CHAPTER XXXII
IN WHICH CASSANDRA BRINGS THE HEIR OF DANESHEAD CASTLE BACK TO HER HILLTOP, AND THE SHADOW LIFTS
"Cassandry Merlin, whar did you drap from?" cried the Widow Farwell, as she looked up from the supper she was preparing at the great fireplace, and saw her daughter in the doorway with her baby. Her old face radiated light and warmth and love as she took them both in her arms. "Whar's David?"
Cassandra smiled wearily, returning her mother's kiss and yielding her the baby. "You'll have to be satisfied with me and little son, mother. David was still in Africa, so I came home again." She spoke as if a trip to England were a casual little matter, and this was all the explanation she gave that night. "I got the hotel carriage to bring me up from the station."
The mother, with quaint simplicity, accepted it, asking no troublesome questions. If David was not there, why should not her daughter return. After their supper together, in the warm, starlit evening, each member of the family carrying something for the traveller's comfort, they all climbed up to Cassandra's cabin, and the old life began as if it had suffered no interruption. Cassandra so filled the pauses with questions of all that had happened during her absence that it was only after her mother was in bed and dropping off to sleep she remembered questions of her own that had been unasked, or left unanswered.
The next day Cassandra pleaded weariness and stayed in her cabin, sending Martha down for her necessary supplies, and quietly occupying herself with setting her simple home in its accustomed order. The day after, she spent overlooking the little farm with Cotton, and hearing from him all about the animals. The cows, two little calves, Frale's colt, and her own filly, and how "some ol' houn' dog" had got into the sheep-pen and killed the mother sheep, and "Marthy" had brought the twin lambs up by hand. And while Cassandra busied herself thus, the widow kept charge of the little grandson, warming her heart with his baby ways, petting him and solacing herself for his long absence.
Thus the first days were lived through, and no further explanation made, for something held Cassandra silent in a strange waiting suspense. It was not hope, for she felt that she had taken a stand which was conclusive, and there was nothing more for which to hope. What else could she do, and what could David do? The conditions were made for them; each must bide in his own world, and she had named the ocean which divided them, "Death."
At night she did not weep, for weeping made her ill, and she must conserve her strength for her little son, so she lay staring out at the stars. Sometimes she found herself holding her breath and listening,—half lifting her head from her pillow,—but listening for what? Then she would lean over her baby's cradle, and hear his soft breathing, trying to make herself think she was listening for that and not for David's step. Then she would lie back and try again to sleep, and her heart would cry to God to give her peace, and let her rest. So the long nights passed, tearlessly and sleeplessly.
On the boat she had slept, lulled by its rocking and swaying, but here in her home—in her accustomed routine—sleep had fled, and old thoughts and dreams came like the dead to haunt her. The paleness which had come upon her in London, and which the sea breeze had supplanted with fleeting roses, returned, and she moved about looking as if only her wraith had come back to its old haunts.