"I must go and see mamma," the child said.
But she had to pass the "best" room door. She couldn't get by, but stood there rooted before it. She listened, advancing her small ear nearer and nearer. No sound. Then she put her eye to the key-hole. But the key-hole did not command the bed. She glanced over her shoulder—nobody near; the house silent. She turned the knob softly and went in, shutting the door behind her; then quickly reopening it, and leaving it prudently ajar. She tiptoed to the bed. Behold, the coverlid lay smooth, and no little dead child there at all. Then he was gone to heaven. If she'd got up a little earlier she might have seen the angel flying off with him. He hadn't left the window open; the very blind wasn't drawn up. What was that on the table? Something white, laid over something strange, and—two little sandalled feet stuck stiffly out!
On the table! It couldn't be the baby lying on the hard marble slab! The cruelty of the idea made her cold. Slowly she came nearer. She circled, fascinated, round to the other side. Yes, a gleam of the baby's yellow hair. The white cloth over him was a little awry, but it covered the body and hid the face. Horrible to have the air shut out; she felt stifled at the thought. He was lying on a pillow, she could see. But there was something inhuman in leaving a baby like this. And they had been so irritatingly careful of him before, never left him alone a moment; neglected her on his account; wouldn't even let her hold him—oh, so carefully; and now—this! Nothing, perhaps, in all the strange circumstance—not even the subsequent burial—impressed the child so painfully as this fact of the baby being laid unguarded on a table, as though he had been no more than a book. This it was that by one stroke seemed to cut him off from fellowship, that suddenly degraded him from his high estate of life and lordly consideration. This "death" was evidently a far stranger thing than going to heaven.
A feeling of intense commiseration for the little brother swept over her. She came nearer, crying. "Poor! poor!" she whispered. Why had they shut out the air? She lifted her hand and turned the linen down from the waxen face. Her tears dried on her cheeks as she stood staring. He might be only asleep. How had they come to be so sure, and lay him unguarded on a table, when he might wake and— She saw in a flash how she would earn the gratitude of the family. She would wake him, and she, who hadn't been allowed to hold him, would carry him to her mother. And how glad they'd all be! And it would be her doing.
"Baby," she said; "baby, wake up!" She put her hand on the body, and withdrew it quickly. He felt so strangely unlike life and tender babyhood. An evil dread took hold on her. She strove some moments, battling with new suspicions and vague fears. "Poor little baby! poor little baby!" she whispered, tiptoed up, and kissed his cheek. Violently she started back. Who that ever, as a child, has felt that first chill contact with the mysterious enemy—who does not remember the formless horror it conjures up in the unprepared young mind? This, then, was death. She walked backward to the door, staring at the dead face, feeling that cold touch on her lips spread like a frost through her body. She must go quickly and get into her mother's lap. With her hand on the door, "Poor! poor!" she repeated with a sob, still looking back at the face. "You can't come and get warm in mother's lap any more; you've got to go to heaven." Had they any idea how cold the baby was? Should she go and get his quilted travelling-coat? Was it any use? A faint dawning of the hopelessness of any earthly service to the dead made her resolution waver, and, with that, a horrible weight descended on her heart. She drew a hard breath, ran back to the table, and knelt down before it with folded hands and trembling lips. "Forgive me, baby," she whispered, "'bout the yellow ball. If I'd known this I wouldn't have taken it away." She scrambled to her feet and ran out as fast as she could, leaving the door ajar.
She was going up to bed that same evening, full of excitement and speculation, when her father called to Nanna over the banisters to come and help to find the smelling-salts—her mistress had fainted.
"Go to your room; I'll come presently," said the woman; and they shut her mother's door.
They hadn't let her go in since morning. Her mother was ill, they said, but that was a pretence; she was always ill. The reason Val was shut out to-day was because her grandmother had arrived that morning, and her grandmother was her enemy. She was in there now.
On every-day occasions Val would have contested the matter; but, grandmothers apart, there was a great deal to think about and consider just now.
She sat down on the stairs. She had seen her father crying that day, and the very foundations of all stabilities seemed tottering. Men could cry, it seemed—cry like little children. It was very strange; she had supposed it a thing to be outgrown. For her own part, she had nearly overcome the childish habit. The baby, of course, had cried a great deal; but one's father!