“What could I do, ma’am?—what could I do but bend my head down over the poor darling, and not let her see the hot tears come rolling down my cheeks. It was then that I felt most how I had been cheating myself and holding myself up with false hopes, and all the time that what she said was true; for though I was holding her tightly to me—tightly as she clung, it was all of no use, for something was drawing her slowly and surely away.
“I tried more than once to smile and say something cheery to her, but she only looked strange at me, and said, ‘Don’t, please;’ and then, soon after, she said, in a sort of dreamy way, ‘Tell me what it’s like, and whether I shall see my mamma there!’
“‘What what’s like, my pet?’ I says, shivering the while to hear her talk so.
“‘What heaven’s like, and all about going there!’
“What could I tell her?—what could I say, a poor ignorant man like me? I felt frightened-like, ma’am, to hear her so regularly talking about something drawing her away. I know now that it was from the dreamy troubled state of her head; while she always talked so about her mamma, and never said a word about him. I taught her to say that, you know, ma’am, for I hoped some day she would have been fetched into her proper speer, to be well off; and that’s why I did my best to improve her mind, and taught her catechism, and so on. And so she is well off, and better than she could ever have been here, and fetched into her proper speer, she is; for if ever there was a little angel here, it was my poor darling. But I couldn’t, bear to part with her, and it was not in that way I meant.”
Time after time Tim glanced wistfully from face to face, as if to see what effect his words had; and then he altered and re-arranged the mourning-band around his hat, smoothing it, brushing it with his gloves, and at last setting it upon the table.
“It seems to do me good telling you all about it, Mrs Pellet, ma’am; but for all that, the words seem to run and run; only I know that you all here used to like and take kindly to the little ill-used thing—for she was ill-used!” he exclaimed, passionately. “But anybody must have taken to and loved her; and do you know,” said Tim, solemnly, “that that’s why I think she was took away—because she was too good for the life below here. You don’t lose no little ones, ma’am, because they are happy and well off, and well treated. Nothing comes drawing of yours away, like it did my poor pet, as I can always hear whispering to me; and when I wake of a night for a few moments, I always seem to feel her little hot hand nestling in my breast, and feeling after mine to put under her burning cheek.”
Mrs Jared shivered, and looked as if about to run up-stairs and see whether her own little ones were all safe.
“But she was wanted,” said Tim, sadly, “and I shall never forgive myself—never, never!” and sinking back in the chair behind him, Tim Ruggles gave free vent to his sorrow, bowing his head almost to his knees, covering his face with his hands to conceal its working and the tears. His sobs seemed to tear their way from his breast, as, heedless now of all but his overwhelming grief, he rocked himself to and fro in the bitterness of his anguish.
For some time nothing was heard but sobs in that common room. Mrs Jared and Patty crept closer together to weep in unison, Mrs Jared making it appear—though a piece of base dissimulation—that she was only comforting Patty; while Jared rose to rest a hand upon his visitor’s shoulder, telling himself that his was not the only trouble in the world.