CHAPTER XIII

Motherless

Thou art beyond the shadow; Why should we weep for thee, That thou from care and pain and death Art set for ever free? Well may we cease to sorrow; Or if we weep at all, Not for thy fate, but for our own, Our bitter tears shall fall. G. WILSON.

"MOLLY, one of us must go to mother."

"You must. How can I?"

And Molly raised her red and swollen eyes, with another deep sob.

Betty stood irresolutely in the middle of the room.

"I am sure mother will expect to see you first."

"I can't go, Betty. I can't! I don't believe you feel it like I do. Oh, mother! Mother!"

Down went her head into her arms. She was crying as if her heart would break. Betty walked out of the room and upstairs, wondering if she were in a dream. Surely such an awful trouble as this would be averted even yet!

She stole into her mother's room, hardly daring to look at her as she lay on her couch. The room was darkened. Mrs. Stuart was lying with closed eyes, and did not open them.

"Is that Molly?"

"No, mother, it is I. Can I do anything for you?"

Betty's voice sounded strange to herself. It was almost stony in its quietness.

"Is Molly in?"

"Yes; she—she will come up soon."

Mrs. Stuart was silent. Betty nervously began to move a tray with a cup of beef-tea upon it from the side of the couch. Then her mother said quietly,—

"I suppose your uncle told you that Dr. Forsyth wishes me to have a night nurse? She will come at five o'clock, and will want some tea. She had better have the dressing-room on the other side of the passage. You must see about it being got ready for her."

A great lump rose in Betty's throat; her mother's care and thought for the nurse who was going to see her die seemed infinitely pathetic. She wished her uncle had not told them that no allusion must be made to their mother's danger in her presence, for she felt tongue-tied now; afraid to offer the slightest remark, for fear of breaking down. She walked to the window, and, in her desperation, began humming a little air to herself. Then, in surprisingly cheerful tones, she said,—

"I will see that she has everything she wants, mother. It is such a lovely day. Would you like me to draw up the blind a little? Fancy! I heard from Lottie Ward this morning, and she is going to be married to Martin Yates!"

She was talking at random. The lump in her throat seemed almost to choke her. What could she say to her mother? What could she do at a crisis like this?

Mrs. Stuart, as usual, misunderstood her. Though it had been her own wish that her girls should not recognise the truth of her state to herself, she was taken aback by Betty's apparent indifference.

"I need not have feared she would make a scene," she thought, a little bitterly, to herself. "It is only from compulsion that she is staying at home this winter. She will be free to do and go where she likes soon. I dare say she will be glad. My poor little Molly has quite broken down, evidently. Well, it is all for the best! One of my daughters will be able to attend on me, without any violation of her feelings. There will be no fear of Betty's breaking down. I wonder if she has any love for me at all?"

"You can read the articles in the 'Times' to me as usual," Mrs. Stuart said presently. "Sit by the window and draw up part of the blind."

Betty got the paper, and read it in a monotonous level tone. How could her mother care for the newspapers? she wondered. What was the good of anything, when her life was gradually ebbing away? Now and again a little choke came into her voice, but she conquered it.

The hour that she was with her mother seemed almost twenty-four hours in length. She was released at last, for her mother's maid came in. Just for a minute before she went, Betty stood looking down at the invalid.

"Is there nothing I can do for you, mother?"

There was wistful longing in her tone, but Mrs. Stuart's matter-of-fact reply sent her from the room with mingled feelings of despair and astonishment.

"Nothing, thank you. Send Molly to me soon. The reports of the S.P.S.H. have just arrived, and I want them sent off as soon as possible."

Betty went down to Molly, with eyes full of consternation and dismay. She found her, poker in hand, kneeling by the fire, and a strong smell of burning filled the room.

"Molly, how soon can you go to mother? She wants you."

Molly stood up and faced her sister. She was red-eyed still, but her face was white and set, and there was a look of determined resolve on it that Betty had never seen before.

"What have you been doing?" faltered Betty.

"I have been burning my manuscripts," said Molly. Her voice was almost stern in tone. "I can't play with life any longer, Betty. I shall never forgive myself, that I have been so absorbed in fictitious tragedies, that a tragedy taking place under our own roof has been unnoticed by us. Oh, Betty! Why have they kept us in ignorance of it? All this year mother has been slowly dying. Think of it! And she has known it, and borne the burden of it all alone!"

"It is awful!" cried Betty. "Why doesn't everything stop, Molly? What is the good of eating, and drinking, and reading the newspapers, when death is coming nearer every day?"

She shuddered as she spoke; then added quickly,—

"Mother gives me such a shock. She is just the same as she was yesterday. I have been reading the newspaper to her, and she talks so calmly of everything. Do you think Uncle Harry may have been mistaken? I can't believe it."

"The nurse!" Molly said. "How could you read, Betty? How can you keep so calm? You are generally so much more excited than I am. Yes, the nurse must mean that there is danger."

She began to cry again. Betty kissed her with quivering lips.

"Oh, Molly, you mustn't! Mother is wanting you so! Do get calm, and go into her room, as if nothing had happened. Don't cry any more. Mother is wanting you to send off some reports!"

Betty finished by a little hysterical laugh. Molly dried her eyes, and looked at her in wonder.

"Reports? What do they matter? I shall burn them all. Oh, Betty, Douglas ought to know, and Bobby and Billy! How can we get them here?"

"I will write at once. Go upstairs and brush your hair. Oh, don't begin to cry again, for pity's sake! Do go to mother. It is you that she wants!"

In the days that followed it was Betty that took the lead. Molly was beside herself with terror and anxiety. It was some time before Mrs. Stuart mentioned her state to her daughters. She had always been a reserved woman in matters that belonged to herself, and though she grew rapidly weaker, she insisted upon continuing her large correspondence. The day came, however, when she said to Molly,—

"There, dear, that is my last letter. You must attend to everything now without reference to me."

Once Betty entered the room, and found her mother with an open Bible by her side. She longed to say something, but felt paralysed. Mrs. Stuart had never talked with her children upon religious subjects. She rarely allowed religious discussions; but now, seeing Betty's earnest eyes, she spoke,—

"I have had Mr. Fosberry here; he has been reading to me."

Mr. Fosberry was their clergyman.

"I am so glad, mother." Then with an effort she added, "It is the only Book that comforts, because it is true."

Mrs. Stuart smiled, and her smiles were so rare that Betty's heart was warmed and quickened.

Very shyly she laid her hand on her mother's thin, wasted one.

"You will be happy," she said. "It is we who shall be miserable."

"A sick bed is not a happy place, Betty," Mrs. Stuart said sorrowfully, and with strange gentleness. "You see your past, with all its failures, and mistakes, with such distinctness."

"But your past, mother, has been a life lived for others, and not for yourself. You can have nothing to regret."

And Betty thought of the avalanche of sympathetic letters that came pouring in day by day by post, letters from all quarters of the globe, in which the writers, one and all, agreed in lamenting that such a valuable and useful life was about to be taken away.

"Betty," said Mrs. Stuart slowly, "listen to me, and profit by my experience. You are longing to take up work, and when I am gone, of course, you will be a free agent. I would warn you not to fill your life with work to the exclusion of the One who should come first. I may have lived for others; I have failed to live for Him. Take up the Bible and read me that verse which is marked in it."

Betty obeyed, but her voice trembled as she read,—

"'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.'"

"That will do. Now leave me. I want to be alone."

And this was the only talk that Betty had with her mother concerning her state.

Not one of their brothers could come home. Major Stuart did all he could, and his nieces felt that without him they could not have lived through that trying time. When the first lilac buds were bursting forth in the London parks, Mrs. Stuart died, reserved and silent until the last. She had no farewell with her daughters. She gave them no parting wishes. Major Stuart was the only one with whom she consulted, and so, as the faint spring sunshine streamed into the rooms that were open once more to its rays, it fell on the white, anxious faces of the two motherless girls, as together they turned to their uncle,—

"And now, Uncle Harry, what are we to do?"

Major Stuart looked at them and sighed. He wished they were a little older, a little less pretty; and then he wished he were a married man, with a home to offer them. He dared not utter his next thought, "They must get married."

"Your Aunt Dora has offered one of you a home," he said slowly.

"Only one of us?" gasped Molly. "Well we shall have money enough to be independent, shall we not? We need not separate. We shall keep a home together for the boys. Neither of us will need to go to Aunt Dora."

Mrs. Eagleton was not a favourite with her nieces. She and her husband lived in Yorkshire. They had no children, and were rather fidgety and particular in their ways. Their house was a dull one, and hardly an attractive place for a young girl.

"You two girls cannot live alone. It is out of the question. Betty, would Mrs. St. Clair still like to have you?"

Betty flushed. She felt ashamed of the throb of pleasure that her uncle's words gave her.

"Yes, I believe she would. She wrote again yesterday about it, but I couldn't leave Molly."

"And I cannot go to Aunt Dora's," said Molly, sitting down on a chair and beginning to cry. "I really cannot, Uncle Harry. I shall go mad if I do! She will grind me down, and refuse to let me move my little finger without her permission. She will starve me in soul and body. She and Uncle Tom are on vegetarian diet at present. I would rather take poison at once than be slowly killed by her. I couldn't live with her! Oh, do have pity, and don't suggest such a thing!"

"Did mother say nothing about us to you?" asked Betty.

"Yes," replied her uncle, hesitating; "she did. She thought you, Betty, might like to go to Holly Grange for a time, and then, if you liked to take up work of any kind, you could do so—that is, provided Mrs. St. Clair and I approved. I am your guardian, remember."

"And me?" Molly asked breathlessly.

"Well—er—we did not arrive at any conclusion about you. I think it would be well to go to Mrs. Eagleton for a time, and then you might pay a few visits from her. You have plenty of friends. What about the Dormers?"

"Oh," said Molly, with a rising blush, "I shall never go and see them again—never!"

Her uncle looked curiously at her.

"I thought Ella was such a friend of yours —and Frank?"

"Uncle Harry," said Betty, trying to cover her sister's confusion, "why cannot Molly and I stay on in this house? You say it is ours to do what we like with."

Major Stuart shrugged his shoulders.

"Because of Mrs. Grundy. I might look out for some matron or elderly spinster to come and look after you, but I fancy the best plan would be to shut it up at present. Perhaps Mrs. St. Clair will take you both for a time. We will see."

[Illustration: "DID MOTHER SAY NOTHING ABOUT US TO YOU?" ASKED BETTY.]

And this was what was finally arranged; Molly and Betty both went down to Holly Grange. Nesta wrote them a warm entreaty to make her house at present their home. They arrived at Tiverstoke Station on a cold, windy afternoon in March.

"It was only a year ago we came down with mother," said Molly sadly. "It seems as if we are fated to be in this part."

"Don't you like it?" asked Betty. "We have friends here. I shall much prefer it to London. But I never thought, when we left it last year, that we should come back again."

"There will be nothing to do," said Molly, with a weary sigh. "And the Dormers are abroad. I—I am glad of that."

She did not look glad. Nesta thought, when she met them, that Molly had the saddest face of the two. There had been a great deal to do after their mother's death, and as long as Molly was employed she was content, but with leisure on her hands she was wretched. She seemed for the time to have lost all her sweet placidity. And Betty found that nothing she did or said could please her.

Nesta did not meet them at the station, though she sent her carriage. As they stepped into the hall she came forward with her little son to welcome them, and with a sudden rush of memories Betty seemed to see herself again a little white-frocked child, being led out of the sun into the cool, shady hall. Everything looked just the same. The same old-fashioned pot-pourri pots stood about the hall and stairs, the glass garden doors at the end of the hall showed glimpses of bright hyacinths and tulips, where Betty as a child had seen lilies and roses, and when stately Mrs. Fairfax moved slowly across the drawing-room to greet them, Betty almost fancied time had slipped back to fifteen years ago. There was one small person who soon disturbed this fancy.

"You're Godmother Betty! Granny, have you ever seen her before, and don't you think she—is a very pretty godmother? At least—" here Jossy paused and eyed her doubtfully—"you're not very pretty in that black dress. You had a red dress in London, and your eyes were more laughing. Everybody wears black dresses in England. It's so ugly. We don't wear black in India."

He was holding his grandmother's hand as he spoke, and dancing up and down with excitement.

Mrs. Fairfax had changed little with time. Her hair was white now where it had been grey, her face a little more lined, but her figure was as erect as ever, and her voice exactly the same.

She held Betty's hand in hers for a minute and looked at her keenly.

"I should have known you anywhere," she said. "But I have not seen you since Nesta's wedding."

"No," said Betty, flushing a little under her inspection. "I am glad I have not changed much. I feel just the same—only older, and—sadder."

"You wanted to hurry trouble into your young life when I first made your acquaintance," said Mrs. Fairfax. "I suppose you have found it has come quickly enough."

"This last year it has," answered Betty slowly.

There was a look in her face that told Mrs. Fairfax there had been more to trouble her than her recent bereavement. No more was said, for Nesta came forward to show her to her room.

The girls had a bedroom each side by side. Betty sat down by her window and looked out. A feeling of peace and rest stole into her heart.

"I can enjoy this now," she said to herself. "I am thankful I was prevented from coming before. I should never have forgiven myself had I done so. Oh, mother! I wonder where you are, and what you are doing! Molly and I are lost without you!"