THE FLIGHT.
A confirmation was to be held during the spring in the neighbouring
village; and the clergyman who prepared the Orphanage children looked
upon Kate as a most promising candidate; she was gentle, and attentive,
and wrote her papers with so much care.
The Confirmation day dawned as sweetly and as brightly as a
Confirmation day should do. The birds were singing their hearts out in
the Orphanage garden; primroses and wallflowers were blooming in every
corner; the apple-trees were in festive array, and little pink and
white petals floated on the breeze, and came in at the open windows.
Then a troop of little girls in grey dresses with white caps assembled,
prayer-book in hand, at the door, waiting for Mother Agnes.
What could keep Mother Agnes so long? The bells have been ringing for
nearly half-an-hour, and they would certainly be late! No, here she
comes, but with a very grave face--much too grave--and oh, where is
Kate?
"Children, we must start," said the Mother sternly, "Kate is not
coming." Naturally the children wondered, and questioned amongst
themselves what had happened, but they little suspected the real facts.
Mother Agnes had gone to look for Kate in the dormitory, feeling that
she should like to take the child's hand in hers, and say something to
comfort and to strengthen her. But Kate was not in the dormitory. Her
grey Sunday dress lay, neatly folded on the bed, the Confirmation cap
arranged on the top of it, and by its side a note, addressed in a bold,
round hand to Mother Agnes.
What on earth could this mean? Mother Agnes stared at the dress,
fingered the note, and then unfastened it with a hand that trembled a
little. The contents were these--
"DEAR MOTHER AGNES,--You have been good to me, so I will tell you that
I am leaving, and not going to come back any more. And it is not
because I do not like you, for I do, though I have never loved any one
but Frances; but I cannot stay in this place any more. Oh! you do not
know what the pain is that I bear. When the birds sing, I seem to hear
Frances' voice singing with them as she did last spring, and I see her
running amongst the flower-beds, and I cannot look at the apple-tree
without seeing her little fair face peeping at me from between the
blossoms. Perhaps you will not care whether I go or stay, but I hope
you will not mind about me, for I shall go to London to find a place.
There's many younger than me in places already. But if I do not find a
place, perhaps I will drown myself in the river, for I am sick of life,
and I hope you will not think about me, or mind.----KATE DANIELS."
Mother Agnes' face grew very white as she read this letter--but no time
was to be lost--she sat down and wrote a little note giving information
to the police, and sent it by a servant; and then she went downstairs
to join the waiting children. She tried to comfort herself by thinking
that Kate could not have got very far in so short a time. At the most
she could only have been gone an hour, and surely she would be quickly
found? And yet, strange misgivings took possession of Mother Agnes'
mind.
* * * * * *
Ten days later, a tall woman dressed in black was hastening at early
dawn along the Thames embankment, near Westminster. Mother Agnes
scarcely knew herself, her heart seemed bursting.
It was the old story of the one lost sheep becoming all in all to the
shepherd. The days had seemed months since poor Kate was missed, and
this first news of a girl who might possibly turn out to be Kate, had
made Mother Agnes hurry up to town by the night train, quite forgetting
that she could not disturb St. Thomas' Hospital with inquiries at such
an early hour. So she paced feverishly up and down by the river-side,
thinking. It did seem just what she could imagine Kate doing, rushing
across the road to save a little child about the age of Frances from
being run over, and both children, whoever they might be, were knocked
down by the passing omnibus. They were much injured, and were
accordingly carried to St. Thomas' Hospital. The younger child was
soon identified through her own statements, but the elder one remained
long unconscious. Her dress was very ragged, but her underclothing
bore the stamp of some institution.
Mother Agnes went over in her mind every word of the short report she
had received, again and again.
How strange London looked at this early hour! She scarcely knew it in
the dim grey light, with hardly a sound in the streets, and there
floated into her mind lines of Wordsworth's, written from this very
spot at this very hour, three-quarters of a century ago--
"Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
But was it all so still? What of the sick in the hospitals,
constrained to watch and bear the world's burdens through the long
hours of darkness. Oh, if she could only pierce those great walls and
stand by the bed-side of the poor girl of whom her thoughts were now so
full!
* * * * * *
Even the children's ward in St. Thomas' Hospital looked strange and
un-home-like in that dim grey light. It was nearly silent too, except
for occasional little moans, coming from little beds. But from one bed
there came something besides a moan: a childish voice half whispered
the word "Kate."
"Yes, dear," came from the next bed, in a low voice, "what is it?"
"Do you feel better, dear Kate? and would my doll help you to bear the
pain?"
Kate smiled gently. "I do feel a little better; and I am getting
rather big for a doll. But tell me, what is your name, dear? What am
I to call you?"
"My name is Frances," said the little girl.
Kate shuddered, and tried to turn her head away.
"Is anything the matter?" asked the little voice, as Kate did not speak.
"No, nothing," said poor Kate, not very truthfully--and then to change
the subject--"Where are your people? Where do you live?"
"I have five, up in heaven, waiting for me," said Frances slowly, "and
I live with my aunt. She keeps a baker's shop, and when I am not at
school, I clean the floors, and mind the little ones, and I go to bed
when the baby does, to keep her quiet. And when the stars come out, I
lie there, thinking of my father and our own little ones, and thinking
of Jesus Christ, thinking,--thinking,--longing to see His face."
The great voice of the great Westminster clock at this moment told the
hour. How solemn it sounded in the stillness; even more solemn than
when it speaks out above the roar of London life in the day-time.
[Illustration: The Westminster clock tower.]
"I am going to sleep again now," said the little child. "Good-night,
dear Kate; God bless you, and mind you wake me if the pain is bad."