The discovery was too bewildering and strange to convey itself distinctly to Mary’s troubled brain. She said only something which she felt to be entirely irrelevant.
“Who, then, is the invalid gentleman?” she cried.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SICK-ROOM.
MRS. ASQUITH took her place in Hetty’s room to keep watch there, with indescribable anxiety and alarm. She had been warned that every night since that mysterious occurrence Hetty had seemed to go over again in her dreams the midnight visit which had jarred her being. It had been the effort of her nurses to soothe and silence her, to get her, if possible, to forget; but every night the dreadful recollection had come back. Mary sat down to watch, feeling that this moment of return upon the cause of all the trouble might be the moment of recovery, if she but knew how to use it aright. But that was the question, of far more importance for the moment than those other wonders and anxieties which had arisen in her mind, and which she had not been able to satisfy. How was she to act that this moment might be the critical one, that she might be able to penetrate within the mist that enveloped Hetty? She tried to think, tried to form for herself a plan of action, but with trembling and doubt. The child’s life, the child’s reason, might depend upon her own presence of mind, her power to touch the right chord, her wisdom. Mary had never taken credit to herself for wisdom. She had never had to face the intricate problems of human consciousness; how to minister to a mind diseased had never been among her many duties. Out of all the simple calls of her practical life, out of her nursery, where everything was so innocent, how was she to reach at once to the height of such a crisis as this? She tried to apply all her unused faculties to it; but they eluded her, and ran into frightened anticipations, endeavours to realise what was about to happen. She had no confidence that she would keep her self-possession, or have her wits about her when the moment come. Oh, if Harry had but been here! But then she remembered all he had to do, and was glad to think that he would be quietly asleep and unconscious of what was going on; and that after all, the fatigue, and the disquietude and dreadful fear that she would not be equal to the necessities of the occasion, would be endured by herself alone. He had plenty to trouble him, she reflected. He would be wretched enough in his anxiety, without wishing him to share this vigil. And then Mary appealed silently to the only One Who is never absent in trouble, imploring Him to stand by her; and felt a little relief in that, and in the softening tears that came with her prayer.
The room was very still, and so was the house, all wrapt in sleep and silence. The housekeeper and Miss Hofland had both offered to sit up, but she had rejected all companionship. She could not have borne the presence of a stranger, or the possibility of any third person coming between her and her child. A nightlight burned faintly in a corner; the light of the fire diffused a soft glow. All was warm and still and breathless in the deep quiet of the night. And as the hours passed on so still, bringing no change with them, Mary’s thoughts wandered to the past, into which she seemed to have come back when she entered this house. Her youth seemed to come back: the familiar figures which she had not seen for years surrounded her once more. Hetty slept, or seemed to sleep, not moving in her bed; and in Mary’s thoughts the familiar room took back its old appearance. This was where the mother of the house had sat with her basket of coloured worsteds and her endless work, which was never done. And there the girls had their little establishments: Anna with her music, Sophie with her little drawings. Neither the drawings nor the music had been of high quality, but Mary’s anxious heart went away to them in the midst of this vigil, and got a moment’s refreshment and affectionate soft consolation out of their faded memory. She had not been of much account in those days, but they had all been good to her. And now they were both at the other end of the world, knowing nothing of Mary, as Mary knew nothing of them. And Percy, where was he, the handsome, careless fellow? And John, poor John? Ah! that struck a different chord in her musings. Where was he, if this house was still his? and who was the wife that had made him rich, and then left him, and left her child in this mysterious way? Where was John? Was it true that he had lost his wits (he had so few, dear fellow, at the best of times!), and was shut up somewhere in a madhouse, as had been said? Shut up in a madhouse, he who never would have hurt a fly, shut up—shut up!
Mary’s thoughts had run away with her, had made her forget for a moment what was her chief object, her only object. The start she gave, when a new and alarming idea thus came into her mind, brought her back to herself. She had drifted towards that wondering suspicion, that undefined alarm on the evening before, after Bessie’s revelation, and Mrs. Mills’ evident desire to stave off all further questions. Who was the invalid gentleman? she had asked with an awakening of curiosity, of interest, and wonder. But the housekeeper and the doctor had been called most opportunely away, and she had got no answer to a question. She started when it came back thus in sudden overwhelming force. But the very keenness of the question, which felt almost like a discovery, brought her back to herself with a guilty sensation, as if she had forgotten Hetty in thus following out another train of thought. And what was all the world in comparison with Hetty, whose well-being now hung in the balance, and whom perhaps her mother, dreaming and thinking of others, might miss the moment to save? She recovered herself in an instant, and brought herself back with all her mind concentrated upon her child. Hetty lay still as in depths of sleep; but from time to time her eyes were opened, though only to close again, and the sight of those open eyes chilled the mother through and through, and drove everything else out of her mind. It was now the most ghostly depth of night, the darkest and the coldest, when morning seems to begin to wake with a chill and shiver. Hetty’s eyes had closed again, and Mrs. Asquith had resumed her seat to watch, with a nervous anticipation of the crisis—when presently the bed shook with the nervous shuddering of the little form that lay on it; and starting up, she found Hetty with her eyes wide open, an agonised look upon her face, and her hands clutching the bedclothes, as had been described to her. The mother’s dress brushing the bed as she rose hastily, seemed to increase the dreamer’s horror. She began to move from side to side, moaning as in a nightmare, struggling to rise. And then a babble of broken words came to her lips. What was she saying? Mrs. Asquith listened with keen anguish, her faculties sharpened to their utmost strain. Was it some explanation, some complaint, that Hetty was trying to utter, something that would make this mystery clear? Her mother made out that it was the same thing over and over, now more now less clear. Her ears made out the words at last by dint of repetition—Heaven knows, the most innocent words!—“My child, my little darling! my child, my little darling! have I found you at last?”
When this had gone on for some time, Mary in her excitement could bear it no longer. She raised her child suddenly in her arms, clasping her close, taking possession of her in a transport of love and pity. “Hetty!” she cried, “Hetty!” almost with a shriek. “What is it? what is it? Tell me what it is!”
The girl uttered another cry, a wild and piercing shriek, as shrill as that which on the former occasion had roused the house. She started up in her bed, struggling, pushing Mrs. Asquith’s arms away, looking wildly round her with the frantic gaze of terror. Then all at once the contrast seemed to reach her stunned soul—not darkness and the awful visitant who had driven her out of herself, but light and that beloved face which poor Hetty thought she had not seen for years. She gave another cry of recognition, “Mother!” and flung herself upon her mother’s breast. Mrs. Asquith trembled with the shock, for Hetty plunged into her arms and buried her face as if she had fled into some place of refuge; but if it had been the weight of the great house, as well as that of Hetty, Mary could have borne it in the sudden hope and relief of her soul.