Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 36

"She! She is as strong as a horse. And I don't think she ever felt it much! Not as I should have done. I should have taken the veil that very day. Earth would have been a dreary waste to me from that instant.

I could not have borne to see a man again. However many years I might have lived, no sound but the _Miserere_--"

"But, Eva! I thought thou wert going to die in a month."

"It is very rude to interrupt, Marie. No sound but the _Miserere_ would ever have broken the chill echoes of my lonely cell, nor should any raiment softer than sackcloth have come near my seared and blighted heart!"

"I should think it would get seared, with nothing but sackcloth," put in the irrepressible little Lady of Eu.

"But what good would all that do, Eva?"

"Good, Beatrice! What canst thou mean? I tell thee, I could not have borne any thing else."

"I don't believe much in thy sackcloth, Eva. Thou wert making ever such a fuss the other day because the serge of thy gown touched thy neck and rubbed it, and Levina ran a ribbon down to keep it off thee."

"Don't be impertinent, Marie. Of course, in such a case as that, I could not think of mere inconveniences."

"Well, if I could not think of inconveniences when I was miserable, I would try to make less fuss over them when I was happy."

"I am not happy, foolish child."

"Why, what's the matter? Did Sir William look at thee only twenty-nine times, instead of thirty, when he was here?"

"Thou art the silliest maiden of whom any one ever heard!"

"No, Eva; her match might be found, I think," said Beatrice.

Marie went off into convulsions of laughter, and flung herself on the rushes to enjoy it with more freedom.

"I wonder which of you two is the funnier!" said she.

"What on earth is there comical about _me_?" exclaimed Eva, the more put out because Beatrice and Doucebelle were both joining in Marie's amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It is of no use to tell thee, Eva," replied Beatrice; "thou wouldst not be able to see it."

"Can't I see any thing you can?" demanded Eva, irritably.

"Why, no!" said Marie, with a fresh burst: "canst thou see thine own face?"

"What a silly child, to make such a speech as that!"

"No, Eva," said Beatrice, trying to stifle her laughter, increased by Marie's witticism: "the child is any thing but silly."

"Well, I think you are all very silly, and I shall not talk to you any more," retorted Eva, endeavouring to cover her retreat; but she was answered only by a third explosion from Marie.

Half an hour later, the Countess, entering her bed-chamber, was startled to find a girl crouched down by the side of the bed, her face hidden in the coverlet, and her sunny cedar hair flowing over it in disorder.

"Why, what--Magot! my darling Magot! what aileth thee, my white dove?"

Margaret lifted her head when her mother spoke. She had not been shedding tears. Perhaps she might have looked less terribly wan and woeful if she had done so.

"Pardon me, Lady! I came here to be alone."

The Countess sat down in the low curule chair beside her bed, and drew her daughter close. Margaret laid her head, with a weary sigh, on her mother's knee, and cowered down again at her feet.

"And what made thee wish to be alone, my rosebud?"

"Something that somebody said."

"Has any one been speaking unkindly to my little one?"

"No, no. They did not mean to be unkind. Oh dear no! nothing of the sort. But--things sting--when people do not mean it."

The Countess softly stroked the cedar hair. She hardly understood the explanation. Things of that sort did not sting her. But this she understood and felt full sympathy with--that her one cherished darling was in trouble.

"Who was it, Magot?"

"Do not ask me, Lady. I did not mean to complain of any one. And n.o.body intended to hurt me."

"What did she say?"

"She said,"--something like a sob came here--"that I was one who could settle to work, and get interested in other things, and forget a lost love. But, she said, it would kill her in a month."

"Well, darling? I began to hope that was true."

"No," came in a very low voice. It was not a quick, warm denial like that of Eva, yet one which sounded far more hopelessly conclusive. "No.

O Mother, no!"

"And thou art still fretting in secret, my dove?"

"I do not know about fretting. I think that is too energetic a word.

It would be better to say--dying."

"Magot, mine own, my sunbeam! Do not use such words!"

"It is better to see the truth, Lady. And that is true. But I do not think it will be over in a month."

The Countess could not trust herself to speak. She went on stroking the soft hair.

"Father Bruno says that love can kill weak people. I suppose I am weak.

I feel as if I should be glad when it is all done with."

"When what is done with?" asked the Countess, in a husky tone.

"Living," said the girl. "This weary round of dressing, eating, working, talking, and sleeping. When it is all done, and one may lie down to sleep and not wake to-morrow,--I feel as if that were the only thing which would ever make me glad any more."

"My heart! Dost thou want to leave me?"

"I would have lived, Lady, for your sake, if I could have done. But I cannot. The rosebud that you loved is faded: it cannot give out scent any more. It is not me,--me, your Margaret--that works, and talks, and does all these things. It is only my body, which cannot die quite so fast as my soul. My heart is dead already."