The Home at Greylock. E. Prentiss
is your mother's hospital," said Mrs. Grey, "and you are matron, doctor, nurse, daughter, everything she can need. On these shelves," she added, opening a door, "are the hospital supplies; with this spirit-lamp you can make tea, warm liquids, and do a score of things. Here is a shade from the gas at night; this is a tray for food, when your patient takes to bed; this little nursery refrigerator will keep you supplied with ice day and night, and preserve milk and the like twelve hours and more. This candle will be of service when you have to move about at night, and these dressing-gowns can be washed at your pleasure. You see I am an old soldier in this sort of battle-field, and keep my armor always at hand."
All this, spoken in a cheerful, business-like manner, gave Margaret time to recover herself; without a word of thanks on the one hand, or of demur on the other, she accepted the situation, took off her outer garments and hung them up, and turning to Mrs. Grey, asked, as if all that was befalling her was an every-day occurrence:
"When is my mother coming?"
"I am going for her now. She thinks she is merely to call here to bid you farewell, and then go and languish her life away among strangers."
And then, as Margaret was going to speak, she said:
"I wouldn't talk about it just now, if I were you." So saying, she drove off in her carriage, and in a few hours mother and daughter were alone together in the sweet, fresh room which was now their home. They sat down before the fire, and looked in each other's face as they only look who know that death may part, but never separate them.
"Do you know where you are, mother?" Margaret asked at length.
"Yes," was the surprised answer, "I am in Mrs. Grey's house, on my way to the hospital."
"No, you are in the hospital now, on the way to heaven!"
Then they laughed and cried, and said it was a dream. So they sat, hand in hand, in the long twilight; then Margaret made tea, and cut bread and toasted it, and from the adjoining store-room brought out such delicacies as invalids sometimes will fancy when better food grows insipid, and then helped her mother into one of the soft beds, shaded the gas, and sat thinking, thinking, thinking, till the soft breathing of the sleeper admonished her that she, too, ought to be asleep.
It was not till late next morning that Mrs. Grey came to inquire after her guests, and when she did so, she was in such brilliant spirits, and acted so exactly as if this were a real hospital, miles away, that there was no use in trying to prove that it was not. They had never seen her otherwise than very much in earnest; now she came out in a new character. She told stories; she read amusing extracts from a book she had with her; said she believed she would take lunch with them in case Margaret could stew some oysters on that wonderful little lamp, and made them feel so thoroughly at home that Margaret became quite gay, ran around laying the table in a way that would have put brisk Mary to the blush, and soon had a cosy little lunch prepared, which they all enjoyed.
"If such times could only last!" Margaret thought. "But good times never do." And then she asked leave to exhibit Maud's rooms to her mother, and not an object of beauty escaped their notice, while Mrs. Grey enjoyed their appreciation of her darling's taste.
So time slipped by; Mrs. Grey invariably keeping up Mrs. Haydon's and Margaret's spirits; making the best of everything; suggesting employments for hours when the invalid was free from pain; change of food; change of position; change of furniture; change of pictures when the eye wearied of them, and never out of patience or out of heart. At times the two women fell into sweet and grave talk that Margaret, sitting silently at her work, could not understand. Their doctrines puzzled her beyond measure. She said to herself now and again:
"I don't think so! I don't believe that!" And then would try to reconcile their happy, cheerful lives, their patience, their submission, with her own theories, failed to do it, but carped and caviled within herself, and watched for flaws in them as cats watch for mice, all ready to spring out upon them and rout or devour them.
"It's so queer," she thought, "to hear two people, who have been born and brought up in different countries and in entirely different ways, talk together as if they'd always belonged to one family. They're just like Freemasons—they know each other by the touch. I can't understand it. And now mother has got me off her hands, I verily believe she thinks it the nicest thing in the world to die. But I don't believe she's going to die. People that are going to die are solemn, and mother isn't in the least solemn. She is just exactly what she was before that horrid doctor said she could only live six months. Now I know that, what with freedom from over-work, and nice, tempting food, and living with such a dear, good, funny, quaint old lady, she'll see too well what is good for her, to die. To die! Ugh! I hope I shall live a hundred years! It will take fully that to make up for the time I've lost."
It is easy to believe what one wants to believe, and Margaret found it agreeable to delude herself into the fondest hopes. Her love for her mother, though rarely exhibited, was her ruling passion; it was the only master to whom she would ever submit, yet more than once she became its slave.
Mrs. Haydon's disease, however, was making progress, as she knew perfectly well; and from time to time she tried to give Margaret the parting counsels a Christian mother would naturally wish to give. But Margaret never would allow any allusion to be made to an event she was resolved should not take place, and so the precious time passed on. Mrs. Haydon conferred with Mrs. Grey on the subject, who advised her to put in writing some of the things she longed to say. But the poor woman did not hold the pen of a ready writer, and was, besides, in constant pain; so day after day passed and nothing was done. Then came a sudden change for the worse, and after that a gradual loss of strength, till at last, to her perfect horror, Margaret had to admit that the case was hopeless. The first warm days of June proved exhaustive of what little vitality was left in the worn frame, and the end came rapidly. Mrs. Grey lived through hard times with the passionate girl, whose grief was like a tempest that threatened to sweep her away. In vain she reminded her of the ecstacy of joy in which her mother had entered into rest; in vain spoke of the peaceable fruits of grievous sorrow; in vain took her from place to place. The unsubdued will could not, would not rest.
At the close of the summer, on their return from many wanderings, Margaret was installed in Maud's rooms, and Mrs. Grey introduced her to her friends as her adopted daughter. They had lived under one roof together nearly a year now, but though Margaret's faults were obvious—she taking no pains to conceal them—Mrs. Grey had never wavered in her attachment to and interest in her, and was sure that the Divine hand had brought them together. As to Margaret, she loved Mrs. Grey as she did the few she loved at all, intensely, and by degrees began to regard her with somewhat of the enthusiasm she had felt for her mother. Still she spent a great deal of time by herself, reading the letters of her father and mother in the days of their youthful love. She hardly remembered him, but these letters moved her wonderfully; they were such as she should write if she were in love; and for the first time in her life the thought came to her what it would be to become the object of such devotion.
Theirs had been a real romance, and she had never read of one in any book that touched her as these revelations did. There was not much in her mother's handwriting that was original, but what there was, was tender and girlish. One letter, written during the early part of their marriage, and during a temporary separation, contained the only allusion to herself, and she read it with mingled emotions:
"Nous chantons deux, je lui répète,
Nous chantons d'amour;
Deux dans notre nid d' alouette,
Trois peut-être un jour."
She was recalled from the past to the present by a tap at the door, and reluctantly opening it about an inch, saw Mrs. Grey, who said, "I am sorry to interrupt you, dear; but Mrs. Cameron and Agnes are here, and Mrs. Cameron wants a little confidential talk with me, which would be rather a bore to a young girl; so, if you will entertain her half an hour or so, I shall be very much obliged to you."
"I am not looking fit to go down," said Margaret.
"So I see, poor child!" replied Mrs. Grey. "But Agnes would not mind coming up; indeed she would