The Rectory Children Part 20

Biddy did not speak. Then Celestina heard a faint sound, and going up a little closer still, she saw that Biddy was crying.

'Dear Miss Biddy,' she whispered. Then a pair of hot little arms, not so fat as they had been, were stretched out and thrown round her neck.

'Will you kiss me, Celestina?' whispered Bridget. 'Do you really love me? If you do, you're the only one. I'm too naughty--I've been too naughty. I've as good as killed papa--I know he's going to die. I heard them saying the first night I'd as good as killed him, though I pretended not to hear. And I've been trying to die myself; I thought p'raps if I prayed a great, great lot to be forgiven, G.o.d would forgive me before I died. But I want to die, because I'm so naughty I'm only a trouble. And I _couldn't_ live without papa, knowing I'd as good as killed him. Oh, Celestina,' and here the voice grew so low that Celestina could scarcely hear it, 'are you quite sure that papa hasn't died already and they won't tell me?' and Celestina felt her shiver.

'I heard him speaking as I came upstairs,' said Celestina, so quietly that Biddy believed her perfectly; 'the door of his room was open.

I think he must be a little better to-day.'

'Oh,' said Biddy with a gasp, 'I do wonder if he is.'

'And----' Celestina began, then stopped again, 'I don't think you should talk about trying to die like that,' she said. 'I--I think it would be rather a lazy way of being sorry for what we'd done wrong just to try to die.'

'I suppose it's because I'm lazy then. They all say I'm very lazy,'

Biddy replied. 'But I can't help it. I'm not going to try and be good any more. I fixed that before--before that day. It's no use.'

Celestina considered a little.

'I should think,' she said at last--'I should think you would want to get better to help to take care of your papa and make him better.'

Biddy started at this. It was a new idea.

'Do you think they'd let me?' she said in a half whisper. 'I thought I was too little. Did you ever help to take care of your papa when he was ill? But p'raps he's never been ill?'

'Oh yes, he has,' said Celestina, with a sigh. 'I think he's iller than your papa very often. I do lots of things for him then: I make his tea always, and tidy his room. And sometimes when he's getting better and comes downstairs to the parlour I read aloud to him. For when he's ill, mother has all the more to be in the shop, you know.'

Bridget listened intently. At last--

'Celestina,' she said, 'I do wish I could see papa. It would make me _quite_ sure he's alive, you know, for it all seems so muddled in my head since the day I was so naughty. And if he'd forgive me, and if he'd get better, I think, _perhaps_, I'd ask G.o.d to make me better too, so that I might make papa's tea and read aloud to him like you do.'

'Perhaps it wouldn't be exactly that,' said Celestina, a little afraid of the responsibility of putting anything into Bridget's head, 'but I'm sure you could do _something_. And why shouldn't you see him? Miss Alie was in his room just now.'

Bridget would have hung her head if she had not been lying down. As it was, she looked ashamed.

'He mustn't get up at all, you know,' she said. 'And one day when they offered me to go to see him, I wouldn't.'

'You wouldn't?' exclaimed Celestina.

'No,' said Biddy; 'I didn't want to see him looking like he did that day.'

'But you'd like to see him now, wouldn't you?'

'Yes,' said Biddy. 'If you were to get me my dressing-gown, Celestina, don't you think I might just run down the pa.s.sage and the little stair and go to see him? He lies on the sofa in his room, Alie said one day.'

Celestina looked frightened.

'Don't you think you should ask your mamma first?' she said. 'Besides, I thought you were too ill to walk.'

'Oh no,' said Bridget; 'I think I could walk if I tried. But you may go and ask mamma if you like; I'm sure she'll say I may.'

Off flew Celestina. She too felt pretty sure that Mrs. Vane would be pleased to hear of Biddy's wish. But when she got to the room where she had left her mother with Mrs. Vane, they were not there, and Alie, who came in a moment afterwards, said they were walking up and down the garden; if Celestina would go out she would be sure to meet them. 'And mamma will be very pleased to hear that Biddy wants to go to see papa.

He has asked for her several times, but he said she wasn't to be forced, not till she felt inclined. Papa _is_ so good and patient, and he is really a little bit better to-day,' said Rosalys brightly.

Upstairs Bridget was eagerly waiting for Celestina's return. She had got out of bed and reached down her dressing-gown for herself, feeling rather surprised at finding how well she could walk; she had found her slippers too, and stood there leaning against the bed, quite ready for her little expedition.

After a while she crept to the door and peeped out. Sounds, cheerful sounds of the usual morning stir in a well-managed house came up the stairs; she heard faint clatter from the kitchen, and now and then a little laugh or a few words of the servants talking together. But no one was about upstairs.

'Papa must be a little better,' thought Bridget, 'else they wouldn't seem like that. I do wish Celestina would come back. I wonder if she's forgotten?'

She edged herself a tiny bit into the pa.s.sage. It did not seem far, only along by the bal.u.s.ters and down the little stair to papa's room; and just then came a sound which seemed to go straight to Biddy's heart. It was papa's cough--not a very bad one, just his usual little cough. It seemed to waken her up--till now she had felt almost as if in a sort of dream; it was so queer to feel and hear all the house-life going on the same as ever when she had been out of it so long, for ten or twelve days is a long time to a child--but the sound of papa's cough seemed to make everything real, to join the past and the present together again, still more, to touch a spring in Biddy which I think she had scarcely known was there. And without stopping to think any more, off she set, along the pa.s.sage and down the stair, till she found herself, breathless and rather giddy, but full of eagerness, at her father's door.

It was open, as Celestina had said, and half shy now, Biddy peeped in.

He was lying on a couch between the fire and the window; it was a bright spring-like morning--he had a book in his hand, but he did not seem to be reading; he was quite still, his eyes were gazing out to the clear blue sky, and the look in his face was very sweet. Then again came the little cough. That was the signal. In rushed Biddy.

'Papa, dear papa,' she cried, as she half threw herself, half tumbled upon him, for she felt giddy again with moving so fast. 'Dear papa, are you getting better? Please don't die, dear papa, and I _will_ try to be good. And oh, please forgive me, and don't say I as good as killed you.'

'My poor little Biddy,' said Mr. Vane, raising himself so as to see her, and drawing her tenderly on to the couch beside him,--'my poor little Biddy. So you've come to see me at last! And are you getting better, dear?'

'Yes, yes, papa, but please tell me you're not going to die because of me,' and Biddy began to cry, but gently, not in her old way.

Mr. Vane tried to speak, but his cough was troublesome.

'I think I'm a little better, dear,' he said, 'and, please G.o.d, I hope to be better yet. And it will be a great help to me if I see you quite well again, and trying to be of use to mamma, Biddy, and to Alie. You can help to nurse me, you know.'

Biddy looked up. The very things Celestina had said!

'Papa!' she said, 'might I really? Would mamma let me? Will everybody forgive me?'

Was it Biddy speaking? Even her father could scarcely believe it.

Just at that moment Mrs. Vane came hurriedly into the room: she had been to Biddy's, on receiving Celestina's message, and finding the bird flown, had naturally taken alarm.

'_Biddy!_' she exclaimed, as she caught sight of the child beside her father, his arm round her, her eager flushed face looking up at him--and her tone was rather anxious and annoyed. But Mr. Vane glanced at his wife with a little sign which she understood. She came quickly towards them.

'Biddy,' whispered her father, 'here is mamma.'

Bridget's face worked for a moment, then she flung her arms round her mother's neck.

'Mamma, mamma,' she whispered, 'I'm going to try to be good--if only you'll forgive me. I don't want to die if I can be good and help to nurse papa. Mamma, there was something _very_ sorry came into my heart when papa got me out of the water and I saw how white he was. But I wouldn't listen to it, and it got hard and horrid. But now it's come again--Celestina began it, and I _will_ be good--and _don't_ you think G.o.d will make papa better?'

I don't think Mrs. Vane had ever kissed Biddy as she kissed her then.

Doctors say that _wishing_ to get better has a good deal to do with it.

It did seem so in Mr. Vane's case; he was not afraid to die, but he was still young, and it seemed to him that if he were spared to live there were many good and useful things he could do. And he was a happy and cheerful man; he loved being alive, and he loved this beautiful world, and longed to make other people as happy as he was himself. Most of all he loved his wife and children, and his great wish to get well was for their sake more than for any other reason. And never during the several illnesses he had had did he wish _quite_ so much to get well as now. For he had a feeling that if he did not recover a sad shadow would be cast over Biddy's life--a shadow that would not grow lighter but darker, he feared, as she came more fully to understand that her folly or childish naughtiness had been the cause of his illness and death.

'It would leave a sore memory in her mother's heart too,' Mr. Vane said to himself, 'however much she tried not to let it come between her and the child.'

And I fear it would have done so.