"You may come and see me, father says. I"ve been ill.--LUCY."
In a panic Dora put on her things and ran. Mary Ann, the little hunted maid, let her in, looking more hunted and scared than usual.
Miss Lucy was better, she said, but she had been "terr"ble bad."
No, she didn"t know what it was took her. They"d got a nurse for her two nights, and she, Mary Ann, had been run off her legs.
"Why didn"t you send for me?" cried Dora, and hurried up to the attic. Purcell did not appear.
Lucy was waiting for her, looking out eagerly from a bank of pillows.
Dora could not restrain an exclamation which was almost a cry. She could not have believed that anyone could have changed so in ten days. Evidently the acute stage--whatever had been the illness--was past. There was already a look of convalescence in the white face, with its black-rimmed eyes and peeling lips. But the loss of flesh was extraordinary for so short a time. The small face was so thinned and blanched that the tangled ma.s.ses of golden-brown hair in which it was framed seemed ridiculously out of proportion to it; the hand playing with some grapes on the counterpane was of a ghostly lightness.
Dora was shocked almost beyond speaking. She stood holding Lucy"s hand, and Lucy looked up at her, evidently enjoying her consternation, for a smile danced in her hollow eyes.
"Lucy, _why_ didn"t you send for me?"
"Because I was so feverish at first. I was all light-headed, and didn"t know where I was; and then I was so weak I didn"t care about anything," said Lucy, in a small thread of a voice.
"What was it?"
"Congestion of the lungs," said the girl, with pride. "They just stopped it, or you"d be laying me out now, Dora. Dr. Alford told father I was dreadful run-down or I"d never have taken it. I"m to go to Hastings. Father"s got a cousin there that lets lodgings."
"But how did you get so ill, Lucy?"
Lucy was silent a bit. Then she said:
"Sit down close here. My voice is so bad still."
Dora sat close to her pillow, and bent over, stroking her hands with emotion. The fright of her entrance was still upon her.
"Well, you know," she said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "father found out about me and Mr. Grieve--I don"t know how, but it was one morning.
I was sitting in here, and he came in all white, with his eyes glaring. I thought he was going to kill me, and I was that frightened, I watched my chance, and ran out of the door and along into Mill Gate as fast as I could to get away from him; and then I thought I saw him coming after me, and I ran on across the bridge and up Chapel Street a long, long way. I was in a terrible fright, and mad with him besides. I declared to myself I"d never come back here. Well, it was pouring with rain, and I got wet through. Then I didn"t know where to go, and what do you think I did? I just got into the Broughton tram, and rode up and down all day! I had a shilling or two in my pocket, and I waited and dodged a bit at either end, so the conductor shouldn"t find out. And that was what did it--sitting in my wet things all day. I didn"t think anything about dinner, I was that mad. But when it got dark, I thought of that girl--you know her, too--Minnie Park, that lives with her brother and sells fents, up Cannon Gate. And somehow I dragged up there--I thought I"d ask her to take me in. And what happened I don"t rightly know. I suppose I was took with a faint before I could explain anything, for I was shivering and pretty bad when I got there. Anyway, she put me in a cab and brought me home; and I don"t remember anything about it, for I was queer in the head very soon after they got me to bed. Oh, I _was_ bad! It was just a squeak, "--said Lucy, her voice dropping from exhaustion; but her eyes glittered in her pinched face with a curious triumph, difficult to decipher.
Dora kissed her tenderly, and entreated her not to talk; she was sure it was bad for her. But Lucy, as usual, would not be managed.
She held herself quite still, gathering breath and strength; then she began again:
"If I"d died, perhaps _he"d_ have been sorry. You know who I mean. It was all along of him. And father "ll never forgive me--never. He looks quite different altogether somehow. Dora!
you"re not to tell him anything till I"ve got right away. I think--I think--I _hate_ him!"
And suddenly her beautiful brown eyes opened wide and fierce.
Dora hung over her, a strange, mingled pa.s.sion in her look. "You poor little thing!" she said slowly, with a deep emphasis, answering not the unreal Lucy of those last words, but the real one, so pitifully evident beneath.
"But look here, Dora; when I"m gone away, you _may_ tell him, you _must_ tell him, Dora," said the child, imperiously. "I"d not have him see me now for anything. I made Mary Ann put all the gla.s.ses away. I don"t want to remember what a fright I am. But at Hastings I"ll soon get well; and--and remember, Dora, you _are_ to tell him. I"d like him to know I nearly caught my death that day, and that it was all along of him!"
She laid her hands across each other on the sheet with a curious sigh of satisfaction, and was quiet for a little, while Dora held her hand. But it was not long before the stillness broke up in sudden agitation. A tremor ran through her, and she caught Dora"s fingers. In her weakness she could not control herself, and her inmost trouble escaped her.
"Oh, Dora, he wasn"t kind to me, not a bit--when I went to tell him that night. Oh! I cried when I came home. I _did_ think he"d have taken it different."
"What did he say?" asked Dora, quietly. Her face was turned away from Lucy, but she still held her hand.
"Oh, I don"t know!" said Lucy, moving her head restlessly from side to side and gulping down a sob. "I believe he was just sorry it was _me_ he"d got to thank. Oh, I don"t know!--I don"t know!--very likely he didn"t mean it."
She waited a minute, then she began again:
"Oh of course you think I"m silly; and that I"d have much more chance if I turned proud, and pretended I didn"t care. I know some girls _say_ they"d never let a man know they cared for him first. I don"t believe in "em! But I don"t care. I can"t help it.
It"s my way. But, Dora, look here!"
The tears gathered thick in her eyes. Dora, bending anxiously over her, was startled by the change of expression in her. From what depths of new emotion had the silly Lucy caught the sweetness which trembled for a moment through every line of her little trivial face?
"You know, Dora, it was all nonsense at the beginning. I just wanted some one to amuse myself with and pay me attentions. But it isn"t nonsense now. And I don"t want him all for myself. Friday night I thought I was going to die. I don"t care whether the doctor did or not; _I_ did. And I prayed a good deal. It was queer praying, I dare say. I was very light-headed, but I thanked G.o.d I loved him, though--though--he didn"t care about me; and I thought if I did get well, and he were to take a fancy to me, I"d show him I could be as nice as other girls. I wouldn"t want everything for myself, or spend a lot of money on dress."
She broke off for want of breath. This moral experience of hers was so new and strange to her that she could hardly find words in which to clothe it.
Dora had slipped down beside her and buried her face in the bed.
When Lucy stopped, she still knelt there in a quivering silence.
But Lucy could not bear her to be silent--she must have sympathy.
"Aren"t you glad, Dora?" she said presently, when she had gathered strength again. "I thought you"d be glad. You"ve always wanted me to turn religious. And--and--perhaps, when I get well and come back, I"ll go with you to St. Damian"s, Dora. I don"t know what it is. I suppose it"s caring about somebody--and being ill--makes one feel like this."
And, drawing herself from Dora"s hold, she turned on her side, put both her thin hands under her cheek, and lay staring at the window with a look which had a certain dreariness in it.
Dora at last raised herself. Lucy could not see her face. There was in it a sweet and solemn resolution--a new light and calm.
"Dear Lucy," she said, tremulously, laying her cheek against her cousin"s shoulder, "G.o.d speaks to us when we are unhappy--that was what you felt. He makes everything a voice to call unto Himself."
Lucy did not answer at once. Then suddenly she turned, and said eagerly:
"Dora, did you ever ask him--did you ever find out--whether he was thinking about getting married? You said you would."
"He isn"t, Lucy. He was vexed with father for speaking about it. I think he feels he must make his way first. His business takes him up altogether."
Lucy gave an irritable sigh, closed her eyes, and would talk no more. Dora stayed with her, and nursed her through the evening.
When at last the nurse arrived who was to take charge of her through the night, Lucy pulled Dora down to her and said, in a hoa.r.s.e, excitable whisper:
"_Mind_ you tell him--that I nearly died--that father"ll never be the same to me again--and it was all for him! You needn"t say _I_ said so."
Late that night Dora stood long at her attic-window in the roof looking out at the April night. From a great bank of clouds to the east the moon was just appearing, sending her light along the windy streamers which, issuing from the main ma.s.s, spread like wide open fingers across the inner heaven. Opposite there was an old timbered house, one of the few relics of an earlier Manchester, which still, in the very centre of the modern city, thrusts out its broad eaves and overhanging stories beyond the line of the street. Above and behind it, roof beyond roof, to the western limit of sight, rose block after block of warehouses, vast black ma.s.ses, symbols of the great town, its labours and its wealth; far to the right, closing the street, the cathedral cut the moonlit sky; and close at hand was an old inn, with a wide archway, under which a huge dog lay sleeping.
Town and sky, the upper clouds and stars, the familiar streets and buildings below--to-night they were all changed for Dora, and it was another being that looked at them. In all intense cases of religious experience the soul lies open to "voices"--to impressions which have for it the most vivid and, so to speak, physical reality. Jeanne d"Arc"s visions were but an extreme instance of what humbler souls have known in their degree in all ages. The heavenly voices speak, and the ear actually hears. So it was with Dora. It seemed to her that she had been walking in a feverish loneliness through the valley of the shadow of death; that one like unto the Son of Man had drawn her thence with warning and rebuke, and she was now at His feet, clothed and in her right mind. Words were in her ear, repeated again and again--peremptory words which stabbed and healed at once: _"Daughter, thou shalt not covet. I have refused thee this gift. If it be My will to give it to another, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me."_
As she sank upon her knees, she thought of the confession she would make on Sunday--of the mysterious sanct.i.ty and sweetness of the single life--of the vocation of sacrifice laid upon her. There rose in her a kind of ecstasy of renunciation. Her love--already so hopeless, so starved!--was there simply that she might offer it up--burn it through and through with the fires of the spirit.
Lucy should never know, and David should never know. Unconsciously, sweet soul, there was a curious element of spiritual arrogance mingled with this absolute surrender of the one pa.s.sionate human desire her life was ever to wrestle with. The baptised member of Christ"s body could not pursue the love of David Grieve, could not marry him as he was now, without risk and sin. But Lucy--the child of schism, to whom the mysteries of Church fellowship and sacramental grace were unknown--for her, in her present exaltation, Dora felt no further scruples. Lucy"s love was clearly "sent" to her; it was right, whether it were ultimately happy or no, because of the religious effect it had already had upon her.
The human happiness Dora dared no longer grasp at for herself she yearned now to pour lavishly, quickly, into Lucy"s hands. Only so--such is our mingled life!--could she altogether still, violently and by force, a sort of upward surge of the soul which terrified her now and then. A mystical casuistry, bred in her naturally simple nature by the subtle influences of a long-descended Christianity, combined in her with a piteous human instinct. When she rose from her knees she was certain that she would never win and marry David Grieve; she was equally certain that she would do all in her power to help little Lucy to win and marry him.
So, like them of old, she pressed the spikes into her flesh, and found a numbing consolation in the pain.