“Well, it was such a bad time, when they were all so upset,” Margret argued. “Miss Flora felt something terrible,” she added, simply, “when she knew that Miss Lily—her sister that she’d always guarded and loved so dearly—was secretly married and going to have a baby. I don’t know that she told Mrs. Roger Fleming, who was so little and so delicate, anything about it, but I know she talked it over with Mr. Roger, for he came to me—so kindly! he was a wonderful man for being kind-hearted—and told me that Miss Lily was going into Boston to live in Miss Flora’s little apartment for a little while, while they tried to find this man, Charpentier——”
“That was my father,” Gay interpolated.
“That was your father, dear. I went to Boston with your mother and got her nicely settled,” Margret resumed. “She was very quiet then, and pleased with the little things she was making for the baby, but it was only a few months later—when Mr. Roger was off hunting little Tom, and Mrs. Roger dying, with this doctor or that quack or dear knows what always in the house here—that poor Miss Lily got typhoid fever.”
“Before I was born!” Gay had heard of the typhoid fever, but had never quite placed it in the succession of events before.
“Just after you were born. Poor Miss Flora was pulled every which way,” said Margret. “She’d rush into Boston to see Miss Lily, and she’d rush back here, afraid Mrs. Roger had died while she was gone. She didn’t dare risk the infection for Miss Sylvia, and so she sent for me, and I took Miss Sylvia into the rooms where poor Miss Lily is now, and Miss Sylvia hardly saw her mother for weeks. Miss Flora went up to see her sister—that was your mother—every week, and while she did that she’d never risk infection for little Sylvia.
“Well, then poor little Mrs. Roger died—very sudden, at the end. Miss Lily was convalescent then, but weak as a rag, and she and you came down here to Wastewater—and you were the most beautiful child I ever laid my eyes on!” Margret broke off to say, seriously.
Gabrielle, red-eyed and serious, laughed briefly.
“Well, you were a beautiful child,” Margret persisted. “Miss Flora let Miss Sylvia and me go on and take a peep at you, in a blanket, the day you came. Miss Lily was very sick after the trip, and she didn’t get out of bed for a week, and Hedda and I had you, and didn’t we make Miss Sylvia jealous with the fuss we made over the new baby!
“I remember one day—they were all in black then for poor Mrs. Roger, and Mr. Roger came home suddenly from one of his trips, poor man! We’d not seen him since the day of the funeral——”
“He got here too late to see her again?” Gabrielle asked, knowing the answer.