第28章

The low hedge, where the creepers climbed, divided the lawn and its magnificent Wellingtonias from the meadow. There was little grass to be seen, for it was at this time one vast profusion of delicate ixias of every bright and tender shade.

The evening was still, and the air heavy with scent. In a room opening upon the veranda wreathed with white-and-scarlet passion-flowers, where she could see the garden and the meadow, and, beyond all, the Mountain Beautiful, lay a sick woman. Her dark face was lovely as an autumn leaf is lovely--hectic with the passing life. Her eyes wandered to the upper snows of the mountain, from time to time resting upon the brown-haired English girl who sat on a low stool by her side, holding the frail hand in her cool, firm clasp.

The invalid was speaking; her voice was curiously sweet, and there was a peculiarity about the "s," and an occasional turn of the sentence, which told the listener that her English was an acquired language.

"I am glad he is not here," she said slowly. "I do not want him to have pain."

"But perhaps, Mrs. Denison, you will be much better in a day or two, and able to welcome him when he comes back."

"No, I shall not be here when he comes back, and it is just as it should be. I asked him to turn round as he left the garden, and I could see him, oh, so well! He looked kind and so beautiful, and he waved to me his hand. Now he will come back, and he will be sad. He did not want to leave me, but the governor sent for him. He will be sad, and he will remember that I loved him, and some day he will be glad again." She smiled into the troubled face near her.

The girl stroked the thick dark hair lovingly.

"Don't," she implored; "it hurts me. You are better to-night, and the children are coming in." Mrs. Denison closed her eyes, and with her left hand she covered her face.

"No, not the children," she whispered, "not my darlings. I cannot bear it. I must see them no more." She pressed her companion's hand with a sudden close pressure. "But you will help them, Alice; you will make them English like you--like him. We will not pretend to-night; it is not long that I shall speak to you. I ask you to promise me to help them to be English."

"Dear," the girl urged, "they are such a delicious mixture of England and New Zealand--prettier, sweeter than any mere English child could ever be. They are enchanting."

But into the dying woman's eyes leaped an eager flame.

"They must all be English, no Maori!" she cried. A violent fit of coughing interrupted her, and when the paroxysm was over she was too exhausted to speak. The English nurse, Mrs. Bentley, an elderly Yorkshire woman, who had been with Mrs. Denison since her first baby came six years ago, and who had, in fact, been Horace Denison's own nurse-maid, came in and sent the agitated girl into the garden. "For you haven't had a breath of fresh air to-day," she said.

At the door Alice turned. The large eyes were resting upon her with an intent and solemn regard, in which lay a message. "What was it?" she thought, as she passed through the wide hall sweet with flowers. "She wanted to say something; I am sure she did. To-morrow I will ask her."

But before the morrow came she knew. Mrs. Dennison had said /good- bye/.

The funeral was over. Mr. Denison, who had looked unaccountably ill and weary for months, had been sent home by Mr. Danby for at least a year's change and rest, and the doctor's young sister had yielded to various pressure, and promised to stay with the children until he returned. There was every reason for it. She had loved and been loved by the gentle Maori mother; she delighted in the dark beauty and sweetness of the children. And they, on their side, clung to her as to an adorable fairy relative, dowered with love and the fruits of love-- tales and new games and tender ways. Best reason of all, in a sense, Mrs. Bentley, that kind autocrat, entreated her to stay, "as the happiest thing for the children, and to please that poor lamb we laid yonder, who fair longed that you should! She was mightily taken up with you, Miss Danby, and you've your brother and his wife near, so that you won't be lonesome, and if there's aught I can do to make you comfortable, you've only to speak, miss." As for Mr. Denison, he was pathetically grateful and relieved when Alice promised to remain.

After the evening romp and the last good-night, when the two elder children, Ben and Marie, called after her mother, Maritana, had given her their last injunctions to be sure and come for them "her very own self" on her way down to breakfast in the morning, she usually rode down between the cabbage-trees, down by the old rata, fired last autumn, away through the grasslands to the doctor's house, a few miles nearer Rochester; or he and his wife would ride out to chat with her.

But there were many evenings when she preferred the quiet of the airy house and the garden. The colonial life was new to her, everything had its charm, and in the colonies there is always a letter to write to those at home--the mail-bag is never satisfied. On such evenings it was her custom to cross the meadow to the copse of feathery trees beyond, where, sung to by the brook and the Tui, the children's mother slept. And from the high presence of the Mountain Beautiful there fell a dew of peace.