Home Again

Aunt Ann darted to the kitchen, made a blazing fire, set the kettle on it and bricks around it, then ran to see if she could help.

Richard had got his boy into his own bed, had put off his own clothes, and was lying with him in his arms to warm him. Aunt Ann went about like a steam-engine, but noiseless. She got the hot bricks, then hot bottles, and more blankets. The father thought he would die before the heat got to him. As soon as he was a little warm, he mounted his horse, and rode to fetch the doctor. It was terrible to him to think that he must have passed his boy on the way, and left him to struggle home without help.

Ere he returned, Walter had begun to show a little more life. He moaned, and murmured, and seemed going through a succession of painful events. Now he would utter a cry of disgust, now call for his father; then he would be fighting the storm with a wild despair of ever reaching his father.

The doctor came, examined him, said they were doing quite right, but looked solemn over him.

Had it not been for that glimpse she had at the station where last the train stopped, Molly would have been in misery indeed when, on arriving at Walter’s lodging, and being told that he was ill in bed, she went up to his room, and could find him nowhere. It was like a bad dream. She almost doubted whether she might not be asleep. The landlady had never heard him go out, and until she had searched the whole house, would not believe he was not somewhere in it. Rather unwillingly, she allowed Molly to occupy his room for the night; and Molly, that she might start by the first train, stretched herself in her clothes on the miserable little horse-hair sofa. She could not sleep, and was not a little anxious about Walter’s traveling in such a condition; but for all that, she could not help laughing more than once or twice to think how Aunt Ann would be crowing over her: basely deserted, left standing in the yard in her Sunday clothes, it was to her care after all that Walter was given, not Molly’s! But Molly could well enough afford to join in her aunt’s laugh: she had done her duty, and did not need to be told that we have nothing to do with consequences, only with what is right. So she waited patiently for the morning.

But how was she to do when she got home? Aunt Ann would have installed herself as nurse! It would not matter much while Walter was really ill; so long Aunt Ann would be good to him! but when he began to be himself again—for that time Molly must look out and be ready!

When she reached home, she was received at the door by her father who had been watching for her, and learned all he had to tell her. Aunt Ann spoke to her as if she had but the minute before left the room, vouchsafing not a single remark concerning Walter, and yielding her a position of service as narrow as she could contrive to make it. Molly did everything she desired without complaint, fetching and carrying for her as usual. She received no recognition from the half-unconscious Walter.

If it had not been that Aunt Ann must, like other nurses, have rest, Molly’s ministering soul would have been sorely pinched and hampered; but when her aunt retired, she could do her part for the patient’s peace. In a few days he had come to himself enough to know who were about him, and seemed to manifest a preference for Molly’s nursing. To Aunt Ann this seemed very hard—and hard it would have been, but that, through all her kindness, Walter could not help foreseeing how she would treat him in the health to which she was doing her best to bring him back. He sorely dreaded the time when, strong enough to be tormented, but not able to lock his door against her, he would be at her mercy. But he cherished a hope that his father would interfere. If necessary he would appeal to him, and beg him to depose Aunt Ann, and put sweet Molly in her stead!

One morning—Molly had been sitting up the night with the invalid—she found Aunt Ann alone at the breakfast-table.

“His father is with him now,” said Molly. “I think he is a little better; he slept more quietly.”

“He’ll do well enough!” grunted Aunt Ann. “There’s no fear of him! he’s not of the sort to die early! This is what comes of letting young people have their own way! My brother will be wiser now! and so, I hope, will Walter! It shall not be my fault if he’s not made to understand! Old or young wouldn’t listen to me! Now perhaps, while they are smarting from the rod, it may be of use to speak!”

“Aunt,” said Molly, with her heart in her throat, but determined, “please do not say anything to him for a long time yet; you might make him ill again! You do not know how he hates being talked at!”

“Don’t you be afraid! I won’t talk at him! He shall be well talked to, and straight!”

“He won’t stand it any more, auntie! He’s a man now, you know! And when a mere boy, he used to complain that you were always finding fault with him!”

“Highty, tighty! What next! The gentleman has the choice, has he, when to be found fault with, and when not!”

“I give you fair warning,” said Molly, hurriedly, “that I will do what I can to prevent you!”

Aunt Ann was indignant.

“You dare to tell me, in my own”—she was going to say house, but corrected herself—“in my own home, where you live on the charity of—”

Molly interrupted her.

“I shall ask my father,” she said, “whether he wishes me to have such words from you. If he does, you shall say what you please to me. But as to Walter, I will ask nobody. Till he is able to take care of himself, I shall not let you plague him. I will fight you first! There now!”

The flashing eyes and determined mouth of Molly, who had risen, and stood regarding her aunt in a flame of honest anger, cowed her. She shut her jaws close, and looked the picture of postponement.

That instant came the voice of Mr. Colman:

“Molly! Molly!”

“Yes, Richard!” answered Miss Hancock, rising.

But Molly was out of the door, almost before her aunt was out of her chair.

Walter had asked where she was, and wanted to see her. It was the first wish of any sort he had expressed!

CHAPTER XXIX. DREAM-MOLLY

So far better as to be able to talk, Walter one day told Molly the strange dream which, as he looked back, seemed to fill the whole time almost from his leaving his lodging to his recognition of his father by his bedside.

It was a sweet day in the first of the spring. He lay with his head toward the window, and the sun shining into the room, with the tearful radiance of sorrows overlived and winter gone, when Molly entered. She was at once whelmed in the sunlight, so that she could see nothing, while Walter could almost have counted her eyelashes.

“Stand there, Molly,” he cried, “one moment! I want to look at you!”

“It is not fair!” returned Molly. “The sun is in my eyes! I am as blind as a bat!”

“I won’t ask you, if you mind, Molly!” returned Walter.

In these days he had grown very gentle. He seemed to dread the least appearance of exaction.

“I will stand where you like, and as long as you like, Walter! Have you not consented to live a little longer with us! Oh, Walter, you don’t know what it was like when the doctor looked so grave!”

Molly stood in the sun, and Walter looked at her till his eyes were wearied with the brightness she reflected, and his heart made strong by the better brightness she radiated. For Molly was the very type of a creature born of the sun and ripened by his light and heat—a glowing fruit of the tree of life amid its healing foliage, all splendor, and color, and overflowing strength. Self-will is weakness; the will to do right is strength; Molly willed the right thing and held to it. Hence it was that she was so gentle. She walked lightly over the carpet, because she could run up a hill like a hare. When she caught selfishness in her, she was down upon it with the knee and grasp of a giant. Strong is man and woman whose eternal life subjects the individual liking to the perfect will. Such man, such woman, is free man, free woman.

Molly was in a daring dress of orange and red. Scarce a girl in London would have ventured to wear it; few girls would not have looked vulgar in it; yet Molly was right. Like a dark-colored sunflower, she caught and kept the sun.

Having gazed at her in silence for awhile, Walter said, “Come and sit by me, Molly. I want to tell the dream I have been having.”

She came at once, glad to get out of the sun. But she sat where he could still see her, and waited.

“I think I remember reaching the railway, Molly, but I remember nothing after that until I thought I was in a coal-pit, with a great roaring everywhere about me. I was shut up forever by an explosion, and the tumbling subterranean waters were coming nearer and nearer! They never came, but they were always coming! Suddenly some one took me by the arm, and pulled me out of the pit. Then I was on the hill above the pit, and had to get to the top of it. But it was in the teeth of a snow-storm! My breath was very short, and I could hardly drag one foot up after the other. All at once there was an angel with wings by my side, and I knew it was Molly. I never wondered that she had wings. I only said to myself, ‘How clever she must be to stow them away when she doesn’t want them!’ Up and up we toiled, and the way was very long. But when I got too tired, you stood before me, and I leaned against you, and you folded your wings about my head, and so I got breath to go on again. And I tried to say, ‘How can you be so kind to me! I never was good to you!’”

“You dreamed quite wrong there, Walter!” interposed Molly. “You were always good to me—except, perhaps, when I asked you too many questions!”

“Your questions were too wise for me, Molly! If I had been able to answer them, this trouble would never have come upon me. But I do wish I could tell you how delightful the dream was, for all the wind and the snow! I remember exactly how I felt, standing shadowed by your wings, and leaning against you!”

Molly’s face flushed, and a hazy look came into her eyes, but she did not turn them away.

He stopped, and lay brooding on his dream.

“But all at once,” he resumed, “it went away in a chaos of coal-pits, and snow-storms, and eyes not like yours, Molly! I was tossed about for ages in heat and cold, in thirst and loathing, with now one now another horrid draught held to my lips, thirst telling me to drink, and disgust making me dash it on the ground—only to be back at my lips the next moment. Once I was a king sitting upon a great tarnished throne, dusty and worm-eaten, in a lofty room of state, the doors standing wide, and the spiders weaving webs across them, for nobody ever came in, and no sound shook the moat-filled air: on that throne I had to sit to all eternity, because I had said I was a poet and was not! I was a fellow that had stolen the poet-book of the universe, torn leaves from it, and pieced the words together so that only one could make sense of them—and she would not do it! This vanished—and I was lying under a heap of dead on a battle-field. All above me had died doing their duty, and I lay at the bottom of the heap and could not die, because I had fought, not for the right, but for the glory of a soldier. I was full of shame, for I was not worthy to die! I was not permitted to give my life for the great cause for which the rest were dead. But one of the dead woke, and turned, and clasped me; and then I woke, and it was your arms about me, Molly! and my head was leaning where it leaned! when your wings were about me!”

By this time Molly was quietly weeping.

“I wish I had wings, Walter, to flap from morning to night for you!” she said, laughing through her tears.

“You are always flapping them, Molly! only nobody can see them except in a dream. There are many true things that can not be seen with the naked eye! The eye must be clothed and in its right mind first!”

“Your poetry is beginning to come, Walter! I don’t think it ever did before!” said Molly.

Walter gazed at her wonderingly: was little Molly going to turn out a sibyl? How grown she was! What a peace and strength shone from her countenance! She was woman, girl, and child, all in one! What a fire of life there was in this lady with the brown hands—so different from the white, wax-doll ends to Lufa’s arms! She was of the cold and ice, of the white death and lies! Here was the warm, live, woman-truth! He would never more love woman as he had! Could that be a good thing which a creature like Lufa roused in him? Could that be true which had made him lie? If his love had been of the truth, would it not have known that she was not a live thing? True love would have known when it took in its arms a dead thing, a body without a soul, a material ghost!

Another time—it was a cold evening; the wind howled about the house; but the fire was burning bright, and Molly, having been reading to him, had stopped for a moment—Walter said,