Part 121 (1/2)

”Yes, I knew her abroad.”

”Oh!” said the boy. ”Why did you never tell us? What did she say? What was she like?”

”She said”--sobbing wildly--”that she was parted from her children here; but she should meet them in Heaven, and be with them forever. William, darling! all the awful pain, and sadness, and guilt of this world will be washed out, and G.o.d will wipe your tears away.”

”What was her face like?” he questioned softly.

”Like yours. Very much like Lucy's.”

”Was she pretty?”

A momentary pause. ”Yes.”

”Oh, dear, I am ill. Hold me!” cried out William, as his head sank to one side, and great drops, as large as peas, broke forth upon his clammy face. It appeared to be one of the temporary faint attacks that overpowered him at times lately, and Lady Isabel rang the bell hastily.

Wilson came in, in answer. Joyce was the usual attendant upon the sick room; but Mrs. Carlyle, with her infant, was pa.s.sing the day at the Grove; unconscious of the critical state of William, and she had taken Joyce with her. It was the day following the trial. Mr. Justice Hare had been brought to West Lynne in his second attack, and Barbara had gone to see him, to console her mother, and to welcome Richard to his home again. If one carriage drove, that day, to the Grove, with cards and inquiries, fifty did, not to speak of the foot callers. ”It is all meant by way of attention to you, Richard,” said gentle Mrs. Hare, smiling through her loving tears at her restored son. Lucy and Archie were dining at Miss Carlyle's, and Sarah attended little Arthur, leaving Wilson free. She came in, in answer to Madame Vine's ring.

”Is he off in another faint?” unceremoniously cried she, hastening to the bed.

”I think so. Help to raise him.”

William did not faint. No; the attack was quite different from those he was subject to. Instead of losing consciousness and power, as was customary, he shook as if he had the ague, and laid hold both of Madame Vine and Wilson, grasping them convulsively.

”Don't let me fall! Don't let me fall!” he gasped.

”My dear, you cannot fall,” responded Madame Vine. ”You forget that you are on the bed.”

He clasped them yet, and trembled still, as from fear. ”Don't let me fall! Don't let me fall” the incessant burden of his cry.

The paroxysm pa.s.sed. They wiped his brow, and stood looking at him; Wilson with a pursed up mouth, and a peculiar expression of face. She put a spoonful of restorative jelly between his lips, and he swallowed it, but shook his head when she would have given him another. Turning his face to the pillow, in a few minutes he was in a doze.

”What could it have been?” exclaimed Lady Isabel, in an undertone, to Wilson.

”I know,” was the oracular answer. ”I saw this same sort of an attack once before, madame.”

”And what caused it?”

”Twasn't in a child though,” went on Wilson--”'twas in a grown person.

But that's nothing, it comes for the same thing in all. I think he was taken for death.”

”Who?” uttered Lady Isabel, startled.

Wilson made no reply in words, but she pointed with her finger to the bed.

”Oh, Wilson, he is not so ill as that. Mr. Wainwright said this morning, that he might last a week or two.”

Wilson composedly sat herself down in the easiest chair. She was not wont to put herself out of the way for the governess; and that governess was too much afraid of her, in one sense, to let her know her place. ”As to Wainwright, he's n.o.body,” quoth she. ”And if he saw the child's breath going out before his face, and knew that the next moment would be his last, he'd vow to us all that he was good for twelve hours to come.

You don't know Wainwright as I do, madame. He was our doctor at mother's; and he has attended in all the places I have lived in since I went out to service. Five years I was maid at Mrs. Hare's. I came here when Miss Lucy was a baby, and in all my places has he attended, like one's shadow. My Lady Isabel thought great guns of old Wainwright, I remember. It was more than I did.”

My Lady Isabel made no response to this. She took a seat and watched William through her gla.s.ses. His breathing was more labored than usual.