“And why not, I should like to know,” said Mary. “Don’t you know I’m very happy to-night. Don’t you know I’ve found it out what has been on my mind so long. I knew there was something. I have never said anything to you, but it has been, oh so heavy on my mind! Something, something that has gone away from me that I could not get back, and when I dreamt of my old lord he was always frowning, always angry. Agnes! I was making this, and mother sitting, as there, and you pouring out tea, when—we were all very happy—I remember my thread breaking just there, when I had nearly finished. And I turned to take another, and—then there was something that happened before—before he was born.”
“He was born that night,” cried Agnes, “God bless him.” She was very pale, and her eyes had become dry and shone as if with fever. In her mind there was a deep wonder whether Mar heard her, whether it would please him, though he was dead, to have the story of his infancy told to his mother. And with this half distracted thought came one that was quite real, quite rational; the anxious determination to shut out all reference to Letitia’s visit from the still wavering mind of her sister; to keep that which was the key of all that followed from her recollection if possible.
“He was born that night—God bless him!” said Mary slowly. Then she added, “I remember a cluster of people bending over him, and the light on father’s bald head, and my dear old lord with his face down quite close, and the doctor standing saying something about the child. And then—and then—what happened? I remember no more.”
“You were very ill, oh very ill; so ill that—Oh,” said Agnes, “don’t make me think of that terrible time.”
“Ah!” said Mary, a quiet seriousness coming over her face, though her lips still smiled, “you thought I was going to die.”
Agnes made no reply.
“But even that,” said Lady Frogmore, “was not enough to make you all deceive me so cruelly. No, no, my dear, I did not mean cruelly. You must have thought it for the best. One can but do what one thinks is for the best. Was there ever such a thing before that a woman should live and never know. Do you remember what the Bible says, ‘Can a woman forget her child, that she should not remember——’
“Oh,” cried the poor soul, “what you have taken from me! How much you have robbed me of?” She paused a moment with her hands clasped, with the consciousness of wrong on her face. Then that sterner mood died away in the old sweet way of making the best of it, which Agnes remembered with a melting of her heart had always been Mary’s way. “Never mind,” she said. “Never mind. I know now, and you meant it all for the best.”
CHAPTER XLIV.
Mary sat by the bed in which Agnes lay for nearly half the night. She was so determined on this strange arrangement that her sister had to yield, and as long as the darkness lasted, which in July moves slowly, much more than in June, the conversation went on. Ford lay on the sofa in a distant corner and slept soundly, but neither of the ladies had any inclination to sleep. It distracted the thoughts of Agnes from the possible awful importance of this night in Mar’s life to tell Mar’s mother everything that had happened, dwelling as briefly as possible upon the illness which had separated Mary from her child, and endeavoring to blur over as best she could the blank which that illness had left behind in Mary’s mind. It was indeed a very broken story, in which a stranger wanting information would have seen the most serious gaps and deficiencies. But to Mary the interest of the details in which Agnes took refuge to avoid the more serious questions was so great that it was always possible to carry her past a dangerous point, and the murmurs of the two voices going on all through the night, low, breathed into each other’s ears, was more like the whisperings of two girls over their little secrets of love than the clearing up of what was almost a tragedy, the revelation of the strangest, troublous story. Mary herself was lost in a still vague and tremulous joy, all innocent and soft as the little garment that had been the happy cause of it, possessing as yet no complications, realizing nothing but that she had been proved to have the dearest of all possessions to a woman—a child, a baby, who to her thoughts was a baby still, and at present linked himself but dimly to any idea of further developments. To be told that he was Mar still gave little enlightenment to her mind, which did not know Mar. Something that could be wrapped still in that little film of innermost apparel—although it was at the same time something which could consciously respond to her affection, reflect his father’s image as Agnes said he did—something that was at once a loving human creature and an infant entirely her own. This was Mary’s conception of the child whom she had discovered as if it had been a jewel that was lost. She was not shaken by her discovery as had been feared. She took it sweetly, quietly, as was natural to her gentle soul. Happily it had come without any harsh discovery, in the gentlest way, and as yet there seemed nothing but happiness in the lifting of the veil, the opening up of the old life. Mary cried as she sat and listened, shedding many soft tears. Her eyes shone behind them with joy and peace. She had found what she had lost. No more would her old lord frown upon her in her dream; no more would she feel that imperfection, that something which she could not understand, the mystery which had haunted her life, though she did not know what it was. She could not, perhaps would not, for even in this feeble state there is some moral control, allow herself to think further. It was enough that she had come out of the darkness, and that the light was sweet. When the daylight began to come in at the window and make the candles pale, Lady Frogmore rose, as light and serviceable as if it had not been she who had been surrounded with such anxious cares for so many years, and placed upon such a platform of weakness and disadvantage. She was not weak nor at any disadvantage now. Her maid slept. Her sister, who had ministered to her all these years, lay silent, looking on while she put out the candles and closed the shutter on the window. “I am coming to bed,” she said, “if you will make room for me, Agnes: not because I am tired, for I could sit and hear of him for ever, but because we must be early astir to-morrow, and I suppose rest is necessary. I don’t feel any need of it,” she said, with a soft laugh. “None at all. I feel young and strong as if I could do anything. I feel about twenty, Agnes. But make a little room and I think I shall sleep. It is like old times,” she said as she took her place by her sister’s side, “like old, old times, when the little girls were always together. Do you remember the time when we two were the little girls?”