Johnny throve, notwithstanding his visions. He woke up in the morning altogether unaffected, so far as appeared, by what he saw at night. He had always been more or less the centre of interest, both by dint of being the only male member of the party and because he was the youngest, and he was more than ever the master of the situation now. He did not mind his baths, and he relished the importance of his position. So much time as Mrs. Lennox had free from her “cure” was entirely occupied with Johnny. She thought he wanted “nourishment” of various dainty kinds, to which the little fellow had not the least objection. Secretly in her heart Aunt Sophy was opposed to the idea of suppressed gout, and clung to that of impaired digestion. Delicate fricassees of chicken, game, the earliest products of la chasse, she ordered for him instead of the roast mutton of old. He had fine custards and tempting jellies, while Sophy and Amy ate their rice pudding; and in the intervals between his meals Aunt Sophy administered glasses of wine, cups of jelly, hunches of spongecake, to the boy. He took it all with the best grace in the world—and an appetite which it was a pleasure to see—and throve and grew, but nevertheless still saw the lady at intervals with a pertinacity which was most discouraging. It may be supposed that an incident so remarkable had not passed without notice in the curious little community of the hotel. And the first breath of it, whispered by nurse in the ear of some confidante, brought up the landlady from the bureau in a painful condition of excitement, first to inquire and then to implore that complete secrecy might be kept on the matter. Madame protested that there was no ghost in her well-regulated house. If the little boy saw anything it must be a ghost whom the English family had brought with them: such things, it was well known, did exist in English houses. But there were no ghosts in Aix, much less in the Hotel Venat. To request ladies in the middle of their cure to find other quarters was impossible, not to say that Madame Lennox and her charming family were quite the most distinguished party at the hotel, and one which she would not part with on any consideration; but if the little monsieur continued to have his digestion impaired (and she could recommend a most excellent tisane that worked marvels), might she beg ces dames to keep silence on the subject? The reputation of a hotel was like that of a woman, and if once breathed upon— Mrs. Lennox remained in puzzling and puzzled silence for some time after this visit was over. About a quarter of an hour after her thought burst forth.
“Rosalind! I don’t feel at all reassured by what that woman said. Why should she make all that talk about the house if there wasn’t some truth in it? It is a very creepy, disagreeable thing to think of, and us living on the very brink of it, so to speak. But, after all, what if Johnny’s lady should be something—some—appearance, some mystery about the house?”
“You thought it was Johnny’s digestion, Aunt Sophy.”
“So I did: but then, you know, one says that sort of thing when one can’t think of anything else. I believe it is his digestion, but, at the same time, how can one tell what sort of things may have happened in great big foreign houses, and so many queer people coming and going? There might have been a murder or something, for anything we know.”
This suggestion awoke a tremor in Rosalind’s heart, for she was not very strong-minded, nor fortified by any consistent opinion in respect to ghosts. She said somewhat faintly, with a laugh, “I never heard of a ghost in a hotel.”
“In a hotel? I should think a hotel was just the sort of place, with all kinds of strange people. Mind, however,” said Aunt Sophy after a pause, “I don’t believe in ghosts at all, not at all; there are no such things. Only foolish persons, servants and the uneducated, put any faith in them (it was the entrance of Amy and Sophy in the midst of this discussion that called forth such a distinct profession of faith); and now your Uncle John is coming,” she added cheerfully, “and it will all be cleared up and everything will come right.”
“Will Uncle John clear up about the lady?” said Sophy, with a toss of her little impertinent head. “He will just laugh, I know. He will say he wished he had ladies come to see him like that. Uncle John,” said this small critic, “is never serious at all about us children. Oh, perhaps about you grown-up people; but he will just laugh, I know. And so shall I laugh. All the fuss that is made is because Johnny is the boy. Me and Amy, we might see elephants and you would not mind, Aunt Sophy. It is because Johnny is the boy.”
“You are a little impertinent! I think just as much about Amy—and the child is looking pale, don’t you think so, Rosalind? But you are never disturbed in your sleep, my pet, nor take things in your little head. You are the quietest little woman. Indeed, I wish she would be naughty sometimes, Rosalind. What is the matter with you, dear? Don’t you want me to talk to you? Well, if my arm is disagreeable, Amy—”
“Oh, no, no, Aunt Sophy!” cried the child, with an impetuous kiss, but she extricated herself notwithstanding, and went away to the farther window, where she sat down on a footstool, half hidden among the curtains. The two ladies, looking at her, began to remember at the same moment that this had become Amy’s habitual place. She was always so quiet that to become a little quieter was not remarked in her as it would have been in the other children: she had always been pale, but not so pale as now. The folds of the long white curtain, falling half over her, added to the delicacy of her aspect. She seemed to shrink and hide herself from their gaze, though she was not conscious of it.
“Dear me!” said Aunt Sophy, “perhaps there is something after all in the doctor’s idea of suppressed gout being in the family. You don’t show any signs of it, Rosalind, Heaven be praised! or Sophy either; but just look at that child, how pale she is!”