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Page 90
"Nonsense, child," she said firmly, "this is no place for me and my
bed. Any of our friends are likely to come in at any time, and it is
impossible to keep the room looking properly under such conditions.
Besides, I much prefer my own room."
So at her bedtime Charlotte moved her back to her quarters, having heated
them to a summer temperature with the small oil-stove.
"Poof!" said the little old lady, as she was brought into the room. "How
unnecessarily warm it is here! Just because a storm rages outside, dear,
why should it be necessary to heat this room so stuffily? The stove
consumes the air. When I'm in bed you must open the window and give me
something to breathe."
"I was so frightened last night," Charlotte explained hoarsely in Madam
Chase's ear, "I feel like doing you up in cotton wool, lest such another
icy wind blow on you."
"Why, what a cold you have, child!" cried her grandmother, recognizing
this undoubted fact more fully than she had yet done. "You must make
yourself some hot ginger tea, or some hot lemonade, and get to bed at
once. Promise me you will do it, my dear."
Charlotte nodded, smiling in the candle-light. Then she tucked her charge
in with more than ordinary care, and spent some time in arranging the
ventilation of the room to her satisfaction. The storm outside was still
heavy, but the wind was less violent, and it had changed its quarter.
She went downstairs again, finding it too early for her own bedtime,
weary though she was. Martha Macauley presently sent over a maid who was
commissioned to send Charlotte across for an evening with the family, the
maid herself to remain with Madam Chase. "If you have the courage to come
out in the storm," the note read.
"I'm afraid I haven't, thank you," Charlotte wrote back, and dismissed
the maid with a word of sympathy for her necessary breasting of the
drift-blown passage across the street.
"Oh, it's awful out," the girl said. "I don't think Mrs. Macauley knows
how bad it is, not being out herself to-day, and Mr. Macauley away."
Charlotte made up her fire afresh, and pulling the winged chair close sat
down before it. She was cold and weary, and her head felt very heavy. She
had put on a loose gown of a thin Japanese silk--dull red in hue, a relic
of other days. Her hair was loosely braided and hung down her back in a
long, dark plait. Upon her feet were slippers, about her shoulders a
white shawl of Granny's.
All the gay and gallant aspect of her, as her friends knew her, was gone
from her to-night, as she sat there staring into the fire. She still
shivered, now and then, in the too-thin red silk robe, and drew the shawl
closer. Her heart was as heavy as her head, her mind busy with retrospect
and forecast, neither enlivening. The courage which had sustained her
through almost four years of endeavour was at a singularly low ebb
to-night. It had ebbed low at other times, but usually she had been able
to summon it again by a mere act of the will, by a determination to be
resolute, not to be downcast, never to allow herself so much as to
imagine ultimate failure. To-night, although she told herself that her
depression was the result of physical fatigue, and fought with all her
strength to conquer the hopelessness of the mood, she found herself in
the end prostrate under the weight of thoughts heavier than the spirit
could bear.
She sat there for an hour; then, still shivering, prepared to rake the
ashes over the remains of the fire and go to bed. It occurred to her
suddenly that before closing things up below she would see if Madam Chase
were asleep, or if she might need something hot to drink again, as
sometimes happened. She went wearily upstairs, her candle flickering in
the narrow passageway. It seemed, somehow, as if the whole house were
full of small conflicting winds pressing into it through every loose
window-frame and under each sunken threshold.
She stooped over the bed, the candle-light falling on the small, white
face. White--how white! With all its delicate fairness, had it ever
looked like this before? With a sudden fear clutching at her heart she
held the little flame lower....
She groped her way half-blindly down the stairs, the candle left behind.
As she reached the foot a stamping sounded upon the porch outside the
living-room door. She ran toward it,--never had sound of human approach
been so madly welcome. Before she could reach the door a knock fell upon
it.
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