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Girls of the Forest, a fiction by L. T. Meade |
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Chapter 23. The Dull Weight |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. THE DULL WEIGHT The rest of that day passed for Pauline in a sort of dream. She felt no fear nor pain nor remorse. She lay in bed with a languid and sleepy sensation. Aunt Sophia went in and out of the room; she was all kindness and sympathy. Several times she bent down and kissed the child's hot forehead. It gave Pauline neither pain nor pleasure when her aunt did that; she was, in short, incapable of any emotion. When the doctor came at night his face looked grave. "The little girl is all right," he said. "She has had a terrible fright, but a good night's rest will quite restore her to her usual health; but I don't quite like the look of the elder girl." Verena, who was in the room, now came forward. "Pauline is always pale," she said. "If it is only that she looks a little more pale than usual----" "It isn't that," interrupted the doctor. "Her nervous system has got a most severe shock." "The fact is this," said Miss Tredgold. "The child has not been herself for some time. It was on that account that I brought her to the seaside. She was getting very much better. This accident is most unfortunate, and I cannot understand how she knew about Penelope." "It was a precious good thing she did find it out," said the doctor, "or Mr. Carver's two little children and your young niece would all have been drowned. Miss Pauline did a remarkably plucky thing. Well, I will send round a quieting draught. Some one had better sleep in the child's room to-night; she may possibly get restless and excited." When Miss Tredgold and Verena found themselves alone, Miss Tredgold looked at her niece. "Can you understand it?" she asked. "No, Aunt Sophy." "Has Pen told you anything?" "No." "We must not question her further just now," said Miss Tredgold. "She will explain things in the morning, perhaps. Why did the children go to the White Bay--a forbidden place to every child in the neighborhood? And how did Pauline know that they were there? The mystery thickens. It annoys me very much." Verena said nothing, but her eyes slowly filled with tears. "My dear," said Miss Tredgold suddenly, "I thought it right this afternoon to send your father a telegram. He may arrive in the morning, or some time to-morrow; there is no saying." "Oh, I'm sure he will come if he remembers," said Verena. "That's just it, Renny. How long will he remember? Sometimes I think he has a fossil inside of him instead of a heart. But there! I must not abuse him to you, my dear." "He is really a most loving father," said Verena; "that is, when he remembers. Why he should forget everything puzzles me a good deal; still, I cannot forget that he is my father." "And you are right to remember it, dear child. Now go and sleep in the same room with Pen, and watch her. I will take care of Pauline." Pauline was given her sleeping draught, and Miss Tredgold, placing herself in an easy-chair, tried to think over the events of the day. Soon her thoughts wandered from the day itself to the days that had gone before, and she puzzled much over Pauline's character and her curious, half-repellent, half-affectionate attitude towards herself. "What can be the matter with the child?" she thought. "She doesn't really care for me as the others do, and yet sometimes she gives me a look that none of the others have ever yet given me, just as if she loved me with such a passionate love that it would make up for everything I have ever missed in my life. Now, Verena is affectionate and sweet, and open as the day. As to Pen, she is an oddity--no more and no less. I wish I could think her quite straightforward and honorable; but it must be my mission to train her in those important attributes. Pauline is the one who really puzzles me." By-and-by Pauline opened her eyes. She thought herself alone. She stretched out her arms and said in a voice of excitement: "Nancy, you had no right to do it. You had no right to send it away to London. It was like stealing it. I want it back. Nancy, I must have it back." Miss Tredgold went and bent over her. Pauline was evidently speaking in her sleep. Miss Tredgold returned again to her place by the window. The dawn was breaking. There was a streak of light across the distant horizon. The tide was coming in fast. Miss Tredgold, as she watched the waves, found herself shuddering. But for the merest chance Pauline and Pen might have been now lying within their cold embrace. Miss Tredgold shuddered again. She stood up, and was just about to draw the curtain to prevent the little sleeper from being disturbed by the light, when Pauline opened her eyes wide, looked gravely at her aunt, and said: "Is that you, Nancy? How strange and thin and old you have got! And have you brought it back at last? She wants it; she misses it, and Pen keeps on looking and looking for it. It is so lovely and uncommon, you see. It is gold and dark-blue and light-blue. It is most beautiful. Have you got it for me, Nancy?" "It is I, dear, not Nancy," said Miss Tredgold, coming forward. "You have had a very good night. I hope you are better." Pauline looked up at her. "How funny!" she said. "I really thought you were Nancy--Nancy King, my old friend. I suppose I was dreaming." "You were talking about something that was dark-blue and light-blue and gold," said Miss Tredgold. Pauline gave a weak smile. "Was I?" she answered. Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hands and put them inside the bedclothes. "I am going to get you a cup of tea," she said. Miss Tredgold made the tea herself; and when she brought it, and pushed back Pauline's tangled hair, she observed a narrow gold chain round her neck. "Where did she get it?" thought the good lady. "Mysteries get worse. I know all about her little ornaments. She has been talking in a most unintelligible way. And where did she get that chain?" Miss Tredgold's discoveries of that morning were not yet at an end; for by-and-by, when the servant brought in Pauline's dress which she had been drying by the kitchen fire, she held something in her hand. "I found this in the young lady's pocket," she said. "I am afraid it is injured a good bit, but if you have it well rubbed up it may get all right again." Miss Tredgold saw in the palm of the girl's hand her own much-valued and long-lost thimble. She gave a quick start, then controlled herself. "You can put it down," she said. "I am glad it was not lost." "It is a beautiful thimble," said the girl. "I am sure Johnson, the jeweller in the High Street, could put it right for you, miss." "You had better leave the room now," replied Miss Tredgold. "The young lady will hear you if you talk in a whisper." When the maid had gone Miss Tredgold remained for a minute or two holding the thimble in the palm of her hand; then she crossed the room on tiptoe, and replaced it in the pocket of Pauline's serge skirt. For the whole of that day Pauline lay in a languid and dangerous condition. The doctor feared mischief to the brain. Miss Tredgold waited on her day and night. At the end of the third day there was a change for the better, and then convalescence quickly followed. Mr. Dale made his appearance on the scene early on the morning after the accident. He was very much perturbed, and very nearly shed tears when he clasped Penelope in his arms. But in an hour's time he got restless, and asked Verena in a fretful tone what he had left his employment for. She gave him a fresh account of the whole story as far as she knew it, and he once more remembered and asked to see Pauline, and actually dropped a tear on her forehead. But by the midday train he returned to The Dales, and long before he got there the whole affair in the White Bay was forgotten by him. In a week's time Pauline was pronounced convalescent; but although she had recovered her appetite, and to a certain extent her spirits, there was a considerable change over her. This the doctor did not at first remark; but Miss Tredgold and Verena could not help noticing it. For one thing, Pauline hated looking at the sea. She liked to sit with her back to it. When the subject was mentioned she turned fidgety, and sometimes even left the room. Now and then, too, she complained of a weight pressing on her head. In short, she was herself and yet not herself; the old bright, daring, impulsive, altogether fascinating Pauline seemed to be dead and gone. On the day when she was considered well enough to go into the drawing-room, there was a festival made in her honor. The place looked bright and pretty. Verena had got a large supply of flowers, which she placed in glasses on the supper-table and also on a little table close to Pauline's side. Pauline did not remark on the flowers, however. She did not remark on anything. She was gentle and sweet, and at the same time indifferent to her surroundings. When supper was over she found herself alone with Penelope. Then a wave of color rushed into her face, and she looked full at her little sister. "Have I done it or have I not, Pen?" she said. "Have I been awfully wicked--the wickedest girl on earth--or is it a dream? Tell me--tell me, Pen. Tell me the truth." "It is as true as anything in the wide world," said Pen, speaking with intense emphasis and coming close to her sister. "There never was anybody more wicked than you--_'cept_ me. We are both as bad as bad can be. But I tell you what, Paulie, though I meant to tell, I am not going to tell now; for but for you I'd have been drownded, and I am never, never, never going to tell." "But for me!" said Pauline, and the expression on her face was somewhat vague. "Oh, Paulie, how white you look! No, I will never tell. I love you now, and it is your secret and mine for ever and ever." Pauline said nothing. She put her hand to her forehead; the dull weight on her head was very manifest. "We are going home next week," continued Pen in her brightest manner. "You will be glad of that. You will see Briar and Patty and all the rest, and perhaps you will get to look as you used to. You are not much to be proud of now. You are seedy-looking, and rather dull, and not a bit amusing. But I loves you, and I'll never, never tell." "Run away, Pen," said Miss Tredgold, coming into the room at that moment. "You are tiring Pauline. You should not have talked so loud; your sister is not very strong yet." _ |
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