Six to Sixteen | Page 7

friend Major Buller, whose little daughters were invited to spend the following evening with me. The Major, my father, and two other officers had been pall-bearers at the funeral. My father came to me on his return. He was slightly chilled, and said he should remain indoors; so I had him all to myself, and we were very happy, though he complained of fatigue, and fell asleep once on the floor with his head in my lap. He was still lying on the floor when Ayah took me to bed. I believe he had been unwell all the day, though I did not know it, and had been taking some of the many specifics against cholera, of which everybody had one or more at that time.
Half-an-hour later he sent for a surgeon, who happened to be dining with Major Buller. The Doctor and the Major came together to our bungalow, and with them two other officers who happened to be of the party, and who were friends of my father. One of them was a particular friend of my own. He was an ensign, a reckless, kind-hearted lad "in his teens," a Mr. Abercrombie, who had good reason to count my father as a friend.
Mr. Abercrombie mingled in some way with my dreams that night, or rather early morning, and when I fairly woke, it was to the end of a discussion betwixt my Ayah, who was crying, and Mr. Abercrombie, in evening dress, whose face bore traces of what looked to me like crying also. I was hastily clothed, and he took me in his arms.
"Papa wants you, Margery dear," he said; and he carried me quickly down the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn.
Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell back, as we came in, from the bed to which Mr. Abercrombie carried me. My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away. That one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not know him again. At last I was persuaded to go to him, and by his voice and manner recognized him as his feeble fingers played tenderly with mine. And when he said, "Kiss me, Margery dear," I crept up and kissed his forehead, and started to feel it so cold and damp.
"Be a good girl, Margery dear," he whispered; "be very good to Mamma." There was a short silence. Then he said, "Is the sun rising yet, Buller?"
"Just rising, old fellow. Does the light bother you?"
"No, thank you; I can't see it. The fact is, I can't see you now. I suppose it's nearly over. GOD'S will be done. You've got the papers, Buller? Arkwright will be kind about it, I'm sure. You'll break it to my wife as well as you can?"
After another pause he said, "It's time you fellows went to bed and got some sleep."
But no one moved, and there was another silence, which my father broke by saying, "Buller, where are you? It's quite dark now. Would you say the Lord's Prayer for me, old fellow? Margery dear, put your hands with poor Papa's."
"I've not said my prayers yet," said I; "and you know I ought to say my prayers, for I've been dressed a long time."
The Major knelt simply by the bed. The other men, standing, bent their heads, and Mr. Abercrombie, kneeling, buried his face on the end of the bed and sobbed aloud.
Major Buller said the Lord's Prayer. I, believing it to be my duty, said it also, and my father said it with us to the clause "For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory," when his voice failed, and I, thinking he had forgotten (for I sometimes forgot in the middle of my most familiar prayers and hymns), helped him--"Papa dear! for ever and ever."
Still he was silent, and as I bent over him I heard one long-drawn breath, and then his hands, which were enfolded with mine, fell apart. The sunshine was now beginning to catch objects in the room, and a ray lighted up my father's face, and showed a change that even I could see. An officer standing at the head of the bed saw it also, and said abruptly, "He's dead, Buller." And the Major, starting up, took me in his arms, and carried me away.
I cried and struggled. I had a dim sense of what had happened, mixed with an idea that these men were separating me from my father. I could not be pacified till Mr. Abercrombie held out his arms for me. He was more like a woman, and he was crying as well as I. I went to him and buried my sobs on his shoulder. Mr. George (as I