She kissed her mother again, and then left the room, while Magdalen went on with her fairy tale, parts of which she repeated twice, and even thrice, before her auditor was satisfied.
After that Magdalen spent most of her time with the poor lunatic, who, if she attempted to leave her, would say so pleadingly, “Stay with me, Magda; don’t go. It’s beginning to come back.”
She called her Magda altogether, and though that name was sacred to Roger’s memory, Magdalen felt as if there was a blessing in the way the poor invalid spoke it, and her heart throbbed with a strange kind of feeling every time she heard the “Ma-ag-da,” as Mrs. Grey pronounced it, dwelling upon the first syllable, and shortening up the last.
Mr. Grey was still absent, glad, it would seem, of an excuse to stay away from the tiresome burden at home. He had gone to Cincinnati, to look after some property which belonged to his wife, and as there was some difficulty in proving his claim to a portion of it, which had more than quadrupled in value and was now in great demand, it was desirable that all doubts should be forever settled; so he wrote to Alice, that he should stay until matters were satisfactorily adjusted. He had heard of Magdalen’s kind offices in the sick-room, and he sent a note to her, adjuring her to stay with Mrs. Grey so long as her influence over her was what Alice had reported it to be.
“Money can never pay you,” he said, “if you succeed in doing her good, or even in keeping her quiet for any length of time; but to show you that I appreciate your services, I will from this time forward make your salary one thousand dollars per annum as Mrs. Grey’s attendant. It is strange the influence which some people have over her, and strange that you, a girl, can control her, as Alice says you do. Perhaps she recognizes in you something that exists in herself, and so, on the principle that like subdues like, she is subdued by you. The very first time I saw you, there was something in your eyes and the toss of your head which reminded me of her as she was when I first knew her, but of course the resemblance goes no further. I would weep tears of blood sooner than have your young life and bright beauty darkened as Laura’s has been.”
When Magdalen received this note she was in a state of wild excitement, and hardly realized what Mr. Grey had written, until she reached the part where he spoke of her resemblance to his wife.
“Something in your eyes and the toss of your head.”
She read that sentence twice, and her eyes grew larger and darker than their wont as she too saw herself in the motions, and gestures, and even looks of the maniac, whose talk that very day, whether true or false, had sent through her veins a thrill of conjecture so sudden and wonderful, that for an instant she had felt as if she were fainting. Alice had talked but little of her mother’s insanity. It was a great grief to them all, she had said, and she had wished to keep it from Magdalen as long as possible, fearing lest the fact of there being a lunatic in the house might trouble her, as it had done others who came to Beechwood. Of the fancy about the baby she had never offered any explanation, and Magdalen had ceased to think much of it, except as the vagary of a lunatic, until the day when she received the note from Mr. Grey. That afternoon Laura had talked a great deal, fancying herself to be in the cars, and sometimes baby was with her and sometimes it was not.
“That is the very last I remember,” she said, apparently talking to herself. “I took the train at Cincinnati, and baby was with me; I left the train, and baby was not with me. I’ve never seen her since, but I think I gave her to a boy. It was ever so long before I got home, and everything was gone, baggage, baby and all. I can’t think any more.”
Her voice ceased at this point, and Magdalen knew she was asleep; but for herself she felt that she too was going mad with the suspicion which kept growing in intensity, as she recalled other things she had heard from Mrs. Grey, and to which she had paid no attention at the time. Once she arose and going to the glass studied her own face intently. Then she stole to the bedside of the sleeping woman and examined her features one by one, while all the time the faintness was increasing at her heart, and the blood seemed congealing in her veins. There was no trace of color in her face that night when she met the family at dinner, and Alice half shrunk from the eyes which fastened so greedily upon her and scarcely left her face a moment.