The incident of that evening had a very disturbing effect upon the family at Bonport. Little Amy, waking next morning much astonished to find herself in Rosalind’s room, and very faintly remembering what had happened, was subjected at once to questionings more earnest than judicious—questionings which brought everything to her mind, with a renewal of all the agitation of the night. But the child had nothing to say beyond what she had said before—that she had dreamed of mamma, that mamma had called her to come down to the lake, and be taken home; that she wanted to go home, to go to mamma—oh, to go to mamma! but Rosalind said she was dead, and Sophy said they were never, never to see her again. Then Amy flung herself upon her sister’s breast, and implored to be taken to her mother. “You don’t know how wicked I was, Rosalind. Russell used to say things till I stopped loving mamma—oh, I did, and did not mind when she went away! But now! where is she, where is she? Oh, Rosalind! oh, Rosalind! will she never come back? Oh, do you think she is angry, or that she does not care for me any more? Oh, Rosalind, is she dead, and will she never come back?” This cry seemed to come from Amy’s very soul. She could not be stilled. She lay in Rosalind’s bed, as white as the hangings about her, not much more than a pair of dark eyes looking out with eagerness unspeakable. And Rosalind, who had gone through so many vicissitudes of feeling—who had stood by the mother who was not her mother with so much loyalty, yet had yielded to the progress of events, and had not known, in the ignorance of her youth, what to do or say, or how to stand against it— Rosalind was seized all at once by a vehement determination and an intolerable sense that the present position of affairs was impossible, and could not last.
“Oh, my darling!” she cried; “get well and strong, and you and I will go and look for her, and never, never be taken from her again!”
“But, Rosalind, if mamma is dead?” cried little Amy.
The elder people who witnessed this scene stole out of the room, unable to bear it any longer.
“It must be put a stop to,” John Trevanion said, in a voice that was sharp with pain.
“Oh, who can put a stop to it?” cried Mrs. Lennox, weeping, and recovering herself and weeping again. “I should not have wondered, not at all, if it had happened at first; but, after these years! And I that thought children were heartless little things, and that they had forgot!”
“Can Russell do nothing, now you have got her here?” he cried with impatience, walking up and down the room. He was at his wits’ end, and in his perplexity felt himself incapable even of thought.
“Oh, John, did you not hear what that little thing said? She put the children against their mother. Amy will not let Russell come near her. If I have made a mistake, I meant it for the best. Russell is as miserable as any of us. Johnny has forgotten her, and Amy cannot endure the sight of her. And now it appears that coming to Bonport, which was your idea, is a failure too, though I am sure we both did it for the best.”
“That is all that could be said for us if we were a couple of well-intentioned fools,” he cried. “And, indeed, we seem to have acted like fools in all that concerns the children,” he added, with a sort of bitterness. For what right had fate to lay such a burden upon him—him who had scrupulously preserved himself, or been preserved by Providence, from any such business of his own?
“John,” said Mrs. Lennox, drying her eyes, “I don’t think there is so much to blame yourself about. You felt sure it would be better for them being here; and when you put it to me, so did I. You never thought of the lake. Why should you think of the lake? We never let them go near it without somebody to take care of them in the day, and how could any one suppose that at night—”