow more reconciled to her
lot. Now let me add a tribute to my father. His devotion to her was
something marvelous; he seemed to love her better in her helpless state
than he had done when she was full of health and spirits. I admired him
so much for it during the first year of my mother's illness. He never
left her. Hunting, shooting, fishing, dinner parties, everything was
given up that he might sit with her.
One of the drawing rooms, a beautiful, lofty apartment looking over the
park to the hills beyond, was arranged as my mother's room; there all
that she loved best was taken.
The one next to it was made into a sleeping room for her, so that she
should never have to be carried up and down stairs. A room for her maid
came next. And my father had a door so placed that the chair could be
wheeled from the rooms through the glass doors into the grounds.
"You think, then," she said, "that I shall not grow well just yet,
Roland?"
"No, my darling, not just yet," he replied.
What words of mine could ever describe what that sick room became? It
was a paradise of beautiful flowers, singing birds, little fragrant
fountains and all that was most lovely. After a time visitors came, and
my mother saw them; the poor came, and she consoled them.
"My lady" was with them once more, never more to walk into their
cottages and look at the rosy children. They came to her now, and that
room became a haven of refuge.
So it went on for three years, and I woke up one morning to find it was
my thirteenth birthday.