My Mothers Rival | Page 9

I think I shall resign myself to proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about it. I know it in all its moods--when the wind hurries it and the little wavelets dash along; when the tide is deep and the water overflows among the reeds and grasses; when it is still and silent and the shadows of the stars lie on it, and when the sun turns it into a stream of living gold, I know it well."
"You will see it again soon," said my father, in a broken voice. "I will drive you down any time you like."
But my mother said nothing. I think she had seen the tears in Sir Roland's eyes. From that day she seemed to grow more reconciled to her lot. Now let me add a tribute to my father. His devotion to her was something marvelous; he seemed to love her better in her helpless state than he had done when she was full of health and spirits. I admired him so much for it during the first year of my mother's illness. He never left her. Hunting, shooting, fishing, dinner parties, everything was given up that he might sit with her.
One of the drawing rooms, a beautiful, lofty apartment looking over the park to the hills beyond, was arranged as my mother's room; there all that she loved best was taken.
The one next to it was made into a sleeping room for her, so that she should never have to be carried up and down stairs. A room for her maid came next. And my father had a door so placed that the chair could be wheeled from the rooms through the glass doors into the grounds.
"You think, then," she said, "that I shall not grow well just yet, Roland?"
"No, my darling, not just yet," he replied.
What words of mine could ever describe what that sick room became? It was a paradise of beautiful flowers, singing birds, little fragrant fountains and all that was most lovely. After a time visitors came, and my mother saw them; the poor came, and she consoled them.
"My lady" was with them once more, never more to walk into their cottages and look at the rosy children. They came to her now, and that room became a haven of refuge.
So it went on for three years, and I woke up one morning to find it was my thirteenth birthday.

CHAPTER V.
That day both my parents awoke to the fact that I must have more education. I could not go to school; to have taken me from my mother would have been death to both of us. They had a long conversation, and it was decided that the wisest plan would be for me to have a governess--a lady who would at the same time be a companion to my mother. I am quite sure that at first she did not like it, but afterward she turned to my father, with a sweet, loving smile.
"It will relieve you very much," she said, "and give you time to get out."
"I shall never leave you," he said, "no matter who comes."
Several letters were written; my father gave himself unheard-of trouble; and after some weeks of doubt, hesitation and correspondence, a governess was selected for me. She had been living with Lady Bucarest, and was most highly recommended; she was amiable, accomplished, good tempered and well qualified for the duties Lady Tayne wished her to fulfill.
"What a paragon!" cried my father, as he read through the list of virtues.
"I hope we shall not be disappointed," said my mother. "Oh, Laura, darling, if it could be, I would educate you entirely, and give you into no other hands."
It was March when my governess--by name Miss Sara Reinhart--came. I always associate her in my own mind with the leaden skies, the cold winds, the bleak rains and biting frosts of March. She was to be with us on the seventh, and the whole of the day was like a tempest; the wind blew, the rain fell. We could hear the rustling of the great boughs; the wind rolled down the great avenues and shook the window frames.
My mother's room that day was the brightest in the house; cheery fire in the silver grate and the profusion of flowers made it so cheerful. How many times during that day both my father and mother said:
"What an uncomfortable journey Miss Reinhart will have!"
She ordered a good fire to be lighted in her bedroom and tea to be prepared for her.