The Sorceress. Volume 2 of 3. Oliphant Margaret

sobs made Mrs. Kingsward forget the meaning of this communication altogether. She put her hands upon him trying to raise his head. “Edward! Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry! I have never seen you cry in all my life. Edward, for goodness’ sake! You will kill me if you go on sobbing like that. Oh, Edward, Edward, I never saw you cry before.”

      Moulsey had darted forward from some shadowy corner where she was and gripped him by the arm.

      “Stop, sir – stop it,” she cried, in an authoritative whisper, “or you’ll kill her.”

      He flung Moulsey off and raised his head a little from the pillow.

      “You have never seen me with any such occasion before,” he said, taking her hands into his and kissing them repeatedly.

      He was not a man of many caresses, and her heart was touched with a feeble sense of pleasure.

      “Dear!” she said softly, “dear!” feebly drawing a little nearer to him to put her cheek against his.

      Colonel Kingsward looked up as soon as he was able and saw her lying smiling at him, her hand in his, her eyes full of that wonderful liquid light which belongs to great weakness. The small worn face was all illuminated with smiles; it was like the face of a child – or perhaps an angel. He looked at first with awe, then with doubt and alarm. Had he failed after all in the commission which he had executed at so much cost to himself, and against the doctor’s orders? He had been afraid for the moment of the sight of her despair – and now he was frightened by her look of ease, the absence of all perturbations. Had she not understood him? Would it have to be told again, more severely, more distinctly, this dreadful news?

      CHAPTER IV

      Mrs. Kingsward said nothing of the communication her husband had made to her. Did she understand it? He went about heavily all day, pondering the matter, going and coming to her room, trying in vain to make out what was in her mind. But he could not divine what was in that mind, hidden from him in those veils of individual existence which never seemed to him to have been so baffling before. In the afternoon she had heard, somehow, the voices of the elder boys, and had asked if they were there, and had sent for them. The two big fellows, with the mud on their boots and the scent of the fresh air about them, stood huddled together, speechless with awe and grief, by the bedside, when their father came in. They did not know what to say to their mother in such circumstances. They had never talked to her about herself, but always about themselves; and now they were entirely at a loss after they had said, “How are you, mamma? Are you very bad, mamma? Oh, I’m so sorry;” and “Oh, I wish you were better.” What could boys of twelve and fourteen say? For the moment they felt as if their hearts were broken; but they did not want to stay there; they had nothing to say to her. Their pang of sudden trouble was confused with shyness and awkwardness, and their consciousness that she was altogether in another atmosphere and another world. Mrs. Kingsward was not a clever woman, but she understood miraculously what was in those inarticulate young souls. She kissed them both, drawing each close to her for a moment, and then bade them run away. “Were you having a good game?” she said, with that ineffable, feeble smile. “Go and finish it, my darlings.” And they stumbled out very awkwardly, startled to meet their father’s look as they turned round, and greatly disturbed and mystified altogether, though consoled somehow by their mother’s look.

      They said to each other after a while that she looked “jolly bad,” but that she was in such good spirits it must be all right.

      Their father was as much mystified as they; but he was troubled in conscience, as if he had not spoken plainly enough, had not made it clear enough what “her state” was. She had not asked for the clergyman – she had not asked for anything. Was it necessary that he should speak again? There was one thing she had near her, but that so fantastic a thing! – a photograph – one of the quantities of such rubbish the girls and she had brought home – a woman wrapped in a mantle floating in the air.

      “Take that thing away,” he said to Moulsey. It irritated him to see a frivolous thing like that – a twopenny-halfpenny photograph – so near his wife’s bed.

      “Don’t take it away,” she said, in the whisper to which her voice had sunk; “it gives me such pleasure.”

      “Pleasure!” he cried; even to speak of pleasure was wrong at such a moment. And then he added, “Would you like me to read to you? Would you like to see – anyone?”

      “To see anyone? Whom should I wish to see but you, Edward, and the children?”

      “We haven’t been – so religious, my dear, as perhaps we ought,” stammered the anxious man. “If I sent for – Mr. Baldwin perhaps, to read the prayers for the sick and – and talk to you a little?”

      She looked at him with some wonder for a moment, and then she said, with a smile, “Yes, yes; by all means, Edward, if you like it.”

      “I shall certainly like it, my dearest; and it is right – it is what we should all wish to do at the – ” He could not say at the last – he could not say when we are dying – it was too much for him; but certainly she must understand now. And he went away hurriedly to call the clergyman, that no more time might be lost.

      “Moulsey,” said Mrs. Kingsward, “have we come then quite – to the end now?”

      “Oh, ma’am! Oh, my dear lady!” Moulsey said.

      “My husband – seems to think so. It is a little hard – to leave them all. Where is Bee?”

      “I am here, mamma,” said a broken voice; and the mother’s hand was caught and held tight, as she liked it to be. “May Betty come too?”

      “Yes, let Betty come. It is you I want, not Mr. Baldwin.”

      “Mr. Baldwin is a good man, ma’am. He’ll be a comfort to them and to the Colonel.”

      “Yes, I suppose so; he will be a comfort to – your father. But I don’t want anyone. I haven’t done very much harm – ”

      “No! oh, no, ma’am, none!” said Moulsey, while Betty, thrown on her knees by the bedside, tried to smother her sobs; and Bee, worn out and feeling as if she felt nothing, sat and held her mother’s hand.

      “But, then,” she said, “I’ve never, never, done any good.”

      “Oh! my dear lady, my dear lady! And all the poor people, and all the children.”

      “Hush! Moulsey. I never gave anything – not a bit of bread, not a shilling – but because I liked to do it. Never! oh, never from any good motive. I always liked to do it. It was my pleasure. It never cost me anything. I have done no good in my life. I just liked the poor children, that was all, and thought if they were my own – Oh, Bee and Betty, try to be better women – different from me.”

      Betty, who was so young, crept nearer and nearer on her knees, till she came to the head of the bed. She lifted up her tear-stained face, “Mother! oh, mother! are you frightened?” she cried.

      Mrs. Kingsward put forth her other arm and put it freely round the weeping girl. “Perhaps I ought to be, perhaps I ought to be!” she said, with a little thrill and quaver.

      “Mother,” said Betty, pushing closer and closer, almost pushing Bee away, “if I had been wicked, ever so wicked, I shouldn’t be frightened for you.”

      A heavenly smile came over the woman’s face. “I should think not, indeed.”

      And then Betty, in the silence of the room, put her hands together and said very softly, “Our Father, which art in Heaven – ”

      “Oh, children, children,” cried Moulsey, “don’t break our hearts! She’s too weak to bear it. Leave her alone.”

      “Yes, go away, children dear – go away. I have to rest – to see Mr. Baldwin.” Then she smiled, and said in gasps, “To tell the truth – I’m – I’m not afraid; look – ” She pointed to the picture by her bedside. “So easy – so easy! Just resting – and the Saviour will put out his hand and take me in.”

      Mr.