CHAPTER XV.
AT LAST.
Hildegarde was sitting by Hugh's bedside. He had been laid in her bed that night; how long ago was it? She hardly knew,—and was still too ill to be moved. A concussion of the brain, the doctor said, the result of his fall on the ice. There was danger of brain fever, but it might be averted. Absolute quiet for a few days, and the trouble might pass off without any serious developments. Meantime, a shaded room, plenty of ice, no noise, and as little change of faces around him as might be,—they would hope for the best.
Hildegarde had hardly left his side, save when Auntie came in to watch through the night, or her mother took her place for the short time that her strength allowed. Mrs. Grahame was far from strong, and was not allowed to take charge of the nursing, as she would so gladly have done. Colonel Ferrers hung about the house all day, like a man distracted; and it took all Mrs. Grahame's tact, and all his brother's and Jack's watchful devotion, to keep him out of the sick child's room. He seemed to have aged ten years in these few short days. His ruddy colour was gone; his eyes had lost their fiery spark; his military stride had given place to an anxious shuffle.
"We shall have you ill, sir!" Elizabeth Beadle remonstrated, with many tears.
"You ain't like Mr. Raymond, sir; you cannot go without your food. It's hard enough as I can't go to my baby, my own dear niece's child, to nurse him myself, as go I would if I was let, though Miss Hilda may be a better nurse, as you say; but blood is thicker than water, Colonel Ferrers, and if I have to have you sick, too, it will be more than I can bear, sir; yes, it will!" Thus Mrs. Beadle, with her apron at her eyes. The Colonel, roused for a moment from his anxious musing, turned upon her with something like his natural fury.
"You go to the child, Elizabeth Beadle? You, who cannot keep from crying for ten minutes together? If you would stop poisoning my food with salt water, ma'am, you might have less complaint to make of my not eating. You have no more sense, ma'am,—no more sense than—than some other people have. Don't look at me in that manner, I desire you! God bless you, my dear old soul; go along, will you, or I shall be crying, too."
Rumours of these things, and others like them, came to Hildegarde, as she sat hour after hour by the sick child's side, shifting his pillow now and then when it grew hot, laying the cool wet cloths on his forehead, giving him food, drink, medicine, at the appointed times. The whole world seemed narrowed down to this one room; everything outside was unreal, all save the scene in white and black that she saw whenever she closed her eyes,—the moonlight on the snow, the black firs, the child in his white dress, fronting death with his sleeping smile, and by her side the friend who was to save him. How long ago was it? Had she been sitting here three days, or three weeks?
Little Hugh lay still, with his eyes shut. He seemed unconscious for the most part. Only now and then came a motion of the head, a low moan that was hardly more than a whisper; then the blue-veined lids would lift heavily for an instant, and the sweet eyes look out, but with no light in them; and after a moment the lids would fall again wearily, and the heavy sleep close round him again like a curtain. How long would it last?
More snow had fallen. She heard the sound of bells, and the soft swish of sleigh-runners passing swiftly by. The voices of her neighbours came to her, now and then, but never calling loud and joyous, as they were wont to do. Every sound was subdued; every one moved softly and spoke low, with the sick child constantly in their thoughts.
Guests came to Pumpkin House; long-invited guests, who could not well be put off. Hildegarde knew this, and knew that her friends loved her and the child no less because they were now forced to play the hosts, and to make pleasure for the holiday visitors. Was this the evening of the Flower Party? Her dress was hanging ready in the closet. Such a pretty dress! She was to be a wild rose, and the graceful pink petals curved over the skirt, and curled upward to form the bodice.
What a pity that some one could not wear it! She might send it over, in case some one of the guests had no costume ready. Bell was to be an apple-blossom; Gertrude, a lily. The twins would be splendid as Larkspur and Scarlet Runner. And would Roger—would he go in fancy dress? She could not imagine him doing anything of the kind, somehow. She thought of him in boating dress, or in his camp jersey and knickerbockers—or, as she saw him last, in evening dress, climbing over the snowy roofs—she shuddered, and laid her hand on Hugh's arm, to make sure that he was there. The child was safe, at any rate. He was not going to die. Hildegarde kept this thought resolutely away from her, and was only conscious of it as a dim horror, lurking in a corner of her brain. He would be better soon, perhaps in a day or two. It might even be that she would see Roger before he went back to the West,—for he would be going soon, no doubt. He would be sorry, she thought, to go without seeing her. But she had his gift; he had sent it to her the day after Christmas. She put her hand to her throat, to make sure it was there—the brooch that he had made himself for her, digging the gold, refining, hammering, fashioning it, all with his own hands. She would never wear any other brooch! Dear old Jack, too. He was missing her from his vacation, she knew. Her mother said that he and Bell were practising together every day, and that all the Merryweathers were delighted with him. He and the twins were becoming fast friends. But they all missed her. They all said that there was no luck about any of the houses, with Hildegarde awa'. The tears came to the girl's eyes. Everybody was so good to her, so kind, so loving!
Hugh moved uneasily, and she bent over him; his lips moved. "Play!" said the child.
"Dear!" said Hildegarde, softly. "My laddie! Do you want something?"
Hugh did not open his eyes, but a smile, or the shadow of a smile, hovered about his lips for an instant.
"Play—Jack—play!" he whispered.
"Yes, dear! He shall come. We will send for him; rest now, my boy, quietly!"
But now, seeing her mother at the door, Hildegarde stole softly to her, and told of the whispered words. "Will you ask the doctor? He might—it might—do him good, if he is thinking about it? You will see what is best, dear!"
Mrs. Grahame nodded, and went away. An hour passed, as all the others passed. Then Hildegarde heard steps on the veranda; the door opened and closed quietly; the next moment the voice of the violin came stealing through the house. Ah! what was it? Were angels singing the child to sleep? Schubert's Cradle Song; there is no sweeter melody on earth, and many times had Jack played little Hugh to sleep with it, in the days before he went abroad. Hildegarde watched the child intently. At the first note of the music he stirred, and opened and closed his hands, which lay listless on the counterpane. Then, as the song flowed on, so low, so tender, it seemed the voice of a spirit, or of some wandering wind, caught and trained to melody; the brows which had been knitted, as if in an effort to think, relaxed, a smile came to the sweet lips and settled there happily.
"Schlafe, schlafe, süsser, holder Knabe!
Leise wiegt dich deiner Mutter Hand."
"Sing!" whispered Hugh; and Hildegarde sang, her heart beating high with joy and hope; for this was the first time she had been sure of his knowing her. She bent over him, hoping for a glance of recognition; but he did not open his eyes. His face seemed to clear and lighten every moment; it was as if a cloud were passing, and the day shining out fair and lovely; but he turned his head drowsily, and whispered, "Sleepy!"
Now Jack was playing the Chopin berceuse, and all the world seemed lulling to sleep; the sound floated in waves through the darkened room, whispering in corners, rippling round the drowsy child, bearing him on, away, through the gates of pearl, till now he was asleep, in no heavy lethargy this time, but lying easily, breathing deeply, his whole little form at rest, at peace. And seeing this, the weary girl beside him laid her head on the child's pillow, and borne on those waves of dreamy sound, she, too, passed through the white gates, and slept.
They slept so all through that night. Mrs. Grahame and Auntie, coming to relieve Hildegarde, could not bear to wake her. The doctor put his head in at the door, gazed for a moment, and then nodded, and tiptoed off down-stairs and home to bed, wiping his eyes as he went. The Colonel and Jack, making their last call for the night, heard the joyful report, and departed treading on air. And still they slept. The black woman nodded in her chair in the corner; she had put Mrs. Grahame to bed, and returned to watch the night with her charge, all the more precious now that her "own chile" was sleeping beside him. Now and then a coal fell, and tinkled in the fireplace; the night-light burned steadily, but the fire flared, and drooped, and leaped up again, filling the quiet room with flitting lights and shadows. Were they spirits, bending over those two fair heads on the pillow, side by side? The angels might be glad to come a good way to see such a sight as that, Auntie said to herself. And she nodded, and dreamed of the Golden City, and woke again to see always the same quiet room, to hear always the same sweet breathing of peace and rest and returning health.
It was morning when Hildegarde awoke; dim, early morning, with the stars still shining, but with a faint, pearly radiance growing momently stronger in the east. She wondered at first what was the matter, and why she was sitting up in bed, rather stiff, with soft things wrapped round her. Before she moved her eyes fell on the little face beside her, and she remembered all, and gave thanks to God for his mercy before she stirred. Raising herself softly, she saw Auntie sitting in her great chair, bolt upright, but sound asleep.
"Poor dear!" thought the girl. "She need not have come at all. We did not need anything, Hugh and I. We have had a good, good rest."
Beyond changing her position, and stretching her limbs, cramped by staying so long in one posture, she did not move, but sat with folded hands, full of such happy thoughts that the morning seemed to come on wings of gold.
The sun was up before Auntie woke, and her frightened exclamation, "Fo' gracious goodness! ef I ain't be'n 'sleep myself!" though hardly spoken above a whisper, echoed sharply through the silent room.
Hugh opened his eyes, and his glance fell directly on Hildegarde. He smiled, and stretched out his arms.
"Beloved," he said, "I am very glad to see you; but what are you doing in my room?"
Hildegarde made no answer. She bent over and took the child in her arms; raised him a little, with his head resting on her shoulder, so that he could see beyond her. His eyes travelled round the room, growing rounder and larger every moment, as in the broadening light one object after another shone out, familiar, and yet strange.
"Beloved," he said, "I beg your pardon! But what am I doing in your room? Will you make me understand, please?"
"You have been asleep, darling!" said Hildegarde. "You were not very well, and—and you happened to be here at the time, and so—we put you to bed here, you see."
"I don't see very well!" said Hugh, in quite his own manner. "But probably I shall in a little while. How long have I been asleep?"
"Oh, quite a long time. But aren't you hungry now, little boy? See, here is Auntie, and she is going to bring you up some breakfast, the very best breakfast you can think of. What do you say to chicken broth?"
Hugh nodded and smiled at Auntie, who stood devouring him with her eyes.
"Thank you!" he said. "I think I shall be hungry,—when my think comes back a little more. My think—my mind—has been asleep, I am pretty sure!" he added, looking up at Hildegarde with his quiet, penetrating gaze.
"If I had only just gone to sleep with my eyes, Beloved, I should remember about it; and I don't—remember—much of anything."
"Oh, never mind about it now, Hughie! When you feel stronger we will talk it all over. See! I want to bathe your face and smooth your hair before breakfast comes. Now you shall be my baby, and I will curl your golden locks for you. Shall I put something good in the water? There! Isn't that nice and fresh? And now you shall put on my dressing-jacket; my beautiful new dressing-jacket, that Bell made for me. Here it is, all fluttering with pink ribbons. Wasn't it dear of Bell to make it?"
"Bell!" said Hugh, meditatively; he seemed to be searching for something in his mind.
"Bell—Bellerophon!"
"Never mind about Bellerophon now, dear," said Hildegarde, trying to hide her anxiety, and to speak lightly. "We will have Bellerophon by and by; we don't want him here."
But Hugh was not to be turned aside; his brain was now fully awake, and at work, but his look was so calm and clear, his voice so natural and peaceful, that Hildegarde felt relieved in spite of herself.
"I have to consider a little, Beloved," he said, cheerfully, "just to straighten out my think, which appears to be somewhat mixed. What—was—I—doing—on a roof?"
Hildegarde held her peace. The child must take his own way, she felt; she did not dare to cross him.
"I went up—on a roof!" Hugh went on. "I think it was a roof, Beloved?"
Hildegarde nodded.
"And there—I was Pegasus, you remember; I have been Pegasus a great deal lately, but I shall not be him for a good while now, because I have had enough,—I was Pegasus, and I wanted Bellerophon. The Christmas Tree frightened him away, so I came—somewhere—perhaps here? and I thought it was a mountain. I thought it was Helicon, and if I climbed up to the top, Bellerophon would come to me, and we would fly down and kill the Chimæra, don't you see?"
"I see, dear, of course! And then—?"
"Then I called out to Bellerophon that I was ready, and we would fly. But—but just as we were going to fly, some strong person took hold of me, and I looked, and I was on a roof, with Captain Roger holding me. Where is Captain Roger, Beloved? And where was the roof?"
"The roof was here, dear child! You were walking in your sleep, Hugh. You climbed up to the upper roof, and—and Captain Roger saw you, and went after you, and brought you down. That is how you came to be in my room, Hugh. Now you understand it all, darling, and you will not worry any more about it."
Hugh looked relieved.
"Now I shall not worry any more about it!" he repeated, with satisfaction. "It was puzzling me dreadfully, Beloved, and I could not get straight till I saw how it was, but now I see. My head has been queer ever since I fell down on the ice; I think Bellerophon got bumped into it, don't you? But now he is bumped out again, and he may go and kill the Chimæra himself, for I sha'n't stir a step."
His laughter rang out fresh and joyous; and at the sound Mrs. Grahame came running in, at first in great anxiety, fearing delirium; but when she saw the two happy faces, beaming with smiles, and heard Hugh addressing her in his own quaint fashion, and hoping that she had slept very well indeed, she could not keep back the tears of joy. Seeing these tears, Hildegarde must needs weep a little, too; but they were such tears as did no one any harm, and Hugh said at once, "This is a sun-shower! And now we shall have a rainbow, and after that some breakfast."
When the breakfast came, you may be sure it was served on the very best tray the house afforded,—the gold-lacquered one, with the bronze dragon curling about it; and the broth was in the blue Sèvres bowl, with golden pheasants strutting round it.
"Dem's de nearest to chick'ns I could find!" said Auntie, and Hildegarde forbore to point out to her that she, Hildegarde, had never been allowed to so much as dust this precious piece of china, much less to eat out of it. And the toast was like thin strips of edible gold, so that both Hugh and Hildegarde declared King Midas could not have had such a bad time of it after all, if he had a cook anything like Auntie. It was hard to tell who most enjoyed the broth and toast, Hugh who ate it, Auntie who made it, or Hildegarde who held the spoon, and broke off the crisp bits. It was a happy little feast, and the doctor was a joyful man when he looked in on it an hour or so later. He said that all would go well now.
"Slowly! slowly! No hurry! Keep him here a while yet, and don't let him see too many people; no excitable folks, who will weep over him,"—Hilda and her mother exchanged a guilty glance,—"keep him in bed for a day or two, till he gets his balance entirely. Good-bye! God bless you!"
The good man trotted off briskly, and they heard him greeting some one on the veranda below.
"Doing finely! finely! All right now; a little quiet, a little care,—going in? Yes! Oh, yes! See you all right! Told them to keep noisy folks away. Good-morning!"
Mrs. Grahame went out, and spoke in a low voice with some one now in the hall. Some one was speaking in return, very low; yet not so low but that Hildegarde's heart began to throb, and the colour to mount high over cheek and brow; not so low but that Hugh, who had the fine ear of some woodland creature, sat up in bed, and clapped his hands.
"It is Captain Roger, Beloved! It is himself; do you hear his voice? And he must come up, please, this moment of time, to see me, and to let me tell him what is in my heart for him."
Hildegarde hesitated; there was a tumult within her that made her feel uncertain what was best to do or say; but in this moment Mrs. Grahame had brought Roger up-stairs, and now he was here, on the threshold. He was in the room; he was holding her hand, and looking at her with his bright, kind gaze.
Neither of them spoke; it was Hugh who broke the silence. Roger had sat down by him, after that first silent greeting, and kissed his forehead, and took both the child's hands in his.
"I heard you, Captain Roger; I heard the first tone of your voice, and you sounded like an angel."
"Did I, Hugh? I don't think I look like an angel, do you? Did you ever see a picture of one with a moustache?"
"Perhaps not; but it says that they don't always look like themselves, you know. Many times they looked just like common men in the Bible. And you were an angel when you came to me on the roof the other night."
Roger glanced quickly at Hildegarde; the girl nodded.
"He knows," she said. "I could not keep it from him, the moment he was himself again. He pieced it all out, with hardly any help from me."
Roger looked grave, but his anxious look rested on Hildegarde, not on Hugh.
"Did you take cold?" he asked.
"I? No, certainly not! Why should I take cold?"
"In your thin evening dress!" said Roger, reproachfully. "With slippers on your feet,—there you stood in the snow, and would not go in when I told you. I have thought of nothing but pneumonia and consumption ever since. But—you look pretty well, I think!"
Hildegarde laughed in spite of herself.
"I—I thought you believed in being wet!" she said.
"For myself—of course! We are all polar bears, more or less; but it is different with you."
"Very different!" said Hildegarde. "I had snow-boots on, Captain Roger, all the time! Your anxiety has been thrown away, you see."
"So!" said Roger, with a look of intense relief. "I never thought of that! I—I didn't think—"
"You didn't think I had sense enough!" cried Hildegarde. "No more I had! They just happened to be on my feet, because I hadn't taken them off. I had been sitting and looking out of the window, ever since the Christmas Tree."
"So had I!" said Roger. "That was how we both happened to see. The moral is—"
He did not say what the moral was, but sat pulling his moustache, and looking at Hildegarde. Hildegarde felt herself blushing again; she tried to speak of some trivial thing, but the words died on her lips; the silence deepened every moment, and it seemed as if she and Roger were drowning in it, going deeper and deeper down, down,—
Hugh looked cheerfully from one to the other; he saw that they were embarrassed for some reason, and came to the rescue with his usual calm philanthropy.
"Have you forgotten what you wanted to say? When I am going to say anything, and then forget what I wanted to say, I say, 'I love you!'"
Roger broke into a short laugh.
"Thank you, Hugh!" he said. "There is not much need of my saying it, but—shall I, Hilda?"
Hildegarde could not speak. She looked up, and meeting her eyes, Roger held out his hand across the little bed,—the strong, faithful hand that had helped her now so many times,—and she laid hers in it, and felt its earnest clasp, and knew that there was no more any parting between Roger and her.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
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