Part 33 (2/2)
”A boy! He shall live! He is mine--my son! I will have him. Since his mother is dead, it is I who have the best right to him!” exclaimed the countess vehemently, rising to her feet.
The maid recoiled--she thought her mistress had suddenly gone mad.
”Phoebe,” said the countess eagerly, ”what is the hour?”
”Nearly eleven, my lady.”
”Has it cleared off?”
”No, my lady; it has come on to rain hard; it is pouring.”
The countess went to the windows of her room, but they were too closely shut and warmly curtained to give her any information as to the state of the weather without. Then she hurried impatiently into the pa.s.sage where the one end window remained with its shutters still unclosed, and she looked out. The rain was las.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s with fury. She turned away and sought her own room again--complaining:
”Oh, I can never go to-night! It is too late and too stormy! Mrs.
Brudenell would think me crazy, and the woman at the hut would never let me have my son. Yet, oh! what would I not give to have him on my bosom to-night,” said Berenice, pacing feverishly about the room.
”My lady,” said the maid uneasily, ”I don't think you are well at all this evening. Won't you let me give you some salvolatile?”
”No, I don't want any!” replied the countess, without stopping in her restless walk.
”But, my lady, indeed you are not well!” persisted the affectionate creature.
”No, I am not well, Phoebe! My heart is sore, sore, Phoebe! But that child would be a balm to it! If I could press my son to my bosom, Phoebe, he would draw out all the fire and pain!”
”But, my lady, he is not your son!” said the maid, with tears of alarm starting in her eyes.
”He is, girl! Now that his mother is dead he is mine! Who has a better right to him than I, I wonder? His mother is gone! his father--” Here the countess suddenly recollected herself, and as she looked into her maid's astonished face she felt how far apart were the ideas of the Jewish matron and the Christian maiden. She controlled her emotion, took her seat, and said:
”Don't be alarmed, Phoebe. I am only a little nervous to-night, my girl. And I want something more satisfactory than a little dog to pet.”
”I don't think, my lady, you could get anything in the world more grateful, or more faithful, or more easy to manage, than a little dog.
Certainly not a baby. Babies is awful, my lady. They aint got a bit of grat.i.tude or faithfulness in them; and after you have toted them about all day, you may tote them about all night. And then they are bawling from the first day of January until the thirty-first day of December.
Take my advice, my lady, and stick to the little dogs, and let babies alone, if you love your peace.”
The countess smiled faintly and kept silence. But--she kept her resolution also.
The last words that night spoken after she was in bed, and when she was about to dismiss her maid, were these:
”Phoebe, mind that you are not to say one word to any human being of the subject of our conversation to-night. But you are to call me at eight o'clock, have my breakfast brought to me here at half-past eight, and the carriage at the door at nine. Do you hear?”
”Yes, my lady,” answered the girl, who immediately went to the small room adjoining her mistress' chamber, where she usually sat by day and slept by night.
The countess could only sleep in perfect darkness; so when Phoebe had put out all the lights she took advantage of that darkness to leave her door open, so that she could listen if her mistress was restless or wakeful. The maid soon discovered that her mistress was wakeful and restless.
The countess could not sleep for contemplating her project of the morning. According to her Jewish ideas, the motherless son of her husband was as much hers as though she had brought him into the world.
And thus she, poor, unloved and childless wife, was delighted with the son that she thought had dropped from heaven into her arms.
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