Read Ebook: The Rectory Children by Molesworth Mrs Crane Walter Illustrator

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Ebook has 174 lines and 43414 words, and 4 pages

Mrs. Vane had no objection--Biddy was really not ill now, she said. It was just one of her queer ways to lie still and refuse to get up. Perhaps Celestina would make her ashamed of herself. So Celestina was brought upstairs, and tapped gently at the door.

'Come in,' said Bridget, though without looking up. But when the neat little figure came forward, close to the bedside, and she glanced round and saw who it was, a smile came over her face--the first for a long time.

'Celestina!' she exclaimed joyfully. But then the smile died away again, and a red flush covered her cheeks and forehead. 'No,' she said, turning on the other side, 'I don't want to see you. Go away.'

Celestina felt very distressed. But she wanted to do Biddy good, so she put back her own feelings.

'Please don't say that,' she said. 'I'll stay as quiet as anything, but please don't send me away. I've been so wanting to see you.'

There was a slight turning towards her on this, and at last Biddy lifted her head from the pillow a little.

'Did you truly want to see me?' she said.

'Of course I did. I've been very sorry about you being ill,' Celestina replied.

Biddy did not speak. Then Celestina heard a faint sound, and going up a little closer still, she saw that Biddy was crying.

'Dear Miss Biddy,' she whispered. Then a pair of hot little arms, not so fat as they had been, were stretched out and thrown round her neck.

'I heard him speaking as I came upstairs,' said Celestina, so quietly that Biddy believed her perfectly; 'the door of his room was open. I think he must be a little better to-day.'

'Oh,' said Biddy with a gasp, 'I do wonder if he is.'

'I suppose it's because I'm lazy then. They all say I'm very lazy,' Biddy replied. 'But I can't help it. I'm not going to try and be good any more. I fixed that before--before that day. It's no use.'

Celestina considered a little.

'I should think,' she said at last--'I should think you would want to get better to help to take care of your papa and make him better.'

Biddy started at this. It was a new idea.

'Do you think they'd let me?' she said in a half whisper. 'I thought I was too little. Did you ever help to take care of your papa when he was ill? But p'raps he's never been ill?'

'Oh yes, he has,' said Celestina, with a sigh. 'I think he's iller than your papa very often. I do lots of things for him then: I make his tea always, and tidy his room. And sometimes when he's getting better and comes downstairs to the parlour I read aloud to him. For when he's ill, mother has all the more to be in the shop, you know.'

Bridget listened intently. At last--

Bridget would have hung her head if she had not been lying down. As it was, she looked ashamed.

'He mustn't get up at all, you know,' she said. 'And one day when they offered me to go to see him, I wouldn't.'

'You wouldn't?' exclaimed Celestina.

'No,' said Biddy; 'I didn't want to see him looking like he did that day.'

'But you'd like to see him now, wouldn't you?'

'Yes,' said Biddy. 'If you were to get me my dressing-gown, Celestina, don't you think I might just run down the passage and the little stair and go to see him? He lies on the sofa in his room, Alie said one day.'

Celestina looked frightened.

'Don't you think you should ask your mamma first?' she said. 'Besides, I thought you were too ill to walk.'

'Oh no,' said Bridget; 'I think I could walk if I tried. But you may go and ask mamma if you like; I'm sure she'll say I may.'

Upstairs Bridget was eagerly waiting for Celestina's return. She had got out of bed and reached down her dressing-gown for herself, feeling rather surprised at finding how well she could walk; she had found her slippers too, and stood there leaning against the bed, quite ready for her little expedition.

After a while she crept to the door and peeped out. Sounds, cheerful sounds of the usual morning stir in a well-managed house came up the stairs; she heard faint clatter from the kitchen, and now and then a little laugh or a few words of the servants talking together. But no one was about upstairs.

'Papa must be a little better,' thought Bridget, 'else they wouldn't seem like that. I do wish Celestina would come back. I wonder if she's forgotten?'

She edged herself a tiny bit into the passage. It did not seem far, only along by the balusters and down the little stair to papa's room; and just then came a sound which seemed to go straight to Biddy's heart. It was papa's cough--not a very bad one, just his usual little cough. It seemed to waken her up--till now she had felt almost as if in a sort of dream; it was so queer to feel and hear all the house-life going on the same as ever when she had been out of it so long, for ten or twelve days is a long time to a child--but the sound of papa's cough seemed to make everything real, to join the past and the present together again, still more, to touch a spring in Biddy which I think she had scarcely known was there. And without stopping to think any more, off she set, along the passage and down the stair, till she found herself, breathless and rather giddy, but full of eagerness, at her father's door.

It was open, as Celestina had said, and half shy now, Biddy peeped in. He was lying on a couch between the fire and the window; it was a bright spring-like morning--he had a book in his hand, but he did not seem to be reading; he was quite still, his eyes were gazing out to the clear blue sky, and the look in his face was very sweet. Then again came the little cough. That was the signal. In rushed Biddy.

'My poor little Biddy,' said Mr. Vane, raising himself so as to see her, and drawing her tenderly on to the couch beside him,--'my poor little Biddy. So you've come to see me at last! And are you getting better, dear?'

'Yes, yes, papa, but please tell me you're not going to die because of me,' and Biddy began to cry, but gently, not in her old way.

Mr. Vane tried to speak, but his cough was troublesome.

'I think I'm a little better, dear,' he said, 'and, please God, I hope to be better yet. And it will be a great help to me if I see you quite well again, and trying to be of use to mamma, Biddy, and to Alie. You can help to nurse me, you know.'

Biddy looked up. The very things Celestina had said!

'Papa!' she said, 'might I really? Would mamma let me? Will everybody forgive me?'

Was it Biddy speaking? Even her father could scarcely believe it.

Just at that moment Mrs. Vane came hurriedly into the room: she had been to Biddy's, on receiving Celestina's message, and finding the bird flown, had naturally taken alarm.

'Biddy,' whispered her father, 'here is mamma.'

Bridget's face worked for a moment, then she flung her arms round her mother's neck.

I don't think Mrs. Vane had ever kissed Biddy as she kissed her then.

'It would leave a sore memory in her mother's heart too,' Mr. Vane said to himself, 'however much she tried not to let it come between her and the child.'

And I fear it would have done so.

'I almost feel as if he were too good to live,' said Mrs. Fairchild one evening to Celestina and her father, when she had returned from a visit to the rectory. But this time it was Mr. Fairchild's turn to speak cheerily, for he too had been spending an hour or two with the invalid that day.

'I saw a decided improvement to-day,' he said. 'I do think Mr. Vane's patience is wonderful, but I have a strong feeling that he is really beginning to gain ground.'

Celestina's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and so did her mother's. The two families had grown very much attached to each other in these few weeks.

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY

'Rare as is true love, true friendship is still rarer.' LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

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