"I shall light the fire," Beth said with determination, "and I shall make you some tea to ease your cough. You won"t mind if I take the candle a moment to go downstairs and get the things?"
Beth was practical enough now. The vision and the dream had pa.s.sed, and she was wide awake again, using her eyes, and requiring a candle.
Before she went downstairs she fetched extra pillows from the spare room, and propped Aunt Victoria up more comfortably. Then she set to work to light the fire, and soon had the kettle boiling. As the room began to warm, Aunt Victoria revived a little, and smiled on Beth for the first time with perfect recognition. Beth had made her some tea, and was giving it to her in spoonfuls.
"Is that nice?" she said.
"Delicious," the old lady answered.
The gale was all on the other side of the house, so that here in front it was comparatively quiet; besides, the wind was dying away as the day approached. Beth put the teacup down when Aunt Victoria had taken the little she could, and sat on the side of the bed, holding the old lady"s hand, and gazing at her intently; and, as she watched, she saw a strange change come over her. The darkness was fading from the sky and the light from Aunt Victoria"s face. Beth had seen nothing like this before, and yet she had no doubt of what was coming. She had known it for days and days; she seemed to have known it always.
"Shall I go for mamma?" she asked at last.
The old lady shook her head.
Beth felt strangely benumbed. She thought of rousing Harriet to fetch the doctor, but she could not move. All feeling was suspended except the sensation of waiting. This lasted awhile, then a lump began to mount in her throat, and she had to gulp it down several times.
"Poor little girl," Aunt Victoria muttered, looking at her in her kindly way. Beth melted. "Oh, what shall I do?" she whimpered, "you have been so very good to me. You"ve taught me all the good I know, and I have done nothing for you--nothing but bother you. But I love you, Aunt Victoria; stay, do stay. I want to do everything you would like."
The old lady faintly pressed her hand, then made a last great effort to speak. "Bless you, Beth, my dear child," she managed to say with great difficulty. "Be comforted; you have helped me more than you know. In my sore need, I was not left comfortless. Neither will you be. May the Lord bless you, and keep you always. Amen."
Her head sank upon her breast. She seemed to settle down in the bed as if her weight had suddenly grown greater.
The sombre dawn had broken by this time, and by its light Beth saw the shadow of death come creeping over the delicate patient face.
"Aunt Victoria," she gasped breathlessly, like one in haste to deliver a message before it is too late, "shall I say "_Lift up your heads, O ye gates?_" That was the first thing you taught me."
The old lady spoke no more, but Beth saw that she understood. The faint flicker of a smile, a pleased expression, came into her face and settled there. Beth, feeling the full solemnity of the moment, got down from the bed, and stood beside it, holding fast still to the kind old hand that would nevermore caress or help her, as if she could keep the dear one near her by clinging to her.
"_Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place?_" she began, with a strange vibration in her voice.
"_He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul to vanity; nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the G.o.d of his salvation. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in._" Beth"s voice broke here, but with a great effort she began again fervently: "_Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors----_"
There she stopped, for at the words the dear good kind old lady, with a gentle sigh, as of relief, pa.s.sed from the scene of her sufferings, out of this interval of time, into the measureless eternity.
CHAPTER XXIV
Aunt Victoria Bench died of failure of the heart, the medical man decided; and, he might have added, if the feelings of the family had not had to be considered, that the disease was accelerated by privation and cold.
For days after the event, Beth was not to be roused. She would sit in the tenantless room by the hour together, with the dear old aunt"s great Bible on her knee open at some favourite pa.s.sage, thinking of all that ought to have been done to save her, and suffering the ache and rage of the helpless who would certainly have done all that could have been done had they had their way. Again and again her mother fetched her down to the dining-room where there was a fire, and tried to reason with her, or scolded her for her persistent grief when reasoning produced no effect.
"You must begin your lessons again, Beth," she said to her at last one morning in despair. "Giving you a holiday is doing you no good at all."
Beth went upstairs without a word, and brought down the old aunt"s French books, and sat at the dining-table with one of them open before her; but the sight of it recalled the happy summer days in the bright little parlour looking out on the trees and flowers, and the dear old lady with her delicate face sitting at the end of the table placidly knitting while Beth prepared her lesson, and the tears welled up in her eyes once more, and fell on the yellow pages.
"Beth," said her mother emphatically, "you must not go on like this.
Why are you so selfish? Don"t _I_ feel it too? Yet I control myself."
"You don"t feel it as I do," Beth answered doggedly. "She was not so much to you when she was here, how can you miss her so much now she has gone?"
"But you have others to love," Mrs. Caldwell remonstrated. "She was not your nearest relation."
"No, but she was the dearest," Beth replied. "I may have others to love, but she was the one who loved me. She never said I had no affection for any one; she never said I was selfish and thought of nothing but my own interests. If she had to find fault with me, she did it so that she made me want to be better. She was never unkind, she was never unjust, and now I"ve lost her, I have no one."
"It is your own fault then," said Mrs. Caldwell, apt as usual to say the kind of thing with which fatuous parents torment the genius-child.
"You are so determined not to be like other people that n.o.body can stand you."
"I am not determined to be unlike other people," Beth exclaimed, turning crimson with rage and pain. "I want to be like everybody else, and I _am_ like everybody else. And I am always ready to care for people too, if they will let me. It isn"t my fault if they don"t like me."
"It _is_ your fault," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. "You have an unhappy knack of separating yourself from every one. Look at your Uncle James.
He can hardly tolerate you."
"He"s a fool, so that doesn"t matter," said Beth, who always dealt summarily with Uncle James. "I can"t tolerate him. But you can"t say I separate myself from Aunt Grace Mary. She likes me, and she"s kind; but she"s silly, and when I"m with her any time it makes me yawn. Is _that_ my fault? And did I separate myself from Kitty? Did I separate myself from papa? Do I separate myself from Count Bartahlinsky? Have I separated myself from Aunt Victoria?--and who else is there?"
"You gave Aunt Victoria plenty of trouble while she was here," Mrs.
Caldwell rejoined drily.
"Well, that is true, at all events," Beth answered in a broken voice; and then she bowed her head on the old French grammar, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
Mrs. Caldwell looked up from her work at her from time to time frowning, but she was too much ruffled by some of Beth"s remarks to say anything consoling; and Beth, absorbed in her grief, lost all consciousness of everything outside herself.
At last, however, a kindly hand was laid on her head, and some one stroked her hair.
"That is the way she goes on, and I don"t know what to do with her,"
Mrs. Caldwell was saying. "Come, Beth, rouse yourself," she added sharply.
Beth looked up, and found that it was Aunt Grace Mary who was stroking her hair.
"Poor little body!" said Aunt Grace Mary as if she were speaking to an infant, then added in a sprightly tone: "Come, dear! Come, dear! Wipe your eyes. Mamma will be here directly--my mamma--and Uncle James, and Mr. Watson."
"What are they coming for?" said Beth.
"Oh, _your_ mamma knows," Aunt Grace Mary answered archly. "Mr. Watson was poor dear Aunt Victoria"s lawyer, and he has brought her will, and is going to read it to us."
"Am I to be sent out of the room?" Beth asked.
"Of course," said Mrs. Caldwell. "It isn"t a matter for you at all."
"Everything is a matter for me that concerned Aunt Victoria," Beth rejoined, "and if Lady Benyon is to be here, _I_ shall stay."
Before Mrs. Caldwell could reply, Lady Benyon herself was ushered into the little room with great deference by Uncle James. They were followed by a little old gentleman dressed in black, with spectacles, and a pair of badly-fitting black kid gloves. He shook hands with Mrs.
Caldwell, and then with Beth, whom he looked at over his spectacles shrewdly. Uncle James also shook hands, and kissed his sister. "This is a solemn occasion," he said, with emotion in his voice. Then he looked at Beth, and added, "Had she not better go?"
Beth sat down beside Aunt Grace Mary, with her mouth obstinately set; and Mrs. Caldwell, afraid of a scene, merely shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Meanwhile the lawyer was blowing his nose, wiping his spectacles, taking papers out of a pocket at the back of his frock-coat, and settling himself at the table.
"You would like this young lady to retire, I suppose," said Uncle James blandly.