how I have missed you — your welcoming handclasp and your sweet face in the firelight shadows. I could not bear to speak your name, the aching sense of loss was so bitter. Amid all the Christmas mirth and good fellowship I felt the sorrow of your vacant chair. Avis, I wanted to tell you what the year had brought to me. My theory has been proved; it has made me a famous man. Last Christmas, Avis, I told you of it, and you listened and understood and believed in it. Dear Avis, once again I thank you for all you have been to me — all you are yet. I have brought you your roses; they are as white and pure and fragrant as your life.”
Other footsteps came so quickly on Doctor Fritz’ retreating ones that Nanny could not rise. It was Laddie this time — gay, careless, thoughtless Laddie.
“Roses? So Fritz has been here! I have brought you lilies, Avis. Oh, Avis, I miss you so! You were so jolly and good — you understood a fellow so well. I had to come here tonight to tell you how much I miss you. It doesn’t seem half home without you. Avis, I’m trying to be a better chap — more the sort of man you’d have me be. I’ve given the old set the go-by — I’m trying to live up to your standard. It would be easier if you were here to help me. When I was a kid it was always easier to be good for awhile after I’d talked things over with you. I’ve got the best mother a fellow ever had, but you and I were such chums, weren’t we, Avis? I thought I’d just break down in there tonight and put a damper on everything by crying like a baby. If anybody had spoken about you, I should have. Hello!”
Laddie wheeled around with a start, but it was only Robert’s two boys, who came shyly up to the grave, half hanging back to find anyone else there.
“Hello, boys,” said Laddie huskily. “So you’ve come to see her grave too?”
“Yes,” said Cecil solemnly. “We — we just had to. We couldn’t go to bed without coming. Oh, isn’t it lonesome without Cousin Avis?”
“She was always so good to us,” said Sid.
“She used to talk to us so nice,” said Cecil chokily. “But she liked fun, too.”
“Boys,” said Laddie gravely, “never forget what Cousin Avis used to say to you. Never forget that you have got to grow up into men she’d be proud of.”
They went away then, the boys and their boyish uncle; and when they had gone Nora came, stealing timidly through the shadows, starting at the rustle of the wind in the trees.
“Oh, Avis,” she whispered. “I want to see you so much! I want to tell you all about it — about him. You would understand so well. He is the best and dearest lover ever a girl had. You would think so too. Oh, Avis, I miss you so much! There’s a little shadow even on my happiness because I can’t talk it over with you in the old way. Oh, Avis, it was dreadful to sit around the fire tonight and not see you. Perhaps you were there in spirit. I love to think you were, but I wanted to see you. You were always there to come home to before, Avis, dear.”
Sobbing, she went away; and then came Margaret, the grave, strong Margaret.
“Dear cousin, dear to me as a sister, it seemed to me that I must come to you here tonight. I cannot tell you how much I miss your wise, clear-sighted advice and judgment, your wholesome companionship. A little son was born to me this past year, Avis. How glad you would have been, for you knew, as none other did, the bitterness of my childless heart. How we would have delighted to talk over my baby together, and teach him wisely between us! Avis, Avis, your going made a blank that can never be filled for me!”
Margaret was still standing there when the old people came.
“Father! Mother! Isn’t it too late and chilly for you to be here?”
“No, Margaret, no,” said the mother. “I couldn’t go to my bed without coming to see Avis’s grave. I brought her up from a baby — her dying mother gave her to me. She was as much my own child as any of you. And oh! I miss her so. You only miss her when you come home, but I miss her all the time — every day!”
“We all miss her, Mother,” said the old father, tremulously. “She was a good girl — Avis was a good girl. Good night, Avis!”
“‘Say not good night, but in some brighter clime bid her good morning,’” quoted Margaret softly. “That was her own wish, you know. Let us go back now. It is getting late.”
When they had gone Nanny crept out from the shadows. It had not occurred to her that perhaps she should not have listened — she had been too shy to make her presence known to those who came to Avis’s grave. But her heart was full of joy.
“Oh, Miss Avis, I’m so glad, I’m so glad! They haven’t forgotten you after all, Miss Avis, dear, not one of them. I’m sorry I was so cross at them; and I’m so glad they haven’t forgotten you. I love them for it.”
Then the old dog and Nanny went home together.
The Red Room
You would have me tell you the story, Grandchild? ‘Tis a sad one and best forgotten — few remember it now. There are always sad and dark stories in old families such as ours.
Yet I have promised and must keep my word. So sit down here at my feet and rest your bright head on my lap, that I may not see in your young eyes the shadows my story will bring across their bonny blue.
I was a mere child when it all happened, yet I remember it but too well, and I can recall how pleased I was when my father’s stepmother, Mrs. Montressor — she not liking to be called grandmother, seeing she was but turned of fifty and a handsome woman still — wrote to my mother that she must send little Beatrice up to Montressor Place for the Christmas holidays. So I went joyfully though my mother grieved to part with me; she had little to love save me, my father, Conrad Montressor, having been lost at sea when but three months wed.
My aunts were wont to tell me how much I resembled him, being, so they said, a Montressor to the backbone; and this I took to mean commendation, for the Montressors were a well-descended and well-thought-of family, and the women were noted for their beauty. This I could well believe, since of all my aunts there was not one but was counted a pretty woman. Therefore I took heart of grace when I thought of my dark face and spindling shape, hoping that when I should be grown up I might be counted not unworthy of my race.
The Place was an old-fashioned, mysterious house, such as I delighted in, and Mrs. Montressor was ever kind to me, albeit a little stern, for she was a proud woman and cared but little for children, having none of her own.
But there were books there to pore over without let or hindrance — for nobody questioned of my whereabouts if I but kept out of the way — and strange, dim family portraits on the walls to gaze upon, until I knew each proud old face well, and had visioned a history for it in my own mind — for I was given to dreaming and was older and wiser than my years, having no childish companions to keep me still a child.
There were always some of my aunts at the Place to kiss and make much of me for my father’s sake — for he had been their favourite brother. My aunts — there were eight of them — had all married well, so said people who knew, and lived not far away, coming home often to take tea with Mrs. Montressor, who had always gotten on well with her step-daughters, or to help prepare for some festivity or other — for they were notable housekeepers, every one.
They
