Part 23 (1/2)

That was very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the night, and lay down on a mattress at the foot of my bed.

The sedative which the Doctor sent did not work very well. I had very little sleep, and that full of such hideous, freezing dreams, that every time I woke, I found Bettina standing by my bed, looking at me with alarm. I had been screaming and moaning, she said, The screaming and moaning and sleeping (such as it was), were all over in about two hours, and then I had the rest of the night to endure, with the same strange, light feeling in my head--the restlessness not much, but somewhat abated.

I was very glad that Bettina was in the room, for though she was sleepy, and always a little stupid, she was human, and I was a coward, both in the matter of loneliness and of suffering. I made her sit by me, and take hold of my hand, and I asked her several times if she had ever been with any one that died, or that--I did not quite dare to ask her about going mad.

My questions seemed to trouble her. She crossed herself, and shuddered, and said, No, she had never been with any one that died, and she prayed the good G.o.d never to let her be.

”You'll have to be with one person that dies, Bettina. That's yourself.

You know it's got to come. We've all got to go out at that gate,” and I moaned, and turned my face away.

”Let me call Mr. Richard,” said Bettina, very much afraid. I would have given all the world to have seen Richard then; but I knew it was impossible, and I said, No, it would soon be morning.

Long before morning, I heard Richard up and walking about the house. We were to leave the house at half-past four. By four, all the trunks, and shawls, and packages, were strapped and ready, and I was sitting dressed, and waiting by the window.

Bettina liked very much better to pack trunks, and put rooms in order, than to sit still and hold a person's hot hands, in the middle of the night, and have dreadful questions asked her; and she had been very active and efficient. Soon Richard called her to come down and take my breakfast up to me. I could not eat it, and it was taken away. Then the carriage came, and the wagon to take the baggage. Finally, Richard came, and told me it was time to start, if I were ready.

Sophie came into the room in a wrapper, looking very dutiful and patient, and said all that was dutiful and civil. But I suppose I was a fiery trial to her, and she wished, no doubt, that she had never seen me, or better, that Richard never had. All this I felt, through her decently framed good-bye, but I did not care at all; to be out of her sight as soon as possible, was all that I requested.

When we went down in the hall, Richard looked anxiously at me, but I did not feel as if I had ever been there before; I really had no feeling. I said good-bye to Bettina, who was the only servant that I saw, and Richard put me into the carriage. When, we drove away, I did not even look back. As we pa.s.sed out of the gate, I said to him, ”What day of the month is it to-day?”

”It is the first of September,” he returned.

”And when did I come here?” I asked.

”Early in June, was it not?” he said. ”You know I was not here.”

”Then it is not three months,” and I leaned back wearily in the carriage, and was silent.

Before we reached the city, Richard had good reason to think that I was very ill. He made me as comfortable as he could, poor fellow! but I was so restless, I could not keep in one position two minutes at a time.

Several times I turned to him and said, ”It is suffocating in this car; cannot the window be put up?” and when it was put up, I would seem to feel no relief, and in a few moments, perhaps, would be shaking with a nervous chill. It must have been a miserable journey, as I remember it.

Once I said to Richard, after some useless trouble I had put him to, ”I am very sorry, Richard, I don't know how to help it, I feel so dreadfully.”

Richard tried to answer, but his voice was husky, and he bent his head down to arrange the bundle of shawls beneath my feet. I knew that there were tears in his eyes, and that that was the reason that he did not speak. It made me strangely, momentarily grateful.

”How strange that you should be so good,” I said dreamily, ”when Sophie is so hateful, and Kilian is so trifling. I think your mother must have been a good woman.”

I had never talked about Richard's mother before, never even thought whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and light-hearted selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was then, makes strange plunges out of its own orbit.

”And she died when you were little?”

”Yes, when I was scarcely twelve years old.”

”A woman ought to be very good when it makes so much difference to her children. Richard, did my uncle ever tell you anything about my mother--what sort of a woman she was, and whether I am like her?”

”He never said a great deal to me about it,” Richard answered, not looking at me as he talked. ”He thinks you are like her, very strikingly, I believe.”

”Think! I haven't even a sc.r.a.p of a picture of her, and no one has ever talked to me about her. All I have are some old yellow letters to my father, written before I was born. I think she loved my father very much. The noise of these cars makes me feel so strangely. Can't we go into the one behind? I am sure it cannot be so bad.”

”This is the best car on the train, Pauline. I know the noise is very bad, but try to bear it for a little while. We shall soon be there.” And so on, through the weary journey.