Before leaving the room the clergyman went softly to the bedside to look at the sick girl, wondering much at the likeness in her face to some one he had seen before, and wondering too why it should remind him of Hannah Jerrold, and the night when he went in the wintery storm to hear her father"s confession.
"Poor Hannah!" he said to himself, as he left the house, and walking slowly across the common to the church-yard, sat down upon a bench near to a head-stone, which bore this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Martha, beloved wife of the Rev. Charles Sanford, who died January 1st, 18--. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."
Since we last saw him, years ago, the Rev. Charles Sanford had grown an old man, though he was scarcely sixty-three, an age when many men are in their prime. There was a stoop in his shoulders as if the burden of life were heavy, and his hair was as white as snow, while upon his face was a look which only daily discipline, patiently borne, can ever write upon the human visage And patiently had he borne it, until he almost forgot that he was bearing it, and then one day it was removed and by the lightness and freedom he felt, he knew how heavy it had been.
"Poor Martha!" he said to himself, as he glanced at his shining coat-sleeves, and the spot on the knee of his pants, which was almost threadbare, and at his boots, which certainly had not been blacked that day. "Poor Martha! What would she say if she could see these clothes, which, though they may not look well, are very comfortable." Then, as his eye rested upon the word _beloved_, he continued: "Is that a lie, I wonder, which that marble is telling to the world? If so, it is Martha"s fault, for she wrote her own epitaph, just as she ordered all the details of her funeral, and what preceded it. It was a strange fancy of hers to ask that Hannah should lay her out Poor Martha! _Devoted_ would have been better than _beloved_, though G.o.d knows I tried to do my best by her," and with a sigh, both for what had been and what might have been, the rector arose and started for his home, meeting at the gate of Grey"s Park with Grey himself, who was in Allington for the first time since his return from Europe.
Lucy had come up a few days before, and had been at once to see Bessie, of whose illness she had written to Grey, and that had brought him as soon as he could leave his mother.
"Grey, my boy, how are you?" the rector said, offering his hand, which Grey took, saying as he did so:
"How is she this morning?"
Mr. Sanford did not know that Grey had ever seen or heard of Bessie McPherson, but something told him that he meant her, and he replied:
"Very weak and sick. Poor girl! she is too young to die."
"Mr. Sanford," and Grey spoke with great vehemence, "you do not think Bessie will die? She must not die!" and in his voice and manner there was something which betrayed his secret to the older man, who said to him:
"I hope not, Grey, G.o.d knows. Pray for her, my boy; pray earnestly.
Prayer can move a mountain, or at least make a way through it. Pray for the girl you call Bessie."
To one accustomed as Grey was to take everything, however small, to G.o.d, prayer was an easy thing, and every thought was a prayer as he walked rapidly toward Miss McPherson"s house.
"She is sleeping now," Miss Betsey said to him. "We trust she will be better when she wakens. It is rest she needs more than anything else.
She has had a hard life so far. You have seen a great deal of her, I believe?"
"I cannot say I have seen a great deal of her, though I feel as though I had known her always. Yes, she has had a hard life. You do not think she will die?" was Grey"s reply; and in his face and voice Miss Betsey detected what the rector had discovered.
"No," she said; "I do not believe she will die. Sit down and wait till she is awake."
So Grey sat down, and waited three hours, during which time the train, which would have taken him back to Boston, went rushing by, and Bessie still slept as quietly as an infant. It was Jennie who came at last and told him that she was awake and better, though too weak to see any one.
"Thank G.o.d!" Grey exclaimed, and slipping a bill into the girl"s hand, he continued: "Take good care of her, Jennie, and when she is able tell her I came to see her."
"An" sure I"ll tell her ivery blessed word, and that you left your love."
"I did not say that," Grey answered her, laughingly, as he bade her good-by and walked away.
For a week or more Bessie scarcely spoke or moved, it was such happiness to rest, with every wish antic.i.p.ated either by her aunt or Jennie, whose voice was a _whasper_ most of the time, and who was learning to be more quiet and subdued. At last, however, Bessie began to talk, and said to Jennie one day:
"I believe I am getting better, and I am afraid I am not as glad as I ought to be--the world holds so little for me, and so few who care for me beside auntie and you."
"An", faith," Jennie began, "it"s not for ye to be sayin" the likes of that. n.o.body to care for you, indade, with the gentry comin" every day to inquire for you, the praste a readin" his prayers in this very room, and the foine gintleman who was on the ship a sittin" down stairs three mortal hours waitin" to know if you waked up dead or alive, and thankin"
G.o.d when it was alive I told him you was."
"Who, Jennie? What gentleman?" Bessie asked.
"Mr. Grey, to be sure," Jennie replied; "and he left his compliments for ye, and thanked G.o.d when I told him you was better. Oh, but he"s very fine, and Grey"s Park is like them places in the old country where the grandees live."
Whether it was that Bessie was thoroughly rested, or that the fact that Grey had not forgotten her was in itself a restorative, her recovery was very rapid, though she still looked like some fragile flower which a breath might blow away, and Miss McPherson watched her with a tender solicitude, astonishing in one as cold and impa.s.sive as she had always seemed to be.
CHAPTER XIII.
BESSIE GOES TO GREY"S PARK.
It was a lovely day in early October when Bessie made her first visit to Grey"s Park, of which she had heard such glowing descriptions from Jennie, who took her there in an invalid chair sent for the purpose by Miss Lucy.
The gra.s.s in the park was fresh and green from recent rains, and the late autumn flowers gave a brightness to the place scarcely equaled in summer.
"Oh, how lovely it is! pretty almost as the Kensington Gardens," Bessie exclaimed, as she entered the gate and looked around her. "I think I should like to live here," she continued; and then there came to her a thought of Grey, who would probably one day be master of the place, and she blushed guiltily, as if she had said some immodest thing.
Miss Lucy met her at the door, and, taking her to her room, made her lie down till they were joined, by Miss McPherson, who came to lunch, which was served in the breakfast-room, and was just the kind to tempt an invalid.
Bessie enjoyed it immensely, and felt herself growing stronger and better in the brightness and freshness of this beautiful home which was one day to be Grey"s.
On the wall, beside Blind Robin"s, there was a picture of Grey, taken in Europe when he was fourteen, and just before the great sorrow came upon him and robbed his face of a little of the a.s.surance and boyish eagerness which the artist had depicted upon the canvas. But it was like him still--like him, as he was now, in his young manhood, when to do good to others, to make somebody happy every day, was the rule of his life. And Bessie"s eyes were often fixed upon it, as, after lunch was over they still sat in the breakfast-room, because of the sunshine which came in so brightly at the windows. And while they sat there the elder women talked of Grey and what he would probably do, now that his travels in Europe were ended.
"He ought to marry and settle down. Is there any hope of his doing so?"
Miss Betsey said, and Lucy replied:
"I think so, yes, I am quite sure of it, if everything goes well, as I think it will."
Bessie was sitting with her back partly turned to the ladies, who did not see the crimson spots which covered her face for a moment and then left it deathly pale, as she heard that Grey Jerrold was to be married.
For an instant everything around her turned black, and when she came to herself she felt that she could not breathe in that room with Grey"s picture on the wall, and his eyes looking at her as they had looked that day, in Rome, when he had said to her words she would almost give half her life to hear again. Bessie was no dissembler. She could not sit there in her pain and make no sign, and, turning to her aunt, she said:
"Please, auntie, let Jennie take me into the air, I am sick and faint; I--"
She could not say anything more lest she should break down entirely; and, glancing significantly at each other, the two ladies called Jennie, and bade her take her young mistress into the garden.
"Go to the rose-arbor. It is warmer there," Miss Lucy said; but only Jennie heard, for Bessie was too conscious of the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon her, to heed what was pa.s.sing around her.
Grey was going to be married; _her Gray_, whom she now knew that she loved as she had never loved Neil McPherson even in the first days of her engagement, when he was all the world to her. Her Grey, who certainly had loved her once, or he would never have said to her what he did. Her Grey, who had been so kind to her on the ship and looked the love he did not speak. Why had he changed so soon? Was it some love of his boyhood before he saw her, and had it again sprung into being, now that he had returned to its object? And oh, how dreary the world looked to the young girl with the certainty that Grey was lost to her forever.
She did not notice the fanciful summer-house into which Jennie wheeled her; did not notice anything, or think of anything except her desolation and a desire to be alone, that she might cry just as she had never cried before.
"Please, Jennie, go away," she said; "I would rather be alone."
So Jennie left her, and, covering her face with her hands, Bessie sobbed, piteously:
"Oh, Father in heaven, is there never to be any joy for me? Must I always be so desolate and lonely, and is it wicked to wish that I were dead?"
For several minutes poor Bessie wept on, and then with a great effort she dried her tears, and, leaning her head back in her chair, began to live over again every incident of her life as connected with Grey Jerrold. And while she sat there thus, the Boston train stopped at the Allington station, and she heard the roar and the ring as it started on its way. Twenty minutes later she heard behind her the sound of a footstep, apparently hurrying toward her, and thought, if she thought at all, that it was Jennie coming for her. But surely Jennie"s tread was never so rapid and eager as this, nor were Jennie"s hands as soft and warm as the hands which encircled her face, nor Jennie"s voice like this which said to her:
"Bessie, darling Bessie!"