My Mother's Rival, Charlotte Mary Brame [best non fiction books to read txt] 📗

France; they lingered long before they gave their decision, but it came at length.

My mother might live for years, but she would never walk again; the flying feet were stilled for the rest of her life. She was to be a hopeless, helpless cripple. She might lie on the sofa, be wheeled in a chair, perhaps even driven in a carriage, but nothing more--she would never walk again.

My father's heart almost broke. I can see him now crying and sobbing like a child. He would not believe it. He turned from one to the other, crying out:

"It cannot be true! I will not believe it! She is so young and so beautiful--it cannot be true!"

"It is most unfortunately true," said the head physician, sorrowfully. "The poor lady will dance and walk no more."

"Who is to tell her?" cried my father. "I dare not."

"It will be far better that she should not know--a hundred times better. Let her live as long as she can in ignorance of her fate; she will be more cheerful and in reality far better than if she knew the truth; it would hang over her like a funeral pall; the stronger her nerve and spirit the better for her. She would regain neither, knowing this."

"But in time--with care--she is so young. Perhaps there may be a chance."

"I tell you plainly," said the doctor, "that most unfortunately there is none--there is not the faintest," and, he added, solemnly, "may Heaven lighten your afflictions to you!"

They went away, and my father drew me to his arms.

"Laura," he said, "you must help me all your life to take care of mamma."

"I will, indeed," I cried. "I ask nothing better from Heaven than to give my life to her--my beautiful mother."

And then he told me that she would never walk again--that her flying feet were to rest forever more--that in her presence I must always be quite bright and cheerful, and never say one word of what I knew.

No more difficult task could have been laid on the heart of a child. I did it. No matter what I suffered, I always went into her room with a smile and bright, cheerful words.

So the long years passed; my beautiful mother grew better and happier and stronger--little dreaming that she was never to walk out in the meads and grounds again. She was always talking about them and saying where she should go and what she should do when she grew well.

Roses bloomed, lilies lived and died, the birds enjoyed their happy summer, then flew over the sea to warmer climes; summer dew and summer rain fell, the dead leaves were whirled in the autumn winds, and still my mother lay helpless. If this one year seemed so long, what would a lifetime be?

As some of her strength returned it seemed to me that mother grew more and more charming. She laughed and enjoyed all our care of her, and when the wonderful chair came from London, in which she could go round the garden, and could be wheeled from one room to another, she was as delighted as a child.

"Still," she said to my father, "it seems to me a pity almost, Roland, to have sent to London for this. I shall surely be able to walk soon."

He turned away from her with tears in his eyes.

A month or two afterward we were both sitting with her, and she said, quite suddenly:

"It seems a long time since I began to lie here. I am afraid it will be many months before I get well again. I think I shall resign myself to proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about it. I know it in all its moods--when the wind hurries it and the little wavelets dash along; when the tide is deep and the water overflows among the reeds and grasses; when it is still and silent and the shadows of the stars lie on it, and when the sun turns it into a stream of living gold, I know it well."

"You will see it again soon," said my father, in a broken voice. "I will drive you down any time you like."

But my mother said nothing. I think she had seen the tears in Sir Roland's eyes. From that day she seemed to grow more reconciled to her lot. Now let me add a tribute to my father. His devotion to her was something marvelous; he seemed to love her better in her helpless state than he had done when she was full of health and spirits. I admired him so much for it during the first year of my mother's illness. He never left her. Hunting, shooting, fishing, dinner parties, everything was given up that he might sit with her.

One of the drawing rooms, a beautiful, lofty apartment looking over the park to the hills beyond, was arranged as my mother's room; there all that she loved best was taken.

The one next to it was made into a sleeping room for her, so that she should never have to be carried up and down stairs. A room for her maid came next. And my father had a door so placed that the chair could be wheeled from the rooms through the glass doors into the grounds.

"You think, then," she said, "that I shall not grow well just yet, Roland?"

"No, my darling, not just yet," he replied.

What words of mine could ever describe what that sick room became? It was a paradise of beautiful flowers, singing birds, little fragrant fountains and all that was most lovely. After a time visitors came, and my mother saw them; the poor came, and she consoled them.

"My lady" was with them once more, never more to walk into their cottages and look at the rosy children. They came to her now, and that room became a haven of refuge.

So it went on for three years, and I woke up one morning to find it was my thirteenth birthday.


CHAPTER V.


That day both my parents awoke to the fact that I must have more education. I could not go to school; to have taken me from my mother would have been death to both of us. They had a long conversation, and it was decided that the wisest plan would be for me to have a governess--a lady who would at the same time be a companion to my mother. I am quite sure that at first she did not like it, but afterward she turned to my father, with a sweet, loving smile.

"It will relieve you very much," she said, "and give you time to get out."

"I shall never leave you," he said, "no matter who comes."

Several letters were written; my father gave himself unheard-of trouble; and after some weeks of doubt, hesitation and correspondence, a governess was selected for me. She had been living with Lady Bucarest, and was most highly recommended; she was amiable, accomplished, good tempered and well qualified for the duties Lady Tayne wished her to fulfill.

"What a paragon!" cried my father, as he read through the list of virtues.

"I hope we shall not be disappointed," said my mother. "Oh, Laura, darling, if it could be, I would educate you entirely, and give you into no other hands."

It was March when my governess--by name Miss Sara Reinhart--came. I always associate her in my own mind with the leaden skies, the cold winds, the bleak rains and biting frosts of March. She was to be with us on the seventh, and the whole of the day was like a tempest; the wind blew, the rain fell. We could hear the rustling of the great boughs; the wind rolled down the great avenues and shook the window frames.

My mother's room that day was the brightest in the house; cheery fire in the silver grate and the profusion of flowers made it so cheerful. How many times during that day both my father and mother said:

"What an uncomfortable journey Miss Reinhart will have!"

She ordered a good fire to be lighted in her bedroom and tea to be prepared for her. The carriage was sent to the station with plenty of wraps, and every care was taken of the strange lady. The wind was rolling like thunder through the great avenues, the tall trees bent under the fury of the blast; when the sound ceased I heard the carriage wheels, and going to my mother, who was reading, I said: "She has come."

My mother took my hand silently. Why did we both look at each other? What curious foreboding came to us both, that made us cling to each other? Poor mother! poor child!

Some time afterward my father came in and said:

"Will you see Miss Reinhart to-night, Beatrice, darling?"

She looked flushed and tired, but she answered, laughing quietly at her own nervousness:

"I suppose I shall not sleep unless I do see her, Roland. Yes, when she has taken her tea and had time to make herself quite comfortable, I shall be pleased to see her."

Why did we mother and child, cling to each other as though some terrible danger were overtaking us? It struck me that there was some little delay, and my father remained with the strange lady.

We had talked about her and wondered what she would be like. I had always pictured her as a girl many years older than myself, but still a girl, with a certain consciousness and shyness about her. I had expected that she would stand in awe of my mother at first, and be, perhaps, impressed with the grandeur of Tayne Abbey. When the time came to say that Miss Reinhart would be glad to see Lady Tayne, and Sir Roland brought the strange lady into the room, I was silently in utter amaze. This was no school-girl, no half-conscious, half-shy governess, impressed and awe-struck. There floated, rather than walked, into the room a beautiful woman, with dark draperies falling gracefully around her, a beautiful, self-possessed woman, whose every motion was harmony. She looked straight at my mother; one quick glance of her dark eyes seemed to take in every detail of the fair face and figure on the couch. She held out her hand white as my mother's own, and said:

"I am grieved to find you so ill, Lady Tayne, I hope I may be of good service to you."

"Thank you," said my mother's sweet voice, as their hands for one moment met.

Then the beautiful dark face turned to me.

"And this is my pupil," she said. "I hope we shall be good friends."

I had an uneasy sense that she was patronizing us. I looked across at my father. He was watching her with keen admiration on his face. I--with a child's keen instinct--had drawn nearer to my mother, as though to protect her. Then Sir Roland placed a chair for Miss Reinhart near my mother's sofa. She thanked him with a smile, and took it with the grace of a duchess.

Her manner was perfect. To my mother, gentle and deferential; to my father, respectful, with just a dash of quiet