“No; I’ll take the stool. I just want to be a bit still like an’ think. I couldn’t talk ’bout her, you know.”
“Yes, dear,” with kindly sympathy.
Dil dropped on a box stool, leaning her folded arms on a chair. Mrs. Murphy took up her sewing again. She longed to comfort, but she was sore afraid the two lorn souls were wandering about purgatory. She had a little money of Mrs. Bolan’s that she meant to spend in masses. But who would pay for a mass for Bessy Quinn’s soul? And she had never been baptized. The ignorant, kindly woman was sore distressed.
Dil seemed to look through the floor and see the picture down-stairs. All her sense of possession rose in bitter revolt. Yet now she was helpless to establish her supreme right. Her mother had grudged Bess the frail, feeble spark of life; she alone had cared for her, loved her, protected her, and she was shut out, sent away. Now that Bess needed no care and lay there quiet, they could come and pity her.
Presently more tranquil thoughts came. Even her mother could not do anything to hurt Bess. She was safe at last.
There had been so much repression and self-control in Dil’s short life, that it made her seem apathetic now. And yet, slowly as the poor pulses beat, there was a strange inward fire and stir, as if she must do something. A curious elusiveness shrouded the duty or work, and yet it kept hovering before her. Oh, what was it?
Did she fall asleep, and was it a vision, a vague remembrance of something she had heard? Bess was not dead, but in a strange, strange sleep. Once there had been a little girl in just this sleep, and One had come—yes, she would get up—about midnight these strange charms worked.
She would get up and go softly over to Bess. She would take the little hand in hers; she would kiss the pale, still lips, and say, “Bess, my darling, wake up. I can’t live without you. You have had such a nice long rest. Open your eyes an’ look at me. Bess, dear, you remember we are to go to heaven in the spring. He will be waitin’ for us, an’ wonderin’ why we don’t come. He is goin’ to fight the giants, to show us the way, an’ row us over the river to the pallis.”
Then the eyes would open blue as the summer sky, the lips would smile, the little hands reach out and grow warm. There would be a strange quiver all through the body, and Bess would sit up and be alive once more. Oh, the glad cry of joy! Oh, the wordless, exquisite rapture of that moment! And Bess, in some mysterious way, would be better, stronger, and the days would fly by until the blessed spring came.
Mrs. Murphy touched her, and roused her from this trance of delight. She heard her mother’s voice and started.