There"s but one way with the sick when they"re like that, and that"s to humour them, you see. So she slept and I got a little nap for myself.
I was glad the children were away by next morning, for she was worse, the cook lost her head, and managed to break the range so that the water-back leaked and John and Hodges were mopping and mending all day.
The madam herself had a bad turn and the doctor (a New York doctor for madam, you may be sure!) brought out a handsome, dark woman, the trained hospital nurse, with him. Madam wasn"t allowed to know how bad her old nurse was.
So it turned out that I"d been a week in the house without ever seeing my mistress. The nurse and I would meet on the stairs and chat a little, evenings, and once I took a turn in the grounds with her. She was a sensible sort of girl, not a bit above herself, as our English nursing-sisters are, sometimes, but very businesslike, as they say, and a good, brisk way with her. She saw a lot more than she spoke of, Miss Jessop did, I"ll warrant!
"It"s a good thing the children are sent away," I said. "They always add to the bother when there"s sickness."
"Why, are there children?" says she. "Oh, yes, a boy and a girl," I answered, "poor old Mrs. Shipman is forever talking about them. She thinks she"s their nurse, it seems, as she was their mother"s."
"I wish they were here, then," says she, "for I don"t like the looks of my patient at all. She doesn"t speak seven words a day, and there"s really little or nothing the matter with her, that I can see. She"s nervous and she"s low and she wants cheering, that"s all. I wonder the doctor doesn"t see it."
That night, after both patients were settled, she came up to my room and took a glance at the old lady, who was going fast.
"Mrs. Childress will soon have to know about this," she said and then, suddenly, "Are you sure about the children, Sarah?"
"Sure about them?" I repeated after her. "In what way, Miss Jessop?"
"That there are any," says she.
"Why, of course," I answered, "Mrs. Shipman talks of nothing else.
They"re with their aunty, in New Jersey, somewhere. It"s a good thing there are some, for from what she says when she"s rambling, the house and all the property would go out of the family otherwise. It"s been five generations in the Childress family, but the nearest now is a cousin who married a Jew, and the family hate her for it. But Master Robertson makes it all safe, Mrs. Shipman says."
"That"s a queer thing," said she. "I took in a dear little picture of the boy and girl this afternoon, to cheer her up a bit, and told her to try to think they were the real ones, who"d soon be with her, for that matter, and so happy to see their dear mamma, and she went white as a sheet and fainted in my arms. Of course, I didn"t refer to it again.
She"s quiet now, holding the picture, but I feared they were dead and you hadn"t known."
"Oh, no," said I. "I"m sure not," and then I remembered that I"d been told there was but one in family. However, that"s often said when there"s a nurse to take care of small children (though it"s not quite fair, perhaps), and I was certain of the children, anyway, for there were toys all about Mrs. Shipman"s room and some seed-cookies and "animal-crackers," as they call those odd little biscuits, in a tin on her mantel.
However, we were soon to learn something that made me, at least, all the more curious. The doctor came that morning and told Miss Jessop that her services would be no longer required, after he had seen her patient.
"Mrs. Childress is perfectly recovered," he said, "and she has unfortunately conceived a grudge against you, my dear girl. I need you, anyway, in town. Poor old Shipman can"t last the night now, and I want all that business disposed of very quietly. I have decided not to tell Mrs. Childress until it is all over and the funeral done with.
She is in a very morbid state, and as I knew her husband well I have taken this step on my own responsibility. Hodges seems perfectly able to run things, and to tell the truth, it would do your mistress far more good to attend to that herself," he said, turning to me.
"It would be a good thing for the poor woman to have some one about her, Dr. Stanchon," the nurse put in quietly. "If there were children in the house, now----"
"Children!" he cried, pulling himself up and staring at her. "Did you speak to her about them? Then that accounts for it! I should have warned you."
"Then they did die?" she asked him. "That"s what I thought."
"I"m afraid not," he said, shaking his head with a queer sort of sad little smile. "I forgot you were strange here. Why, Miss Jessop, didn"t you know that----"
"Excuse me, sir, but there"s no sign of your mare about--did you tie her?" says Hodges, coming in in a great hurry, and the doctor swore and ran off and I never heard the end of the sentence.
Well, I"m running on too long with these little odds and ends, as I"m sure Margaret felt when I started telling her all about it. The truth is I dreaded then, just as I dread now, to get at the real story and look our conduct straight in the face. But I"ll get on more quickly now.
Old Mrs. Shipman died very quiet in her sleep and madam wasn"t told, which I didn"t half like. The doctor was called out of those parts to attend on his father, very suddenly, and Hodges managed the funeral and all. It was plain to see he was a very trusty, silent fellow, devoted to the family. I took as much off him as I could, and I was dusting the drawing-room the day of the funeral, when I happened to pick up a photograph in a silver frame of the same little fellow in the picture the nurse had shown me--a dear little boy in short kilts.
"That"s Master Robertson, isn"t it?" I said, very carelessly, not looking at him--I will own I was curious. He gave a start.
"Yes--yes, certainly, that"s Master Robertson--if you choose to put it that way," he said, and I saw him put his hand up to his eyes and his mouth twitched and he left the room.
I didn"t question him again, naturally; he was a hard man to cross and very haughty, was William Hodges, and no one in the house but respected him.
That day I saw Mrs. Childress for the first time. She was a sweet, pretty thing, about my own age, but younger looking, fair, with grey eyes. She was in heavy crepe and her face all fallen and saddened like, with grief and hopelessness--I felt for her from the moment I saw her. And all the more that I"d made up my mind what her trouble was: I thought that the children were idiots, maybe, or feeble-minded, anyhow, and so the property would go to the Jew in the end and that his family were hating her for it! Folly, of course, but women will have fancies, and that seemed to fit in with all I"d heard.
She"d been told that Shipman was away with some light, infectious fever, and she took it very mildly, and said there was no need to get any one in her place, at present.
"Hodges will attend to everything," she said, in her pretty, tired way; "not that there"s much to do--for one poor woman."
"Things may mend, ma"am, and you"ll feel more like having some friends about you, most likely, later on," I said, to cheer her a bit.
She shook her head sadly.
"No, no, Sarah--if I can"t have my own about me, I"ll have no others,"
she said, and I thought I saw what she meant and said no more.
That night the doctor and the legal gentleman that looked after the family affairs were with us and my mistress kept them for dinner. I helped Hodges with the serving and was in the butler"s pantry after Mrs. Childress had left them with their coffee and cigars, and as Hodges had left the door ajar I couldn"t help catching a bit of the talk now and then.
"The worst of it is this trouble about the children," said the doctor.
"She will grieve herself into a decline, I"m afraid."
"I suppose there"s no hope?" said the other gentleman.
"No hope?" the doctor burst out. "Why, man, Robertson"s been dead six months!"
"To be sure--I"d forgotten it was so long. Well, well, it"s too bad, too bad," and Hodges came back and closed the door.
I must say I was thoroughly put out with the doctor. Why should he have told me a lie? And it was mostly from that that I deliberately disobeyed him that night, for I knew from the way he had spoken to the nurse that he didn"t wish the children mentioned. But I couldn"t help it, for when I came to her room to see if I could help her, she was sitting in her black bedroom gown with her long hair in two braids, crying over the children"s picture. "Hush, hush, ma"am," I said, kneeling by her and soothing her head, "if they were here, you may be sure they wouldn"t wish it."
"Who? Who?" she answers me, quite wild, but not angry at all. I saw this and spoke it out boldly, for it was plain that she liked me.
"Your children, ma"am," I said, softly but very firm, "and you should control yourself and be cheerful and act as if they _were_ here--as if it had pleased G.o.d to let you have them and not _Himself_!"
Such a look as she gave me! But soon she seemed to melt, like, and put out her arm over my shoulders.
"What a beautiful way to put it, Sarah!" says she, in a dreamy kind of way. "Do you really think G.o.d has them--somewhere?"
"Why, of course, ma"am," said I, shocked in good earnest. "Who else?"
"Then you think I might love them, just as if--just as if----" here she began to sob.
"Why, Mrs. Childress," I said, "where is your belief? That"s all that"s left to mothers. I know, for I"ve lost two, and their father to blame for it, which you need never say," I told her.
She patted my shoulder very kindly. "But oh, Sarah, if only they _were_ here!" she cried, "really, really here!"
"I know, I know," I said, "it"s very hard. But try to think it, ma"am--it helped me for weeks. Think they"re in the room next you, here, and you"ll sleep better for it."
"Shall I?" she whispered, gripping my hand hard. "I believe I would--how well you understand me, Sarah! And will you help me to believe it?"