Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/42

Rh out like a giant fierce and strong in the broad open daylight, it stared me in the face mockingly, cruelly; and I saw that it was an idol I had been bowing down to, a pillar I had been leaning on for strength; and the idol was crumbling, the pillar was falling, and I, who had leaned too long on that one support, was weak (oh! how weak) now it was gone.

Arthur stayed with me for a long while that evening, talking of many things,—of Agnes most of all. He asked me to be kind to her when he was gone, to show her love and sympathy for his sake.

He knew not he was asking me to do a hard thing. The next day he was gone, and Agnes moved about the house quiet and subdued, as if a little shadow had come to dim her sky for a moment; while I, who had no right to grieve, yet grieved more hopelessly. Now, at the distance of nearly twenty years, I can look back calmly on that time, as on the recollection of a troubled dream, from which the awakening was tranquil as the clear shining after rain. But then there was no shining, no rest, no comfort. The next few months that passed before the winter came (that was when the wedding was to be) were very dreary ones to me. There was a little brief while indeed, in which Aunt Rachel and Lucy paid us a visit on their way home from Scotland; but when that was over I felt even more lonely than ever. My heart was more than ever closed to Agnes. I felt towards her as if she had done me a cruel wrong; as if she had stolen from me something that might have been mine; that I would have valued, oh how pricelessly!

One afternoon, near the end of November, as I was sitting in the library with my father, he looked up from his newspaper suddenly, and said, “Heffie, my child, I wish I could see you happy, really happy. I cannot bear to see that pale face of yours day after day without a smile upon it. Can you not borrow a little sunshine from Agnes?”

I did not answer for a few moments. Then a desperate resolve seemed suddenly to shape itself into words on my lips, and I said, “Let me go away, father; let me leave Riverbank. I can never be happy while I stay here. Let me go.”

“Let you go away, Heffie! What can you mean? Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere, father; anywhere! I will be a governess, or a companion. I will do anything; only let me go away.”

“Why, Heffie, you do not know what you are saying. Are you in your senses, child? What makes you so unhappy? Tell me.”

“I cannot, father; I cannot tell any one. But, oh! I want to go away! I want to go away!” And in the passion of my entreaty I sobbed bitterly.

“Heffie,” my father exclaimed half frightened, “what is the matter? Are you ill?”

Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Leigh entered the room. She tried to speak to me: but I rushed wildly past her into the hall and up-stairs, never pausing till I reached my own room, and there, sinking on the floor beside the sofa, I pressed my head against the pillows and wept as I had not wept for a long while.

Presently I heard a step in the passage. Some one knocked at my door. I did not answer, or even raise my head; I dreaded that they should see my tears. Again the knock was repeated; but I never moved. At length the door opened, and I knew, without looking back, that it was my stepmother who stood near me. She laid her hand gently on my shoulder, saying, “Heffie, my poor child, what is the matter? Are you ill, or in trouble, or has any one been unkind to you? Do tell me.”

But still I did not move, but kept my face buried in the sofa pillow.

“Heffie,” she said again, and this time there was even a little sternness in her voice, “Heffie, listen to me. I must speak to you; I must know what all this means.”

Her manner quieted me in an instant. I let her raise me from the floor, and, seating herself on the sofa, made me sit beside her, put her arm round me, and drew my head to rest on her bosom. She did not try to stop my tears altogether: they were flowing more quietly now; but I was cold and trembling, though my head was burning; and, taking one of my hands, she gently chafed it in her own without speaking a word for some time. At last, as I grew calmer still, she spoke again.

“Heffie, dearest love, why will you not tell me what is troubling this poor little heart so much?”

“Because, because I cannot tell any one. I must not; indeed I must not. Nobody could help me if I did.”

“Is it so very bad, dear,—so incurable? Oh, Heffie! I would be to you in your dear mother’s place if you would let me,—if you would open your heart to me, and trust me as you would have trusted her. You are too young to bear all this grief alone. Will you not trust me with part of it, at least?”

What right had I to all this tenderness from her, those words of sympathy,—I who, for nearly a whole year, had coldly cast away the love she would have given me? Did I deserve it now? I knew 1 did not; but that last appeal—so tenderly, so earnestly made—seemed to touch somewhere in my heart a chord that had never thrilled before. My proud, wayward