But for some time nothing near an accident happened; and lots of money come into the circus to see Yapp and little Mary--but that was Jubber's luck and not ours. One night--when she was a little better than seven year old--
"Oh, ma'am, how I ever lived over that dreadful night I don't know! I was a sinful, miserable wretch not to have starved sooner than let the child go into danger; but I was so sorely tempted and driven to it, God knows!--No, sir! no, ma'am; and many thanks for your kindness, I'll go on now I've begun. Don't mind me crying; I'll manage to tell it somehow. The strap--no, I mean the handle; the handle in the strap gave way all of a sudden--just at the last too! just at the worst time, when he couldn't catch her!--
"Never--oh, never, never, to my dying day shall I forget the horrible screech that went up from the whole audience; and the sight of the white thing lying huddled dead-still on the boards! We hadn't such a number in as usual that night; and she fell on an empty place between the benches. I got knocked down by the horses in running to her--I was clean out of my senses, and didn't know where I was going--Yapp had fallen among them, and hurt himself badly, trying to catch her--they were running wild in the ring--the horses was--frantic-like with the noise all round them. I got up somehow, and a crowd of people jostled me, and I saw my innocent darling carried among them. I felt hands on me, trying to pull me back; but I broke away, and got into the waiting-room along with the rest.
"There she was--my own, own little Mary, that I'd promised her poor mother to take care of--there she was, lying all white and still on an old box, with my cloak rolled up as a pillow for her. And people crowding round her. And a doctor feeling her head all over. And Yapp among them, held up by two men, with his face all over blood. I wasn't able to speak or move; I didn't feel as if I was breathing even, till the doctor stopped, and looked up; and then a great shudder went through all of us together, as if we'd been one body, instead of twenty or more.
"'It's not killed her,' says the doctor. 'Her brain's escaped injury.'
"I didn't hear another word.
"I don't know how long it was before I seemed to wake up like, with a dreadful feeling of pain and tearing of everything inside me. I was on the landlady's bed, and Jemmy was standing over me with a bottle of salts. 'They've put her to bed,' he says to me, 'and the doctor's setting her arm.' I didn't recollect at first; but when I did, it was almost as bad as seeing the dreadful accident all over again.
"It was some time before any of us found out what had really happened. The breaking of her arm, the doctor said, had saved her head; which was only cut and bruised a little, not half as bad as was feared. Day after day, and night after night, I sat by her bedside, comforting her through her fever, and the pain of the splints on her arm, and never once suspecting--no more, I believe, than she did--the awful misfortune that had really happened. She was always wonderful quiet and silent for a child, poor lamb, in little illnesses that she'd had before; and somehow, I didn't wonder--at least, at first--why she never said a word, and never answered me when I spoke to her.
"This went on, though, after she got better in her health; and a strange look came over her eyes. They seemed to be always wondering and frightened, in a confused way, about something or other. She took, too, to rolling her head about restlessly from one side of the pillow to the other; making a sort of muttering and humming now and then, but still never seeming to notice or to care for anything I said to her. One day, I was warming her a nice cup of beef-tea over the fire, when I heard, quite sudden and quite plain, these words from where she lay on the bed, 'Why are you always so quiet here? Why doesn't somebody speak to me?'
"I knew there wasn't another soul in the room but the poor child at that time; and yet, the voice as spoke those words was no more like little Mary's voice, than my voice, sir, is like yours. It sounded, somehow, hoarse and low, and deep and faint, all at the same time; the strangest, shockingest voice to come from a child, who always used to speak so clearly and prettily before, that ever I heard. If I was only cleverer with my words, ma'am, and could tell you about it properly--but I can't. I only know it gave me such a turn to hear her, that I upset the beef-tea, and ran back in a fright to the bed. 'Why, Mary! Mary!' says I, quite loud, 'are you so well already that you're trying to imitate Mr. Jubber's gruff voice?'
"There was the same wondering look in her eyes--only wilder than I had ever seen it yet--while I was speaking. When I'd done, she says in the same strange way, 'Speak out, mother; I can't hear you when you whisper like that.' She was as long saying these words, and bungled over them as much, as if she was only just learning to speak. I think I got the first suspicion then, of what had really happened. 'Mary!' I bawled out as loud as I could, 'Mary! can't you hear me?' She shook her head, and stared up at me with the frightened, bewildered look again: then seemed to get pettish and impatient all of a sudden--the first time I ever saw her so--and hid her face from me on the pillow.
"Just then the doctor come in. 'Oh, sir!' says I, whispering to him--just as if I hadn't found out a minute ago that she couldn't hear me at the top of my voice--'I'm afraid there's something gone wrong with her hearing--.' 'Have you only just now suspected that?' says he; 'I've been afraid of it for some days past, but I thought it best to say nothing till I'd tried her; and she's hardly well enough yet, poor child, to be worried with experiments on her ears.' 'She's much better,' says I; 'indeed, she's much better to-day, sir! Oh, do try her now, for it's so dreadful to be in doubt a moment longer than we can help.'
"He went up to the bedside, and I followed him. She was lying with her face hidden away from us on the pillow, just as it was when I left her. The doctor says to me, 'Don't disturb her, don't let her look round, so that she can see us--I'm going to call to her.' And he called 'Mary' out loud, twice; and she never moved. The third time he tried her, it was with such a shout at the top of his voice, that the landlady come up, thinking something had happened. I was looking over his shoulder, and saw that my dear child never started in the least. 'Poor little thing,' says the doctor, quite sorrowful, 'this is worse than I expected.' He stooped down and touched her, as he said this; and she turned round directly, and put out her hand to have her pulse felt as usual. I tried to get out of her sight, for I was crying, and didn't wish her to see it; but she was too sharp for me. She looked hard in my face and the landlady's, then in the doctor's, which was downcast enough; for he had got very fond of her, just as everybody else did who saw much of little Mary.
"'What's the matter?' she says, in the same sort of strange unnatural voice again.