The cry went like a sharp knife through the mother"s heart. She brought him toys and pictures, telling him the history of each, and quieting him as well as she could. At first he was amused and interested, but he soon wearied, and said again, "I want Missy."
"Is it Alice he is crying for?" whispered Anne, as Amy moved away, and sent Hannah to take her place by the bed.
"No, not Alice. Oh! Anne, he will break my heart. I had so hoped he had forgotten her."
Again the little fretful cry sounded. "Tell Missy to come."
"I _must_ go," said Amy, "there is no help for it."
Frances had thrown herself despairingly on the bed, shutting out Jane, her maid, who had tried to comfort her, and even Mrs. Linchmore. At one moment she would not believe there was no hope--would not,--the next she wept and moaned with the certainty that there could be none; as she saw Amy enter, she covered her face with her hands, and groaned aloud; thinking there was but one reason the mother could have in coming to see her, and that was to upbraid her for having caused the death of her boy.
"Miss Strickland I said you should not see my boy, but I cannot refuse his,--" Amy faltered,--"perhaps last request. He is asking for you. Will you come?"
"Come!" exclaimed Frances, springing from the bed, and tossing back the hair from off her throbbing temples, "do you think I could refuse him--you, anything? and oh! forgive me, Mrs. Vavasour, for having caused you all this utter misery."
"It is a fearful punishment," said Amy, looking at the ravages grief and remorse had made in her beautiful face.
"Fearful!" she replied, "it will haunt me through life. Think of that, and say one word of forgiveness, only one."
"I cannot forgive you, Miss Strickland. For my poor Bertie"s illness I do; that was an unintentional injury, but his mother"s misery--broken heart, no; that you might have prevented, and--and, G.o.d help me, but I cannot forgive that."
"How could I hope you would," said Frances despairingly, as she prepared to follow Amy.
"You must control your grief, Miss Strickland; be calm and pa.s.sionless as of old. My boy must see no tears."
"I wonder I have any to shed," she replied, "and G.o.d knows how I shall bear to see him."
Anne looked bewildered as the door opened and Amy returned with Frances, and still more so when she saw the child"s face light up with pleasure, and he tried in his feeble way to clasp her neck.
"I cannot bear to look at it," said Amy, as she softly left the room.
"Naughty! naughty Missy," he said as he kissed her.
Frances felt as if she could have died then, without one sigh of regret.
For a moment after he released her she did not raise her head.
"My dear,--dear Bertie," she said, struggling with her tears. Then presently she sat down and fondled and stroked his thin small hand, soothing and coaxing him as well as she was able. If her heart could have broken, surely it would have broken then.
"Ah! he"s thin enough now, Miss," observed Nurse, "even that sour stiff-backed lady would have a hard matter to call him fat. He"s never been the same since she looked at him with those sharp ferret eyes of hers;" and then she moved away and went and seated herself by the fire, recounting the whole history to Anne, of not only her dislike for Miss Barker, but the reason of Bertie"s apparent partiality for Frances; while the latter sat and listened to Bertie"s talk, he wounding and opening her heart afresh at every word he uttered.
"Naughty Missy not to come to Bertie!" he said; and Frances could not tell him why she had stayed away; she could only remain silent and so allow him to conclude she had been unkind.
She took up some of the books Amy had left.
"Here are pretty pictures," she said, "shall Missy tell you some of the nice stories?"
"No, you mustn"t. Mamma tells me them; I like her to, she tells them so pretty."
"Is there nothing Missy can do for you? Shall she sing you a song?"
"Mamma sings "Gentle Jesus;" you don"t know one so pretty do you?"
"No, Bertie, I am sure I don"t."
Presently his little face brightened. "I should like you to get me kitty," he said.
"Yes. Who is kitty though?"
"That"s what Master Bertie cried for the very day he was taken ill. It"s the kitten he saw in the village, Miss," said Hannah.
"Bertie shall have kitty," said Frances, decidedly. "Missy will fetch her."
"Yes, she"s big now, her mother won"t cry," he said, as if not quite satisfied that she would not.
It had come on to rain, since the morning but what cared Frances for that; she scarcely stayed to s.n.a.t.c.h her hat and cloak before she was hurrying through it. What cared she for the rain or anything else? Her whole soul was with Bertie--the child who through her means was dying, and yet had clasped her neck so lovingly as she bent over him dismayed and appalled at the ravages illness had made in his sweet face.
There was only Matthew in the little parlour as she entered the cottage.
"You"d better not come in, Miss," he said "no offence, Miss, but my sister-in-law"s been ill with the fever these days past."
"It can make no difference now," she said, bitterly, "that little boy I brought here only ten days ago is--is dying of the fever he caught here."
"Lord save us! Miss, dying?" said Matthew regretfully.
"He has just asked for the kitten he saw here. Will you let him have it?
It may be," she said despairingly, seeing he hesitated, "only--only for a day, or for--a few hours, you would never have the heart to refuse a child"s last wish." In days gone by she would have abused him for the hand he had had in causing poor Bertie"s illness, and her misery. But it was different now.
"No, Miss, you"re right, I haven"t the heart to. What"s the kitten"s life worth next to the young master"s. Here take it and welcome; though what the Missus"ll say when she finds it"s gone, and the old un a howling about the place I don"t know, but there, it can"t be helped,"
said Matthew philosophically, as Frances wrapped the kitten up carefully in her cloak, and hurried away.
The evening had closed in by the time Frances reached the Park again.
She hastily changed her wet things, and went at once to Bertie"s room, but her heart misgave her, as, going down the long corridor, she saw Anne seated on the ledge of the large window, with the traces of tears on her face.
"I am not too late?" she asked.
"I don"t know," replied Anne. "He is very, very weak. I could not bear to stay."
Frances went on, Robert, as well as Amy, was in the room. He moved a little on one side to allow Frances to come near. "Bertie, my boy," he said, "Missy has brought you Kitty."
Frances leant over, and placed it beside him.
He opened his eyes feebly, then took the kitten so full of life, and nestled it to his side.
"Bertie is very sick," he said, weakly, as he tried to murmur his thanks.
This was the first time he had spoken of feeling ill. How pitifully his little childish words smote upon the hearts of his sad, sorrowing parents.
"Bertie is very sick," he said again. "I think Bertie is going to die.