“COME RIGHT IN, WILL YOU, PLEASE, MISS?”
“COME RIGHT IN, WILL YOU, PLEASE, MISS?”
Her first move was to the window, which she opened as wide as it would go. Then she straightened the tumbled bedclothes, slipped a cool pillow under the sick woman’s head, and gently sponged the hot face.
In this room, as in the other, plates, cups, basins, and jugs were scattered about in confusion, most of them containing food in some shape or form.
Nell gathered them up as best she could, carrying them to the outer room, to be washed when she had leisure.
Finding a bucket of clean water standing in the little pantry, which opened from the general living-room, she carried a cup of it for the sick woman to drink.
“Ah, how good it is!” murmured the poor thing, opening her eyes and looking at Nell. But there was no surprise in her glance—it was just as if she had expected to see a girl in an old-fashioned blue frock waiting upon her, and with a grateful “Thank you, my dear,” she lay back on the cool pillow and closed her eyes again, only now she did not mutter or moan so much as before.
Having done what was most necessary in the sick-room, Nell stepped out to the other room, and attacked the confusion there. Having lighted the fire, which had gone out from lack of tending, she put a kettle of water on to boil, and then set to work to get the crockery ready for washing.
Absorbed in her work, she forgot how tired she was, and she was stepping briskly to and fro, when the outer door opened, and the man who had shouted to her entered with the dog at his heels.
He stopped short however then, and stared about him in genuine amazement, not at Nell, but at the wonders her hands had wrought in the matters of tidiness.
“My word, how you’ve slicked the place up, and you haven’t been long about it, neither!” he said, in a tone of deep admiration.
He had a stupid, good-natured expression, with a round rosy face like a schoolboy’s; but what puzzled Nell so much was that he talked as if he had been expecting her all day.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming to-night, and I’d the feeling that if poor aunt didn’t soon have a woman to tend her, she’d not stand much chance of pulling through. How do you think she is now?” he asked anxiously.
“She seems very ill, but she lay quieter after I had made her bed and put her comfortable. Perhaps she will seem better in the morning. How long has she been sick?” Nell asked.
“It’s a matter of a fortnight now since she was first took poorly, but she has only kept her bed a week, and the doctor he’s been twice. It is a desperate way, twelve miles for him to drive out and the same back. Did you walk all the way?”
“Yes,” murmured Nell, faintly, as, with a flash, it dawned upon her that the reason of her welcome was because she had been mistaken for some one else, some one who had not come, and probably would not on this night at least, for it was beginning to get quite dark.
But she could not tell this chubby-faced farmer about herself, not to-night at least, and since the need of a woman to help was so urgent, she was surely doing no harm in availing herself of the shelter of his house, if she did her duty by the sick woman.
“Well, if you’ve walked all that twelve miles, you certainly ain’t fit to be sitting up with poor aunt to-night,” he remarked, with a disappointed air.
“Oh yes I am, and to-morrow night too, if there is a need for it. But perhaps your aunt will be better in the morning. What did the doctor say she was to have to eat?” Nell asked.
She was still moving about the kitchen, putting things in order, yet going more slowly now because the work was almost done. The countryman, however, had dropped on to a bench near the stove, and looked quite worn out.
“Oh, gruel and milk, and messes like that. Poor aunt, she always did hate spoon victuals; so, when I came in to my dinner to-day and found she couldn’t eat the gruel I’d left for her at breakfast, I just fried her an egg and a bit of bacon, and tried to get her to eat that.”
“But that wasn’t right. Why, it might have killed her!” exclaimed Nell, in a horrified tone.
“Well, it didn’t, anyhow, for she couldn’t touch it, so I ate it myself. Have you had any supper?” he asked, with a wide yawn.
“No; I really haven’t had time to think about it yet. But you will be wanting yours, I should think; the kettle is almost boiling. Shall I make you some coffee, or would you rather have tea?” said Nell, who, despite her weariness, was rather enjoying the situation, because there was lavish abundance of everything to eat and to use in this little border farmhouse, compared with the pinching poverty of the Lone House on Blue Bird Ridge.
“I don’t care. I’ll have just which is easiest to make, or what you like the best; and there are bits of food littering round on plates that will do for my supper. I’ve mostly cleared up what poor aunt couldn’t eat, since she was took sick.”
“I put the bits all together on a dish, and set it in the pantry. I’ll bring it out for you, and make some coffee, then you can get your supper while I look after your aunt; and I expect you will be glad to go to bed very soon, for you must have had some bad nights lately.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I haven’t been to bed for a week. I sleep in the loft, you see, and when I’m up there with my head under the bedclothes, I can’t hear what’s going on, so I stayed down here and got what sleep I could on two chairs and a bench. It has been a hard time,” he said, looking so tired as he sat with his head leaning against the wall, that Nell felt quite sorry for him.
“You can sleep with a quiet mind to-night,” she answered, lifting the coffee-pot from the stove and bringing it to pour him out a cup where he sat. “If your aunt is taken worse, I will be sure to call you; and if not, there won’t be any need for you to worry. I know quite a lot about nursing, and I always used to help with my father when he was ill.”
“Abe never did look like a strong man,” said the countryman, sleepily, and Nell darted a sudden look of alarm at him, wondering if he might be on the verge of some awkward questioning; so, to stave off the evil moment, she stepped into the next room, and busied herself looking after the invalid.
The sick woman still tossed and moaned; but she had been made so much more comfortable, that some at least of her suffering had been lessened, whilst the water which Nell let her have in copious draughts, seemed to refresh and cool her.
Before he went to his bed in the loft, the man came softly into the sick-room, having left his boots at the door.
“How are you feeling now, aunt?” he asked, bending over the flushed face on the pillow with lumbering tenderness.
She only muttered an incoherent something in reply, and moved her head restlessly, as if it worried her to have him hanging over the bed.
“Don’t you know me, aunt—not know Giles?” the poor fellow asked in a shocked tone, unconsciously raising his voice.
The sick woman only moaned and muttered; but Nell thought it high time to interfere, and gently plucked at his sleeve.
“I wouldn’t worry her, if I were you. The quieter she is left the sooner the fever will drop.”
“She’s worse than she has been all along,” he said, in a shocked whisper. “She has always seemed to know me before.”
“Never mind. Go to bed now, and get a good sleep; perhaps she will have come to her senses in the morning,” Nell said cheerfully; and Giles went off with a drooping head, for he had a good heart, and was warmly attached to the sick woman who had been like a mother to him.
Left alone, Nell made her preparations for keeping watch all night; then, going into the sick-room, wrapped herself in a big shawl which she had found lying on a chair, and gave herself up to the luxury of thinking.
Events had marched so quickly, that, used as she was to a monotonous life, the sudden plunge into change and activity really bewildered her.
It all began with the coming of the exhausted stranger to the Lone House on the ridge, and Nell thought of the vigil she had kept through fear lest Doss Umpey should turn him adrift at dead of night, steal his money, or do him some other harm. Following this came the night she had spent alone with poor dying Pip, and had fallen asleep to find when she awoke that the poor dog was dead.
She thought of the letter she had found in her grandfather’s pocket, with its mysterious threat, and she wondered again, as she had done so many times previously, if Dick Bronson and R. D. Brunsen had any connection with each other.
It bothered her a great deal, that she could not return to the stranger the case with the dollar notes and the portrait. She felt like a thief, to be carrying so much money about which did not belong to her; yet, by some strange contrariness, it was at the same time a comfort to her, since all the while it was in her possession she could not be said to be utterly destitute.
Presently her thoughts wandered to Mrs. Gunnage, and she wondered drowsily whether the good woman’s nerves had as yet permitted her to climb the ladder, to inspect the property which she had been obliged to leave behind when she came away.
Suddenly something different in the room struck Nell, causing her to be instantly on the alert. The moaning and muttering of the sick woman had ceased, and, bending over the bed, she found that the sufferer was lying peacefully asleep.
DR. SHAW was not in exactly an amiable frame of mind that morning. To begin with, there was more sickness in the district than he could very well cope with single-handed, while the lack of good nursing for his numerous patients was telling on his temper to quite a serious extent.
He had just come from a house where a patient, recovering from a rather bad bout of the malarial fever, just then so prevalent in the district, had been treated by an over-indulgent mother to roast goose and apple-pie, with, of course, disastrous results.
The fever itself was a puzzle. Some had it very lightly, and soon recovered, being no worse for the attack. Others had it so heavily that it became a life-and-death struggle.
In some instances it seemed epidemic, for whole households would go down with it; but mostly the cases were isolated, and had no connection with each other. As the neighbourhood had always been so healthy, the fever outbreak was all the more puzzling, and the overworked doctor had irritably decided to put it down to the weather, which had been unusually damp and hot through the latter part of the summer.
His practice lay on both sides of the frontier, and having looked after his Canadian patients, he crossed the border, plunging into the wild forest land that stretched for so many miles along the American side of the boundary.
Little oases of civilization were dotted here and there in the timbered wilderness, and it was to one of these lonely clearings that he turned his horse’s head.
“A fine old journey for us both, Dobbin, and only to find a dead woman at the end,” he said, in a grumpy tone, as his horse dropped into a walk to climb the shoulder of a mountain spur.
But Dobbin only shook an impatient head, for the flies were troublesome, and appeared in no way worried about the state of a patient more or less.
Dr. Shaw was always angry when his patients died, and his meek little wife had declared that he was quite dreadful to live with when, the previous week, both of Abe Lorimer’s sick sons had slipped out of life one after the other.
“Whew, but it is hot this morning!” he exclaimed, mopping his face with a big red handkerchief, which would have shocked a city practitioner.
Dobbin’s glossy coat was dripping with perspiration when at length the end of the journey was reached, at the very same gate where Nell’s tired feet had halted on the previous afternoon.
“Why, the blinds are not down!” exclaimed the doctor, in an amazed tone, as he rode in through the gate and saw the two front windows of the house both open. The door was open too—a barrier made of an ironing-board and two chairs serving to keep out pigs, ducks, and similar intruders.
He was so struck by failing to find the signs of sorrow which he had expected, that he sat still in his saddle staring at the house, until Nell, who had heard his approach, came hurrying out to greet him.
The blue merino dress had been laid aside to-day for the sake of coolness, and Nell appeared in a pink cotton skirt with a washed-out holland blouse, which had short sleeves and no collar.
“A woman here!” exclaimed the doctor, staring at Nell as if he had never seen anything like her before. “Pray, where did you spring from?”
“I came yesterday afternoon,” Nell answered, colouring vividly, her eyes dropping before his steady gaze in an embarrassed fashion.
“Well, you came just right. How is Mrs. Munson?” he asked, descending from his horse, which stood with a drooping head.
“You mean the sick woman?” she asked quickly.
“Of course. What! don’t you know her name even?” And he stared at Nell harder than before.
“Mr. Giles only called her ‘poor aunt,’ so I did not know,” Nell said, in apology. “Will you go right in and see her, if you please, sir? and I will look after your horse.”
“How is she?” demanded the doctor.
“I think she is better. She has been asleep ever since about midnight, only rousing up when I’ve given her food.”
A broad smile broke over the doctor’s rugged face, quite transforming it, and he exclaimed, in a delighted tone—
“Well, that is good hearing! If she has slept so long she will pull through now, with care.”
Nell led the horse away to the barn. Giles had gone with his two horses and the wagon to fetch a last load of corn from a distant field; but he had told her before he went where she could find a feed for the doctor’s horse, and when she had done this, she stayed to give the heated animal a rub down, just as she used to do for old Blossom.
When she entered the house, she found that the sick woman was awake, and talking to the doctor in rational though feeble tones.
“So good of you, doctor, to find me such a kind nurse. I must have died last night, if some one had not come to help me. Giles is a dear good fellow, but he is clumsy when it comes to sickness, like most other men.”
Nell walked into the room at this moment, and her dark eyes had a wistful entreaty in them as she looked at the doctor. She was mutely begging that he would not betray her just yet, and everything that was chivalrous under that rugged exterior responded to the appeal.
“I am glad you like the nurse,” he said, with a nod of encouragement to Nell, who stood where the woman on the bed could not see her. “I was very worried myself when I found that Miss Lorimer could not come as she had promised, but Miss—Miss——Let me see, what did you say your name was?” And he jerked his head in Nell’s direction.
“Hamblyn—Eleanor Hamblyn,” she answered, in a low tone.
“Well, Miss Hamblyn has come at the right time to save your life, and if you will pay attention and do as she says, without doubt you will soon be well again,” Dr. Shaw said, talking now in a dictatorial fashion, which meant that he was to be obeyed to the smallest detail.
“If she tells me to lie in bed and not worry, I’ll do that, thankful enough,” Mrs. Munson replied, with a feeble laugh. Then she closed her eyes, and lay as if asleep, while the doctor talked to Nell.
“I shall not come over again for three days; Mrs. Munson won’t need it, and I’m badly wanted in other directions. Are you able to stay on and take care of her until she is better?” he asked, with a sharp look at Nell, whom he had beckoned to follow him to the other room, so that the sick woman might not be disturbed.
“Oh yes; I can stay if you think they won’t mind having me,” she faltered. “But I came without being asked, you know.”
“You came in the very nick of time, too. And as to your staying—well, it is Mrs. Munson and Giles Bailey who are in your debt, not you in theirs. Mrs. Munson will need careful nursing for the next few days, for she is very low down; but with care she’ll do very well. Are you used to sick folks, eh?” And again his sharp glance seemed as if it would read her thoughts.
But Nell looked at him with honest, unembarrassed eyes which disarmed all suspicion.
“Father was sick for a long time before he died; but that was years ago. Since then I’ve only had dogs and horses to nurse when they weren’t well, for nothing ever ailed granfer.”
“Except in temper, I suppose. I know the sort,” he said, with a grim laugh at his own joke; then he asked quickly, “Is your mother dead too?”
“Yes. She died when I was a little girl,” Nell replied. Then she asked, after a moment of hesitation, “Will you please tell me about the other girl—Miss Lorimer, I mean—and why she did not come?”
“She ought to have come, or let me know that she couldn’t do as she had promised,” the doctor said, with a frown. “But, seeing what trouble they are in, it is not wonderful she lost her head and forgot. She is Gertrude Lorimer, the eldest of Abe Lorimer’s children. Two of her brothers, bright promising boys, were buried last Sunday. I had to go to Lorimer’s Clearing the day before yesterday, and I asked Gertrude if she could come and take care of Mrs. Munson for a few days, and she promised that she would come over yesterday morning, so I rested easy in my mind about my patient. But, to my dismay, when I got to Lorimer’s Clearing this morning, I found that Mrs. Lorimer had been taken ill yesterday, and was in bed, and that Gertrude had simply forgotten all about her promise to come here.”
“Poor girl!” murmured Nell, sympathetically.
The doctor frowned, shook his head, but finally relented enough to admit that Gertrude was deserving of some little pity, even although she had forgotten her promise.
“I will admit that I should not have found it easy to forgive her, if Mrs. Munson had died from want of nursing. On the other hand, if she had sent me word, I don’t know where I could have found a woman who could be spared to come here for the work.”
“You ought to be grateful to her for not letting you know then, because now you have not had to worry about it so long,” Nell said, smiling, as she prepared a hasty meal for the doctor.
But he was not disposed to admit so much, and shook his head a great deal while he ate his lunch. He talked to Nell in a cheerful, friendly fashion, but asked her no more questions about herself, rightly divining that there was trouble behind, of which she did not find it easy to speak. He was fearful, too, of scaring her away from a place where she was so badly needed, so he took pains to reassure her.
When he was ready to go, she brought Dobbin from the barn for him; then, as he was mounting, she asked, with wistful inquiry in her tone—
“Can you tell me, please, how far it is from here to the Canadian border?”
He looked down at her with a friendly smile. “Nine or ten miles. Why do you want to know?”
“I am going there when Mrs. Munson has done with me,” she answered quietly.
“Going there? Where? It is a rather large order, don’t you know, to say you are going to Canada, because, you see, it is so big.”
“I don’t know where, but I shall be sure to find work, shan’t I? Granfer said there was work for everyone in Canada,” she said, a little anxiously.
“Humph! well, I suppose there is, only the trouble is that people won’t always do it. However, I don’t fancy there will be much trouble in your case, either in the getting or the doing, when you come over the border; and if you can’t get work, I will ask Mrs. Shaw to find you some if you come to Nine Springs.”
“Nine Springs? What a pretty name! Is that where you live? If I can’t get work, I will come, but I shan’t trouble you if I can help it,” Nell said, while a bright flush of excitement kept coming and going in her cheeks because of the kindness which was being shown to her by this stranger.
“What sort of work can you do—I mean what sort do you like best?” the doctor asked.
Nell’s brow clouded. “Oh, I like everything; but I don’t know how to do any except rough work, what everyone can do, I mean.”
“If you like everything, and are willing to work, you won’t be long in finding your vocation, I fancy. Meanwhile take care of Mrs. Munson, and in three days I will come again,” he said, with a kindly nod. Then he rode through the gate which Nell opened for him, and he was soon out of sight round the bend in the trail.
Nell walked back to the house in a thoughtful mood; her fancy was busy with that other girl who had promised to come, but had forgotten through stress of other things.
“Suppose she had come, what should I have done?” she murmured with a sudden catch of her breath, for her plight had been a very desperate one; then, because she was by nature unselfish, she quickly thought of the other side of the question, “What would Mrs. Munson have done if no one had come?”
As she paused on the threshold, looking round at the glory of the outdoor world before entering the house, some words of her dead father, spoken in the last days of his life, came into her mind.
“We are all a part of God’s great plan, and there is a niche for every one of us to fill, so let us see that neither by discontent nor fear we spoil the Creator’s purpose concerning us.”
THE next three days were filled with much hard work, heavy nursing, and considerable anxiety for Nell.
Mrs. Munson was slowly mending, but now that she was on the high-road to recovery, she was quite positive that she was on the point of dying, and harassed her long-suffering nurse accordingly.
Since his aunt was getting better, Giles Bailey was able to turn his attention to the outdoor work, which had been neglected before Nell’s arrival, and he was abroad in his fields from dawn to dark, only coming into the house to eat and to sleep.
This was a great comfort to Nell, who felt she could easily have too much of his society, for on the brief occasions when he was in the house, he would sit with his chubby round face propped on one hand, silently gazing at her, until she became so nervous that she did not know what to do with herself.
It never occurred to her that his silent gazing was prompted by deep admiration for her active movements and resourceful ways, or she would have been more uncomfortable still. But, as it was, she was thankful his farm work kept him so busy that it left him scanty leisure for sitting in the house.
The day before Nell expected the doctor to pay his second visit, she had a scare which made her heart beat furiously.
She was looking out of the window in the afternoon, thinking how she would love to go berry-gathering in the forest, if she could have left her invalid, when a man on horseback rode in at the gate shutting off the forest trail, and she instantly recognized him to be Joe Gunnage, who had come to live on Blue Bird Ridge.
Giles Bailey, who was in the yard, came up and spoke to the man, and talked to him for perhaps ten minutes; then, without dismounting, Joe Gunnage rode back by the way he had come, and Giles came on towards the house with news writ large across his fat round face.
Nell fled at his approach, taking refuge in the sick-room, where she dropped into a chair on the far side of the bed, and, picking up a half-darned stocking, worked away as if her whole attention were absorbed in the effort to get the holes filled in with the utmost dispatch.
Mrs. Munson was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows and swathed in shawls, for the day was cool, with a brisk wind blowing.
“It’ll be a warning to me if I pull through this, Miss Hamblyn, not to let Giles get so short of socks and stockings,” she was saying, in a plaintive tone. “It always seemed so prudent and economical to be just doing with the three pairs, two off and one on, but a fit of sickness is a regular eye-opener, I can tell you, and the poor lad would have gone barefoot in a few days more if it had not been for you.”
“I say, aunt, here is news! May I come in? But I mustn’t stay more than two minutes, for I’ve left the hosses hitched to the field gate, and there ain’t much telling what mischief they will be up to if I ain’t there to look after ’em. Whom do you think I’ve been talking to here, just outside the window?”
“Not the President, I suppose, though I don’t know as you could look more bursting with news if it had been him and half the senators from Washington to keep him company,” Mrs. Munson replied, in a caustic manner.
Her manner to her nephew was, as a rule, severely repressive. She believed that he, in common with all other young people, required a great deal of keeping in order.
“It was Joe Gunnage as we used to know at Lewisville ever so long ago, and he has come to live at Blue Bird Ridge,” said Giles, taking off his straw hat and rumpling his hair wildly, which had the effect of making him look more foolish than before.
“Where’s that? I can’t remember that I’ve ever heard of the place,” Mrs. Munson said feebly, for she was very weak still, and neither able to speak nor think with her accustomed vigour.
“Why, you remember the Lone House on the long trail, where old Doss Umpey used to live!” exclaimed Giles.
Mrs. Munson gave a start of surprise, but Nell sat like a figure carved in stone—only her needle moved in and out of the stocking with a mechanical, almost unconscious, action.
“If you’d said the Lone House, I should have knowed before; but Joe Gunnage won’t be such a very near neighbour, for it’s a good thirty miles from here, I should say. What has become of Doss Umpey? Is he dead?”
“No; he has had to flit in a hurry, that’s all. It’s the inside of a prison he ought to see, only Joe says it’s doubtful whether they’ll catch him, because he’s such a slippery old rascal,” Giles remarked, with an air of such intense enjoyment, that Nell, writhing in her secret shame and misery, felt that she hated him.
“Oh! Has he been doing anything fresh, or was it the old business up again?” Mrs. Munson asked, with eager interest.
“A bit of both so far as I could make out. It seems that Brunsen has been talking a good deal, and that has stirred the police up. Then Joe has been grubbing out a hole at the back of the Lone House, and he has come on some things as had best be reported to the border police; that is what made him ride this way.”
“Why didn’t you ask him to come in and see me?” demanded Mrs. Munson.
“I did; but when I told him you were sick with fever, he said he’d rather not, for it was hard enough for well folks to get on at the Lone House, but sick ones would have no sort of a chance at all.”
“That Joe Gunnage always were a regular downright coward,” replied Mrs. Munson, with a snort of disgust. Then she lay back on her pillows, looking so white and spent with the brief excitement, that Nell nodded an emphatic command to Giles to go away and leave the invalid quiet.
In her own heart a storm of fear and misery was raging. What was this old business connected with her grandfather and the man named Brunsen, about which Giles Bailey and his aunt talked so glibly? Was there some law-breaking connected with his life, concerning which she knew nothing?
A vague unreasoning terror seized upon her then, and she quailed at heart as nothing had ever made her quail before.
Ever since she could remember she had had to face hard, grinding poverty, but there had been no shame in that. The father whose memory she cherished so fondly had been a preacher, a scholar, and a gentleman; and although Doss Umpey had been none of these, she had always supposed him to be a straight man according to his lights.
How intensely thankful she felt that she had so carefully hidden the secret of her identity from these people, among whom she had been flung by accident! Of course, the fact might leak out yet; indeed, it must, if Joe Gunnage called at the farm on his way back from the frontier.
Then she thought of the strange manner in which her secret had been so far protected. Both Giles and his aunt had at first supposed her to be Gertrude Lorimer, the other girl; then when the doctor came and explained why the other girl had not been able to come, they had still looked upon the stranger nurse as having come from the neighbourhood of Nine Springs, some one sent by the doctor.
“If only I can get away from here quickly, and hide myself in some place where no one has ever heard of Doss Umpey or the Lone House on the long trail, how thankful I shall be!” Nell exclaimed to herself, and little thought how hard she was to find the task of escaping from this unenviable notoriety.
When Dr. Shaw appeared on the next day, he was greatly pleased with Mrs. Munson’s progress, and said so many complimentary things about Nell, that her cheeks flamed and burned at the unaccustomed praise.
“How is the other girl, if you please?” she asked shyly, when she brought the doctor’s horse for him to mount.
“Gertrude Lorimer? Oh, I was there to-day, and I don’t like the look of her. I never saw a girl who tried harder to do what was expected of her, and to rise to the needs of the occasion; but she hasn’t got it in her, and she can’t do it. Mrs. Lorimer is in bed, and her husband ought to be; the boy Patsey has got a bad chill and is in bed too. Those children will go bathing when they are hot, in the icy cold springs on the clearing, and they always are getting chills,” he answered, with a disapproving shake of his head, and was about to ride away. But Nell had not done with him yet.
“Could you—would you mind looking round for some work for me to do? Mrs. Munson will soon be well enough to spare me now, and I have nowhere to go. I am very strong, and I can do outdoor work, or anything rough,” she said, flushing from sheer nervousness, lest he should ask her questions difficult to answer.
“I will see what I can do. Don’t they treat you kindly here?” he asked, with a jerk of his head towards the house.
“Oh yes; it isn’t that. But I came without being asked, and so, as soon as I can be spared, I would rather move on. Can’t you see that I must?” she said earnestly.
He laughed at this; then said in a graver tone, “Well, have patience until I come again; I shall be this way in a week, I dare say. Meanwhile, I will talk to Mrs. Shaw, and we will see what can be done for you. In any case, you can’t be spared from here until Mrs. Munson is able to leave her bed, you know.”
“That won’t be very long, for she talks of getting up to-morrow,” Nell replied, drawing down the corners of her mouth, for she was clear sighted enough to see that Mrs. Munson, able to get about the house, would be a person to be reckoned with.
“Ah, I shouldn’t be surprised if she does, for she is one of the very tough sort. You must humour her as much as possible, and she will get better all the sooner.”
Nell went back to the house with a flutter of hope at her heart. Perhaps when the doctor came again he would be able to tell her of some one in need of a strong girl who was rather ignorant. Her thirst for knowledge of all sorts made her value her own attainments at a very low figure, although in reality she was not nearly so ignorant in matters domestic as she supposed.
The next morning she commenced a very thorough cleaning of the farmhouse. Starting with the loft where Giles slept, she routed out the dust, scrubbing and scouring with such zeal and energy that Mrs. Munson held up her hands in amazement, and the silent Mr. Bailey stared at her more admiringly than ever.
When the house had been cleaned to her mind, and the clothes all washed, she made a great batch of bread, and was taking the last loaf from the oven when the doctor arrived, two days before he was expected.
He was not riding this time, but driving Dobbin in a high two-wheeled cart, very light and strong, as indeed any vehicle would need to be that was used on those forest trails.
Mrs. Munson was sitting in a rocking-chair by the stove, giving Nell a great deal of advice on the baking of bread. But she held up her hands in dismay at the sight of the doctor, and exclaimed about the length of the bill which she would have to pay.
“You have no need to trouble yourself on that score, Mrs. Munson; I have not come to see you this morning, but to fetch Miss Hamblyn away,” he said gravely.
“What for?” demanded the invalid, in surprise, her tone resentful, although an hour before she had been quietly planning to get rid of her nurse as soon as possible, because it cost more to keep three people than two.
“Because some one needs her even more than you do now,” he replied. Then turning to Nell, who was standing mute with surprise, he went on, “I have been over to Lorimer’s Clearing this morning, and find they are in a terrible plight. Mrs. Lorimer is still in bed and unable to move, although she is suffering more from the shock of losing her sons than anything else. Abe Lorimer is ill this morning, only just able to creep from one room to another, and Gertrude, poor child, can’t lift her head from her pillow. There isn’t a soul to do anything except Flossie, the little lame girl, and she has the baby to look after. Will you go and help them, as you have helped Mrs. Munson?”
“Thank you; yes, I shall be pleased to go,” replied Nell, with a radiant face, for her heart was strangely stirred to think that it was the other girl whom she was going to help. Numberless were the fancies she had cherished concerning that other girl, and she had greatly longed to see her.
“I don’t know how I shall get on without you,” Mrs. Munson said, in a grudging tone; and the radiance on Nell’s face faded out.
“I think you can manage now, if you don’t try to do too much,” she said gently. “The house is all clean, you know; the washing is done up, and I’ve baked enough bread to last a week.”
“I’ll have to do, I suppose, since you are so set on going, though Giles will seem but a clumsy cook after you.”
“Go and get your bonnet on, and pack your things; I can’t wait more than half an hour, and if you’ve got more than one trunk, you will have to leave it behind,” Dr. Shaw said, with a nod of kindly dismissal to Nell.
She disappeared into Mrs. Munson’s room, donned her blue merino dress and the bonnet with the pink roses; then, because there was a stiff breeze blowing, and she was hot from her labours at bread-making, she flung the black silk cape with the bead trimming round her shoulders, and fairly held her breath with awe at the grandeur of her own appearance.
A little sigh escaped her because her shoes were so worn, but they were very black and shiny, which hid their shabbiness a little.
When her toilet was completed, she took up her bundle and went back to the outer room, where Dr. Shaw sat talking to Mrs. Munson.
“Well, of all the surprising things! Why, what made you turn yourself into such an old woman?” he asked, with a disapproving look at the bonnet and cloak, which were better fitted in point of age for Mrs. Munson.
“Don’t I look right? I’m very sorry, but I haven’t got anything else to wear,” Nell said; then added, with a ripple of laughter, “But perhaps the folks will like me all the better if I look old. They will think I’m the more able to do things.”
“They will soon find that out without any telling,” the doctor said, as he pushed back his chair and rose to go.
Mrs. Munson, who had all this time been fumbling with a yellow canvas money-bag now asked, in a rather acid tone—
“How much am I in your debt, Miss Hamblyn, for the work you’ve done?”
An astonished look came into Nell’s dark eyes, and she answered impulsively—
“Why, you are not in my debt at all, of course; and I am very much obliged to you for letting me stay.”
“That is all nonsense!” broke in the doctor, as he shook his head at Nell. “You must give Miss Hamblyn what you think fit, Mrs. Munson. She has got her living to earn, and cannot afford to do her work for nothing.”
“She has had her living, and good living too, for we don’t stint food in this house,” Mrs. Munson said grudgingly, for she was very much disposed to take Nell’s view of the matter, and restore the yellow canvas bag to her pocket with its contents undisturbed.
But this the doctor would not permit. “Something you must pay, Mrs. Munson, if only as a thank-offering, for, remember, it is the nursing you have had which has saved your life,” he said, sticking to his point with so much pertinacity that in the end Mrs. Munson produced two dollars from the yellow bag, which she bestowed upon Nell with the air of one who confers a very great favour indeed.
“It will help towards buying you a pair of boots, and it won’t be before you need them either,” she said, in such pointed allusion to the worn state of Nell’s footgear that the poor girl crimsoned with mortification.
“Now that little ceremony is over, we will be moving,” said the doctor, with an air of relief.
And in a very few minutes more Nell had taken leave of Mrs. Munson, and, with her bundle, was mounting the step of the doctor’s high two-wheeled cart.
Giles Bailey came up just as they were driving off, and protested vigorously against Nell being spirited away in such a hurried fashion.
But the doctor only laughed at him. “If you are so anxious to provide your aunt with a permanent nurse and helper, friend Giles, you should get married, and bring your wife home to look after things.”
“She’d have a rather bad time of it, I’m afraid, shut up with aunt and me,” he replied stolidly, and, as usual, staring hard at Nell.
“I’m afraid she would,” commented the doctor. Then he told Dobbin to start; so the journey was commenced, and Nell was moved on further into the wide world.
“I did not like to take that two dollars, but it is lovely to have some money of my own,” she said, drawing deep breaths of satisfaction, as the cart swayed and bumped over the inequalities of the trail.
“What! had you no money at all?” demanded the doctor, in a shocked tone.
“Not of my own. I have got thirty dollars with me, but it isn’t mine,” she answered.
“Why have you got it, then?” he asked bluntly.
“I found it after the person had gone away to whom it belongs; and I can’t send it to him, because I don’t know where he is,” she replied, with disarming candour.
“I suppose, then, you feel entitled to keep it. Quite a lucky find for you,” he said, darting a sharp glance at her, which made her flush in a hot, uncomfortable fashion.
“Of course I should not keep what is not my own,” she answered, with a gentle dignity. “I might have been forced to borrow a little of it if I had been compelled to pay for my board at Mrs. Munson’s, but now there will be no need to touch it.”
“I hope not,” said the doctor, gravely; then he began talking about different things, showing Nell the big boulders of ironstone which stood up among the tree growths like the ruins of some ancient castle. “The Indians have a legend about those rocks,” he said. “When the frontier was decided upon, the two nations agreed to build a wall, twice the height of a man, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, and they started here, where material was abundant. But the wind spirit and the water spirit arose in their might, beating down the puny beginnings of the great undertaking, and killing those who had planned it.”