“Sit here an’ hold my two hands. Dil, dear, I’m as much trouble as the babies; but I most know I’ll be better to-morrow. And when I go fast asleep, you run right to bed, an’ it’ll be all right. I feel so light an’ lovely, ’most ’s if I was a wild rose – a soft, pink, satiny wild rose.”
There was a little pleasant gurgle that did duty for a laugh. Dil kissed her and crooned sleepily. As she held the hands, the fever seemed to go out of them. The little golden head had such a restful poise. The breath came slowly, easily.
Dil kissed her with the long, yearning, passionate kisses that take one’s whole soul, that leave some souls bankrupt indeed. All her own being was in a strange quiver. Oh, did it mean that Bess would be better to-morrow? She believed it in some strange, undefined way, and was at peace.
Perhaps she drowsed. She started, feeling stiff and chilly. Bess slept tranquilly. There was no pain to make her moan unconsciously. Why, it was almost a foretaste of that blessed land.
Dil wrapped herself in an old shawl and dropped down on her little cot. In all the glad wide world there was no one to come in and comfort her, and so God sent his angel – kindly sleep. The night breath that he breathed over her had the fragrance of wild roses.
The alarm clock roused her. It was dark now when her day began. Bess was quiet; and she drew the blanket more closely around her, for the morning felt bitterly cold. She stirred the fire, made her mother’s coffee, and broiled a bit of steak. The windows were all ice, which seldom happened.
“It’s enough to kill one to go out in the cold,” declared Mrs. Quinn. “I’ll not be home airly the night, for I promised cook to stay a bit an’ gev her a hand wid th’ fancy fixin’s. Foine doin’s they’re to be havin’. An’ if that thafe of the world Owny comes in, ye be soft spoken jist as if nothin’ had happened. I’ll settle wid him. I’ll gev him some Christmas!”
With that she was off. Then Dan came for his breakfast.
“I do miss Owny so,” he half whimpered. “Ther’ ain’t a boy in the street who could think up such roarin’ fun.”
“Whisht!” Dil said softly. “Bess is asleep, an’ I won’t have her worrited. She had a bad time yist’day with the babies. I do hope there won’t be no such crowd to-day. Seven babies an’ that was thirty-five cents. Mother might be given Bess an’ me some Christmas.”
Dan laughed at that.
Dil sighed. She drank a little coffee, but she could not eat. Two sleepy babies came. She washed the dishes, and spread up her mother’s bed, putting the babies in there. It was dark, with no ventilation but the door, and kept warm easily.
Another and another baby, one crying for its mother. When Dil had hushed it she took a vague glance at Bess, whose fair head lay there so restful. The frost was melting off the window-panes, and she put out the lamp. With a baby in her arms she sat down and rocked.
A curious sense of something, not quite anxiety, came over her presently. She went to Bess and raised the blanket, peering at the small white face that seemed almost to light the obscurity of the room. The eyes were half-closed. The lips were parted with a smile, and the little white teeth just showed. One hand seemed to hold up the chin.
Dil stooped and kissed her. O God! what was it? What was it? For Bess was marble cold.
“O Bess, Bess!” she cried in mortal terror. “Wake up, my darlin’! Wake up an’ get warm.”
As she seized the hand, a startling change came over the child. The chin dropped. The pretty smile was gone. The eyes looked out with awesome fixedness. Her heart stood still as if she were frozen.
Then, moved by horror, she flew up-stairs, her breath almost strangling her.
“O Misses Murphy!” she shrieked, “there’s somethin’ strange come over Bess. She’s never been like this – an’ cold – ”
“Yis, dear. I’ll jist look at poor Mis’ Bolan. She do be goin’ very fast. All night she was that res’les’ talkin’ of the beautiful hymn the man sung, an’ beggin’ him to sing it agen; an’ then hearin’ angels an’ talkin’ ’bout green fields an’ flowers, an’ where there do be no night. They do be mostly so at the last, rememberin’ beautiful things.”
An awful terror clutched Dil at the heart, as she recalled Bess’s talk of the wild roses. So cruel a fear smote her that her very tongue seemed paralyzed.
“You don’t mean” – she cried wildly.
Mrs. Murphy’s thoughts were running on Mrs. Bolan.
“She’ll not last the day through. Pore dear, there’s not much pleasure to the’r ould lives. But she did be so longin’ to have that man come agen – ”
She had taken Dil’s hand, and they were going down-stairs. A baby had rolled off the lounge and bumped his head, and was screaming. But Dil hardly heard him. They went through to the tiny room.
“Ah, pore dear! Pore lamb! She’s gone, an’ she’s outen all her mis’ry. She’ll niver suffer any more. An’ she’s safe – ”
Mrs. Murphy paused, not quite sure she could give that comfort. There was purgatory, and the poor thing had never been christened. She was extremely ignorant of her own church doctrine; but she felt the bitter injustice of condemning this poor soul to everlasting torment for her mother’s neglect.
“No, Misses Murphy,” cried Dil in the accent of utter disbelief, “she can’t be – Oh, hurry an’ do somethin’ for her. She’s jes fainted! Le’s get her warm agen. Bring her out to the fire, an’ I’ll run for the ’Spensary doctor. Oh, no, she isn’t – she wouldn’t – ’cause we was goin’ to heaven together in the spring, an’ she couldn’t leave me without a word – don’t you see?”
Oh, the wild, imploring eyes that pierced Mrs. Murphy through! the heart-breaking eyes that entreated vainly, refusing the one unalterable fiat!
“Ah, dear, they’sen don’t hev any ch’ice. O Dil, Dilly Quinn!” and she clasped the child to her heart. “You mustn’t take on so, dear! Shure, God knows best. Mebbe he’s better’n folks an’ the things they say. She won’t suffer any more, pore dear. I’ve seen it for weeks, an’ knowed what must come.”
Dil gave a few long, dry, terrible sobs; then she lay helpless in Mrs. Murphy’s arms. The kind soul placed her on the cot, sprinkled water on her face, chafed her hands; but Dil lay as one dead.
Then she ran down-stairs.
“O Mrs. Minch! have ye iver a bit of camphire? I used the last o’ mine this mornin’ for the pore old craythur. Bessy Quinn’s gone at last, an’ is cold, an’ Dil’s that overcome she’s gone in an norful faint. Come up a bit, do. An’ that haythen woman’ll not care more’n if it was a kitten. She do be the hardest!”
Mrs. Minch laid down her work, looked up the “camphire,” and plied her caller with inquiries.
All their efforts were unavailing, though Dil opened her eyes once, and at intervals a shudder ran through her frame.
“Yes, the poor dear’s dead and cold, and it’s God’s mercy, Mrs. Murphy. How she’s lived so long’s a mystery; but Dil’s been more watchful than most any mother. She was the sweetest and patientest, and loved her beyond all things. Mrs. Quinn hasn’t any human feeling in her, and there’s plenty like her, more’s the shame. When you bring helpless little ones in the world, it’s not their fault. And when they are bruised and banged and made helpless, as that poor little one, a mother’s heart should have pitied her.”
“Oh, dear, it’s the rum that takes out all the nateral feelin’. An’ one ’ud think she’d had enough of it in her husband, not to be goin’ the same way. An’ pore Dil carin’ for them babies an’ doin’ a woman’s work, a-stuntin’ her an’ makin’ her old afore her time. An’, if ye’ll stay, I’ll go fer th’ ’Spensary doctor. Sorra a Christmas it’ll be in the court. Mr. Sheehan is dyin’, an’ Mrs. Neefus’s baby went yes’tday, an’ the ould woman – but they do be dyin’ all the time, some wan.”
Mrs. Minch bent over Dil with pitying eyes. She had seen better times, and lived in a nicer neighborhood than Barker’s Court. But poverty had driven her down step by step. She had her old deaf father to care for, and a son growing up; and the three rooms, such as they were, proved cheaper than anything she had seen, though she was on the lookout all the time. She had not made much intimacy with her neighbors, except that through her pity for Mrs. Bolan she had come to know good-hearted Mrs. Murphy quite well, and she had been interested in Dilsey and Bess. But most of the people in the court were afraid of Mrs. Quinn’s tongue.
“The poor thing!” she sighed. “She is a little old woman already. She has never had leave to grow as children should. Oh, why are they brought into the world to suffer?”
She had once thought herself full of trust and love to God, but so many questions had come to the surface with her years of hard experience. Why this little Bess should have suffered four years – but both parents had given her a good constitution, that in some positions in life might have made her a useful factor instead of mere waste material.
Then she took up one of the crying babies. Another was clamoring loudly, “Bed, bed,” and opening wide his mouth to show her how empty it was.
“Oh, how ever did she look after them all?” she cried in despair as Mrs. Murphy entered.
“She had a rare way with childers, that she had.” Mrs. Murphy cut a chunk from the loaf of bread and gave the hungry baby. “An’ the docthor will be in as soon as he kin, but there’s a sight o’ folks waitin’. I have heerd say a grane Christmas made fat graveyards, but this is cold enough to be black. An’ how’s the poor gurl?”
“She seems – asleep somehow, and you can notice her breathin’.”
“I’ll look after Mrs. Bolan, an’ kem down agen,” said Mrs. Murphy, disappearing.
IX – DILSEY
Mrs. Bolan was faintly breathing, as she had been since midnight, but so cold that she might easily be thought dead. Mrs. Murphy’s baby was asleep.
The babies were crowing and talking in their fashion, unmindful of sorrow.
“The pore dear,” said Mrs. Murphy tenderly, viewing Bess; “I’m thinkin’ we better care for her afore Dil wakes up. An’ she never havin’ had a bit o’ christenin’, along o’ Mrs. Quinn not belevin’ nothin’. I’ve heard her talk a way that wud set yer blood a-chill.”
“The Lord took the little ones in his arms and said, ‘Forbid them not,’ and I guess he won’t mind the christenin’. And this child’s been patient and cheerful beyond common. I think she’s had a lot of Christian grace unbeknownst. She’d look up with her sweet smile that almost broke your heart, when Dil would be takin’ her out. And how she stood everything – ”
“Mrs. Quinn’s been not so savage as she used. ’Tain’t nat’rel for mothers to be so cruel. But ’twas last March, if I don’t disremember – you were not here then, Mrs. Minch – she made such a nawful ’ruction that the neighbors called in de cop, and nothin’ but her beggin’ off an’ sayin’ the children wud starve, an’ promisin’ on her bended knees, which she never uses fer a bit o’ prayer, saved her. An’ she don’t bang ’em about quite so bad since.”
“There was an awful time the other night.”
“Yes; that Owny’s too smart, an’ mebbe he would er banged her in a fair fight; but he cut stick, an’ hasn’t shown hide ner hair sence.”
Mrs. Murphy leaned over Dil, and uttered a benison in her ignorant Christianity.
“’Pears like they jist oughten to go togither. She looks like a ghost, poor thing.” Then she lifted Bess from the shabby wagon that had been her home so long, and brought her out on the lounge.
“Will ye look at them poor legs?” she said with a cry. “They do make yer heart bleed. She was a smart little thing, goin’ to school, whin it happened. The father oughter been hung fer it; fer it was he that did it, murderin’ by inches. An’ he beat Mrs. Quinn to a jelly. Wudden’t ye think now she’d had enough o’ rum, not to be goin’ the same road?”
Mrs. Minch sighed.
“It’s stuck everywhere, right in a body’s way, Mrs. Murphy. They’re taxin’ people for prisons and ’sylums and homes for orphans, when they haven’t the sense to shut up the saloons and gin-mills. Look at that Mrs. MacBride, smilin’ and making it pleasant for a hard-workin’ woman, havin’ a nice warm room for gossipin’ and such, and bein’ clever enough to make them run up a score, and get her money once a week. There’s no dancin’ nor carousin’; but it takes in the decentish sort of women, and turns ’em out as bad as the men. It’s the poor families that’s pinched and starved and set crazy. When I think of my boy growin’ up in it – but where’ll poor folks go? Saloons are all over. They fight for the chance to ruin folks.”
“Thrue for ye, Mrs. Minch. An’ sorra indade it is whin ye do be sad that they come into the world, an’ rej’ice whin they go out of it young. They’re spared a dale o’ pain an’ care. Yet it do seem wrong some way. Childers should be a blessin’ an’ comfort to yer ould age. Things is changed in the world. One gits that confused with thinkin’ – ”
They had prepared some water, but the poor little body was clean and sweet. It was heart-breaking to see it.
Mrs. Murphy went into the bedroom for some clothing.
“Will ye look at the sort o’ bury Dil made out o’ boxes an’ covered. She’s that handy an’ full o’ wit. An’ them clo’es is like snow, and all mended nate. I don’t see how she cud do it wid all the babies. An’ I do be thinkin’ it was Dil’s love that kep’ the little wan alive so long. It was like medicine; her warm arms an’ cheery smile, her patience an’ thinkin’ what wud pleasure Bess. If there don’t be a straight road to hiven fer thim both – an’ purgatory ought to be saved fer the ither kind. Now, it don’t look a bit sinsible that little lamb shud suffer whin she’s suffered so much a’ready! Sometimes I most think the church has mistook whin they save the rumsellers an’ the great wicked men wid their money, cause they kin pay fer prayers.”
“She’s in heaven, if there is any heaven.” Sometimes Mrs. Minch doubted.
“An’ oh, Mrs. Minch, if there wasn’t any hiven to rest us at last, how cud we live through the cruel world?”
Such a pathetic cry as it was!
The doctor came. He looked at Bess, and asked a few questions, made a note or two in his book, cutting short Mrs. Murphy’s explanations.
“Yes, yes; I’ve seen the child. She’s been strung on fine steel wires, or they’d given way long ago. And the old woman? Strange how they go on living when they had a hundred times better be dead, and the people of some account go out like the snuff of a candle! Where’s the girl?” glancing around.
“In there.” Mrs. Murphy nodded towards the room.
Dil lay motionless, but for the faint breathing. The doctor listened with his ear down on her heart, felt her pulse, and seemed in a study.
“Let her sleep as long as she can. She has worn herself out. She used to wheel this one round,” nodding. “Have in some fresh air; the room is stifling. How any one lives – ”
Dil roused without opening her eyes.
“Was it you, Bess? Oh, is it morning?”
“No, no; go to sleep again. The night’s just begun. She’s dead tired out,” to the women. “Let the mother come round when she can, and get rid of these young ones before the girl wakes. If there’s anything else wanted, send round. Are these people very poor?”
“Mrs. Quinn goes out washing. And the babies are taken in by the day. I don’t know” – doubtfully.
“The mother will settle that. And the old lady – the city must bury her, I suppose?”
“’Deed an’ it must. She’s had nothin’ but her pinshin, an’ has no folk.”
They found Bess’s nice white frock pinned up in a cloth, beautifully ironed and laid away in anticipation of the journey – the very journey she had taken so unknowingly. They put it on, and smoothed down the poor little legs with tender hands. Then they laid her on her mother’s bed until Dil should rouse.
Mrs. Minch brought up her sewing, while Mrs. Murphy went to her own room to look after Mrs. Bolan. Mrs. Carr, another neighbor, came in and helped with the babies, and wondered how Dilly Quinn had ever been able to do as much work as a hearty, grown woman, and she not bigger than a ten-year-old child!
It was three o’clock when Dil roused. Mrs. Minch sat quietly at her sewing. The wagon was pushed clear up to the window, empty.
“O Mrs. Minch, what has happened?” She sprang out, wild-eyed and quivering.
“My dear,” Mrs. Minch took her in her arms, “Bess is better off. She is in heaven with the good God, who will be tenderer of her than any human friend. She will have no more pain. She will be well and strong, and a lovely angel. You would not wish her back – ”
“Yes, I do, I do. We was goin’ to heaven together in the spring; we had it all planned. And Bess wouldn’t ’a’ gone without me – oh, I know she wouldn’t. Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“She is in there.”
Dil flew to her mother’s room. The ironing-board lay on the bed, and a strange, still shape imperfectly outlined under the sheet.
“She looks like an angel,” said Mrs. Minch.
Dilsey Quinn stared, bereft of her senses for some moments. Slowly the incidents of the morning came over her – of last night, when Bess seemed so improved, so hopeful. She had seen dead people. Death was no stranger in Barker’s Court. There were “wakes,” and quiet, hurried burials. They died and were taken away, that was all. With a curious, obstinate unreason she knew Bess had died like all the rest; yet she had been so sure Bess could not die. But she had not gone to heaven. The breath had gone out of her body, but a breath couldn’t go to heaven. She had left her body here; the poor hurted legs the Lord Jesus would have mended. They could never be mended now, for they would be put in the ground.
She stood so still that Mrs. Minch raised the sheet. The pinched look was going out of the face, as it often does after death. The eyes were closed; the long bronze lashes were beautiful; the thin lips had been pressed rather tightly, as if in fear that they might betray their secret. Yet it had a strange, serene beauty.
Dil did not cry or utter a sound. A great solitude enveloped her, as if she were alone in a wide desert. She would never have any one to love or caress; a thick darkness settled all about her, as if now she and Bess were shut out of heaven forever. For what would the palace be, and the angels innumerable, if Bess was not there?
She turned and went to her own room, began to pick up the things and tidy it, spread the cot, shook the cushion of the poor dilapidated wagon, carefully laid over it the blanket she had taken so much pains to make.
“Mrs. Minch,” she said, “will you please bring Bess in here. Mammy wouldn’t like her there. An’ I want her here – on my bed.”
Mrs. Minch looked at her in surprise. The face was rigid and unresponsive, but there was an awesome, chilling sorrow in every line. She reverently obeyed Dil’s behest.
“You are very good. You see, no one cared ’bout her but jes’ me an’ Patsey an’” – Ah, what would John Travis say? “An’ I want to keep her here.”
“My dear, dear child – ”
She put away the kindly hands, not ungently, but as if she could not quite bear them – as if she was too sore for any human touch.
“How did I come to sleep so long?” she asked, in a strained, weary tone.
“You were so tired, poor dear. The doctor was in, and he said it was the best thing for you. Mrs. Murphy has been in and out, and Mrs. Carr.”
“You took care of the babies?” Her lips quivered, and a few big tears rolled down her cheeks. She could suffer, if the time to sorrow had not yet come.
“Yes, dear. I don’t see how you get along so with them. And do you feel better?”
The kind eyes studied her with concern.
“I’m well. I never do get sick.”
“Do you know where your mother is?”
“Not the street. No, ma’am. The people have a queer long name. An’ she’ll be late th’ night.”
Mrs. Murphy looked in the door.
“Ah, yer up, an’ ye do look better. Hev ye had anything to ate? Do ye mind if I have Mrs. Minch come up-stairs just a bit?”
“Oh, no.” Dil did not notice the strain in the eyes, the awesomeness of facing death.
“I cudden’t be alone. She’s roused, but she’s almost gone; fightin’ fer life, one may say, at the very end,” she whispered as they went up the stairs.
The babies were amusing themselves. Dil uncovered the face of her dead, and looked long and earnestly, as if she knew there was a great mystery she ought to solve. Ah, how sweet she was! Dil’s heart swelled with a sense of triumph. She had always been so proud of Bess’s beauty.
But what was dead? It happened any time, and to anybody, to babies mostly, and made you cold and still, useless. Then you were taken away and buried. It was altogether different from going to heaven. What strange power had taken Bess, and kept her from that blessed journey? Why did the Lord Jesus let any one do it? John Travis couldn’t have been so mistaken, and Christiana, and the children.
She was so glad they had put on her best dress, bought with John Travis’s money. Ah, if they only had started that day and risked all! Here was her blue sash and the blue bows for her sleeves. She hardly had the courage to touch the beloved form.
How strangely cold the little hands were. She kissed them, and then she no longer felt afraid. She raised the frail figure, and passed the ribbon round the waist. Almost it seemed as if Bess breathed.
She brought the brush and comb, and curled the hair in her own flowing fashion, picking out the pretty bang in rings, kissing the cold cheeks, the shell-like eyelids. Why, surely Bess was only asleep. She must, she would waken, to-morrow morning perhaps. A sudden buoyant hope electrified her. She had her again, and the horrible thought of separation vanished. Dil was too ignorant to formulate any theories, but every pulse stirred within her own body.
Two of the mothers came for babies, but she uttered no word of what had happened. Then she fed the others, and fixed the fire, and Dan peered in fearfully. She gave him a slice of bread, and he was glad to be off.
Up-stairs they had watched the breath go out of the poor body.
“Pore thing! God rist her sowl wheriver it is,” and Mrs. Murphy crossed herself.
“Has she no friends?”
“Not a wan, I belayve. She used to talk of some nevys whin she first come, that’s nigh two years ago. But she’d lost track of them. I’m sure I’ve taken good care of the pore ould craythur, an’ I hope some wan will do the same to me at the last.”
“You’re a kindly woman, Mrs. Murphy, and God grant it. We don’t know where nor when the end will come.”
Mrs. Minch stopped as she went down-stairs.
“Poor old Mrs. Bolan has gone to the better land. She and Bess will have a Christmas with the angels. They will not want to come back here.”
Dil had no courage to argue. But she knew to the very farthest fibre of her being, that nothing could so change Bess that she would desire to stay anywhere without her.
Mrs. Garrick had heard the tidings before she came in for her baby, and was profuse in her sympathies.
“But it’s the Lord’s mercy, for she were a poor sufferer, and was jist waitin’. How did it happen? Was it in the night, whilst ye were all asleep? An’ to think yer poor mother whint away knowin’ nothin’.”
“I can’t talk about it. I – I don’t know.”
“An’ old Mis’ Bolan. Well, I’ll run up-stairs a bit, an’ see Mrs. Murphy.”
She was rewarded for her trouble here; the strange curiosity of some, as if the dead face could answer the mystery.
“She’s a moighty quare girl, that Dilsey Quinn. Niver to be askin’ one to look at the corpse; an’ if Bess hadn’t been so peaked, she would have been a pritty child. She had such iligant hair.”
The neighbors began to make calls of condolence. Two deaths in a house was an event rather out of the common order of things.
Dil awed them by her quiet demeanor, and answered apathetically, busying herself with the supper.
“What hev ye done wid her?” asked one. “Shure, she’s not bin tuk away?”
“No; she’s in ther’, in my room. An’ – an’ she’s mine.”
For to Dil there seemed something sacred about Bess, and she kept guard rigorously. It was not simply a dead body to gloat over. They could go up-stairs and look at Mrs. Bolan.
It was nine o’clock when her mother came home laden with budgets, and Dan following in a vaguely frightened manner. He had been hanging about Mrs. MacBride’s, waiting for her. She had gone in and taken her “sup o’ gin,” and heard the news, also the complaints.
“Whiniver did it happen, Dil?” throwing down her budgets. “She’s been no good to hersilf nor no wan else this long while. An’ she cudden’t iver git well, an’ was a sight o’ trouble. But I’m clear beat. Week after week I thought she’d be sure to go, but when you’re lookin’, the thing niver comes. An’ it’s took me so suddent like, that I had no breath left at all. Was it true – did ye find her dead, an’ faint clear away?”
She looked rather admiringly at Dil.
“Yes – she were cold,” said Dil briefly. “An’ then I don’t know what happened.”
“Ye pore colleen! Ye’ll be better widout her, an’ ye’ll be gittin well an’ strong agin. It’s bin a hard thing, an’ yer divil of a father shud a had his own back broke. But he’s fast enough, and I hope they’ll kape him there. Any word of Owny?”
“No.” Oh, what would Owny say – an’ Patsey.
“Who kem an’ streeked her? Let’s see.”
She took the lamp and went in. It seemed to Dil as if she would even now shake her fist at Bess, and the child stood with bated breath.
“She were a purty little thing, Dil,” the mother said with a softened inflection. “Me sister Morna had yellow hair an’ purplish eyes, and was that fair an’ sweet, but timid like. I believe me mother had some such hair, but the rest of us had black. She looks raile purty, an’ makes a better corpse than I iver thought. Why didn’t ye lit thim see her, Dil? Ye’s needn’t a been shamed of her.”
Dil was saved from answering by the advent of a throng of neighbors. The room seemed so warm, and there was such a flurry, she dropped on the lounge faint and breathless.
“Go to bed, Dan,” said his mother.
Dil rose again and opened the door. The cold air, close and vile as it was, felt grateful.
“Go up-stairs a bit in Mrs. Murphy’s;” and though the permission was a command, Dil went gratefully.
Mrs. Murphy sat sewing to make up for lost time. Her little girl was asleep in the cradle. She had improved since cooler weather had set in. The door of one room was shut. The old chintz-covered Boston rocker was empty.
“I couldn’t stay to see them all lookin’ at her,” she exclaimed tremulously, as she almost tottered across the room.
“No, dear.” Mrs. Murphy took her in her arms. “Ye look like a ghost. But Bess is main pritty, an’ it’s a custom. Will ye sit here?”
Dil shuddered as she looked at the empty chair where Mrs. Bolan used to sit.
“No; I’ll take the stool. I just want to be a bit still like an’ think. I couldn’t talk ’bout her, you know.”
“Yes, dear,” with kindly sympathy.
Dil dropped on a box stool, leaning her folded arms on a chair. Mrs. Murphy took up her sewing again. She longed to comfort, but she was sore afraid the two lorn souls were wandering about purgatory. She had a little money of Mrs. Bolan’s that she meant to spend in masses. But who would pay for a mass for Bessy Quinn’s soul? And she had never been baptized. The ignorant, kindly woman was sore distressed.
Dil seemed to look through the floor and see the picture down-stairs. All her sense of possession rose in bitter revolt. Yet now she was helpless to establish her supreme right. Her mother had grudged Bess the frail, feeble spark of life; she alone had cared for her, loved her, protected her, and she was shut out, sent away. Now that Bess needed no care and lay there quiet, they could come and pity her.
Presently more tranquil thoughts came. Even her mother could not do anything to hurt Bess. She was safe at last.
There had been so much repression and self-control in Dil’s short life, that it made her seem apathetic now. And yet, slowly as the poor pulses beat, there was a strange inward fire and stir, as if she must do something. A curious elusiveness shrouded the duty or work, and yet it kept hovering before her. Oh, what was it?
Did she fall asleep, and was it a vision, a vague remembrance of something she had heard? Bess was not dead, but in a strange, strange sleep. Once there had been a little girl in just this sleep, and One had come – yes, she would get up – about midnight these strange charms worked.
She would get up and go softly over to Bess. She would take the little hand in hers; she would kiss the pale, still lips, and say, “Bess, my darling, wake up. I can’t live without you. You have had such a nice long rest. Open your eyes an’ look at me. Bess, dear, you remember we are to go to heaven in the spring. He will be waitin’ for us, an’ wonderin’ why we don’t come. He is goin’ to fight the giants, to show us the way, an’ row us over the river to the pallis.”
Then the eyes would open blue as the summer sky, the lips would smile, the little hands reach out and grow warm. There would be a strange quiver all through the body, and Bess would sit up and be alive once more. Oh, the glad cry of joy! Oh, the wordless, exquisite rapture of that moment! And Bess, in some mysterious way, would be better, stronger, and the days would fly by until the blessed spring came.
Mrs. Murphy touched her, and roused her from this trance of delight. She heard her mother’s voice and started.
“It’s a nice sleep ye’ve had,” said Mrs. Murphy’s kindly voice. “An’ it’s full bedtime, an’ past. They’ve all gone, an’ yer mother wants ye.”
Dil groped her way down-stairs. There was a vicious smell of beer and kerosene-smoke in the warm room.
“It’s time ye were in bed,” said her mother. “Ye kin sleep in there,” indicating her own room with a nod; “fer I’ll not sleep the night with me child lyin’ dead in the house. Bridget Malone has kem to stay wid me. We’ll jist sit up.”
“O mother,” cried Dil, aghast, “let me sleep in my own room! I’d rather be there with Bess.”
“Is the colleen’s head turned wid grafe? Sleepin’ wid a corpse! Who iver heerd of sich a thing? Indade ye’ll not, miss! Go to bed at wunst, an’ not a word outen you.”
Her first impulse was to defy the woman looming up so tall and authoritative. But the shrewd sense that comes early to the children of poverty restrained her. She would be worsted in the end, so she went reluctantly. Had she dreamed? No, it must be true. She could waken Bess. Again the uplifting hope took possession of her. She seemed wafted away to a beautiful country with Bess. So absorbing was the vision that it filled her with a certainty beyond the faintest doubt. She did not even take off her dress, but lay there wide-eyed and rapturous.