"Oh, what a glorious night it was, rich and sweet with tropical bloom and beauty, and the full moon in the sky now moving down to the west, for it was past two o"clock.
"Every thing was still, and after listening a moment I went back to bed, and slept heavily until morning, when my brother came to my door and spoke to me in a voice I did not at first recognize, it was so strange and unnatural.
"What is it?" I asked, as I opened the door and looked at his white face.
""Sister," he said, stepping into the room. "Can you bear some dreadful news?"
""Yes," I answered with a sensation as if I were turning into stone.
"Charlie is dead! He has killed himself!"
"How I knew it I cannot tell, but know it I did. Charlie was dead. He had lost everything and gone from the scene of his ruin to the very spot where he had kissed and said good-by to me, and there had put a bullet through his brain--close by the clump of lilies which were wet with his blood when they found him lying on his back with his fair young face upturned to the moonlit sky, and a smile on his lips as if the death struggle had been a painless one.
"I knew then that at the last, when his soul was parting from his body, he had called my name, and I had heard him just as I often hear him now when I am all alone, and the night, like that one, is full of moonlight and beauty.
"We took him to England and laid him in his grave, where I buried my heart, my life, and hope, and since then I have grown into the strange, unlovable woman you find me. But do you wonder that I shrink with horror from the gaming-table and those who frequent it, or that I could not respect your mother when I heard of her so often at Monte Carlo, where Charlie died and where your grandfather ruined himself for he, too, was possessed with a mania for play?"
"Oh, auntie, how sorry I am for you," Bessie said, throwing her arms around Miss McPherson"s neck and kissing her through her tears. "I mean to love you so much," she continued, "and do so much for you, if you will let me I do not mind being your housemaid at all, only just now I feel so tired and sick, as if I could never work any more;" and, wholly exhausted, she sank back upon her pillow, where she lay for a few moments so white and still that her aunt felt a horrible pang of fear lest the prize she so much coveted might be slipping from her almost before she possessed it.
But after a little Bessie rallied, and, smiling upon her aunt, said to her:
"You cannot guess how happy I am to be here with you, but I do not think I quite understand what you meant by trying me."
"I meant," Miss McPherson replied, "to see if you were in earnest when you said you were willing to do anything to earn money, I knew the McPherson pride, and thought you might have some of it. But I know better now. I have tried you and proved you, and do not want you as housemaid any longer. Nor shall I need your services, for a new girl comes to-morrow--Sarah"s cousin. She is in New York, and will be here on the morning train. A regular greenhorn I imagine; but if she is honest and willing, I can soon train her in my ways. And now I will leave you, for you must sleep to-night, so as to be well to-morrow;" and with a fond good-night, Miss McPherson left the room.
CHAPTER XII.
BESSIE"S SUCCESSOR.
With the morrow the new housemaid came, but Miss McPherson was too anxious about her niece to observe more than that the girl was fresh, and bright, and clean, with a wonderful brogue and a clear, ringing voice. Miss Betsey had called the village doctor, who, after carefully examining his patient, said she was suffering either from nervous prostration or malaria, he could not tell which, until he had seen her again; then, prescribing quinine for the latter, and perfect rest for the former, he left just as the new girl appeared and with her volubility and energy seemed to fill the house. As quickly as possible Miss Betsey got her into the kitchen, and then went to her niece"s room.
"I must have been asleep," Bessie said, "for I dreamed that I heard Jennie"s voice, and I was so glad that it woke me, and I thought I heard it again. She was the Irish girl who was so kind to me on the ship. You remember I told you of her."
"Yes," Miss Betsey replied, "I think you liked her very much."
"Oh, yes, very, very much, and I would give a great deal to see her again, I believe I should get well at once, there is something so strong and hearty about her."
To this Miss McPherson made no reply, but all the rest of the morning she seemed very restless and excited, and was constantly hushing the new girl, whom she once bade the cook _gag_, if she could not quiet her in any other way.
"I have a sick niece up stairs, and you will disturb her," she said to the girl, who replied:
"An" sure thin, mum, I"ll _whisper_."
But her whisper seemed to penetrate everywhere, and Miss McPherson was glad when at last the toast and tea and jelly intended for Bessie"s dinner were ready upon the tray which she bade the girl take up stairs to the young lady whose room was at the end of the hall.
"An" indade I"d take off me shoes and go in me stockin" feet to be quiet: an" it"s niver a word I"ll spake," the girl said, as she started on her errand, while her mistress listened at the foot of the stairs.
Miss McPherson was prepared for a demonstration if some sort, but did not quite expect what followed, for the moment the girl stepped into the room, Bessie sprang up with the loud glad cry: "Oh, Jennie, Jennie, where did you come from? I am so glad!"
There was an answering cry of surprise and joy, and then the tray, with everything upon it, went crashing to the floor, while Jennie exclaimed:
"An", be jabers, the plather an" the tay is all one smash together, in me fright at seem" you here before me, when it"s meself was goin" to ask her to take you. May the saints be praised, if it"s not the happiest day since I left Ireland," and bending over Bessie the impulsive Irish girl kissed her again and again, talking, and laughing, and crying, until Bessie said to her:
"There, Jennie, please; I am very tired, and your sudden coming has taken my strength away."
She did look very white and faint, and Jennie saw it, and tried to be calm, though she kept whispering to herself as she gathered up the _debris_ on the floor, and with a most rueful expression took it down stairs, saying to her mistress:
"An" faith it"s a bad beginnin" I"ve made, mum, but sure an" I"ll pay you every farthing with me first wages, and now, if you plase, I"ll do up my fut, for it"s blistered, that it is, with the bilin" tay."
The foot was cared for, and another tray of toast and tea prepared.
This, Miss Betsey took herself to Bessie, explaining that Jennie was the cousin who had come to take her former housemaid"s place.
"But I had no idea," she said, "that she was such a behemoth. I am afraid she will not answer my purpose at all."
But Bessie pleaded for the girl, whose kindness of heart she knew, and who, she felt sure, could be molded and softened by careful and judicious training, and that afternoon, when Jennie came up to her she told her that her aunt did not like a noise, and that she must be very quiet and gentle if she wished to please.
Jennie listened to her, open-eyed, and when she was through responded:
"Is it quiet she wants? I told her I would whasper, an" faith I wull; for I"m bound to stay with you, and get me tin shillings a week."
The case seemed hopeless, and Jennie might have lost her place but for the serious illness which came upon Bessie, taking away all her vitality, and making her weak and helpless as a child. It was then that Jennie showed her real value, and by her watchful tenderness and untiring devotion, more than made amends for all her awkwardness.
Day after day, and night after night, she staid in the sick room, ministering to Bessie as no one else could have done, lifting her tenderly in her strong arms, and sometimes walking with her up and down the large chamber into which she had been carried when the physician said her sickness might be of weeks" duration, for she was suffering from all the fatigue and worry of the last two years, when the strain upon her nerves had been so great.
All through the remaining weeks of summer, and the September days which followed, Bessie lay in her bed, scarcely noticing any thing which was pa.s.sing around her, and saying to her aunt when she bent over her, asking how she felt:
"Tired, so tired, and it is nice to rest."
And so the days went by, and everybody in Allington became interested in the young girl whom few had seen, but of whom a great deal was told by Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, whose carriage often stood at Miss McPherson"s door, bringing sometimes the lady herself, and sometimes Augusta, who had returned from Saratoga, and was busy with the preparations for her wedding, which was to take place in October.
Lord Hardy, who had come from the West, and established himself at the Ridge House, called several times and left his card, which Miss McPherson promptly burned.
She did not like Lord Hardy. He was just a fortune-hunter, she said, and cared no more for Augusta Browne than he did for her, except that Augusta was the younger of the two, and she could not forget how he had looked, smirking and mincing by the side of Archie"s wife at Aberystwyth; poor, weak Daisy, who, but for him, might not have gone so far astray as she did.
For Bessie"s sake Miss McPherson was almost ready to forgive poor Daisy, as she always called her now when thinking of her. For Bessie"s sake she felt that she could do a great deal that was contrary to her nature, but she could not feel kindly disposed toward Neil, for immediately after the receipt of her letter to his mother, containing two hundred and fifty pounds, and the announcement that she intended to take Bessie as her own child, Neil had written her a long, penitent letter, blaming himself as a coward, and telling of his remorse and regret for the past, and saying that, unless he was forbidden to do so, he should come to America in September, and renew his offer to Bessie.
This letter Miss McPherson read with sundry expressions of disgust, and then, taking from its peg her sun-hat, almost as large as a small umbrella, she started for the telegraph office, and several hours later Neil McPherson, in London, was reading the following laconic dispatch from Allington:
"Stay at home and mind your own business!
"Betsey McPherson"
"Perhaps I did wrong to send it, for maybe the girl likes him after all," the spinster thought, as she walked back to her house.
But it was too late now, and for the next two or three days she was too anxious to think of anything except Bessie, who was much worse, and seemed so weak and unconscious of everything, that the physician looked very grave, and the clergyman came at Miss McPherson"s request, and said the prayers for the sick, but Bessie did not hear them, for she lay like one in a deep sleep, scarcely moving or seeming to breathe.