“Don’t mind it, Milly.”
“Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?”
“You shall do no such thing.”
“But you must have a name.”
“I refuse a name.”
“But I’ll give you one, lass.”
“And I won’t have it.”
“But you can’t help me christening you.”
“I can decline answering.”
“But I’ll make you,” said Milly, growing very red.
Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I certainly was very much disgusted at Milly’s relapse into barbarism.
“You can’t,” I retorted quietly.
“See if I don’t, and I’ll give ye one twice as ugly.”
I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.
“And I think you’re a minx, and a slut, and a fool,” she broke out, flushing scarlet.
I smiled in the same unchristian way.
“And I’d give ye a smack o’ the cheek as soon as look at you.”
And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her wrath. I really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of single combat.
I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense dignity, sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas’s study, where it happened we were to breakfast that morning, and for several subsequent ones.
During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve; and I don’t think either so much as looked at the other.
We had no walk together that day.
I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered the room. Her eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.
“I want your hand, cousin,” she said, at the same time taking it by the wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek, which made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had recovered from my surprise, she had vanished.
I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running too; and I quite lost her at the cross galleries.
I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I had fallen asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.
“Cousin Maud, will ye forgi’ me — you’ll never like me again, will ye? No — I know ye won’t — I’m such a brute — I hate it — it’s a shame. And here’s a Banbury cake for you — I sent to the town for it, and some taffy — won’t ye eat it? and here’s a little ring —‘tisn’t as pretty as your own rings; and ye’ll wear it, maybe, for my sake — poor Milly’s sake, before I was so bad to ye — if ye forgi’ me; and I’ll look at breakfast, and if it’s on your finger I’ll know you’re friends wi’ me again; and if ye don’t, I won’t trouble you no more; and I think I’ll just drown myself out o’ the way, and you’ll never see wicked Milly no more.”
And without waiting a moment, leaving me only half awake, and with the sensations of dreaming, she scampered from the room, in her bare feet, with a petticoat about her shoulders.
She had left her candle by my bed, and her little offerings on the coverlet by me. If I had stood an atom less in terror of goblins than I did, I should have followed her, but I was afraid. I stood in my bare feet at my bedside, and kissed the poor little ring and put it on my finger, where it has remained ever since and always shall. And when I lay down, longing for morning, the image of her pale, imploring, penitential face was before me for hours; and I repented bitterly of my cool provoking ways, and thought myself, I dare say justly, a thousand times more to blame than Milly.
I searched in vain for her before breakfast. At that meal, however, we met, but in the presence of Uncle Silas, who, though silent and apathetic, was formidable; and we, sitting at a table disproportionably large, under the cold, strange gaze of my guardian, talked only what was inevitable, and that in low tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice, Uncle Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his ear, and look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug and smile piteously into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore, was not in the talking vein himself — and that was not often — you may suppose there was very little spoken in his presence.
When Milly, across the table, saw the ring upon my finger, she, drawing in her breath, said, “Oh!” and, with round eyes and mouth, she looked so delighted; and she made a little motion, as if she was on the point of jumping up; and then her poor face quivered, and she bit her lip; and staring imploringly at me, her eyes filled fast with tears, which rolled down her round penitential cheeks.
I am sure I felt more penitent than she. I know I was crying and smiling, and longing to kiss her. I suppose we were very absurd; but it is well that small matters can stir the affections so profoundly at a time of life when great troubles seldom approach us.
When at length the opportunity did come, never was such a hug out of the wrestling ring as poor Milly bestowed on me, swaying me this way and that, and burying her face in my dress, and blubbering —
“I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and I such a devil; and I’ll never call you a name, but Maud — my darling Maud.”
“You must, Milly — Mrs. Bustle. I’ll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like. You must.” I was blubbering like Milly, and hugging my best; and, indeed, I wonder how we kept our feet.
So Milly and I were better friends than ever.
Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and long nights, and long fireside gossipings at Bartram–Haugh. I was frightened at the frequency of the strange collapses to which Uncle Silas was subject. I did not at first mind them much, for I naturally fell into Milly’s way of talking about them.
But one day, while in one of his “queerish” states, he called for me, and I saw him, and was unspeakably scared.
In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I should have though him dead, had I not been accompanied by old L’Amour, who knew every gradation and symptom of these strange affections.
She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance, and whispered —
“Don’t make no noise, miss, till he talks; he’ll come to for a bit, anon.”
Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance was like that of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.
There was a frown and a smirk like that of idiocy, and a strip of white eyeball was also disclosed.
Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes wide, and screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on me with a fatuised uncertainty, that gradually broke into a feeble smile.
“Ah! the girl — Austin’s child. Well, dear, I’m hardly able — I’ll speak to-morrow — next day — it is tic — neuralgia, or something — torture — tell her.”
So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great chair, with the same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude, and gradually his face resumed its dreadful cast.
“Come away, miss; he’s changed his mind; he’ll not be fit to talk to you noways all day, maybe,” said the old woman, again in a whisper.
So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In fact, he looked as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I told the crone, who, forgetting the ceremony with which she usually treated me, chuckled out derisively,
“A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul — he’s bin a-dying daily this many a day.”
I looked