CHAPTER XVIII.
“FAREWELL, NIGHT!”
The journey seemed endless to Bessie, but she restrained her painful restlessness for Tom’s sake. Tom was very kind after his own fashion; he got her some tea at Paddington, and was very attentive to her comfort, and every now and then he gave utterance to a few remarks, bidding her keep up her heart like a brave little woman.
“‘While there is life there is hope,’ you know, Bessie,” he said. “I think my father takes too dark a view of the case; but then, you see, Hatty is his own child. I don’t believe she is as bad as all that; depend upon it, she will take a good turn yet.”
“Don’t let us talk about it, Tom,” pleaded Bessie, with a sick, wretched feeling that Tom’s boyish testimony was not very reliable. How she wished he would be silent; but in a few minutes he was back again on the same subject, with another homely axiom for Bessie’s comfort.
But the longest day must have an end, and at last they reached Cliffe. No one met them at the station, but Tom assured her that he never expected to be met; he put Bessie into a fly, and again there was need for patience, as the horse toiled slowly up the steep road. It was long past nine when they reached the house, and by that time Bessie’s overwrought feelings bordered on nervous irritability.
The door opened as the fly stopped, and by the hall lamp she saw her mother’s face, looking paler and sadder, but her voice was as quiet and gentle as ever.
“Is that you, Bessie? My dear child, how tired you must be!”
“Oh, mother, mother!” and now Bessie literally fell on her mother’s neck and wept.
Mrs. Lambert seemed to understand all about it; she made her sit down on the couch, and took off her hat, and smoothed her hair with caressing fingers.
“You have had a long day, and have been keeping up as well as you could; don’t be afraid of giving way a little, now you are with your own mother,” she said tenderly.