“To think that I have a father who may come, at any minute, for he might, Angelique, you know that, and not be ready for him. Your best and newest broom, please, and the softest dusters. That room shall, indeed, be ‘redded’—though uncle says nobody but a few people like you ever use that word, nowadays—better than anybody else could do it. Just hurry, please, I must begin. I must begin right away.”
She trembled so that she could hardly braid and pin up her long hair out of the way, and her face had regained more than its old-time color. She was content to let all that was still a mystery remain for the present. She had enough to think about and enjoy.
Angelique brought the things that would be needed and, for once, forebore advice. Let love teach the child—she had nought to say. In any case, she could not have seen the dust, herself, for her dark eyes were misty with tears, and her thoughts on matters wholly foreign to household cares.
Margot opened the windows and began to dust the various articles which could be set out in the wide passage, and did not come round to the heavy dresser for some moments. As she did so finally, her glance flew instantly to a bulky parcel, wrapped in sheets of white birch bark, and bearing her own name, in Adrian’s handwriting.
“Why, he did remember me, then!” she cried, delightedly, tearing the package open. “Pictures! the very ones I liked the best. Xanthippé and Socrates, and oh! that’s Reynard. Reynard, ready to speak. The splendid, beautiful creature; and the splendid, generous boy, to have given it. He called it his ‘masterpiece,’ and, indeed, it was by far the best he ever did here. Harmony Hollow—but that’s not so fine. However, he meant to make it like, and—why, here’s a note! Why didn’t I come in here before? Why didn’t I think he would do something like this? Forgive me, Adrian, wherever you are, for misjudging you so. I’m sorry Uncle didn’t like you, and sorry—for lots of things. But I’m glad—glad you weren’t so rude and mean as I believed. If I ever see you, I’ll tell you so. Now, I’ll put these in my own room and then get to work again. This room you left so messed shall be as spotless as a snowflake before I’ve done with it.”
For hours she labored there—brushing, renovating, polishing; and when all was finished she called Angelique to see and criticise—if she could. But she could not; and she, too, had something now of vital importance to impart.
“It is beautiful’ done, yes, yes. I couldn’t do it more clean myself, I, Angelique, no. But, ma p’tite I hear, hear, and be calm! The master is himself! The master has awoke, yes, and is askin’ for his child. True, true. Old Joe, he says, ‘Come! quick, soft, no cry, no laugh, just listen.’ Yes. Oh, now all will be well!”
Margot almost hushed her very breathing. Her uncle awake, sane, asking for her. Her face was radiant, flushed, eager, a face to brighten the gloom of any sick room, however dark.
But this one was not dark. Joe knew his patient’s fancies. He had forgotten none. One of them was the sunshine and fresh air; and though in his heart he believed that these two things did a world of harm, and that the ill-ventilated and ill-lighted cabins of his own people were more conducive to recovery, he opposed nothing which the master desired. He had experimented, at first, but finding a close room aggravated Mr. Dutton’s fever, reasoned that it was too late to break up the foolish habits of a man’s lifetime; and as the woodlander had lived in the sunlight, so he would better die in it, and easier.
If she had been a trained nurse, Margot could not have entered her uncle’s presence more quietly, though it seemed to her that he must hear the happy beating of her heart and how her breath came fast and short. He was almost too weak to speak at all, but there was all the old love, and more, in his whispered greeting.