CHAPTER VIII.

DARK DAYS.

"Cometh sunshine after rain; After mourning joy again; After heavy, bitter grief Dawneth surely sweet relief! And my soul, who from her height Sunk to realms of woe and night, Wingeth now to heaven her flight." _Lyra Germanica._

Emmie did not die, neither were her physician's worst fears verified; but for many a long week the frail existence hovered between life and death.

When the lethargy had passed a long season of delirium intervened, and every symptom of severe brain fever manifested itself. For weeks the little sufferer failed to recognize the loving faces that bent over her. Caleb Runciman spent most of his leisure hours beside the bedside, holding the hand of his little favorite, and gazing sorrowfully at the thin flushed face tossing so restlessly on the pillow.

Sometimes Molly, with her pleasant features and brisk homely ways, would come and watch through the long night, that Queenie might enjoy a few hours' repose. Caleb and his faithful Molly were the only visitors to the sick room. Miss Titheridge had pleaded once, almost with tears, to be allowed to take some part in the nursing, but Queenie had sternly refused. "Emmie shall see no one but those who love her," was the invariable reply.

Granite Lodge was deserted now; Cathy and the other girls had long ago gone home for the Christmas holidays. Cathy clung to her friends, crying bitterly, when the moment arrived for saying good-bye; but Queenie only looked at her with great weary eyes.

"I shall go home and tell Garth and Langley everything. They will be sure to ask you to come to us, after my London visit in May, to stay with us for a long, long time."

"If Emmie be ever strong enough," began Queenie; but somehow she could not finish her sentence. She suffered all Cathy's caresses passively, and then went back to her old place and laid her head on Emmie's pillow.

It seemed as though nothing could rouse her from the strange apathy that had crept over her after that terrible night. She heard almost without emotion that Fraulein had been dismissed; only, as the luggage was brought downstairs, and she heard Miss Titheridge's voice speaking in a subdued key in the corridor outside, she quietly left her place and opened the door.

Fraulein Heimer was at the head of the staircase in her travelling dress; she seemed petrified at the sight of Queenie. The girl walked up to her and laid her hand on her wrist. "Come here, Fraulein, I want you a moment," she said quietly; and, strange to say, the woman obeyed her without a word, and followed her to the threshold of the sick-room; but Queenie would not suffer her to enter. "You can see your work from here," she continued, in a suppressed voice. "Ah! she is smiling at you; she does not know you tried to be her murderer."

"You are cruel; you will have your revenge, or you would not have brought me here, Meess." The woman's coarse, brutal nature was absolutely cowed by the spectacle of suffering innocence.

The child lay upon her pillow smiling icily, and waving her emaciated arms to and fro upon the coverlid; the fair hair was closely shaven, the eyes dilated and brilliant.

"I have always longed for a cowslip ball; ask that lady to make me one, mamma; and strings and strings of daisy chains."

"Why did you bring me here, Meess? I will not stay, I will not look! Ach das arme Engelein; ach guädidge Himmel." The woman was trembling and all but hysterical. Queenie's detaining hand dropped from her wrist; her revenge was satisfied.

"I wish you to know how we suffered. Sometime, if Emmie gets well, I shall try to bring myself to forgive you; but not till then. There go, she is calling to me; she always calls me mamma."

It would not be too much to say that that sick room became Queenie's world; she knew literally nothing of what passed outside it. Cathy wrote long letters to her, but she seldom answered them. One day she enclosed a note from Langley.

"My dear Miss Marriott," it began, "Cathy's glowing description of her friend makes us long to know you; and my brother and I trust, that you and your dear little sister will be able to pay us a visit in the early summer. We know all your troubles, and wish that it were in our power to lighten them--" but here a restless movement from Emmie disturbed her, and she laid the letter aside.

Emmie's wanderings were rarely painful to the listener. A merciful oblivion had stamped out the memory of that terrible night; generally her talk was of the country. She imagined herself wandering in beautiful places with her mother and Queenie; gathering flowers, or else picking up shells and sea-weed on the shore. Now and then there would be a troubled break--the waves were threatening to engulph her--or a serpent, or strange-headed beast lurked among the flowers; at such times she would grow restless, and it required all Queenie's efforts to tranquillize her, while the constant cry of "Mamma, mamma," was pitiful to hear from the lips of the motherless child.

"Mamma is here," Queenie would answer with loving falsehood, laying the burning face on her breast; and something of the intense mother-love, seemed really to pass into the girl's heart.

She was growing haggard and hollow-eyed under the strain of the long nursing. The doctor shook his head and remonstrated in vain, and Caleb's entreaties were equally unavailing. "You will be ill, Miss Queenie; every one says so. You are up every night unless Molly is here, and barely snatch an hour's sleep in the twenty-four; you are over-taxing your strength, and a breakdown will be the consequence."

"I shall not break down as long as Emmie wants me," returned the girl bravely, but her lip trembled as though with weakness; she was becoming conscious that all this was becoming a terrible effort, that her strength would not hold out for ever. A sudden noise jarred upon her now; and once or twice, when her kind old friend was speaking to her, she had great trouble to refrain from bursting into tears.

Sometimes of an evening, when Caleb was there, she would wrap herself in a shawl, and walk up and down the stone hall and corridors to allay her restlessness; sometimes the door would open, and a red gleam shine out from Miss Titheridge's snug parlor, where she sat in cosy fireside circle with her friends. She looked up oddly and half-scared as Queenie's white face glimmered out of the darkness, but she never invited her to enter; the girl had repulsed her too surely for that.

The upstair corridor had a window at each end. Queenie was never weary of pacing this. Sometimes the moonlight flooded it, and she trod in a perfect pathway of light; once or twice she stood looking out on the snowy house-tops, shining under the eerie light of stars.

It seemed months since she had sat in the curious carved stall in the cathedral, since she had heard the Christmas anthems and Gounod's 'Bethlehem'; months since she had stood beside the old man's chair, pleading for his own flesh and blood.

Caleb had spoken to her once or twice of Mr. Calcott's strange and alarming seizure. He had kept his room ever since, and was considered in a somewhat critical state, he believed. Queenie heard him vaguely; but no suspicion as to the cause of his illness entered her mind.

The only thing that really roused her was when Emmie first feebly called her by her name. It was the night before the girls came back to school. Caleb had not yet paid his evening visit, and the sisters were alone.

"Is that you, Queenie?" Emmie had said. "I thought it was mamma," and Queenie had fallen on her knees, and murmured her thanksgiving with floods of grateful tears.

"I know Caleb too," she had said later on, when the old man came to her bedside; and something of the old quaint smile flitted over her face at the sight of her favorite. "Have I been ill, Caleb? Queenie has been crying dreadfully, and yet she says she is very happy."

"Yes, my precious lamb, you have been ill; and Miss Queenie there has almost knocked herself up with nursing you; but now you are going to get well and strong," laying down the little skeleton hand that could not raise itself. "Hush, my pretty; hush, Miss Emmie, my dear," as a large tear stole down the thin face; "you must not fret now you are getting better."

"I am so sorry for my Queen, my poor tired Queen," sobbed the child; but she was soon hushed and comforted by assurances that Queenie was only a little tired and would soon get rested.

Emmie slept for hours after this; and before many days were over a faint but steady progress was perceptible. Cathy indeed was shocked at her appearance, and wondered if anything so thin and unsubstantial could really be Emmie. Emmie smiled at her, but was too weak to speak more than a word or two.

One day, when she was well enough to be raised into a sitting posture and propped up with pillows, Caleb entered with a mysterious-looking basket, from whence proceeded a faint scratching sound; and this being opened, a small long-haired kitten, with a tiny perky face and bushy tail, crept mewing into Emmie's arms.

The child's delight and astonishment at the sight of the long-coveted treasure were almost overpowering, and she hugged the creature to her without speaking.

"Is it mine? is it really mine? will they let me keep it?" she gasped at length.

"It is my belief that they would let you keep a whole menagerie, if Miss Queenie there chose to say she wished it," returned Caleb with a sly glance at her; "some folks are properly frightened."

"Yes; Miss Titheridge will let you keep it," replied her sister quietly; "you need not be afraid; she is very kind now, Emmie."

"Oh yes, I know; when you are down at your lessons she often comes and sits with me; she brought me that funny little man full of sweetmeats yesterday. I went to give some of them to Cathy."

Queenie knew of these surreptitious visits, but she took no notice; it needed time to erase the memory of those years of neglect and cruelty. Emmie's sweet nature knew no resentment; but with Queenie it was different.

She saw that Miss Titheridge was afraid of her. "She has reason," thought Queenie; "she has injured me deeply. If the time ever comes to get rid of us both, she will do so gladly; but I do not mean to give her the chance; I am determined to find work elsewhere."

As soon as Emmie could safely be left for an hour or two Queenie resumed her work in the school-room unasked; now and then she stole upstairs for a peep at the invalid. She sometimes found Emmie asleep with the kitten in her arms, or surrounded by the pictures and flowers which the girls lavished on her. She would look up, and say cheerily as Queenie entered, "I am not a bit dull; Cathy and Clarice have been up, and just now Miss Titheridge brought me some jelly, and kittie and I have had such games," and then Queenie would go down again with a lightened heart to her uncongenial task.

She often worked late into the night, that she might devote more time to Emmie. The child flagged and grew weary towards evening, and then Queenie never left her. Long after all the inmates of Granite Lodge had fallen into a refreshing sleep the young governess would trim the shaded lamp, and pore patiently over the pile of copy-books waiting for correction. Even when her head was on the pillow she could not always rest. The future lay dark before her; she must find other work; but where? that was the question.

Emmie was gaining strength day by day; but for months, perhaps years, she would require the greatest care. The doctor's orders were stringent. She must not open a book for months; the brain would not bear the slightest pressure; she must lead a child's unthinking life--eat, drink, and play, and, above all, sleep.

Emmie took very kindly to this _régime_. She spent most of her time in sleep; during the remainder of her waking hours she would lie in languid content watching the antics of her kitten, or waiting for Queenie to come and talk to her.

Queenie made up her mind at last that she must speak to Miss Titheridge; and one evening she entered the little room where the governess sat casting up her accounts for the last month.

She looked up a little amazed at the interruption; but her manner changed when she saw Queenie, and became as usual slightly embarrassed.

"Do you want me, Miss Marriott? is there anything wrong with Emmie?"

"Nothing, thank you. I only wanted to speak to you about myself. I think it right that we should come to some sort of understanding about the future."

"About the future?"

"Yes, Miss Titheridge,"--Queenie was the more self-possessed of the two,--"it seems to me that we cannot go on like this much longer. Emmie's illness has been a great expense and trouble; and, as far as I see, she will not cease to be a trouble for a long time to come, and we have no right to burthen you."

"It is certainly very unfortunate," began the governess. "Dr. Prout is very kind about it; but still, as you say, it is a sad inconvenience; one of my best rooms too."

"As long as Emmie remains she cannot go back to her old one. Dr. Prout expressly forbids it; he says any renewal of the terror might be fatal."

"Well, we must say no more about it then," turning over her papers nervously.

"Thank you. Believe me," continued Queenie earnestly, "I do thank you for your kindness, tardy though it be to Emmie. I am only sorry that I cannot feel more grateful for it; but after what has happened there can be no question of gratitude between us."

"I am sorry you are of so unforgiving a disposition, Miss Marriott."

"I hope it is not that. I think it is that I have suffered too much to be able to forget; but what I meant to say was this: Emmie's weak health is only likely to be an inconvenience, and we have no right to burthen a stranger. I have therefore reluctantly acceded to my old friend Mr. Runciman's request, to place Emmie with him, while I look out for fresh work. He has found me hard to persuade," continued the girl, smiling faintly as Caleb's arguments recurred to her; "but circumstances have somewhat changed, and I do not fear now that this step will injure him."

"And when do you intend to leave me?" enquired Miss Titheridge in an injured voice, for Queenie was too valuable a governess to replace easily. In her heart, though, she was secretly relieved at the course things were taking; now she would not have the onus of dismissing the orphans from her roof.

"I shall be glad to remain until Easter," replied Queenie, quietly; and as Miss Titheridge only bowed her head and made no comment she withdrew.

"I have done the deed, Cathy," she said, coming into her friend's room, looking pale and exhausted; "and now it is off my mind. After Easter we shall be homeless."

"Nonsense!" interrupted Cathy, rapturously embracing her; "you will only be out of the dragon's clutches. You are coming to us for a long, long visit; and you shall not leave us until you have found another situation; and after that Emmie is going to that dear funny Mr. Runciman's."

"Only for a little while; I shall not leave her long there. You see Mr. Calcott's illness has made a difference; they say he will never be well, and so he will not find out that Caleb is going to have Emmie; besides which, Caleb has promised to take the money I gave Miss Titheridge."

"So your pride is satisfied. I am glad of that, my dear Madam Dignity. Now let us go and sit with Emmie."