Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life Part 10

But Jessie could not see things in this light. She was evidently as well pleased with her guest as she had been the night before, but, though she smiled and joined in the pleasant conversation, I saw by the heavy shadows under her eyes that some anxiety disturbed her. The fact that she had made an appointment to ride with a suitor whom she must reject accounted sufficiently for this; Jessie had the finest traits of a purely proud nature, and the idea of giving pain was to her in itself a great trial. Still, these observations only applied to the undercurrent that morning; on the surface everything was sparkling and pleasant.

Mr. Lee was more than usually animated, and, before the meal was ended, quite a war of complimentary badinage had commenced and was kept up between him and our guest.

Jessie always went to her mother after breakfast. So, immediately on quitting the table, she stole away to the tower, looking a little serious, but not more so than her peculiar trial of the day accounted for.

I followed her directly, leaving Mrs. Dennison and Mr. Lee on the square balcony, on which the early suns.h.i.+ne lay in golden warmth.

Mrs. Lee had not rested well; her eyes, usually so bright, were heavy from want of sleep; and the pillow, from which she had not yet risen, bore marks of a thousand restless movements, which betrayed unusual excitement.

CHAPTER XIII.

JESSIE LEE AND HER MOTHER.

Jessie was sitting on one side of the bed holding a Parian cup in her hand; the amber gleam of coffee shone through the transparent vine-leaves that embossed it, and she was stirring the fragrant beverage gently with a spoon.

"Try, dear mother, and drink just a little," she was saying, in her sweet, caressing way. "It makes me very unhappy to see you looking so ill."

"Indeed I am not ill, only a little restless, Jessie," answered the sweet lady, rising languidly from her pillow and reaching forth her hand for the cup. She tasted the coffee and looked gratefully at her daughter. "It is nice; no one understands me like you, my daughter."

Jessie blushed with pleasure, and began to mellow a delicate slice of toast with the silver knife that lay beside it, making a parade of her efforts, which she evidently hoped would entice her mother's appet.i.te: and so it did. I am sure no one besides her could have tempted that frail woman to eat a mouthful. As it was, one of the birds that was picking seeds from the terrace could almost have rivalled her appet.i.te: the presence of her daughter, I fancy, gave her more strength than anything else.

"So you have had a bad night, my mother," said Jessie, tenderly; "once or twice I awoke and felt that you did not sleep."

"Indeed!" said the mother, with an earnest look breaking through the heaviness of her eyes.

"Yes, indeed; but then I never wake in the night without wondering if you sleep well."

"Did you see me?" questioned the mother, anxiously.

"See you, mother?"

Mrs. Lee smiled faintly, and shook her head as if to cast off some strange thought.

"Of course, it was impossible. I must have slept long enough to dream; but it seems to me as if I was in your room last night. Something called me there, a faint, white shadow, that sometimes took the outline of an angel, sometimes floated before me like a cloud."

"Oh, my good mother! it was kind to come, even in your dreams," said Jessie, kissing the little hand that lay in hers.

Mrs. Lee looked troubled, and seemed to be searching her memory for something.

"It took me--the cloud-angel--you know, into the blue room."

"The blue room!" Jessie and I exclaimed together, for that was the apartment in which Mrs. Dennison slept, though the fact had never been mentioned to Mrs. Lee, and another chamber had at first been intended for our guest. "The blue room?"

"Yes, the blue room!" she said; "but like all dreams, nothing was like the reality. Instead of the enamelled furniture, everything was covered with the prettiest blue chintz, with a wild-rose pattern running over it."

Jessie and I looked at each other in consternation, for the furniture which Mrs. Lee described as familiar to the blue room had been removed to the chamber we had first intended for Mrs. Dennison, and that with which we had replaced it being too rich for a sleeping-room, we had covered it with the pretty chintz, without mentioning the fact to Mrs.

Lee or any one else.

"There was a toilet instead of the dressing-table, I remember,"

continued the lady, "with quant.i.ties of frost-like lace falling around it and on it; with other things, a little basket, prettier than mine, full of mossrose-buds."

"Was there nothing else in the basket?" I questioned, holding my breath for the reply.

"Nothing else," answered the lady, smiling; "oh! yes, combs and hair-pins, rings and bracelets, the whole toilet was in a glitter."

"But nothing else in the basket?" I persisted.

"No; rose-buds--mossrose-buds, red and white. Nothing more," she answered, languidly.

Mrs. Lee paused a moment with her eyes closed. Then starting as if from sleep, she almost cried out,--

"There was a woman in the room--in the bed--a beautiful woman. The ruffles of her night-gown were open at the throat, the sleeves were broad and loose; you could see her arms almost to the shoulders. She wore no cap, and her hair fell in bright, heavy coils down to her waist.

She had something in her hand; don't speak, I shall remember in a minute: the color was rich. It was, yes, it was half a peach, with the brown stone partly bedded in the centre; the fragrance of it hung about the basket of roses."

"And you saw all this, dear lady?" I exclaimed, startled by the reality of her picture, which, as a whole, I recognized far more closely than Jessie could.

"In my dream, yes; but one fancies such strange things when asleep, you know, dear Miss Hyde."

"Strange, very strange," murmured Jessie; "but for the basket of roses and the fruit, we might have recognized the picture. Don't you think so, Aunt Matty?"

"Did you get a look at the lady's face?" I inquired, suppressing Jessie's question.

"No, no; I think not. The thick hair shaded it, but the arms and neck were white as lilies. She had bitten the peach; I remember seeing marks of her teeth on one side. Strange, isn't it, how real such fancies will seem?"

"It is, indeed, strange," I said, feeling cold chills creeping over me.

"Besides," continued the invalid, while a scarcely perceptible s.h.i.+ver disturbed her, "notwithstanding the freshness and beauty of everything, I felt oppressed in that room--just as flowers may be supposed to grow faint when vipers creep over them; the air seemed close till I got to your chamber, Jessie."

"And there?" said the sweet girl, kissing her mother's hand again.

"There, the angel that had been a cloud took form again. It beckoned me--beckoned me--I cannot tell where; but you were sleeping, I know that."

"It was a strange dream," said Jessie, thoughtfully.

"The impression was very strong," answered the mother, drawing a hand across her eyes,--"so powerful that it tired me. This morning it seemed as if I had been on a journey."

"But you are better now," I said; "this sense of fatigue is wearing off, I hope."

"Oh, yes!" she answered, languidly.

"And you will be well enough to see Mrs. Dennison before dinner, I hope," whispered Jessie.

"Perhaps, child."