The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her hesitating hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning; still more surprised, on looking in, to see that her Mama, but partially undressed, was sitting near the ashes of the fire, which had crumbled and dropped away. Her eyes were intently bent upon the air; and in their light, and in her face, and in her form, and in the grasp with which she held the elbows of her chair as if about to start up, Florence saw such fierce emotion that it terrified her.
“Mama!” she cried, “what is the matter?”
Edith started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her face, that Florence was more frightened than before.
“Mama!” said Florence, hurriedly advancing. “Dear Mama! what is the matter?”
“I have not been well,” said Edith, shaking, and still looking at her in the same strange way. “I have had bad dreams, my love.”
“And not yet been to bed, Mama?”
“No,” she returned. “Half-waking dreams.”
Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come closer to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, “But what does my bird do here? What does my bird do here?”
“I have been uneasy, Mama, in not seeing you tonight, and in not knowing how Papa was; and I—”
Florence stopped there, and said no more.
“Is it late?” asked Edith, fondly putting back the curls that mingled with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.
“Very late. Near day.”
“Near day!” she repeated in surprise.
“Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?” said Florence.
Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with the same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as before; but she presently said, “Nothing, nothing. A blow.” And then she said, “My Florence!” and then her bosom heaved, and she was weeping passionately.
“Mama!” said Florence. “Oh Mama, what can I do, what should I do, to make us happier? Is there anything?”
“Nothing,” she replied.
“Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is in my thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed,” said Florence, “you will not blame me, will you?”
“It is useless,” she replied, “useless. I have told you, dear, that I have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent them coming back.”
“I do not understand,” said Florence, gazing on her agitated face which seemed to darken as she looked.
“I have dreamed,” said Edith in a low voice, “of a pride that is all powerless for good, all powerful for evil; of a pride that has been galled and goaded, through many shameful years, and has never recoiled except upon itself; a pride that has debased its owner with the consciousness of deep humiliation, and never helped its owner boldly to resent it or avoid it, or to say, ‘This shall not be!’ a pride that, rightly guided, might have led perhaps to better things, but which, misdirected and perverted, like all else belonging to the same possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood and ruin.”
She neither looked nor spoke to Florence now, but went on as if she were alone.
“I have dreamed,” she said, “of such indifference and callousness, arising from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable pride; that it has gone on with listless steps even to the altar, yielding to the old, familiar, beckoning finger—oh mother, oh mother!—while it spurned it; and willing to be hateful to itself for once and for all, rather than to be stung daily in some new form. Mean, poor thing!”
And now with gathering and darkening emotion, she looked as she had looked when Florence entered.
“And I have dreamed,” she said, “that in a first late effort to achieve a purpose, it has been trodden on, and trodden down by a base foot, but turns and looks upon him. I have dreamed that it is wounded, hunted, set upon by dogs, but that it stands at bay, and will not yield; no, that it cannot if it would; but that it is urged on to hate him, rise against him, and defy him!”
Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, and as she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, her own subsided. “Oh Florence!” she said, “I think I have been nearly mad tonight!” and humbled her proud head upon her neck, and wept again.
“Don’t leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you!” These words she said a score of times.
Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of Florence, and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now dawning, Edith folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, and, not lying down herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.
“For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.”
“I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,” said Florence. “But you are weary and unhappy, too.”
“Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.”
They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was so sad to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew closer to Edith for some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it should be deserting him. So, in her sleep, she tried to reconcile the two together, and to show them that she loved them both, but could not do it, and her waking grief was part of her dreams.
Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on the flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the truth. But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As
