PEACE.
Meg was courted now by her schoolfellows; but the attention lavished
upon her wounded her pride. She measured by it the contempt that had so
easily accused her of thieving. To her sensitive spirit this kindness
seemed insulting. It said, "We thought you a thief, and we find you are
not." She responded coldly to advances made to her by all but Ursula.
The girls did not reproach Elsie; a sense of fair play kept them from
referring to the diamond episode, but they shunned her. They stuck to
the letter of the promised forgiveness, but they did not forget that she
was a little thief. Meg watched the small figure lying apart and
solitary in the play-hours--a white drift upon the bench.
Her heart bled. The child had been so caressed before, and was now an
outcast. She remembered how she, too, had been neglected and shunned;
but she was strong, and had never known petting, and her anger was
stirred against the girls.
She tried to make it up to Elsie; but a change had come over the child,
and she shrank from her friend. Meg knew Elsie felt ashamed, and she
busied herself about the child to prove that the sorrowful time was not
forgiven only, but forgotten also. She watched her opportunities to help
the little one at her lessons; to put away her books, pencils, and other
belongings. Elsie refused help, and avoided giving Meg those
opportunities. The old clinging ways were gone. The chattering voice was
hushed. A circle of ice seemed to surround the child.
Meg felt lonely and blank; and pity mingled with her desolateness. All
the graceful radiance of childhood had gone from Elsie. Meg knew the
change was due to remorse; the shyness of guilt was upon Elsie's heart.
She longed to make the child smile and prattle again. As Elsie had
longed for that foolish diamond, so Meg longed for Elsie's smile and
prattle.
April had come; there were violets and primroses in the woods about
Moorhouse, and Miss Reeves announced that the Saturday half-holiday
might be spent afield. Meg determined that to-day she would conquer her
pet's shrinking--that she would win that laugh. She went to look for
Elsie. She found her lying listlessly on a bench in the sunshine. As she
approached Elsie turned her face away.
"We are going out into the country to pick flowers," said Meg, kneeling
beside her.
Elsie did not answer, and made a little movement with her elbow as if to
wave Meg away.
"We are not to walk two and two together like soldiers," Meg went on,
taking no notice. "When we get to the woods we are to break up our ranks
and run wild. You and I will hunt for violets together."
"I don't want to go," said Elsie.
"You are not well, my pet," said Meg, patting the little hand.
"I am quite well," said Elsie harshly. "I do not want to go, that is
all."
"Then I will not go either. I will stop with you," said Meg
determinedly.
"No, no, no. I don't want you to stop with me! I don't want you!"
replied Elsie with hurried emphasis. "I want to be alone. Of all the
girls you are the one I want most to be left alone by."
"Why do you hate me, Elsie?" asked Meg gently.
"I don't hate you," replied Elsie, after a pause, in a faint, quavering
voice. Then she added with labored utterance: "I am ashamed. Every time
you look at me, every time you come near me, I am ashamed." Her voice
gathered energy, while her breast heaved with tearless sobs. "The other
girls look at me as if they were always thinking 'She is a thief,' and
I don't mind--their looks not half (sob, sob) so much--as--I mind--your
kind look. It makes me think--of--my dreadful wickedness."
"I look at you like that because I love you so dearly," said Meg,
seeking to draw the child to her.
Elsie struggled and sobbed, but at last she let Meg take her on her lap
and lean her cheek down on her head. It seemed to Meg as if the circle
of ice were broken. She did not know what to say that would soothe that
stricken little conscience, and yet guide it. All she could do was to
hold the sobbing child tight.
It was one of those beautiful days in spring when everything seems
careless and fond. The trees rustled around them as if hushing the voice
of sorrow. The flowers looked up with bright faces; the indulgent
sunshine shed its broad light. Everything seemed so much in contrast
with the grieving child that Meg could think of nothing but to set
herself to make that little pale face smile again. The child used in her
happier moments to be fond of playing a game of shop. Meg excelled in
mimicking the various customers coming to buy. Taking her ribbon now
from her throat she set it up for sale, and became in turns the
querulous customer, the fat fussy customer, the French customer. As she
gesticulated, shaking her fingers up in the air, shrugging her
shoulders, and talking in French, bargaining, vowing it was _trop cher_,
she acted her part so vividly that Elsie forgot her sorrow, and at last
broke out into a laugh.
From that day Elsie clung to Meg. The girls continued to abstain from
referring to the incident of the diamond, and Miss Pinkett was
elaborately kind; but Elsie was reminded of her sin by the emphasis of
absolution around her. She still shrank from the companionship of other
girls. With Meg alone she was forgetful of the past. The tie between
them was recognized, and during the constitutional walks of the
schoolgirls Elsie was allowed to leave her place among the younger ones
and walk with her friend. These walks now lay toward the country, away
from the village, where an outbreak of scarlatina was raging. In the
blue-rimmed land, with its misty embattlement of downs outlined against
the sky, through the shade and flicker of woods, through lanes sweet
with the bravery of floral walls, the girls walked; and to Elsie Meg
became the mouthpiece of nature. Those walks in the countryside were at
this time the happy hours of Meg's life. The sensitive little hand in
hers, that responded so quickly to her own delight, helped the
inspiration that came to her from the illusive cloudland overhead, from
wooded aisles, spread with wild flowers, voiced with notes of birds and
buzz of insects.
This part of Meg's school-life came to an abrupt conclusion. One morning
Elsie did not come down to breakfast. That evening she had a little
fever, and the child's throat was sore. The doctor came, and the word
"scarlatina" was whispered. In a few days the school was empty of the
girls. Meg alone remained as usual. Every precaution to prevent
infection was taken by Miss Reeves, and Elsie was isolated.
A new anxiety now sprang up in Meg's heart. Her thoughts were ever in
the room at the top of the house, with the heavy curtains drawn before
the door, from which distilled an acrid smell of disinfectants. Often
Meg crept upstairs and listened. She watched every day for the doctor,
to ask how Elsie was. The answers were always vague. In a few days the
crisis would come. There was a tantalizing mystery in these replies,
always followed by the injunction not to go near the child.
"Does she ever ask for me?" asked Meg.
"She is delirious, she would not know you," was the invariable answer.
One morning the news came that the crisis was past--delirium was over.
The news was good; yet the doctor's face looked grave. Meg overheard
him say to Miss Reeves that Elsie might sink from weakness. The child's
feebleness baffled him.
"When shall I see her?" asked Meg huskily.
"Not just yet," the doctor replied, patting her head.
That night a storm of wind raged outside. Meg listened to the howl of
the wind, to the lashing of the trees bending their backs to the
scourge. The doors creaked; Pilot was dragging at his chain. Meg's
thoughts were with Elsie. The contrast of her feebleness and the force
raging outside seemed to haunt her. She fell asleep, and she dreamed
that Elsie was dead. She saw her distinctly, a white, piteous figure
lying very still, beaten down by some pitiless assailant who had left
her there. Meg awoke with a start. The storm was over, but Elsie had
called her.
"Meg, Meg, come!"
Was that cry part of her dream? She sat up rigid, her ears strained,
every nerve on the alert, listening. Through the silence the call came
again:
"Meg, Meg, come!"
She could not have told if she heard it with her physical ears. Elsie
wanted her; that was all she knew. She was out of bed in a moment. A
determination strong as had been that former idea of flight impelled
her. She would see her pet. If she caught the infection and died, what
mattered it? She would go to Elsie, the child wanted her.
A pale light flickered through the space of windows left uncovered by
the shutters. Meg made her way cautiously, yet swiftly. It seemed to her
that Elsie knew she was coming, and that there was no time to be lost. A
jet of gas was burning low in the passage at the end of which was the
curtained door. Meg lifted the heavy drapery. The scent of the carbolic
grew more acrid. She pushed her head through the door that stood
slightly ajar. The nurse, lying on a couch, was asleep. Meg at first
could not see Elsie, but when she made a few steps inside the room she
perceived the child.
Elsie's eyes were turned toward the door, as if anxiously watching. As
Meg entered she made a little ghostly gesture, as if trying to get up.
Meg was by her bedside in a moment. She had an impression that it was
Elsie and yet not Elsie who was there. The beautiful hair was all cut
off. The face was shrunk, a distressed expression rumpled the brow. The
eyes were very bright and wide open. They seemed to Meg Elsie's eyes
looking at her from a distance. As she clasped the child in her arms she
realized with despair that it was like clasping a small gasping
phantom.
"I thought you would never come, Meg," Elsie murmured through her
labored breathing.
"Oh, Elsie, I have wanted to come," whispered Meg, bringing her face
close down to the pillow.
"I wanted you," whispered Elsie. "I kept saying, 'Meg, Meg, come!'"
"I heard you," said Meg.
"Heard me?" repeated the muffled voice. "How could you hear me? I only
whispered it. 'Meg Meg, come!'"
"But I heard you," said Meg, "and here I am, darling; here I am, and I
will never leave you."
"I said," continued Elsie in that labored whisper, "if Meg comes the
dreadful diamond will go."
"The dreadful diamond?" repeated Meg.
"It was always there; and sometimes it grew big, big, like a shining
mountain, and put itself here." The spectral hand placed itself on the
tiny chest. "It was heavy and cold--it pressed me down."
"It was a bad dream, my pet; not reality," said Meg soothingly.
"I saw it always, shining red, blue, and green. It shone in the dark as
in the light, and sometimes it was like a great bright eye looking at
me--always looking at me. It moved when I moved, and seemed to say, 'You
nearly had Meg turned away like a thief.'"
"No, no; it was not you, it was I--I who did it all of my own free
will," cried Meg, kissing the cold face that had become the emblem round
which gathered her tenderest emotions.
"But it won't come again, because you have kissed me. The kiss that is
better than the diamond," said Elsie with a vague relief in her panting
voice.
"It will never come again," repeated Meg, trying to still her sobs.
Elsie lay back apparently at peace. Suddenly she turned, and there was a
flicker of the old trouble in her eyes.
"Do you think God, too, forgives me?"
"Yes," replied Meg with a bursting heart.
"Are you sure he does?" insisted the piteous, laboring voice.
"I am sure of it, I know it!" said Meg with a world of conviction.
Elsie sighed, closed her eyes, and there was a silence. Meg thought she
was asleep, when she opened her eyes again and looked round with a
troubled movement.
"It is very dark," she said. "Draw back the curtains and let in the
light."
"It is not day yet," said Meg.
"Stay with me, it is so dark," gasped Elsie, her hands restlessly moving
as if pushing back some weight.
"I will not stir from your side, my pet," said Meg, stilling her sobs.
The gray light was stealing in. The tired nurse still slept. Meg saw the
remote expression in the sick child's eyes growing more remote.
Suddenly Elsie made another ghostly attempt to sit up.
"How sweet the lilac smells!" she said. "Here is London-pride, and
there's thrift. I'll pluck these for Mamey."
She struggled to get out of bed, while Meg held her tight.
"Mamey calls to me--to--say--good-night--and say my prayers," she
panted, and then dropped back.
The blue lips moved as if speaking; but Meg could not distinguish the
words. A realization that the child was slipping away, that phantoms
were about her as she stood on the threshold of the other world, came
upon Meg with an anguish of awe.
"Our Father," she began softly, impelled to pray; but Elsie seemed to
pay no heed. The little hands still stirred uneasily. The lips still
moved. At last Meg distinguished some broken words: "Forgive us our
trespasses--as--as--Meg forgives." There came a sigh, the lips stopped
muttering, and only the waxen image of what had been Elsie lay on the
bed.