A few minutes later, as Jerry lay wondering if he might not get up, a slight rustle in the doorway caught his ears, at all times of the sharpest. It was clear daylight, impossible to think of ghosts or anything uncanny; but Jerry’s heart nevertheless beat rather faster than usual for an instant or two. Then there was a little cry, a rush towards the bed, disjointed exclamations—“Oh, dear Charlotte! is it you?”
“My own old Jerry, to think you were nearly lost in the snow. Oh, how miserable we were! Oh my old Jerry.”
There was some one in the doorway, some one who had brought Charlotte up-stairs, whose eyes filled with tears as she listened to them.
“Oh, how happy they are to be together, not to have to be separated,” she thought, as her fancy flew off to her own dear ones, Lalage and Alix, and the three little brothers at the Rectory.
And an hour or two later, Jerry, well wrapped up, and in Charlotte’s careful convoy, was driven home in Lady Mildred’s deliciously comfortable brougham. How his tongue went, how intense was Charlotte’s interest in the thrilling experiences of the night before!
“It is very strange,” she said thoughtfully; “indeed the whole thing is too strange. That you should have been put to sleep in that very same room; oh, I can fancy how frightened you must have been. I don’t think it was babyish at all.”
For that it had been so, was Jerry’s worst misgiving.
“And oh, Charlotte, she was so kind; whether she’s spoilt or not, whatever she is, I shall always say she is very, very kind.”
“Yes, Jerry dear; I will try more than ever to—to like her, at least not to be jealous of her: it is a horrible feeling,” said Charlotte with a sigh. And a softer feeling than she had yet had towards Claudia came over her as she thought of all her gentle kindness that very morning; how she had entered into Jerry’s gladness when the doctor said he might go home; how she had herself seen to the hot-water bottles in the brougham, and brought the warmest wraps, and insisted on lending her furred carriage overshoes, as Jerry’s boots had shrunk. How lovely she had looked as she stood at the hall-door to see them off! It had been impossible for Charlotte to resist giving her a warm pressure of the hand, and murmuring a hearty “thank you.” Afterwards she felt doubly glad that she had done so, though she was far from thinking just now how long it would be before she saw again the sweet, bright face against whose attractiveness she had so resolutely steeled herself.
Lady Mildred continued uneasy and nervous; she asked Claudia not to go to school that day.