The statue moved a little; a faint tinge of colour came into the marble face; the limp little hands unfolded, fluttered a little, made as though they would go round the mother’s neck. “Mamma!” Hetty said, stammering as when a child begins to speak.
And then there awoke a chorus of voices saying, “Thank God!” The women were all over-joyed, thinking the worst was past. Darrell had said if she recognised her mother—and it was evident that she had done so. But he himself stood aloof, keeping his troubled looks out of their sight. And after Mrs. Asquith had sat by her daughter’s side for hours, telling her everything as if Hetty fully understood, saying a hundred things to her—news of home, caresses, tendernesses without end—it presently became evident to all that very little real advance had been made. Hetty said, “Mamma!” as she had said, “Thank you,” but she did no more.
CHAPTER XXII.
MARY’S INVESTIGATIONS.
MRS. ASQUITH kept to all appearance perfectly tranquil during the rest of that evening. It was a strange and affecting sight to see her by the side of Hetty’s chair, talking with a smiling countenance and every appearance of ease and an unburdened heart. She kept telling all the nursery stories, all the little family jokes, every kind of trifling happy circumstance, the commonplaces of the family, to her daughter’s dulled and heavy ear. The spectators could not understand this strange sight. They were anxious, but she seemed free from care. They contemplated that little marble image of poor little Hetty with piteous eyes, shaking their heads aside, and saying to each other that, after all, the appearance of her mother had not done what was hoped. But the mother sat and smiled and talked as if she had been altogether unconscious that Hetty was not as she had been. Miss Hofland, though she could not understand, though she could not approve, this strange mode of action, got interested in spite of herself in all those unknown children, and found herself softly laughing in the background at the tricks of the boys, and Janey’s matronly demeanour, and the sweet little sayings of the baby. It all looked so pretty, and tender, and sweet. But how that woman could talk, and talk, and smile, and tell those stories with poor Hetty blanched and unresponsive like marble, wax—anything that you can think of which is most unlike flesh and blood, was what Miss Hofland could not understand. She felt very angry. She said to herself, “That woman has so many, she has no heart for this one;” and felt as if she loved poor Hetty better than her mother did, who showed so little feeling. Rhoda, who had stolen in when no one was looking, was, on the contrary, fascinated by Mrs. Asquith. She crept closer and closer, and at last curled herself up on the skirt of the stranger’s gown like a little dog, and listened, and laughed, and clapped her hands at all those stories. “Oh, tell me a little more about little Mary! Oh! what did baby say?” Rhoda cried, pushing closer and closer. Mrs. Asquith put one arm round the child, though without looking at her. She could think even of that strange child, who had been the cause of it all, with Hetty lying motionless there!
But all this had no effect upon Hetty, the lookers-on thought. An occasional faint smile came to the corners of her mouth, something so faint, so evanescent, that it could scarcely be called a smile; a faint little colour, almost imperceptible, came upon her marble paleness; now and then she said, “Mamma!” quite inconsequently, not as an answer to anything, and the tiny hands that had been folded in her lap were folded now in one of her mother’s hands, which seemed to communicate a little warmth, a little life—a poor result to have effected by the heroic measure of sending for her, and admitting a stranger, against every rule, to this secluded house. The housekeeper was very impatient of the whole business. “You did it against everything I could say; and nothing has come of it,” she said.
“As for that, we can’t tell yet,” said the doctor, naturally taking his own part; but he was very anxious, and did not seem to have taken much comfort from the new arrival. He had gone into the library to talk it over with his coadjutor, while Hetty was being conveyed to bed. The house was very quiet, the room badly lighted, the lamp on the table bringing out the anxious expression on the young man’s troubled face, and half showing the figure of the housekeeper, who stood on the other side of the table. The light fell upon her hands clasped in front, and showed her person vaguely, but her face was in the shade.