"If you will leave the house now,I will come to you to-morrow and tell you all.What is more,you shall see your child now.She lies sleeping up-stairs.O,sir,you have a child,you do not know that as yet--a little weakly girl--with just a heart and soul beyond her years.We have reared her up with such care:We watched her,for we thought for many a year she might die any day,and we tended her,and no hard thing has come near her,and no rough word has ever been said to her.And now you,come and will take her life into your hand,and will crush it.Strangers to her have been kind to her;but her own father--Mr.Frank,I am her nurse,and I love her,and Itend her,and I would do anything for her that I could.Her mother's heart beats as hers beats;and,if she suffers a pain,her mother trembles all over.If she is happy,it is her mother that smiles and is glad.If she is growing stronger,her mother is healthy:if she dwindles,her mother languishes.If she dies--well,I don't know:it is not every one can lie down and die when they wish it.Come up-stairs,Mr.Frank,and see your child.
Seeing her will do good to your poor heart.Then go away,in God's name,just this one night-to-morrow,if need be,you can do anything--kill us all if you will,or show yourself--a great grand man,whom God will bless for ever and ever.Come,Mr.Frank,the look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace."She led him up-stairs;at first almost helping his steps,till they came near the nursery door.She had almost forgotten the existence of little Edwin.It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light fell upon the other cot;but she skilfully threw that corner of the room into darkness,and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie.The child had thrown down the coverings,and her deformity,as she lay with her back to them,was plainly visible through her slight night-gown.Her little face,deprived of the lustre of her eyes,looked wan and pinched,and had a pathetic expression in it,even as she slept.The poor father looked and looked with hungry,wistful eyes,into which the big tears came swelling up slowly,and dropped heavily down,as he stood trembling and shaking all over.
Norah was angry with herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long lingering gaze lasted.She thought that she waited for full half-an-hour before Frank stirred.And then--instead of going away--he sank down on his knees by the bedside,and buried his face in the clothes.Little Ailsie stirred uneasily.Norah pulled him up in terror.She could afford no more time even for prayer in her extremity of fear;for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home.She took him forcibly by the arm;but,as he was going,his eye lighted on the other bed:he stopped.Intelligence came back into his face.His hands clenched.
"His child?"he asked.
"Her child,"replied Norah."God watches over him,"said she instinctively;for Frank's looks excited her fears,and she needed to remind herself of the Protector of the helpless.
"God has not watched over me,"he said,in despair;his thoughts apparently recoiling on his own desolate,deserted state.But Norah had no time for pity.To-morrow she would be as compassionate as her heart prompted.At length she guided him downstairs and shut the outer door and bolted it--as if by bolts to keep out facts.
Then she went back into the dining-room and effaced all traces of his presence as far as she could.She went upstairs to the nursery and sate there,her head on her hand,thinking what was to come of all this misery.It seemed to her very long before they did return;yet it was hardly eleven o'clock.She so heard the loud,hearty Lancashire voices on the stairs;and,for the first time,she understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so lately gone forth in lonely despair.
It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs.Openshaw come in,calmly smiling,handsomely dressed,happy,easy,to inquire after her children.
"Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?"she whispered to Norah.
"Yes."
Her mother bent over her,looking at her slumbers with the soft eyes of love.How little she dreamed who had looked on her last!Then she went to Edwin,with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance,but more of pride.She took off her things,to go down to supper.Norah saw her no more that night.
Beside the door into the passage,the sleeping-nursery opened out of Mr.and Mrs.Openshaw's room,in order that they might have the children more immediately under their own eyes.Early the next summer morning Mrs.Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie's startled call of "Mother!mother!"She sprang up,put on her dressing-gown,and went to her child.Ailsie was only half awake,and in a not uncommon state of terror.
"Who was he,mother?Tell me!"
"Who,my darling?No one is here.You have been dreaming love.
Waken up quite.See,it is broad daylight.""Yes,"said Ailsie,looking round her;then clinging to her mother,said,"but a man was here in the night,mother.""Nonsense,little goose.No man has ever come near you!""Yes,he did.He stood there.Just by Norah.A man with hair and a beard.And he knelt down and said his prayers.Norah knows he was here,mother"(half angrily,as Mrs.Openshaw shook her head in smiling incredulity).
"Well!we will ask Norah when she comes,"said Mrs.Openshaw,soothingly."But we won't talk any more about him now.It is not five o'clock;it is too early for you to get up.Shall I fetch you a book and read to you?""Don't leave me,mother,"said the child,clinging to her.So Mrs.
Openshaw sate on the bedside talking to Ailsie,and telling her of what they had done at Richmond the evening before,until the little girl's eyes slowly closed and she once more fell asleep.
"What was the matter?"asked Mr.Openshaw,as his wife returned to bed."Ailsie wakened up in a fright,with some story of a man having been in the room to say his prayers,--a dream,I suppose."And no more was said at the time.
