I asked what ailed her.
"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
"Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?"
"That is downright silly," was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I well knew that if she had heard Mrs. Bretton's foot approach, she would have nestled quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes. Whilst lavishing her eccentricities regardlessly before me – for whom she professed scarcely the semblance of affection – she never showed my godmother one glimpse of her inner self: for her, she was nothing but a docile, somewhat quaint little maiden. I examined her; her cheek was crimson; her dilated eye was both troubled and glowing, and painfully restless: in this state it was obvious she must not be left till morning. I guessed how the case stood.
"Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. "He is not gone to his room yet."
She at once stretched out her little arms to be lifted. Folding a shawl round her, I carried her back to the drawing-room. Graham was just coming out.
"She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more," I said. "She does not like the thought of leaving you."
"I've spoilt her," said he, taking her from me with good humour, and kissing her little hot face and burning lips. "Polly, you care for me more than for papa, now – "
"I do care for you, but you care nothing for me," was her whisper.
She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I carried her away; but, alas! not soothed.
When I thought she could listen to me, I said – "Paulina, you should not grieve that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for him. It must be so."
Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why.
"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."
"But I love him so much; he should love me a little."
"He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite."
"Am I Graham's favourite?"
"Yes, more than any little child I know."
The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish.
"But," I continued, "don't fret, and don't expect too much of him, or else he will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over."
"All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be good, Lucy Snowe."
I put her to bed.
"Will he forgive me this one time?" she asked, as I undressed myself. I assured her that he would; that as yet he was by no means alienated; that she had only to be careful for the future.
"There is no future," said she: "I am going. Shall I ever – ever – see him again, after I leave England?"
I returned an encouraging response. The candle being extinguished, a still half-hour elapsed. I thought her asleep, when the little white shape once more lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice asked – "Do you like Graham, Miss Snowe?"
"Like him! Yes, a little."
"Only a little! Do you like him as I do?"
"I think not. No: not as you do."
"Do you like him much?"
"I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much: he is full of faults."
"Is he?"
"All boys are."
"More than girls?"
"Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect; and as to likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and worship none."
"Are you a wise person?"
"I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep."
"I cannot go to sleep. Have you no pain just here" (laying her elfish hand on her elfish breast,) "when you think you shall have to leave Graham; for your home is not here?"
"Surely, Polly," said I, "you should not feel so much pain when you are very soon going to rejoin your father. Have you forgotten him? Do you no longer wish to be his little companion?"
Dead silence succeeded this question.
"Child, lie down and sleep," I urged.
"My bed is cold," said she. "I can't warm it."
I saw the little thing shiver. "Come to me," I said, wishing, yet scarcely hoping, that she would comply: for she was a most strange, capricious, little creature, and especially whimsical with me. She came, however, instantly, like a small ghost gliding over the carpet. I took her in. She was chill: I warmed her in my arms. She trembled nervously; I soothed her. Thus tranquillized and cherished she at last slumbered.
"A very unique child," thought I, as I viewed her sleeping countenance by the fitful moonlight, and cautiously and softly wiped her glittering eyelids and her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. "How will she get through this world, or battle with this life? How will she bear the shocks and repulses, the humiliations and desolations, which books, and my own reason, tell me are prepared for all flesh?"
She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave, but exercising self-command.
CHAPTER IV.
MISS MARCHMONT
On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina's departure – little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets – I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass – the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest?
Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time – a long time – of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.
As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me some task I could undertake.
Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand, and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: