Our Bessie Part 24

"Doesn't the room look lovely?" she would say, in a tone of intense satisfaction. When her weakness permitted she loved to talk to Bessie about her friends at The Grange, and was never weary of listening to Bessie's descriptions.

"What a nice man Mr. Richard must be, Betty!" she would say. "I should like to see him." And she often harped on this theme, and questioned Bessie closely on this subject; but often their talk went deeper than this.

One evening, about five weeks after Bessie's return, she was alone with Hatty; she had been reading to her, and now Hatty asked her to put down the book.

"Yes, it is very nice, but I feel inclined to talk. Come and lie on the bed, Bessie, and let us have one of our old cosy talks. Put your head down on the pillow beside me. Yes, that is how I mean; isn't that comfortable? I always did like you to put your arm round me. How strong and firm your hand feels! Look at the difference." And Hatty laid her wasted, transparent fingers on Bessie's pink palm.

"Poor little Hatty?"

"No, I am not poor a bit now. You must not call me that. I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life. Every one is so kind to me--even Tom--he never finds fault with me now."

"We are all so sorry for you."

"Yes, but you must not be too sorry. Somehow I am glad of this illness, because it makes you all think better of me. You will not remember now how cross, and jealous, and selfish I used to be. You will only say, 'Poor little thing, she always wanted to be good, even when she was most naughty and troublesome.'"

"Don't, Hatty; I can't bear to hear you!"

"Yes, let me say it, please; it seems to do me good. How often you have helped me over my difficulties. 'If I could only tell Bessie,' that was what I used to say. I am glad you went away and gave me something to bear. I used to be glad every night when I prayed; it was something to do for you, and something to bear for His sake." And Hatty dropped her voice reverently, for she was speaking of the Lord Jesus.

"Yes, darling, I see what you mean."

"I am glad that it has not been too easy, and that I have really tried for once not to be selfish. I don't want to get well, Bessie. I should have all the old, miserable feelings over again. I have been 'Little Miss Much-Afraid' all my life, and the fears have been a part of me. Do you recollect what Bunyan said about Much-Afraid? 'She went through the river singing;' that was because she had left all her fears and troubles on the bank."

"And you are not afraid to die, Hatty?"

"No, not really afraid. Sometimes in the night, when I lie awake with that strange oppression, I think how strange it will be without you all, and to have only the angels to talk to me. But I suppose I shall get used to it. I always say that psalm over to myself, and then the queer feeling leaves me. Don't you know? 'He shall give His angels charge over thee. They shall bear thee up in their hands.' That verse gives one such a restful feeling; just as though one were a little child again."

"Dear Hatty, you will be in that city where 'the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick, and they that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.' You will be where Jesus is.

'Peace, perfect peace with loved ones far away!

In Jesus' keeping we are safe--and they.'

It does me good to hear you; but you must not talk any more, your voice is so weak. Let me repeat one of your favorite hymns, and then perhaps you will get drowsy." And then Hatty consented to be silent.

After all, the end came very suddenly, just when it was least expected.

Hatty had seemed better that day; there was a strange flicker of life and energy; she had talked much to her mother and Bessie, and had sent a loving, playful message to Tom, who was away from home.

It had been her father's custom to take the early part of the night-watch, and then to summon one of the others to relieve him. He had persisted in this, in spite of long, laborious days. Hatty was very dear to her father's heart, and he loved those quiet hours beside her. Bessie had retired to bed early, as it was her turn to be roused, but long before the usual hour her mother was beside her.

"Come, my child, come; do not wait to dress, Hatty is going home fast."

One startled, non-comprehending look, and then the truth rushed on Bessie, and she threw on her dressing-gown and hurried to the sick-room.

"Going home fast!" nay, she had gone; the last sigh was breathed as Bessie crossed the threshold "Thank G.o.d, she has not suffered!"

murmured her father. Bessie heard him as she flung herself down beside Hatty.

There had been no pain, no struggle; a sudden change, a few short sighs, and Hatty had crossed the river. How peaceful and happy she looked in her last sleep--the sweet, deep sleep that knows no awaking! An innocent smile seemed to linger on her face. Never more would Hatty mourn over her faults and shortcomings; never more would morbid fears torment and hara.s.s her weary mind; never more would she plead for forgiveness, nor falter underneath her life's burden, for, as Maguire says, "To those doubting ones earth was a night season of gloom and darkness, and in the borderland they saw the dawn of day; and when the summons comes they are glad to bid farewell to the night that is past, and to welcome with joy and singing the eternal day, whose rising shall know no sunset."

Many and many a time during that mourning week did Bessie, spent and weary with weeping, recall those words that her darling had uttered, "I don't want to get well, Bessie; I should have all the old miserable feelings over again." And even in her desolation Bessie would not have called her back.

"My Hatty has gone," she wrote to Edna, in those first days of her loss. "I shall never see her sweet face again until we meet in Paradise. I shall never hear her loving voice; but for her own sake I cannot wish her back. Her life was not a happy one; no one could make it happy, it was shadowed by physical depression. She had much to bear, and it was not always easy to understand her; it was difficult for her to give expression to the nameless fears, and the strange, morbid feelings that made life so difficult. She loved us all so much, but even her love made her wretched, for a careless word or a thoughtless speech rankled in her mind for days, and it was not easy to extract the sting; she was too sensitive, too highly organized for daily life; she made herself miserable about trifles. I know she could not help it, poor darling, and father says so too. Oh, how I miss her. But G.o.d only knows that, and I dare say He will comfort me in His own good time. Mother is ill; she is never strong, and the nursing and grief have broken her down, so we must all think of her. Pray for us all, dear Edna, for these are sorrowful days. I do not forget you, but I seem to look at you through the mist of years; still, I am always your loving friend,

"BESSIE."

CHAPTER XIX.

"I MUST NOT THINK OF MYSELF."

Bessie's words to Edna had been strangely prophetical--"Trouble may come to me one day;" it had come already, in its most crushing form. The bond of sisterhood is very strong; it has peculiar and precious privileges, apart from other relationships; a sort of twinship of sympathy unites many sisters who have grown up together. Their thoughts and interests are seldom apart. All their little pleasures, their minor griefs, youthful hopes, disappointments, are shared with each other. They move together through the opening years of their life. Sometimes old age finds them still together, tottering hand in hand to the grave. Of all her sisters, Bessie could least spare Hatty, and her death left a void in the girl's life that was very difficult to fill. From the first, Bessie had accepted the responsibility of Hatty. Hatty's peculiar temperament, her bad health and unequal spirits, had set her apart from the other members of the family, who were all strong and cheerful and full of life.

Bessie had realized this and had made Hatty her special charge and duty; but now there was a gap in her daily life, a sense of emptiness and desolation. There was no need now to hurry through her morning's task that she might sit with Hatty. When she went out, there was no Hatty to watch for her return and listen to all her descriptions of what she had seen. At night, when Bessie went upstairs, she would creep softly into a certain empty room, which was dearer to her than any other room. Hatty's little gowns, her few girlish possessions, were all locked away in the wardrobe; but her Bible and Prayer-book, and her shabby little writing-case, lay on the table. Bessie would pull up the blinds, and kneel down by the low bed; she liked to say her prayers in that room.

Sometimes as she prayed the sense of her sister's presence would come over her strongly; she could almost feel the touch of the thin little hands that had so often toiled in her service. Hatty's large wistful eyes seemed to look lovingly out of the darkness. "Oh! my Hatty, are you near me?" she would sob; but there was no answer out of the silence.

Who has not tasted the bitterness of these moments, when the craving for the loved presence seems insupportable, hardly to be borne? How our poor human hearts rebel against the unnatural separation, until the thrilling words make themselves heard: "He is not the G.o.d of the dead, but of the living." Oh, yes, of the living! Cease, then, to mourn, poor soul, as one without hope. Somewhere, not here, but in the larger room of a purified existence, your beloved one lives, breathes, nay, thinks of thee. Be comforted; one day we shall meet them, and the friendship of time will become the love of eternity.

Bessie strove hard not to be selfish in her grief. Her mother's strength, never very great, had broken down utterly for a time. Bessie knew that this failure of power added to her father's anxiety, and in the most touching manner she tried to console them both. When she looked back at these sad days, Bessie owned that she had been marvellously helped and supported. With the day's burden had come daily strength to bear it.

"I must not think of myself; I must think of father and mother," she would say, as she awoke in the morning with that blank sense of loss.

"There is nothing to do for Hatty now, but there are others who need me." And this thought helped her through the day.

In that busy household there was no time to sit alone and brood. A quiet walk now and then, and that half hour in Hatty's room, was all Bessie could conscientiously spare. If she stayed away for an hour, Christine complained of dullness, and her mother looked sadder on her return.

Ella and Katie, too, made constant demands on her time and patience.

Christine was very unlike Bessie in temperament. She was a pretty, bright girl, warm-hearted and high-spirited, but she did not possess Bessie's contented nature. Christine often found her quiet life irksome.

She was inquisitive, restless, eager to see the world. She had insatiable curiosity; a love of change, her small girlish ambitions. She wanted to plume her wings a little--to try them in flights. .h.i.ther and thither. The gay world seemed to her ignorance a land flowing with milk and honey. She had yet to spell the meaning of the words illusion and vanity. Bessie was fond of Christine. She loved all her sisters dearly, but there was less sympathy between them than there had been between herself and Hatty.

Hatty, in spite of her morbid humors and difficult tendencies, had a refined and cultured mind; her chief source of fretfulness was that she loved the best, and failed to reach it. The very loftiness of her standard produced despondency akin to despair.

Hatty's faith was pure, but feeble. She hated everything false and mean.

She despised the conventionalities of life, while Bessie laughed at them. She and Bessie had their ideals, their simple secrets, their crude girlish notions, that were nevertheless very true and sweet.

Bessie could make allowances for Hatty's sharp speeches as she watched her daily struggles with her faulty temper. She could rejoice in Hatty's victories all the more that she had borne so patiently with her failures, and there was no abiding sting in her grief now, no remorseful feelings for duties undone and opportunities wasted; but with Christine things were different.

One Sunday afternoon when Bessie was stealing away for a quiet half hour in Hatty's room, she was surprised to find Christine following her.

"May I come in too, Bessie?" she said very humbly, and her eyes were full of tears; "I do so want a little comfort, and I can't talk to mother. I am making myself miserable about Hatty."

"About our dear Hatty! Oh, Chrissy, what can you mean?" asked Bessie reproachfully. "We can talk here, and perhaps our poor darling may be listening to us. I do love this room; it seems to breathe of Hatty somehow. There, I will open the window. How sweet the air is? and look, how red the leaves are, though it is only the end of September!" And then she added, softly: "Hatty has been six weeks in her new home."

"Oh, how I envy you, Bessie!" sighed Christine, "you can talk and think happily about our dear little Hatty, but with me it is all so different.

If I had only been good to her, if she had not made me so impatient But I cannot help remembering how horrid I used to be." And here one tear after another rolled down Christine's pretty, troubled face.

Bessie's soft heart grew very pitiful. "Dear Chrissy," she said gently, "there is no need to fret over that now. Hatty was always fond of you, and you of her; she told me that night, when I came home, how kind you had been to her. There was no one but you to do things, and you were such a comfort to her."

"How could I help being kind to her, when she was so ill, and there was the fear of losing her? Somehow, I never thought there was much amiss with Hatty. I could not get it out of my mind that she always made the most of every little ailment, and that it was wrong of you and mother to give in to her. I never thought it would come to this." And Christine sobbed afresh.