Christian's Mistake Part 4

"Let me go too," begged Christian. "Little Oliver will look so pretty in his bed."

Dr. Grey smiled. It was a rare thing to be a whole fortnight away from his children, and all the father's heart was in his loving eyes. "Come away, then," he said, all his cheerful looks returning. "Aunts, you will give us our tea when we return."

"Well, she does make herself at home!" cried Miss Gascoigne, indignantly, almost before the door had closed.

Miss Grey knitted half a row with a perplexed air, and then, as if she had lighted upon a perfect solution of the difficulty, said lightly, "But then, you see, dear Henrietta, she _is_ at home."

Home! Through that chilly gallery, preceded by Barker and his wax- lights; stared upon by those grim portraits, till more than once she started as if she had seen a ghost; up narrow, steep stone stair-cases, which might lead to a prison in a tower or a dormitory in a monastery-- any where except to ordinary, natural bedchambers. And when she reached them, what gloomy rooms they were, leading one out of another, up a step and down a step, with great beds that seemed only fit to lie in state in, after having turned one's face to the wall and slipped out of weary life into the imagined freedom of the life beyond. Home!

If that was home, Christian shivered.

"Are you cold? Barker, send Mrs. Grey's maid with her warm shawl.

Every body feels the Lodge cold at first, but you will get used to it.

Wait one minute," for she was pressing eagerly to the gleam of light through the half-opened nursery door. "My wife!"

"Yes Dr. Grey."

As he put his hands on her shoulders, Christian looked into his eyes-- right into them, for she was as tall as he. There was a sad quietness in her expression, but there was no shrinking from him, and no distrust.

"My wife need never be afraid of any thing or any body in this house."

"I know that."

"And by-and-by, many things here which feel strange now will cease to feel so. Do you believe this?"

She smiled--a very feeble smile; but, at least, there was no pretense in it.

"One thing more. Whatever goes wrong, you will always come at once and tell it to me--to n.o.body in the world but me. Remember."

"I will."

Dr. Grey leaned forward and kissed his wife in his inexpressibly tender way, and then they went in together.

Let.i.tia and Arthur occupied two little closets leading out of the nursery, which seemed s.p.a.cious enough, and ancient enough, to have been the dormitory of a score of monks, as very likely it was in the early days of Saint Bede's. Phillis, sewing by her little table in the far corner, kept guard over a large bed, where, curled up like a rose-bud, flushed and warm, lay that beautiful child whom Christian had thought of twenty times a day for the last fortnight.

"Well, Phillis, how are you and your little folk?" said the master, in a pleasant whisper, as he crossed the nursery floor.

He trod lightly, but either his step was too welcome to remain undiscovered, or the children's sleep had been "fox's sleep," for there arose a great outcry of "Papa, papa!" Oliver leaped up, half laughing, half screaming, and kicking his little bare legs with glee as his father took him in his arms; Arthur came running in, clad in the very airiest costume possible; and Let.i.tia appeared sedately a minute or two afterwards having stopped to put on her warm scarlet dressing-gown, and to take off her nightcap--under the most exciting circ.u.mstances, t.i.tia was such an exceedingly "proper" child.

What would the Avonsbridge dons have said--the solitary old fellows in combination-room--and, above all, what would the ghosts of the gloomy old monks have said, could they have seen the Master of Saint Bede's, with all his children round him, hugging him, kissing him, chattering to him, while he hung over them in an absorption of enjoyment so deep that, for a moment, Christian was unnoticed? But only for a moment; and he turned to where she stood, a little aloof, looking on, half sadly, and yet with beaming, kindly eyes. Her husband caught her hand and drew her nearer.

"Children, you remember this lady. She was very good to you one day lately. And now I want you to be very good to her."

"Oh yes," cried Oliver, putting up his mouth at once for a kiss. "I like her very much. Who is she? What is her name?"

Children ask sometimes the simplest, yet the most terrible of questions.

This one seemed literally impossible to be answered. Dr. Grey tried, and caught sight of his daughter's face--the mouth pursed into that hard.

line which made her so exactly like her mother. Arthur, too, looked sullen and shy. n.o.body spoke but little. Oliver, who, in his innocent, childish way, pulling Christian's dress, repeated again, "What is your name? What must Olly call you?"

Whatever she felt, her husband must have felt and known that this was the critical moment which, once let slip, might take years afterward to recall. He said, nervously enough, but with a firmness that showed he must already have well considered the subject,

"Call her mamma."

There was no reply. Christian herself was somewhat startled, but conscious of a pleasant thrill at the sound of the new name, coming upon her so suddenly. Strange it was; and ah! how differently it came to her from the way it comes upon most women--gradually, deliciously, with long looking forward and tremulous hope and fear--still it was pleasant. The maternal instinct was so strong that even imaginary motherhood seemed sweet. She bent forward to embrace the children, with tears in her eyes, when Let.i.tia said, in a sharp, unchildlike voice,

"People can't have two mammas; and our mamma is buried in the New Cemetery. Aunts took us there yesterday afternoon."

Had the little girl chosen the sharpest arrow in her aunts' quiver--nay, bad she been Miss Gascoigne herself, she could not have shot more keenly home. For the dart was barbed with truth--literal truth; which, however, sore it be, people in many difficult circ.u.mstances of life are obliged to face, to recognize, and abide by--to soften and subdue if they can--but woe betide them if by any cowardly weakness or shortsighted selfishness, they are tempted to deny it as truth, or to overlook and make light of it.

Painful as the position was--so painful that Dr. Grey was quite overcome by it, and maintained a total silence--Christian had yet the sense to see that it was a position inevitable, because it was true.

Bitterly as the child had spoken--with the bitterness which she had been taught--yet she had only uttered a fact. In one sense, n.o.body could have two mothers; and Christian, almost with contrition, thought of the poor dead woman whose children were now taught to call another woman by that sacred name. But the pang pa.s.sed. Had she known the first Mrs. Grey, it might not have been so sharp; in any case, here was she herself--Dr. Grey's wife and the natural guardian of his children.

Nothing could alter that fact. Her lot was cast; her duty was clear before her; she must accept it and bear it, whatever it might be perhaps, for some reasons, it was the better for her that it was rather hard.

She looked at her husband, saw how agitated he was, and there seemed to come into her mind a sort of inspiration.

"My child," she said, trying to draw Let.i.tia toward her, "you say truly.

I am not your own mamma; no one ever could be that to you again; but I mean to be as like her as I can. I mean to love you and take care of you; and you will love me too by-and-by. You can always talk to me as much as ever you like about your own mamma."

"She doesn't remember her one bit," said Arthur, contemptuously.

"Oh, yes I do," cried Let.i.tia. "She was very pretty, and always wore such beautiful gowns."

Again there was a silence, and then Christian said,

"I think, if the children do not dislike it, that as they always called Mrs.

Grey 'mamma,' they had better call me 'mother.' It is a pleasanter word than step-mother. And I hope to make myself a real mother to them before very long."

"I know you will," answered Dr. Grey, in a smothered voice, as he set down little Oliver, and, kissing the children all round, bade nurse carry them off to bed once more--nurse, who, standing apart, with her great black eyes had already taken the measure of the new wife, of the children's future, and of the chances of her own authority. Not the smallest portion of this decision originated in the fact that Christian, wholly preoccupied as she was, quitted it without taking any notice of her--Phillis--at all.

Dr. Grey preceded his wife to a room, which, in the long labyrinth of apartments, seemed almost a quarter of a mile away. A large fire burnt on the old-fashioned hearth, and glimmered cheerily on the white toilet- table, crimson sofa, and bed. It was a room comfortable, elegant, pleasant, bright, thoroughly "my lady's chamber," and which seemed from every nook to welcome its new owner with a smile.

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Christian, involuntarily. She was not luxurious, yet she dearly loved pretty things; the more so, because she had never possessed them. Even now, though her heart was so moved and full, she was not insensible to the warmth imparted to it by mere external pleasantnesses like these.

"I had the room newly furnished. I thought you would like it," said Dr.

Grey.

"I do like it. How very kind you are to me!"

Kind--only kind!

She looked around the room, and there, in one corner, just as if she had never parted from them, were all the old treasures of her maidenhood-- desk, work-table, chair. She guessed all the secret. Once, perhaps, she might have burst into tears--heart-warm tears; now she only sighed.

"Oh, how good you are!"

Her husband kissed her. Pa.s.sively she took the caress, and again she sighed. Dr. Grey looked at her earnestly, then spoke in much agitation--

"Christian, tell me truly, were you hurt at what occurred just now? I mean in the nursery."

"No, not in the least. It was inevitable."