"You must never, never go. You cannot leave me, Cass!" She grasped my sleeve, and pulled me round. "How much was there for you to do in the life before us, which you talked about?"
"I remember. There is much, to be sure."
Fanny's quick eye caught the glitter of the watch. The mystery teased her, but she said nothing.
Aunt Merce had gone to Rosville with Arthur. There was no visitor with us; there had been none beside Ben since mother died. All seemed kept at bay. I wrote to Helen to come and pass the summer, but her child was too young for such a journey, she concluded. Ben had sailed for Switzerland. The summer, whose biography like an insignificant life must be written in a few words, was a long one to live through. It happened to be a dry season, which was unfrequent on our coast. Days rolled by without the variation of wind, rain, or hazy weather. The sky was an opaque blue till noon, when solid white clouds rose in the north, and sailed seaward, or barred the sunset, which turned them crimson and black. The mown fields grew yellow under the stare of the brassy sun, and the leaves cracked and curled for the want of moisture. It was dull in the village, no ships were building, none sailed, none arrived. But father was more absorbed than ever, more away from home. He wrote often in the evening, and pored over ledgers with his bookkeeper. Late at night I found him sorting and reading papers. He forgot us. But Fanny, as he grew forgetful, improved as housekeeper. Her energy was untiring; she waited so much on him that I grew forgetful of him. Veronica was the same as before; her room was pleasant with color and perfume, the same delicate pains with her dress each day was taken. She looked as fair as a lily, as serene as the lake on which it floats, except when Fanny tried her. With me she never lost temper. But I saw little of her; she was as fixed in her individual pursuits as ever.
There were intervals now when all my grief for mother returned, and I sat in my darkened chamber, recalling with a sad persistence her gestures, her motions, the tones of her voice, through all the past back to my first remembrance. The places she inhabited, her opinions and her actions I commented on with a minuteness that allowed no detail to escape. When my thoughts turned from her, it seemed as if she were newly lost in the vast and wandering Universe of the Dead, whence I had brought her.
In September a letter came from Ben, which promised a return by the last of October. With the ruffling autumnal breezes my stagnation vanished, and I began my shore life again in a mood which made memory like hope; but staying out too late one evening, I came home in a chill. From the chill I went to a fever, which lasted some days. Veronica came every day to see me, and groaned over my hair, which fell off, but she could not stay long, the smell of medicine made her ill, the dark room gave her an uneasiness; besides, she did not know what she should say. I sent her away always. Fanny took care of me till I was able to move about the room, then she absented herself most of the time. One afternoon Veronica came to tell me that Margaret, the Irish girl, was going; she supposed that Fanny was insufferable, and that she could not stay.
"I must be well by to-morrow," I said.
The next day I went down stairs, and was greeted with the epithet of
"Scarecrow."
"Do you feel pretty strong?" asked Fanny, with a peculiar accent, when we happened to be alone.
"What is the matter? Out with it!"