"Laura and Elizabeth are in the sitting-room. They want to see you." He paused a minute and then added in an eerie way. "There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.”
It occurred to Allan Burnley that Jimmy was acting mysteriously.
And if Laura and Elizabeth wanted to see him why didn't they come out? It wasn't like them to stand on ceremony in this fashion. He pushed open the sitting-room door impatiently.
Laura Murray was sitting on the sofa, leaning her head on its arm.
He could not see her face but he felt that she was crying.
Elizabeth was sitting bolt upright on a chair. She wore her second-best black silk and her second-best lace cap. And she, too, had been crying. Dr Burnley never attached much importance to Laura's tears, easy as those of most women, but that Elizabeth Murray should cry — had he ever seen her cry before?
The thought of Ilse flashed into his mind — his little neglected daughter. Had anything happened to Ilse? In one dreadful moment Allan Burnley paid the price of his treatment of his child.
"What is wrong?" he exclaimed in his gruffest manner.
"Oh, Allan," said Elizabeth Murray. "God forgive us — God forgive us all!”
"It — is — Ilse," said Dr Burnley, dully.
"No — no — not Ilse.”
Then she told him — she told him what had been found at the bottom of the old Lee well — she told him what had been the real fate of the lovely, laughing young wife whose name for twelve bitter years had never crossed his lips.
It was not until the next evening that Emily saw the doctor. She was lying in bed, weak and limp, red as a beet with the measles rash, but quite herself again. Allan Burnley stood by the bed and looked down at her.
"Emily — dear little child — do you know what you have done for me?
God knows how you did it.”
"I thought you didn't believe in God," said Emily, wonderingly.
"You have given me back my faith in Him, Emily.”
"Why, what have I done?”
Dr Burnley saw that she had no remembrance of her delirium. Laura had told him that she had slept long and soundly after Elizabeth's promise and had awakened with fever gone and the eruption fast coming out. She had asked nothing and they had said nothing.
"When you are better we will tell you all," he said, smiling down at her. There was something very sorrowful in the smile — and yet something very sweet.
"He is smiling with his eyes as well as his mouth now," thought Emily.
"How — how did she know?" whispered Laura Murray to him when he went down. "I — can't understand it, Allan.”
"Nor I. These things are beyond us, Laura," he answered gravely.
"I only know this child has given Beatrice back to me, stainless and beloved. It can be explained rationally enough perhaps. Emily has evidently been told about Beatrice and worried over it — her repeated 'she couldn't have done it' shows that. And the tales of the old Lee well naturally made a deep impression on the mind of a sensitive child keenly alive to dramatic values. In her delirium she mixed this all up with the well-known fact of Jimmy's tumble into the New Moon well — and the rest was coincidence. I would have explained it all so myself once — but now — now, Laura, I only say humbly, 'A little child shall lead them.'“
"Our stepmother's mother was a Highland Scotchwoman. They said she had the second sight," said Elizabeth. "I never believed in it — before.”
The excitement of Blair Water had died away before Emily was deemed strong enough to hear the story. That which had been found in the old Lee well had been buried in the Mitchell plot at Shrewsbury and a white marble shaft, "Sacred to the memory of Beatrice Burnley, beloved wife of Allan Burnley," had been erected. The sensation caused by Dr Burnley's presence every Sunday in the old Burnley pew had died away. On the first evening that Emily was allowed to sit up Aunt Laura told her the whole story. Her manner of telling stripped it for ever of the taint and innuendo left by Aunt Nancy.
"I KNEW Ilse's mother couldn't have done it," said Emily triumphantly.
"We blame ourselves now for our lack of faith," said Aunt Laura.
"We should have known too — but it DID seem black against her at the time, Emily. She was a bright, beautiful, merry creature — we thought her close friendship with her cousin natural and harmless.
We know now it was so — but all these years since her disappearance we have believed differently. Mr James Lee remembers clearly that the well was open the night of Beatrice's disappearance. His hired man had taken the old rotten planks off it that evening, intending to put the new ones on at once. Then Robert Greerson's house caught fire and he ran with everybody else to help save it. By the time it was out it was too dark to finish the well, and the man said nothing about it until the morning. Mr Lee was angry with him — he said it was a scandalous thing to leave a well uncovered like that. He went right down and put the new planks in place himself. He did not look down in the well — had he looked he could have seen nothing, for the ferns growing out from the sides screened the depths. It was just after harvest. No one was in the field again before the next spring. He never connected Beatrice's disappearance with the open well — he wonders now that he didn't.
But you see — dear — there had been much malicious gossip — and Beatrice was KNOWN to have gone on board The Lady of Winds. It was taken for granted she never came off again. But she did — and went to her death in the old Lee field. It was a dreadful ending to her bright young life — but not so dreadful, after all, as what we believed. For twelve years we have wronged the dead. But — Emily — how could you KNOW?”
"I — don't — know. When the doctor came in that day I couldn't remember anything — but now it seems to me that I remember something — just as if I'd dreamed it — of SEEING Ilse's mother coming over the fields, singing. It was dark — and yet I could see the ace of hearts — oh, Aunty, I don't know — I don't like to think of it, some way.”
"We won't talk of it again," said Aunt Laura gently. "It is one of the things best not talked of — one of God's secrets.”
"And Ilse — does her father love her now?" asked Emily eagerly.
"Love her! He can't love her enough. It seems as if he were pouring out on her at once all the shut-up love of those twelve years.”
"He'll likely spoil her now as much with indulgence as he did before with neglect," said Elizabeth, coming in with Emily's supper in time to hear Laura's reply.
"It will take a lot of love to spoil Ilse," laughed Laura. "She's drinking it up like a thirsty sponge. And she loves him wildly in return. There isn't a trace of grudge in her over his long neglect.”
"All the same," said Elizabeth grimly, tucking pillows behind Emily's back with a very gentle hand, oddly in contrast with her severe expression, "he won't get off so easily. Ilse has run wild for twelve years. He won't find it so easy to make her behave properly now — if he ever does.”
"Love will do wonders," said Aunt Laura softly. "Of course, Ilse is dying to come and see you, Emily. But she must wait until there is no danger of infection. I told her she might write — but when she found I would have to read it because of your eyes she said she'd wait till you could read it yourself. Evidently" — Laura laughed again — "evidently Ilse has much of importance to tell you.”
"I didn't know anybody could be so happy as I am now," said Emily.
"And oh, Aunt Elizabeth, it is SO nice to feel hungry again and to have something to CHEW.”
CHAPTER 31. EMILY'S GREAT MOMENT
Emily's convalescence was rather slow. Physically she recovered with normal celerity but a certain spiritual and emotional langour persisted for a time. One cannot go down to the depths of hidden things and escape the penalty. Aunt Elizabeth said she "moped.”