“Oh mamma! I just came from—him,” Bell stopped short again, feeling as if involved in a sort of treason, and her pale little countenance flushed. Only then Lady Markham perceived the state in which the child was.
“What have you been doing to yourself, Bell? You have hurt yourself. You have got a blow on the forehead. What was it? Let me look at you. You have been up in one of those trees.”
“Oh mamma,” cried Bell, finding in this the very opportunity she wanted, “I fell, and I think I might have killed myself: but all at once, I don’t know where he came from, I never saw him coming, there was the—little gentleman! He picked me up, and he spoiled all his handkerchief bathing my forehead. He was very kind, he always was very kind—to us children,” said Bell.
“Oh Bell! how can you speak of that odious little man? how can you bother mamma about him? We have heard a great deal too much about him already,” cried Alice with an indignation that dried her tears.
“It is not his fault,” said Lady Markham, “we must be just. What could he do but what he has done? If we had known of it all along, we should never have thought of blaming him—and it is not his fault that it all burst upon us in a moment. It was not his fault,” she said, shaking her head, “but you must not think I blame your dear papa. He meant it for the best. I can see how it all happened as distinctly—— At first he thought it would wound me to hear that he had been married before. And then—he forgot it altogether. You must remember how young he was, and what is a baby to a man? He forgot about it. I can see it all so plainly. The only thing is my poor Paul!” And here, after her defence of his father, the mother broke down too.
“Mamma,” said Bell, “oh, don’t cry, please don’t cry! That is exactly what he says. He says he will do anything you like to tell him. He says he never wanted to do any harm. He is as sorry—as sorry! But how could he help being born, and being old—so much older than Paul? He says he is very fond of us all. He does not mind what he does if you will only let him come home and be the eldest brother. Mamma,” said Bell, solemnly, struck with a new idea, “he must have saved my life, I think. I might have broken my neck, and there was nobody but Marie to run and get assistance. It was a very good thing for me that he was there. If he had not been there, you would have had—only five children instead of six,” Bell said, with a gulp, swallowing the lump in her throat. She thought she saw herself being carried along all white and still, and the thought overcame her with a sense of the pathos of the possible situation. She seemed to hear all the people saying, “Such a promising child and cut off in a moment;” and “Poor Lady Markham! just after her other great grief;” so that Bell could scarcely help sobbing over herself, though she had not been killed.
“Oh Bell! it was not so bad as that! how could you be killed coming down head over heels from the old tree?” cried Marie, almost with indignation.
Lady Markham had satisfied herself in the meantime that the lump on the forehead was more ugly than serious.
“Let us be very glad you have not suffered more,” she said. “But, Bell, the right thing would be not to climb up there again.”
“Mamma, the right thing would be, if you care about me, at least, to let poor Mr. Gus come in, and thank him for saving my life. Oh, let him come in, mamma! How could he help being older than Paul? I dare say he would rather have been younger if he could; and I am sure by what he says he would give Paul anything—anything! to make it up to him, and to make friends with you. He says how miserable he would be if you left him here all alone. He could not bear to be down here thinking he had turned us out. Oh, if you had only seen him! he looked as if he could cry—Ask Marie. And he wanted to know if he might speak to Alice, if Alice would speak for him. But I said I didn’t think it, because Paul was Alice’s particular brother, and she could not bear anything that was hard upon him; and then he said,” cried Bell, with unconscious embellishment, “‘You are my two little sisters, oh, go and plead for me! Say I will do anything—anything—whatever she pleases.’ Oh mamma! who could say more than that? He has nobody belonging to him, unless we will let him belong to us. He is a poor little gentleman, not young, nor nice-looking, nor clever, nor anything. And, mamma, he is a little—or more than a little, a great deal—very like poor papa. Oh!” cried Bell, breaking off with a suppressed shriek, as a hand suddenly was laid upon her shoulder.