They telegraphed for Godfrey, and the house was hung with mourning, and Julia stayed in her room and wondered if she would have to wear black, and Emma cried herself sick, and Edith sat motionless as a stone beside her dead baby, with a look of unutterable anguish on her face and no power to speak even had she wished it, for the iron hand was on her throat, and her heart was breaking for more than the dead child beside her.
Who had tended the death-bed of that other one? Who had folded the little hands upon the bosom as Jamie’s were folded? Who had curled the rings of golden hair as Jamie’s were curled? And who had kissed the pretty lips as she kissed these before her? Nobody,—nobody. Hospital nurses had no time for tears or caresses; strangers had buried her baby girl, and she, the mother, had made no sign, either then or since, and God was punishing her for it, and her heart was broken in twain as she sat, white, and still, and speechless, while her husband tried to comfort her.
Then it was that Gertie thought of everything. Gertie carried messages to and from Miss Julia, who unbent to her now that she could make her useful; Gertie comforted poor Emma; Gertie anticipated the colonel’s wishes before they were spoken, and Gertie took the white flowers from the conservatory, and putting them on baby’s pillow, laid her hand pityingly on the bowed head of Edith, who moved at the touch, and looking up, saw the flowers upon the pillow and the girl who had laid them there. Then the iron hand relaxed a little and Edith gasped, “Oh, Gertie, my child, my little one,” while the first tears she had shed began to fall like rain and her body shook with sobs, which did her good, for she was better after the outburst, though she would not leave the room until her husband took her away and put her in her bed, where she lay utterly helpless and prostrate while they buried her boy from her sight.
Godfrey came to the funeral and saw his little brother first in his coffin, and was very decorous, and grave, and kind to both his sisters, and respectful to his father, and solicitous about Edith, and attentive to Gertie, whom he called the sunbeam in the house.
“I don’t know what we should do without you now, and I am so glad you are here,” he said to her, on the morning after the funeral, when he stood with her a moment by the window of the drawing-room, and thought how pretty she was, and how womanly she had grown within the last six months.
“How old are you, Gertie?” he asked; and when she told him fourteen last January, he continued: “Almost a young lady. I shall have to hurry up and get to be that perfect gentleman whom you are to reward with a kiss, or you will be refusing to pay; eh, Gertie?”
He spoke playfully and laid his hand lightly on her hair, while a beautiful blush broke over the face which was upturned to his, when a stern voice called:
“Godfrey, my son, I want you;” and Colonel Schuyler stood in the door, with a stern look of disapproval in his eyes.
The colonel had read Miss Rossiter’s letter that morning, and tearing it in a dozen pieces, had answered, saying that the girl who had been so much to his lost boy, and was so much to his dear wife, would henceforth be his special care, and that if Miss Christine wanted a waiting-maid she must look elsewhere, as she could not have Gertie Westbrooke. This letter he had sent to the post; nor was he sorry for it even when he came so unexpectedly upon his son and fancied far more than he saw.
Gertie was too closely connected with his dead boy for him to cast her off; but he could not keep her there, and on the instant he formed the plan that she should be educated away from Schuyler Hill, where Godfrey could not see her until matters between him and Alice were finally adjusted, and he had outgrown any boyish fancy he might entertain for this child.