A Little Mother to the Others by L. T. Meade (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

"But I thought you had just come from mother," said Apollo.

"No. When I went to her she was asleep. Don't keep me, please." The woman who had brought the message had already disappeared down the long straight walk. Iris took to her heels and ran after her. "Fortune," she said, looking into her face, "is mother any better?"

"As to that, Miss Iris, it is more than I can tell you. Please don't hold on to my hand, miss. In hot weather I hate children to cling to me."

Iris said nothing more, but she withdrew a little from Fortune's side.

Fortune hurried her steps, and Iris kept time with her. When they reached the house, the woman stopped and looked intently at the child.

"You can go straight upstairs at once, miss, and into the room," she said. "You need not knock; my mistress is waiting for you."

"Don't you think, Fortune, that mother is just a little wee bit better?" asked Iris again. There was an imploring note in her question this time.

"She will tell you herself, my dear. Now, be quick; don't keep her waiting. It is bad for people, when they are ill, to be kept waiting."

"I won't keep her; I'll go to her this very instant," said Iris.

The old house was as beautiful as the garden to which it belonged. It had been built, a great part of it, centuries ago, and had, like many other houses of its date, been added to from time to time. Queerly shaped rooms jutted out in many quarters; odd stairs climbed up in several directions; towers and turrets were added to the roof; passages, some[8] narrow, some broad, connected the new buildings with the old. The whole made an incongruous and yet beautiful effect, the new rooms possessing the advantages and comforts which modern builders put into their houses, and the older part of the house the quaint devices and thick, wainscoted walls and deep, mullioned windows of the times which are gone by.

Iris ran quickly through the wide entrance hall and up the broad, white, stone stairs. These stairs were a special feature of Delaney Manor. They had been brought all the way from Italy by a Delaney nearly a hundred years ago, and were made of pure marble, and were very lovely to look at. When Iris reached the first landing, she turned aside from the spacious modern apartments and, opening a green baize door, ran down a narrow passage. At the end of the passage she turned to the left and went down another passage, and then wended her way up some narrow stairs, which curled round and round as if they were going up a tower. This, as a matter of fact, was the case. Presently Iris pushed aside a curtain, and found herself in an octagon room nearly at the top of a somewhat high, but squarely built, tower. This room, which was large and airy, was wainscoted with oak; there was a thick Turkey carpet on the floor, and the many windows were flung wide open, so that the summer breeze, coming in fresh and sweet from this great height, made the whole lovely room as fresh and cheery and full of sweet perfume as if its solitary inmate were really in the open air.

Iris, however, had often been in the room before, and had no time or thought now to give to its appearance. Her eyes darted to the sofa on which her young mother lay. Mrs. Delaney was half-sitting up,[9] and looked almost too young to be the mother of a child as big as Iris. She had one of the most beautiful faces God ever gave to anybody. It was not so much that her features were perfect, but they were full of light, full of soul, and such a very loving expression beamed in her eyes that no man, woman, or child ever looked at her without feeling the best in their natures coming immediately to the surface.

As to little Iris, her feelings for her mother were quite beyond any words to express. She ran up to her now and knelt by her side.

"Kiss me, Iris," said Mrs. Delaney.

Iris put up her soft, rosebud lips; they met the equally soft lips of the mother.

"You are much better, mummy; are you not?" said the child, in an eager, half-passionate whisper.

"I have had a long sleep, darling, and I am rested," said Mrs. Delaney. "I told Fortune to call you. Father is away for the day. I thought we could have half an hour uninterrupted."

"How beautiful, mother! It is the most delightful thing in all the world to be alone with you, mummy."

"Well, bring your little chair and sit near me, Iris. Fortune will bring in tea in a moment, and you can pour it out. You shall have tea with me, if you wish it, darling."

Iris gave a sigh of rapture; she was too happy almost for words. This was almost invariably the case when she found herself in her mother's presence. When with her mother she was quiet and seldom spoke a great deal. In the garden with the other children Iris was the one who chattered most, but with her mother her words were always few. She felt herself then to be more or less in a listening attitude.[10] She listened for the words which dropped from those gentle lips; she was always on the lookout for the love-light which filled the soft brown eyes.

At that moment the old servant, Fortune, brought in the tea on a pretty tray and laid it on a small table near Mrs. Delaney. Then Iris got up, and with an important air poured it out and brought a cup, nicely prepared, to her mother.

Mrs. Delaney sipped her tea and looked from time to time at her little daughter. When she did so, Iris devoured her with her anxious eyes.

"No," she said to herself, "mother does not look ill—not even very tired. She is not like anybody else, and that is why—why she wears that wonderful, almost holy expression. Sometimes I wish she did not, but I would not change her, not for all the world."

Iris' heart grew quiet. Her cup of bliss was quite full. She scarcely touched her tea; she was too happy even to eat.

"Have you had enough tea, mother?" she asked presently.

"Yes, darling. Please push the tea-table a little aside, and then come up very near to me. I want to hold your dear little hand in mine; I can't talk much."

"But you are better—you are surely better, mother?"

"In one sense, yes, Iris."

Iris moved the tea-table very deftly aside, and then, drawing up her small chair, slipped her hand inside her mother's.

"I have made up my mind to tell you, Iris," said the mother. She looked at the little girl for a full minute, and then began to talk in a low, clear voice. "I am the mother of four children. I don't think[11] there are any other children like you four in the wide world. I have thought a great deal about you, and while I have been ill have prayed to God to keep you and to help me, and now, Iris, now that I have got to go away—"

"To go away, mother?" interrupted Iris, turning very pale.

"Yes, dearest. Don't be troubled, darling; I can make it all seem quite happy to you. But now, when I see it must be done, that I must undertake this very long journey, I want to put things perfectly straight between you and me, my little daughter."

"Things have been always straight between us, mother," said Iris. "I don't quite understand."

"Do you remember the time when I went to Australia?"

"Are you going to Australia again?" asked Iris. "You were a whole year away then. It was a very long time, and sometimes, mother, sometimes Fortune was a little cross, and Miss Stevenson never seemed to suit Apollo. I thought I would tell you about that."

"But Fortune means well, dearest. She has your true interest at heart, and I think matters will be differently arranged, as far as Miss Stevenson is concerned, in the future. It is not about her or Fortune I want to speak now."

"And you are going back to Australia again?"

"I am going quite as far as Australia; but we need not talk of the distance just now. I have not time for many words, nor very much strength to speak. You know, Iris, the meaning of your names, don't you?"

"Of course," answered Iris; "and, mother, I have often talked to the others about our names. I have[12] told Apollo how beautiful he must try to be, not only in his face, but in his mind, mother, and how brave and how clever. I have told him that he must try to have a beautiful soul; and Orion must be very brave and strong, and Diana must be bright and sparkling and noble. Yes, mother; we all know about our names."

"I am glad of that," said Mrs. Delaney. "I gave you the names for a purpose. I wanted you to have names with meaning to them. I wanted you to try to live up to them. Now, Iris, that I am really going away, I am afraid you children will find a great many things altered. You have hitherto lived a very sheltered life; you have just had the dear old garden and the run of the house, and you have seen your father or me every day. But afterwards, when I have gone, you will doubtless have to go into the world; and, my darling, my darling, the cold world does not always understand the meaning of names like yours, the meaning of strength and beauty and nobleness, and of bright, sparkling, and high ideas. In short, my little girl, if you four children are to be worthy of your names and to fulfill the dreams, the longings, the hopes I have centered round you, there is nothing whatever for you to do but to begin to fight your battles."

Iris was silent. She had very earnest eyes, something like her mother's in expression. They were fixed now on Mrs. Delaney's face.

"I will not explain exactly what I mean," said the mother, giving the little hand a loving squeeze, "only to assure you, Iris, that, as the trial comes, strength will be given to you to meet it. Please understand, my darling, that from first to last, to the end of life, it[13] is all a fight. 'The road winds uphill all the way.' If you will remember that you will not think things half as hard, and you will be brave and strong, and, like the rainbow, you will cheer people even in the darkest hours. But, Iris, I want you to promise me one thing—I want you, my little girl, to be a mother to the others."

"A mother to the others?" said Iris, half aloud. She paused and did not speak at all for a moment, her imagination was very busy. She thought of all the creatures to whom she was already a mother, not only her own dear pets—the mice in their cages, the silk-worms, the three dogs, the stray cat, the pet Persian cat, the green frogs, the poor innocents, as the children called worms—but in addition to these, all creatures that suffered in the animal kingdom, all flowers that were about to fade, all sad things that seemed to need care and comfort. But up to the present she had never thought of the other children except as her equals. Apollo was only a year younger than herself, and in some ways braver and stouter and more fearless; and Orion and Diana were something like their names—very bright and even fierce at times. She, after all, was the gentlest of the party, and she was very young—not more than ten years of age. How could she possibly be a mother to the others?

She looked at Mrs. Delaney, and her mother gazed solemnly at her, waiting for her to speak.

"After all," thought Iris, "to satisfy the longing in mother's eyes is the first thing of all. I will promise, cost what it may."

"Yes," she said; then softly, "I will, mother; I will be a mother to the others."

"Kiss me, Iris."[14]

The little girl threw her arms round her mother's neck; their lips met in a long embrace.

"Darling, you understand? I am satisfied with your promise, and I am tired."

"Must I go away, mother? May not I stay very quietly with you? Can you not sleep if I am in the room?"

"I would rather you left me now. I can sleep better when no one is