Look at my gown as much as you please—I'm not ashamed of that.'
Very strange, was it not?
Before I could say anything to soothe her, she held out one of her hands, and I saw my brooch in it.
I was so pleased and so grateful, that I went quite close to her to say what I really felt.
'Are you thankful enough to do me one little kindness?' she asked.
'Yes, indeed,' I answered, 'any kindness in my power I shall be glad to show you.'
'Then let me pin your brooch on for you, now I have found it.'
Her request was so unexpected, Marian, and she made it with such extraordinary eagerness, that I drew back a step or two, not well knowing what to do.
'Ah!' she said, 'your mother would have let me pin on the brooch.'
There was something in her voice and her look, as well as in her mentioning my mother in that reproachful manner, which made me ashamed of my distrust.
I took her hand with the brooch in it, and put it up gently on the bosom of my dress.
'You knew my mother?' I said.
'Was it very long ago? have I ever seen you before?'
Her hands were busy fastening the brooch: she stopped and pressed them against my breast.
'You don't remember a fine spring day at Limmeridge,' she said, 'and your mother walking down the path that led to the school, with a little girl on each side of her?
I have had nothing else to think of since, and I remember it.
You were one of the little girls, and I was the other.
Pretty, clever Miss Fairlie, and poor dazed Anne Catherick were nearer to each other then than they are now!'"
"Did you remember her, Laura, when she told you her name?"
"Yes, I remembered your asking me about Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, and your saying that she had once been considered like me."
"What reminded you of that, Laura?"
"SHE reminded me.
While I was looking at her, while she was very close to me, it came over my mind suddenly that we were like each other!
Her face was pale and thin and weary—but the sight of it startled me, as if it had been the sight of my own face in the glass after a long illness.
The discovery—I don't know why—gave me such a shock, that I was perfectly incapable of speaking to her for the moment."
"Did she seem hurt by your silence?"
"I am afraid she was hurt by it.
'You have not got your mother's face,' she said, 'or your mother's heart.
Your mother's face was dark, and your mother's heart, Miss Fairlie, was the heart of an angel.'
'I am sure I feel kindly towards you,' I said, 'though I may not be able to express it as I ought.
Why do you call me Miss Fairlie?——'
'Because I love the name of Fairlie and hate the name of Glyde,' she broke out violently.
I had seen nothing like madness in her before this, but I fancied I saw it now in her eyes.
'I only thought you might not know I was married,' I said, remembering the wild letter she wrote to me at Limmeridge, and trying to quiet her.
She sighed bitterly, and turned away from me.
'Not know you were married?' she repeated.
'I am here BECAUSE you are married.
I am here to make atonement to you, before I meet your mother in the world beyond the grave.'
She drew farther and farther away from me, till she was out of the boat-house, and then she watched and listened for a little while.
When she turned round to speak again, instead of coming back, she stopped where she was, looking in at me, with a hand on each side of the entrance.
'Did you see me at the lake last night?' she said.
'Did you hear me following you in the wood?
I have been waiting for days together to speak to you alone—I have left the only friend I have in the world, anxious and frightened about me—I have risked being shut up again in the mad-house—and all for your sake, Miss Fairlie, all for your sake.'
Her words alarmed me, Marian, and yet there was something in the way she spoke that made me pity her with all my heart.
I am sure my pity must have been sincere, for it made me bold enough to ask the poor creature to come in, and sit down in the boat-house, by my side."
"Did she do so?"
"No.
She shook her head, and told me she must stop where she was, to watch and listen, and see that no third person surprised us.
And from first to last, there she waited at the entrance, with a hand on each side of it, sometimes bending in suddenly to speak to me, sometimes drawing back suddenly to look about her.
'I was here yesterday,' she said, 'before it came dark, and I heard you, and the lady with you, talking together.