John stood still, spellbound. He could not move, nor believe his ears. And then his mother rose up, though she could scarcely stand. “Nobody calls me mamma but one,” she cried; “only Kate! Oh my good Lord, something has happened to Kate!”
And then, all at once, the darkness stirred, and a little black figure formed itself out of the night, and glided into the window. Was it a ghost? was it she, killed by unkindness, come to pay them a visit on her way to heaven? The mother and son thought so for one dreadful moment. Her face was as pale as death; her dress all black as the night out of which she came. Mrs Mitford gave a wild shriek, of which she was not sensible, and fell back on her son, who held her, and gazed and gasped. But Kate did not think it strange. It was natural his mother should shrink from her, she thought, and she did not see John in the shadow. She was not thinking of John then. She came in with her little soft quiet step, and threw herself down at Mrs Mitford’s knee.
“Yes, it is me,” she said; “it is Kate. Mamma, save me; oh take me in and save me! I have nobody to come to but you. They want me to be untrue to my John,” she cried, suddenly, with a shrill break in her voice; “and he has deserted me. Oh, mamma, whom can I come to but you?”
John dropped his mother into her chair. He made one stride round the table, and clutched at the kneeling creature. He took her up in his arms like a child, and turned her wan face to him, holding it in his hand. He was almost rough with her in the anguish of his eagerness. “It is Kate,” he said, with an unintelligible cry, and kissed her, and burst out weeping with a great sound, which seemed to fill the whole house. “It is Kate!” raining down kisses upon her hair and her upturned face; and so stood with her little figure lifted in his arms, mad with the wonder and the misery and the joy—till suddenly the pale little face drooped unconscious, and she hung a dead weight on his arm. “I have killed her now,” he cried out, with a sharp voice of anguish, and stayed his kisses and sobs to look at her lying motionless upon his breast.
“It is nothing; she has fainted,” cried Mrs Mitford, who had been slowly coming to herself, and whom this emergency fully roused. “Lay her down on the sofa; bring me some water; ring the bell. Oh my poor child! how she must have suffered! how pale she is! Don’t touch her, John; let her lie still. Oh Kate, call me mamma again, my darling! Softly, softly; take off her cloak. Water, Lizzie; and keep quiet. Now she will soon come to herself.”
But it was some time before Kate came to herself; and the whole house was roused by the news which Lizzie, between the production of two bottles of water, flashed into the kitchen. Dr Mitford came and looked at her as she lay, pale and motionless as if she were dead, on the sofa. He walked round it, and took off his spectacles, and looked upon the strange scene with a puckered and careful brow. “Have you sent for the doctor? Have you loosed her stays?” he asked his wife. “They say it is often because of tight stays;” and then he shook his head at the sight. Mrs Mitford was kneeling by the side of the sofa, bathing Kate’s forehead. And John stood at the foot, watching with an anxiety which was uncalled for, and out of all proportion to so common an accident. But how was he to tell, in the great excitement of that wonderful moment, that she was only fainting and not dead?
By-and-by, slowly and feebly, Kate opened her eyes. “Yes,” she said, and at the first whisper of her voice they all crowded round with eager ears: “yes; I am not dead, papa, though I think I ought to have been dead! Was it the horse that took fright? Did it happen just now? I thought it was long ago. But here she is putting the water on my forehead, and there are his eyes looking at me—such kind eyes! And she calls him her John. But I feel as if he were my John too. Is this now, or is it long ago? Mamma!”
“My darling!” said Mrs Mitford, with her lips on Kate’s cheek.
“Are you my mamma? I can’t remember. Or was it just to-day it all happened, and he saved me and you took me in? Ah, no! there is Dr Mitford, and Lizzie, and I have only been dreaming or something; for if it was the first day I should not have known who they were. And I can sit up,” said Kate, making a feeble effort to raise herself. She got half up on her elbow, and looked round upon them all with a face like death, and the feeblest of smiles. And then she sank back, and said pettishly, “John need not stand there as if it were that first day. If I were he, and there was somebody lying here who had been very unkind to me, I would come and give her a kiss, and say 'I am not angry, Kate.'”
John was on his knees by the sofa before she had done speaking; and everybody in the room wept except Dr Mitford, who shook his head and went as far as the mantelpiece, where he stood and warmed himself, and could not but mark how foolish most people were: but still even he was too curious to go back to his study and his work, which would have been the most reasonable thing to do.