Chapter 4 No.4

My mother was in danger and my baby brother dead. The gloom that lay over our house was something never to be forgotten; the silence that was never broken by one laugh or one cheerful word, the scared faces-for every one loved "my lady." One fine morning, when the snowdrops had grown more plentiful, and there was a faint sign of the coming spring in the air, they took my baby brother to bury him. Such a tiny coffin, such tiny white wreaths, a little white pall covered with flowers. My father would not let black come near him.

My father wept bitter tears.

"There sleeps my little son and heir, Laura," he said to me-"my little boy. It is as though he had just peeped out of Heaven at this world, and, not liking it, had gone back again."

A pretty little white monument was put up to the baby Gerald. My mother chose the epitaph, which I had always thought so pretty. It was simply this-"The angels gather such lilies for God."

By degrees some little sunshine stole back, the dreadful silence lessened, the servants began to walk about without list slippers, the birds were carried back to the beautiful aviary-my mother's favorite nook; the doctors smiled as they came down the grand staircase. I heard Sir Roland whistling and singing as he had done weeks ago.

At last I was admitted to see her. One fine March morning, when the wind was blowing freshly and tossing the big, bare branches, I was taken to her room. I should not have known her; a pale, languid lady lay there in the place of my laughing, beautiful mother; two large blue eyes full of tears looked at me; two thin, white arms clasped me, and then I was lying on my mother's heart. Oh, my darling, if we could have died then.

"My little Laura, I was afraid I should never see you again," whispered a faint voice.

Ah, me, the ecstasy of the next half-hour! I sat close by her side and told her how the snowdrops were growing and the purple and golden crocuses made the garden seem quite gay. I told her where I had found the first violets, some of which I had brought to her. I cannot tell what it was like to me to feel my mother's hand on my head once more.

Then came a brief time of happiness. My mother improved a little, and was carried from the bedroom where she had spent so many weeks to her boudoir, and I was allowed to be with her all day.

"She would be better soon and able to go out," my father said, and then the happy old times would come back again. My mother would walk with me through the picture gallery at sunset, and more, she would dance with flying feet and run races with me in the wood. Oh, how I longed for the time when she would regain the color in her face and light in her eyes! They said I must be patient, it would come in time. But, alas! it was weary waiting; the days seemed as weeks to me, and yet my dear, beautiful mother was still confined to her room and to her bed. So it went on.

The ash buds grew black in March, the pine thorns fell in April, and yet she was still lying helpless on the sofa.

One day papa and I were both sitting with her. She looked better, and was talking to us about the nightingales she had heard last May in the woods.

"I feel better this morning," she said. "I am quite sure, Roland, that I could walk now if those tiresome doctors would let me."

"It is better to be careful, my darling," said papa; "they must know best."

"I am sure I could walk," said my mother, "and I feel such a restless longing to put my foot to the ground once more."

There was a bright flush on her face, and suddenly, without another word, she rose from her recumbent position on the sofa and stood quite upright. My father sprang from his chair with a little anxious cry. She tried to take one step forward, and fell with her face on the ground.

Ah, me! it was the old story over again, of silent gloom and anxious care. The summer was in its full beauty when she came down amongst us once more. Then the crushing blow came. Great doctors came from England and France; they lingered long before they gave their decision, but it came at length.

My mother might live for years, but she would never walk again; the flying feet were stilled for the rest of her life. She was to be a hopeless, helpless cripple. She might lie on the sofa, be wheeled in a chair, perhaps even driven in a carriage, but nothing more-she would never walk again.

My father's heart almost broke. I can see him now crying and sobbing like a child. He would not believe it. He turned from one to the other, crying out:

"It cannot be true! I will not believe it! She is so young and so beautiful-it cannot be true!"

"It is most unfortunately true," said the head physician, sorrowfully. "The poor lady will dance and walk no more."

"Who is to tell her?" cried my father. "I dare not."

"It will be far better that she should not know-a hundred times better. Let her live as long as she can in ignorance of her fate; she will be more cheerful and in reality far better than if she knew the truth; it would hang over her like a funeral pall; the stronger her nerve and spirit the better for her. She would regain neither, knowing this."

"But in time-with care-she is so young. Perhaps there may be a chance."

"I tell you plainly," said the doctor, "that most unfortunately there is none-there is not the faintest," and, he added, solemnly, "may Heaven lighten your afflictions to you!"

They went away, and my father drew me to his arms.

"Laura," he said, "you must help me all your life to take care of mamma."

"I will, indeed," I cried. "I ask nothing better from Heaven than to give my life to her-my beautiful mother."

And then he told me that she would never walk again-that her flying feet were to rest forever more-that in her presence I must always be quite bright and cheerful, and never say one word of what I knew.

No more difficult task could have been laid on the heart of a child. I did it. No matter what I suffered, I always went into her room with a smile and bright, cheerful words.

So the long years passed; my beautiful mother grew better and happier and stronger-little dreaming that she was never to walk out in the meads and grounds again. She was always talking about them and saying where she should go and what she should do when she grew well.

Roses bloomed, lilies lived and died, the birds enjoyed their happy summer, then flew over the sea to warmer climes; summer dew and summer rain fell, the dead leaves were whirled in the autumn winds, and still my mother lay helpless. If this one year seemed so long, what would a lifetime be?

As some of her strength returned it seemed to me that mother grew more and more charming. She laughed and enjoyed all our care of her, and when the wonderful chair came from London, in which she could go round the garden, and could be wheeled from one room to another, she was as delighted as a child.

"Still," she said to my father, "it seems to me a pity almost, Roland, to have sent to London for this. I shall surely be able to walk soon."

He turned away from her with tears in his eyes.

A month or two afterward we were both sitting with her, and she said, quite suddenly:

"It seems a long time since I began to lie here. I am afraid it will be many months before I get well again. I think I shall resign myself to proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about it. I know it in all its moods-when the wind hurries it and the little wavelets dash along; when the tide is deep and the water overflows among the reeds and grasses; when it is still and silent and the shadows of the stars lie on it, and when the sun turns it into a stream of living gold, I know it well."

"You will see it again soon," said my father, in a broken voice. "I will drive you down any time you like."

But my mother said nothing. I think she had seen the tears in Sir Roland's eyes. From that day she seemed to grow more reconciled to her lot. Now let me add a tribute to my father. His devotion to her was something marvelous; he seemed to love her better in her helpless state than he had done when she was full of health and spirits. I admired him so much for it during the first year of my mother's illness. He never left her. Hunting, shooting, fishing, dinner parties, everything was given up that he might sit with her.

One of the drawing rooms, a beautiful, lofty apartment looking over the park to the hills beyond, was arranged as my mother's room; there all that she loved best was taken.

The one next to it was made into a sleeping room for her, so that she should never have to be carried up and down stairs. A room for her maid came next. And my father had a door so placed that the chair could be wheeled from the rooms through the glass doors into the grounds.

"You think, then," she said, "that I shall not grow well just yet, Roland?"

"No, my darling, not just yet," he replied.

What words of mine could ever describe what that sick room became? It was a paradise of beautiful flowers, singing birds, little fragrant fountains and all that was most lovely. After a time visitors came, and my mother saw them; the poor came, and she consoled them.

"My lady" was with them once more, never more to walk into their cottages and look at the rosy children. They came to her now, and that room became a haven of refuge.

So it went on for three years, and I woke up one morning to find it was my thirteenth birthday.

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