Bessie's Fortune Part 43

Grey, who had taken the trip to Egypt, had only been in Rome a few days, and as there was no room for him at the pension, he was stopping at the Quirinal, near by. He had seen the carnival twice before, and cared but little for it; but it was new to his Aunt Lucy, and for her sake he was there, standing at her side and apparently watching the gay pageant as it moved by, though in reality he was scarcely thinking of it at all, for all his thoughts and interest were centered in the white, worn face he had seen that morning in a close, dark room at the hotel, where Bessie McPherson lay dying, he verily believed.

On the night of his arrival at the hotel, which was very full, he had been given a room on the fourth floor looking into a court, and his rest had been disturbed by the murmur of voices in the room adjoining his own.

An Italian voice, which he was sure was a doctor's--a clear, decided, youthful voice, with a slight Irish brogue, which he knew must belong to a young girl, and an older, softer voice, often choked with tears, and occasionally a moaning sound, and wild s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, which affected him strangely, for this voice, broken and weak as it was, had in it something familiar, and he tried in vain to recall where he had heard it before and under what circ.u.mstances. Once he thought he heard his own name, as if the sick girl (he felt intuitively that it was a girl) were calling for him, and, starting up, he listened intently, but caught only the tones of the tearful, sobbing voice which said:

"Hush, darling, hus.h.!.+ We are all here; try to be quiet and sleep."

At last, worn out with wakefulness and the fatigue of his long journey from Naples, Grey fell into a deep sleep, from which he did not waken until nearly ten the next morning. Dressing himself hastily he went at once to the office and asked who occupied the room adjoining his own.

"An English lady and her daughter," was the reply; and the clerk, who was not noted for suavity of manner, turned to a little bright-eyed, black haired girl, who came up, evidently with the intention of preferring some request.

There was something in the toss of the curly head, and the saucy look in the eyes, and the slightly upward turn of the nose, which always commanded attention from the rudest of porters and clerks: and this one at the Quirinal bowed respectfully to her, and was about to ask what he could do for her, when Grey interrupted him with another question, or rather a.s.sertion and question both:

"The young lady is sick. What is the matter with her?"

A flush of annoyance pa.s.sed over the clerk's face, as he replied:

"A severe cold, taken in Naples. What can I do for you, Miss Meredith?"

And he loftily bowed Grey aside to make room for the young girl, whose black eyes flashed upon Grey with a half-comical expression, and whose shoulders shrugged involuntarily as she heard the clerk's explanation.

"I will ask the names of the English lady and her daughter another time," Grey thought, as he moved away to make room for the young lady.

He had finished his breakfast, an hour later, and was making his way from the winter garden into the parlor, when he again encountered the young girl with the bright, laughing black eyes.

"Excuse me," she said, flas.h.i.+ng upon him a bright, bewildering smile. "I looked on the register, and found that you are Mr. Grey Jerrold, of whom I have heard Sir Jack Trevellian speak. Sir Hal, from whom Sir Jack inherited Trevellian Castle, was my cousin, and I used to live there before poor Hal was killed. I am Flossie Meredith, and live now with my grandmother, at Port Rush, in Ireland."

Grey bowed low to the vivacious little lady, who went on rapidly, gesticulating as she talked, and emphasizing what she said with most expressive shrugs and elevations of her eyelids and nose:

"I heard what that horrid clerk at the bureau told you ailed the young lady in No.----. A severe cold, indeed! I should think it was. It is the typhoid fever of the very worst form, and if you are afraid of it you had better change your room. There are awful big cracks over and under the door. I have stopped them up with paper as well as I can, but the air can get through, and you might take the fever. The gentleman who occupied the room before you came, left it in a hurry when he heard of the fever, but I don't know where he went to escape it, for it's all over the hotel. There is an American girl on the same floor, whom they think is dying this morning, and a young man down stairs, and two or three more somewhere else; and yet the clerks will tell you there is not a single case of fever in the hotel. What liars they are, to be sure!

Grandma is frightened almost to death, and burns sugar, and camphor, and brimstone, as disinfectants, and keeps chloride of lime under her bed, till her room smells worse, if possible, than the hotel itself. But I am not afraid. My room adjoins Bessie's, and I am with her half the time."

"What did you say? What did you call the young lady?" Grey asked, excitedly, and Flossie replied:

"Bessie--Bessie McPherson, from Wales. I remember now, you must know her, for Sir Jack told me that he once spent a Christmas at Stoneleigh, and you were there with him."

"Yes, I know her," Grey said, with a tremor in his voice, and a pallor about his lips. "Tell me how long she has been sick, and who is with her."

Then Flossie told him that immediately on her return home from America, Daisy had taken Bessie with her to Switzerland, where they spent the remainder of the summer and a part of the autumn, making their way to Paris in October, and going on to Italy sometime in November; that she, Flossie, had come abroad with her grandmother and had fallen in with the McPhersons at the Italian lakes, and kept with them ever since; that Bessie had not seemed well or happy for some weeks; and that almost immediately after her arrival in Rome she had taken her bed and had been rapidly growing worse until now, when the doctor gave little hope of her recovery.

"She does not know us," Flossie said, "and she talks so piteously of her old home, and wants us to take her back to the garden where the birds are singing in the yews, and where she says there is just one place between her father and the wall, and that is for her. Oh, Mr. Jerrold, what if she should die!"

"She must not--she shall not," Grey answered her, energetically, and by the sense of bitter pain in his heart he knew that Bessie McPherson was more to him than any other girl could ever be, and if she died the world would lose much of its brightness for him.

He had never forgotten her, and over and over again in both his sleeping and waking hours there had arisen before him a vision of her face, as he had seen it when first he went to Stoneleigh, and as he saw it there last, pale and worn and sad, but inexpressibly lovely and sweet. And now, Flossie told him, she was dying, and for a moment he grew cold and faint; then he rallied, and saying, "I will go and see Mrs. McPherson,"

bade Flossie good-morning, and started for No.----, fourth floor.

His knock was answered by Daisy herself, whose face was very pale, and whose eyes were swollen and red with watching and tears. All her better nature had been aroused; the mother love was in the ascendant now, and in her anxiety for her child she had forgotten much of her coquetry and was almost womanly in her grief.

"You are Mrs. McPherson?" Grey said to her, as she stepped out into the hall and closed the door of the sick-room.

She bowed in the affirmative, and he continued:

"I am Grey Jerrold, I knew your husband; I was with him when he died. I have just heard from Miss Meredith of your daughter's illness, and have come to offer you my services. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Daisy's tears fell like rain as she replied:

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Jerrold; it will be something to know I have a friend, for we are all alone. Neil is in Cairo, and there is no one beside him on whom we have any claim. I have heard Bessie speak of you; only last night she called you by name in her delirium."

"Yes, I heard her," Grey said, explaining that he occupied the adjoining room, and thus had learned that there was some one sick near him.

In an instant Daisy's face brightened as something of her old managing nature a.s.serted itself, and in a few moments she adroitly contrived to let Grey know how very much alone she felt with no male friend to counsel her; how bitterly disappointed she was that the last mail from England did not bring her the expected funds which she so sorely needed; how exorbitant the proprietor of the hotel was in his charges, taking every possible advantage of her helpless condition; and how much she had desired an adjoining room, in order that Bessie might have better air, and those who took care of her more s.p.a.ce.

"Not that it matters so very much, except for the air," she added; "for I cannot afford a nurse, so there is one less breath in the room. Oh, Mr. Jerrold, it is dreadful to be sick in Rome, with no friends and very little money. If Neil were here, or my remittances from England would come, it would be all right."

"No nurse," Grey exclaimed. "Have you no nurse for your daughter? Who, then, takes care of her?"

"I do, with Miss Meredith's help. She is very kind, and occasionally one of the servants in the hotel stays with us during the night; but I hear Bessie moving, and I must go. I am so glad that you are here.

Good-morning."

It is needless to say that within two hours' time Grey's room was at Daisy's disposal, and the proprietor had orders to charge the same to Mr. Jerrold's account instead of Mrs. McPherson's, while Grey's own luggage was transported to a little, close, eight-by-twelve apartment, which smelled worse than old Mrs. Meredith's could possibly have smelled with all her burnt brimstone and camphor and chloride of lime. The physician, an Italian, was also interviewed, and a competent nurse secured and introduced into the sick-room, and when Daisy protested that she could not meet the expense, Grey said to her:

"Give yourself no uneasiness on that score; that is my business. We cannot let Bessie die."

And then he asked to see her. Very cautiously he entered the room, and with a great throb of pain in his heart stood looking upon the pallid face and the bright blue eyes which met his inquiringly, but had in them no sign of recognition. Taking one of her hands in his and bending over her, Grey said, very softly:

"Do you know me, Bessie?"

There was tenderness and pity in the tone of his voice as he said the name Bessie, and the sick girl looked at him curiously, as if struggling to recall something in the far past; then a smile broke over her face and the lip quivered a little as she replied:

"Yes, you are Neil. I have waited for you, I am so glad you have come."

Still holding the feverish hand which clung to his, Grey hesitated a moment, and then said:

"I am not Neil; he will be here soon. I am Grey Jerrold; don't you remember I spent a Christmas with you once?"

Again she regarded him fixedly a moment, and then she said:

"Yes, I remember Grey Jerrold, the American: he was to have had my room, but said he preferred the cold and the rats! Ugh!" and she s.h.i.+vered a little, as she continued, "Where is he, Neil? He was with me when father died, and was so very kind. Thank him for me, when you see him, and now I am so tired. I cannot talk any more, but stay by me, Neil, and hold my hand I am better with you here."

She persisted in thinking him Neil, and Grey humored the fancy. He had never heard of her engagement, for Jack had not betrayed her confidence; but he knew that she and Neil were greatly attached to each other, and were, as he thought, more like brother and sister than cousins, and, believing as he did with the world in general, that Neil was pledged to Blanche Trevellian, he had no suspicion of the real state of affairs, though he wondered that all Bessie's thoughts should be concentrated upon her absent cousin. How sick she was, and how high the fever ran, and how strangely she talked, as he sat there watching her with a terrible fear in his heart, and a constant prayer for the dear life which seemed balancing so evenly in the scale for the next two or three days, during which he was with her all the time he could spare from his Aunt Lucy, who never suspected why he seemed so abstracted and sad, or that the fever was in the hotel where he was staying. He knew how much afraid she was of it, and how anxious she would be for him if she knew where he spent the hours not given to her. So he did not tell her of poor little Bessie, who grew weaker and weaker every day, until at last the old doctor shook his head, and between the pinches of snuff which he blew about vigorously, said there was one chance in a hundred for her, and if she had any friends who wished to see her, they should be sent for at once. But there was no one save Neil, whom Daisy expected every day, and Grey filled his place altogether with Bessie. She always called him Neil, and once, with a most grieved expression on her face, she said to him:

"Why don't you kiss me, Neil? You have not since you came."

Daisy and Flossie had gone to dinner, and the nurse was resting a few moments in the adjoining room, while Grey sat by her patient; thus he was alone with Bessie, when she startled him with the question, "Why don't you kiss me, Neil?"

Bending over her, he said: