CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE WIFE'S VISIT.

"I must see him. I will see him! Oh, Mrs. Mason, if you only knew how important it is!"

The good housekeeper, who sat in her comfortable parlor at "The Rest," was surprised and troubled by the sudden appearance of her pretty favorite from the gardener's cottage. She was hard to move, but could not altogether steel herself against the pathetic pleading of that pale young creature, who had come up from her home through the lonely dusk, to ask a single word with the young heir.

Sick or well, she said, that word must be spoken. All she wanted of Mrs. Mason was to let her into his room a single minute--one minute--she would not ask for more. Only if Mrs. Mason did not want to see her die, she would help her to speak that one word.

There is something in passionate earnestness which will awake the most lethargic heart to energy, if that heart is kindly disposed. The stout housekeeper of the Hall had known and petted Ruth Jessup from the time she was old enough to carry her little apron full of fruit or flowers from the gardener's cottage to her room in the great mansion. It went to her heart to refuse anything to the fair young creature, who still seemed to her nothing more than a child; but the wild request, and the tearful energy with which it was urged, startled the good woman into sharp opposition.

"Mr. Walton! You wish to see him, Ruthy? Who ever heard of such a thing? It quite makes me tremble to think of it. What can a child like you want with the young master, and he sick in bed, with everybody shut out but the doctor, and wet ice-cloths on his head, night and day. I couldn't think of mentioning it. I wonder you could bring yourself to ask me. If it had been anything in my line now!"

"It is! It is! Kindness is always in your line, dear godmother!" pleaded the poor girl, putting one arm over the housekeeper's broad shoulders, and laying her pale cheek against the rosy freshness which bloomed in that of her friend. "I wouldn't ask you, only it is so important."

"But what can it be that you want to say, Ruthy? I cannot begin to understand it," questioned the old woman, faltering a little in her hastily expressed denial; for the soft-pleading kisses lavished on her face had their effect. "If you were not such a child now."

"But I am not a child, godmother."

"Hoity-toity! Is she setting herself up as a woman? Well, that does make me laugh. Why, it is but yesterday like since your mother came into this very room, such a pale, young thing, with you in her arms. She was weak then, with the consumption, that carried her off, burning like fire in her poor, thin cheeks, while you lay in her arms, plump as a pheasant, with those gipsy black eyes full of fire, and a crow of joy on your baby mouth. Ah, me! I remember it so well!"

"My poor young mother asked something of you then, didn't she?" said Ruth.

"Well, yes, she did. I mind it well. She had something on her heart, and came to me about it."

"And that was--"

"About you, child. She knew that she was going to die, and--and I had always liked her, and been friendly, you know."

"Yes, I know that. Father has told me."

"Being so, it was but natural that she should come to me in her last trouble."

"She could not have come to a dearer or kinder soul," murmured Ruth.

"Nonsense, child! She might; but then the truth was she didn't. It was me the poor thing chose to trust. I shall never forget her look that day when she sat down on a stool at my feet, just there by the window, and told me that she knew it was coming death that made her so feeble. She was looking at you then as well as she could, through the great tears that seemed to cool the heat in her eyes; and you lay still as a mouse, looking at her as if there was cause of baby wonderment in her tears. Then all at once your little mouth began to tremble, and lifting up your arms, you cried out, as if her tender grief had hurt you. That brought the tears into my eyes. So we all sat there crying together, though hardly a word had been spoken up to then. Still I knew what it all meant, and reaching out my arms, took you to my own bosom."

"Bless you for it," murmured Ruth.

"Another baby had slept in that bosom once, and somewhere in God's great universe I knew that she might find it among the angels, and care for it as I meant to care for you, Ruthy."

"She did! She does! Only that child is so much happier than I am," sobbed Ruth, tenderly. "She has all the angels; I only you!"

Mrs. Mason lifted her plump hand, with which she patted the young creature's cheek, and said that she was a good child, and always had been; only a little headstrong, now and then, which was not to be wondered at, seeing it was out of the question that she, though she meant to be a kind godmother, could altogether fill the place of that sweet, dead mother; she must be at her duties there in "The Rest," while Jessup was obstinate, and would keep the child with him.

"And you are all the mother I have now," said Ruth, who had listened with forced patience. "To whom else can I go?"

"Why, to no one. I should like to see man or woman attempt to cheat me out of my trust! I will say this for Jessup, headstrong as he is about having you with him, he has not interfered. When it was my pleasure to have you taught things that only ladies think of learning, he never thought of having a word to say against it; so I had my own way with my own money, and you will know the good of all the learning when you are old enough to go among people, and think of a husband, which must not be for years yet."

Ruth sighed heavily.

"Meantime, my dear," continued the housekeeper, "we must be looking about for the proper person. With the learning we have given you, and certain prospects, we shall have a right to look high. Not among the gentry, though you will be pretty enough and bright enough for most of them, according to my thinking; but there are genteel tradespeople in the village, and they sometimes creep up among the gentry in these times. So who knows that you will not be made a lady in that way?"

"Oh, no! Do not speak of it--do not think of it!" said Ruth, with nervous energy. "I cannot bear that!"

"What a child it is! but I like to see it. Forward young things are my abomination; but you may as well know it first as last, Ruthy. When I promised your dying mother to be a mother to you, it was not in words; but deep down in my heart, I gave you that other child's place. I am an old woman, and have saved money, which would have been hers, and shall be yours some of these days."

Ruth let her head fall on the kind housekeeper's shoulder, and burst into a passion of tears. Again the old woman patted her upon the cheek.

"Why, child, what is the matter? I thought this news would make you happy. Take this for your comfort, my savings are heavier than people think."

"Don't! oh, don't! I cannot bear it," sobbed the girl. "Everybody--that is almost everybody--is far too kind: you above all. Only--only it is not money I want just now."

"But my dear--"

"All the money in the world, if you could give it me, could not be so much as the thing I asked just now," Ruth broke in, made desperate as the subject of her wish seemed drifting out of sight. "I want it so much--so much."

"My child, it is impossible. What would Sir Noel say? What would the Lady Rose say?"

"She has no right. What is it to her?" cried the girl, stung by a sharp pang of jealousy, which overmastered every other feeling.

"Ruth!"

"Forgive me. I am so unhappy."

"Ruth, I do not understand. You do not cry like a child, but as women cry when their hearts are breaking."

"My heart is breaking."

"Poor child! Is it about your father?"

"Yes, oh, yes! My father!"

"But the doctors say he is better."

"He is better; but we fear trouble, great trouble."

"Where? How?"

"Oh, Mrs. Mason, I must tell you, or you will not let me see him. They will try to make out that the young master shot my father."

"They? Who? I should like to meet the man who dares say it, face to face with me."

Ruth shuddered. She had met the man, and his evil smile haunted her.

"It may be that it is only a threat," she said; "but it frightened us, and made my father worse."

"But he knows--surely he knows? What does your father say?"

"The man's rude talk threw him into a fever. He was quite wild, and tried to get up and dress himself, that he might come and see Wa--, the young master, at once."

"Why, the man was crazy," exclaimed Mrs. Mason.

"He seemed like it. I could not keep him in bed, and only pacified him, by promising to come myself. You see now why it is that I must speak with Mr. Walton."

"Yes, I see," observed the housekeeper, now quite bewildered. "But had you not better go to Sir Noel?"

"No! no! My father bade me speak to no one but the young master."

"Well, well! if he knows about your coming, I don't so much mind. Wait a bit, and I will send for Webb, Sir Noel's own man, who is in the young master's chamber night and day. I will have a nice bit of supper served up here, and that will keep him while you can steal into the room without trouble."

Ruth flung her arms around the good woman's neck, and covered her face with grateful kisses.

"Oh, how good you are--how good you are!"

"Well! well! Remember, dear, if I give you your own way now, it is because of your father."

"I know--I know; but how soon? It is now after dark!"

The housekeeper rung her bell. Then, as if struck with a new thought, told Ruth to go into her bedroom, and not attempt to enter any other part of the house, till she knew that Webb was safe down at the supper-table. Ruth promised, and stealing into the bedroom, sat down on a couch and waited.

Scarcely had she left the room, when Mrs. Hipple, the companion of Lady Rose, came in, and heard the orders Mrs. Mason gave regarding Webb. A certain gleam of intelligence shot across that shrewd old face, and after making some trifling errand, she went out, with a smile on her lips.

For half an hour Ruth sat in the darkness with her head bowed and her hands locked. It seemed an age to her before she heard the clink of cups, and the soft ring of silver. Then, listening keenly, she heard a man's voice speaking with the housekeeper. This might be Webb. She was resolved to make sure of that, and, walking on tip-toe across the carpet, noiselessly opened the door far enough to see that personage seated by the housekeeper, eating a dainty little supper.

Quick as a bird, Ruth stole through the opposite door, up the servants' stair-case, and along the upper hall, on which the family bed-chambers opened.

Trembling with excitement, which oppressed her to faintness, she turned the latch, and stole into the chamber, but only to pause a step from the door, dumb and cold, as if, then and there, turned into stone.

Another person was in the room, standing close by the bed, with the glow of its silken curtains falling over the soft whiteness of her dress, and the rich masses of her golden hair. It was Lady Rose.

A moment this fair vision stood gazing upon the inmate of the bed, then her face drooped downward, and seemed to rest upon the pillow, where another head lay. The night-lamp was dim, but Ruth could see this, and also that the lady sunk slowly to her knees, and rested her cheek against a hand, around which her fingers were enwoven.

Not a word did that young wife utter. Not a breath did she draw, but, turning swiftly, fled.