WHAT WOULD BE SAID?
"WELL, I never!" uttered Miss Perkins as Jessie stepped in. "So that's what you call just going across the road, is it?"
Jessie had not the faintest recollection of any such words as coming from herself; but she seemed to have lived through a small lifetime of feeling since last crossing the threshold, and memory was confused.
"I couldn't help it," she made answer meekly.
Miss Perkins still sat in the self-same chair where Jessie had seen her last, with the self-same piece of work in her hands, exactly as if she had been glued there throughout the time of Jessie's absence. Only her sewing had made scant advance; and a bonnet and shawl lay near, where they had not been earlier.
Jessie observed neither fact, being painfully conscious of the scrutiny which she was herself undergoing. The colour in her face came and went. Miss Perkins gave vent to a sniff, which Jessie supposed to intimate displeasure, though possibly it may have meant concern.
"I couldn't help myself, aunt Barbara—I mean partly. Mrs. Groates asked me to stay with Mimy."
"Oh, it's the Groateses, is it?" with unmitigated disdain. "I might have guessed you were after the Groateses. And how ever came you to see Mrs. Groates at all, I wonder?"
Jessie dropped upon a chair, with her back to the window, and murmured, "I went there."
"What for?"
"Jack Groates asked me. He hadn't time to see his mother. And he wanted me to tell her he was gone in the boat."
"What boat?"
"The boat that tried—tried—" Jessie could not finish her sentence.
"Jack Groates didn't speak to you over the way at Mr. Mokes'. I know he didn't, for I could see quite well from here. He didn't say a word to you."
"No."
"When did he?"
"I—ran to the shore; I wanted to see. Jack sent me back. He wouldn't let me stay."
"That's one sensible thing he's done, anyway." Miss Perkins continued to sew, with lowered eyes, as if her existence depended on getting the seam done within a given time. "And I s'pose you wanted to catch your death o' cold. Done your best, anyhow, running all that way to the beach, in this wind, with nothing but a cobweb of a shawl! I wonder at you, Jessie! At your age."
Jessie was silent.
"Mrs. Mokes told me you'd gone. 'Silly girl, too!' says she. As if you could ha' done a scrap o' good to anybody by all your going! Why, they might have been all drowned before your eyes; and I s'pose you'd just ha' sat and cried. Much use that would have been."
Jessie tried to speak, and produced only a clatter of shaking teeth.
Miss Perkins glanced up in astonishment. "Eh?" she said.
The girl was clinging to her chair, white as a table-cloth. She met her aunt's eyes, and tried to laugh; but the chair shook beneath her.
"That's the sort of thing, is it?" quoth Miss Perkins, with a certain grim satisfaction. "Didn't I say you'd catch your death o' cold? Shouldn't wonder but you've done it now. You'll just come straight upstairs this minute, and get into bed, and have a basin of gruel, and not stir till I give you leave. I'm not going to have you ill on my hands too, if I can help it."
"Please—" protested Jessie.
But she was in no state for effective resistance; and Miss Perkins hauled rather than helped her up the two flights.
Midway, as they passed the open door of the spare room on the first landing, Jessie exclaimed, "Why, there's a fire!"
"Well, why not?"
Jessie stared in bewilderment.
"The room wanted airing," Miss Perkins condescended to explain. "And I thought of a fire,—all of a sudden. Come, make haste. I've got a lot to see to."
"If only I needn't go to bed—And then I could see to something too."
"You see to things,—a quaky piece of goods like you! You're best out of the way. Leave other folks more room."
Jessie noted suddenly the creaking of her aunt's walking boots, and remembered the words, "Mrs. Mokes told me." She exclaimed again, in her surprise, "Why, aunt, you've been out."
"And if I have, what then? And if I choose to go out again, what's that to anybody? Some who ain't quite so spry as others in running after other folks' business maybe do as much in the world. I shouldn't wonder if my going out had been a deal more use than yours."
This was crushing; for Jessie could not honestly feel that she had done much good to anybody by her going. She drooped her head, and was mute, offering no further resistance.
Ten minutes later saw her tucked up in her little white bed, in the front attic, a cosy small bedroom with sloping roof, scrupulously clean.
The "spare room," so called, which in summer was often let to a single lady, desirous of some few days or weeks by the sea, lay under this attic, and over the front sitting-room. Behind the said sitting-room was the kitchen; over the kitchen was Miss Perkins' bedroom; and over Miss Perkins' bedroom was an attic box-room. Miss Perkins, being an indefatigable worker, kept no servant-girl, but only had a woman in for two or three hours twice a week, to "scrub down."
The warmth and rest were comfortable, and Jessie's shivering fit soon subsided. She turned her face from the light, and felt very thankful for Jack's escape, as well as somewhat ashamed of having been betrayed into showing what she felt about him. For who could say with certainty whether Jack cared for Jessie?
"But Mimy promised; Mimy won't tell anybody how silly I was. I'm sure Mimy will take care."
Then in a moment she remembered the little dressmaker, forgotten hitherto. A rush of hot blood suffused Jessie's face. Miss Sophy Coxen had seen, and Miss Sophy Coxen would talk. Not a man, woman, or child in Old Maxham would fail to receive from Miss Sophy a full and detailed description of precisely how Jessie Perkins had looked, had spoken, had acted, upon that notable occasion when she was informed that Jack Groates had met his end.
Jessie could easily picture to herself what would be said. "That poor dear girl Jessie!" Miss Sophy Coxen would remark. "Now would you have thought it? I shouldn't! I didn't know she cared for young Groates any more than for anybody else. But she does! O yes, it is quite certain. I can answer for that. You see, I was told that poor young Groates had been drowned, and when Jessie heard it, why, the poor dear was like a thing demented. She kept saying, 'Jack Groates drowned!' over and over again and she hid her face, and didn't seem half to know where she was. And of course anybody can guess what that sort of thing means!" And so on, and so on.
"It's horrid! Horrid! How could I be so foolish?" cried Jessie. One burning blush followed upon another. "Oh dear, oh dear, what ever shall I do? What can I say? How can I put things right? And if it should come to Jack's ears! Oh! And it will; I know it will! Everybody tells everything to everybody in this horrid place."
Jessie groaned aloud, and another rush of crimson came.
Miss Perkins chose this instant to enter with the promised "basin" of steaming gruel. A dubious expression crept into her long narrow visage as she surveyed Jessie's face. Had she been anything of an experienced nurse, she would have known quickly that the heat was moist in kind, not fever heat. As it was, she took alarm.
"I declare you're as feverish as can be. You weren't that colour downstairs."
"I'm not a scrap feverish." Jessie accentuated the assertion by an added glow. "It's nothing of the sort. I'm not ill one bit, only just nicely warm."
"If I was you, I'd speak the truth another time, and not go along making believe. Your face is es hot as fire; and if that isn't fever, my name isn't Barbara Perkins." A rather rash assertion, since she possessed no other name.
Jessie broke into a nervous giggle.
"It's a chill you've got; and you'll just lay quiet in bed till it's gone. I'll have no more rampaging about, without I give you leave."
"Aunt Barbara, do you know who's hurt?" asked Jessie.
Since blushing was to be taken for fever, and since she was already about as crimson as it was possible to be, the question might be ventured upon.
Miss Perkins offered no response.
"Because the boat was thrown up on the beach, and all of them were tossed out. And some were hurt, I know—poor Mr. Gilbert, and old Adams, oh, yes, and Jack Groates too. Was there anybody else? I do want to know how they're all getting on. And the poor woman off the wreck—was she killed?"
"She wasn't dead an hour ago. That's about all I know. And Adams was come to; and Mr. Gilbert's arm was enough to make a body sick to look at it. And Jack Groates is a silly fellow."
"Oh-h!"
"A silly fellow! That's what he is. He ought to have thought of his family." Miss Perkins always took a peculiar pleasure in saying exactly the opposite to what was expected of her. "A nice expense for them it'll be, to have him laid by with a broken leg for nobody knows how long. Shouldn't wonder if he never was able to walk straight again."
Jessie giggled anew faintly, as a picture arose in her mind of Jack sidling along, crab fashion.
"Well, I shouldn't. It's what they call a compound fracture. The bone was sticking right out," pursued Miss Perkins, with the relish of one who loved to deal in horrors. "Right out! And the setting of it 'ud be awful, they say. Serve him right, too! What must he meddle for? If he was a sailor—but he isn't! Ben Mokes is a deal more sensible."
"Ben Mokes is a horrid lazy selfish creature, and I can't bear him," Jessie cried, with almost a sob. "And Jack has behaved like a man; and you know he has, aunt Barbara."
Miss Perkins sniffed. "If he isn't a man, I don't know what else he is. Folks has their different sorts of ways of thinking, though; and my way of thinking isn't yours by a long chalk."
Then she quitted the room, and Jessie, pushing aside the basin of gruel, tossed restlessly to and fro for a long while, divided between distress at Jack's sufferings and poignant regrets for her own betrayal of feeling. She ended by dropping sound asleep.
When, two hours later, she woke up, things did not look quite so desperate. Flushes and shivering had departed; and Jessie felt altogether more like her ordinary self. After all, everybody knew the ways of little Miss Sophy Coxen; and people would allow for probable exaggerations; and nobody could wonder at a certain amount of feeling shown at such a moment; and besides all this, Jessie herself could do much to set matters right, by assuming on air of high-and-mighty indifference whenever Jack was named.
Having arrived at these conclusions and consoled herself therewith, Jessie began to debate whether she might not get up and dress. She decided, however, that this would be venturing too far, in the face of her aunt's prohibition. The act might draw unpleasant consequences.
Something of a mysterious nature seemed to be going on below. Was Miss Perkins airing the room still? And why should she take to airing it thus abruptly, without any especial reason, in the middle of an afternoon? Jessie listened intently, and presently made out subdued voices—a man's voice, she was sure. Curiosity rose high.
MISS PERKINS' NEW INMATE
MILDRED PATTISON'S coming to, out of her long unconsciousness, was a slow and tedious affair. Not only had she been three-fourths drowned before the brave crew of rescuers dragged her into their boat, but also, when the rising tide, with a final effort, dashed the boat bottom up on the shingles, smashing Mr. Gilbert's right arm, stunning Adams, and breaking Jack Groates' leg, Millie received a blow upon her head, sufficient to have rendered her senseless, apart from other calamities.
She was taken first to old Adams' cottage, the most roomy of all the small cottages "down at the Corner." Every effort was there made to bring her to, and enough success rewarded the efforts to show that she was living. But though more than once Millie opened her eyes and gazed vaguely about, it could scarcely be called "consciousness." In after-days she had no recollection of this time, or of being conveyed to Old Maxham.
The question soon arose: What was to be done with her? Adams' family had enough to do in looking after himself; and they were very poor; and space was scanty. But for Mr. Gilbert's severe injuries, he would doubtless have had her taken to the Vicarage, and placed under the care of his old housekeeper. That plan now was impossible; at all events, he was too ill to think of it, and the old housekeeper counted that her hands were sufficiently full.
For a while no one else came forward. Few indeed were in a position to do so. Most of the Old Maxham people were more or less poor; and not many could boast the possession of an unused room,—the doctor least of all, since he had not only six small children, but one or two permanent invalids as patients.
Then it was that Miss Perkins astonished everybody by stepping into the breach. She had been present for a short time, had heard everything, had listened to what everybody had to say. And when the world in general, as represented down at the Point, had reached the end of its wits, Miss Perkins spoke.
She had a spare room, she said; and she didn't suppose any lodgers would be likely to come yet awhile. The poor woman might come and sleep in that room just for a few days, till she was well enough to go on her journey to her home. Of course she'd got a home somewhere, and friends expecting her. Yes, it meant a lot of trouble, of course. Folks had got to take trouble sometimes. Miss Perkins didn't know as she was one who minded trouble particular. Anyway, if the woman hadn't got nowhere else to go to, why, there was the bedroom ready.
"That's splendid of you, Miss Perkins!" the village doctor said impulsively.
Miss Perkins twitched the end of her long nose, and sniffed. She didn't know as there was anything out of the common, she said, in letting a room be used, when it wasn't wanted, by a poor thing as hadn't got anywhere else to go.
"Only, it may mean—Well, of course I can't tell you exactly how soon she'll be fit to move," suggested the doctor. "That blow on the head might mean mischief; and if fever set in—"
Miss Perkins didn't see as she had any call to be expecting evils.
"No, no; I only thought it right to warn you about possibilities. But at the worst she could be taken to the hospital. I'm afraid so long a drive in her present state would be a serious risk." The doctor might well fear this, since the nearest hospital was fifteen miles off. "Well, I can only say you're a splendid woman, Miss Perkins."
Miss Perkins might have been inwardly gratified; but she received the praise with outward disdain. And when one or two minor arrangements had been made, she set off to make things ready at home.
She would have found it difficult to explain why she had offered her room: still more why, having offered it, she should feel positively ashamed of her own generosity, and should shrink from telling her niece. Something in the pale face of the unconscious half-drowned woman, friendless and forlorn, had appealed to the softer side of her nature, and to some extent she had acted on impulse. Certainly, no one would have expected Miss Perkins so to rise to the needs of another; and perhaps it was this very knowledge of having done the unexpected which made her feel bashful.
More than once, while hurrying along the rough road, she regretted her own precipitation, wondering whether she might not find herself to be "in for" a good deal more than she had calculated on. It was a positive relief to her mind to find Jessie absent, and not at once to have to confess what she had done. Not that she supposed Jessie to be likely to object, or that she would have cared if Jessie had objected, but only that she shrank oddly from appearing in a more benevolent character than her wont.
She threw off bonnet and shawl, lighted a fire in the spare room, made the bed, which was always kept well aired, and put a hot bottle between the sheets. Then, under a queer sense of shyness, she resumed her seat and her work, to be found by Jessie, as already described. And there can be no question that Miss Perkins was charmed to seize upon an excuse for putting her niece to bed out of the way, and so deferring for a time the need to tell her news.
Mildred Pattison's arrival happened opportunely, when Jessie was sound asleep. Still secrecy could not be long preserved; and when Miss Perkins, after long delay, made her appearance anew in the attic bedroom, it was to find Jessie sitting up in bed, listening with all her ears.
"Aunt Barbara, I'm positive there's somebody in the room below."
"You didn't eat that gruel, Jessie."
"Oh, I couldn't. It was so horrid. And I'm not ill,—not in the least ill. Is there somebody in the spare room? Why mayn't I know?"
"There's no reason why you mayn't, I suppose."
"Then who is it? Do tell me."
"Nobody of consequence to make a fuss about. It's just the poor creature off the wreck."
"Oh-h-h!" Jessie's eyes and mouth widened in sympathy.
"She hadn't got any place to go to . . . So they've just brought her here for a day or two. Lodgers ain't likely to turn up yet . . . And if they do, they'll have to wait, I s'pose."
Jessie did what she had not done for at least ten years past. She sprang up on her knees in the bed, and clutched Miss Perkins round the neck in a hearty hug.
"Aunt Barbara! O how kind! How very very good of you!"
"There's no call to rumple my capstrings."
Jessie released her, but wore a look of delight.
"How lovely of you! I never should have thought you'd be the one to do anything of the sort."
Yes, that was it. Nobody expected good deeds from Miss Perkins. Anybody, rather than Miss Perkins. The fact caused a sense of injury. Why might not she do a kindness naturally and simply, like other people, without uplifted hands and amazed eyes to follow? If Mr. Gilbert had taken the poor woman to the Vicarage, no one would have been in the least degree surprised.
"Never!" repeated Jessie, without the smallest intention of hurting Miss Perkins' feelings. "That poor thing! How glad she must be!"
"She isn't. She doesn't know anything."
"Hasn't she come round yet?"
"Not she. Just opened her eyes, and that's all. I've got a fine peck of work before me, looking after her. As like as not, she'll be ill and die."
This was not quite consistent with her own observation to the doctor; but few people are consistent all round.
"Oh, I don't believe she will. You'll nurse her so beautifully, she's sure to get well."
The intended compliment fell flat. Miss Perkins wore a lugubrious expression, and was not to be cheered. Having told her tale, however, she no longer opposed Jessie's desire to be up and dressed; and really she had enough to do to require her niece's help.
HERO
IN receiving the new inmate into her home, the big Newfoundland dog was a difficulty upon which Miss Perkins had not counted. She objected to dogs, especially to large ones. They were apt to leave footmarks on a clean doorstep, and to scratch holes in a tidy garden-bed; and Miss Perkins looked upon them as undesirable members of society.
But Hero had saved his mistress' life; and nobody had the heart to keep him from her side, if indeed such keeping were possible. He was gentle as a kitten to everybody, except when they tried to coax him away from the unconscious Mildred; and then his hair rose, and a suggestion of white teeth, with a faint under-ground rumble, warned people to be careful.
Somehow Miss Perkins, in her pity for the woman, had overlooked the dog; and when Millie Pattison, swathed still in the shawls which had been wrapped round her chilled frame after the removal of her own soaked clothes, was laid upon the spare room bed of Periwinkle Cottage, Hero was there also. Bruised and battered by his struggle with the waves, he had not once left his mistress; and he took up his station close beside the bed, as one who had a right to be there.
Miss Perkins protested at once. She couldn't have that beast in the house, not for nothing nor nobody! But remonstrances, commands, exhortations, coaxings, offered pieces of meat, proved all alike unavailing. Hero declined to stir an inch. When a hand was laid on his collar by one of the men who had carried Millie upstairs, there was again a gleam of white ivory and a soft gurgle; and the man beat a quick retreat.
"You'd best let him be for a time, mum," Robins suggested. "He'll come away by-and-by. If it wasn't for he, she wouldn't be ashore now."
Miss Perkins objected extremely, but for the present she had no choice. Though brave enough in a general way, she had a fear of dogs, and she dared not touch him; neither did any one else dare.
So long as Hero was left alone, he remained perfectly passive and gentle, resting his great head against the end of the bolster, and watching with troubled brown eyes everything that was done. To move and lift and attend to his mistress, under those watchful eyes, was at first rather nervous work; and Miss Perkins kept two women helpers to assist her through the ordeal. It soon became evident to her, as it was already evident to others, that Hero entirely understood their benevolent intentions. He interfered in nothing; only he would not be driven away.
"I don't know whatever in the world I'm to do at night," Miss Perkins uttered despairingly. "I wouldn't be left alone with her and that brute, not if I was paid for it ever so! That's a fact."
Unexpectedly Jessie came to the rescue. Jessie was a born lover of animals, dogs especially, and Hero of course knew it in a moment. When she crept into the room after Miss Perkins, her first glance fell, not upon Millie, but upon the massive dark head of Hero; and her first exclamation was a subdued, "O you beauty! You dear dog!"
"Jessie, take care. He'll bite you. Look out."
"Oh dear, no, he won't." Jessie fearlessly patted and soothed Hero, and he leant against her with a confiding air. "You dear creature! Why, your poor paw is all hurt. You must come with me and have it bathed. I wish I could know your name, doggie. Come along with me, and I'll bathe your paw. Come."
She took firm hold of his collar, and, strange to say, Hero offered no resistance. A fresh warning from Miss Perkins was nipped in the bud. Jessie passed out of the room with a face of triumph, leading the dog away.
"Well, I never!" broke simultaneously from Miss Perkins and from the one other woman who still remained.
"Dogs always come to me. They know I love them," Jessie declared.
She took Hero down into the kitchen, bathed the injured paw in warm water, and gave him a plateful of scraps: after which Hero went upstairs again, lay outside the bedroom door, and slipped in on the first opportunity. He no longer proved unmanageable, however; and for Jessie, though for no one else, he consented at night to go downstairs and to be shut into the little scullery, with a mat to sleep on.
"But I'm sure, if I'd known it meant having that brute too, I'd never have offered to take her in," sighed Miss Perkins. "I've always said I wouldn't have a dog in the house, not for nobody; and I've meant it, too."
"And I love dogs!" was all the expression of sympathy she could obtain from Jessie.
When the dripping clothes of the half-drowned woman were dried and examined, a small Church Prayer-Book was found in the pocket of the dress, so tightly clasped that, though greatly damaged, it was still possible to make out part of a written inscription: "For Mildred; from her brother, Phil P—," the remainder being illegible. Her clothes were marked with the initials "M. S. P."
So "Mildred" was the name by which she became known during the next ten days. Fever ran somewhat high, though not to a dangerous extent and she wandered dreamily. Sometimes she would call, "Hero!" suddenly, in a clear voice, and the instant response of the dog, starting to her side showed this to be his name. She was always soothed by his touch; and if he were long absent from the room, her restlessness increased. Other names often on her lips were "Phil," "Louey," and "Lou;" and sometimes she would vaguely ask, "Were they saved?" It was never needful to answer her.
Not till fully ten days had passed since the wreck, did Mildred Pattison steal from the shadowy land of dreams back to the everyday world of clear consciousness. Even then she was at first too weak for connected thought; but gradually, as strength returned, recollection came, and past and present began to take definite shape.
It fell upon the young and inexperienced Jessie to break to her how matters were. Everybody had dreaded having to do this, and hoped that it might fall to the lot of some one else. And, after all, it so happened that Jessie was alone in the room when Millie for the first time looked with steady and questioning eyes and whispered,—"Tell me, please!"
Jessie was aware of a shock of alarm. "You mustn't talk yet," she said. "Aunt Barbara will be back directly."
"Who is aunt Barbara?"
"My aunt, Miss Barbara Perkins. This is our house, you know."
"I don't know—I want to understand."
"We live in Old Maxham, and I live with my aunt. Never mind. You'll know soon. And I mustn't let you talk?"
"It will not hurt me. Where is—?" She paused, and seemed to think painfully. The sound of her voice aroused the dog, asleep in a corner. He came to the bedside, with his soft padding step, and poked a cold nose into her hand. "Hero!" she said, and she burst into tears.
"Don't! Please don't!" entreated Jessie. "You'll feel better soon. What a beauty Hero is!"
"Dear old Hero! He—I suppose he saved my life. I have been trying to remember. He was—on the deck with me. After that—" and a break, "I can't remember anything else."
"He kept you afloat; and they took you into the boat."
"Ah!"
"I've got to give you some medicine now."
Mildred received it with a quiet "Thank you." Then she said, "I suppose I have been ill?"
"Yes. But you are getting on nicely. Couldn't you go to sleep now?"
"Not yet. I want to know—what boat was it?"
"One of our Maxham boats. It went out to do what it could."
"And who else—?"
"Please wait a little till aunt Barbara comes in. She'll tell you anything you want to know."
"Who else was saved?"
"Another day, when you are a little stronger."
"My brother—Philip? He was the Captain. And little Lou?"
Jessie was silent.
"Tell me the truth. I have to hear. Were they saved?"
Silence still; but two drops fell upon Mildred's wrist. She looked up, faintly smiling.
"Thank you. How sweet of you! I didn't know there was anybody left to care. Then I was the only one? All the rest drowned?"
"I wish you wouldn't ask me," Jessie said, with a sob.
"No; I know now. I think I knew before. I—saw them dead, you know. Only, I couldn't quite believe it! To be left so alone as this!"
"Don't, please!"
"Poor old Hero!" She sighed, and closed her eyes. "Only you and I now, Hero! I wonder why I was saved."
She lay very still for a while, not as if sleeping. Her brows were knitted, and presently a few hot tears crept slowly out from the shut lids. Jessie sat watching sorrowfully. The light-hearted girl was having a glimpse of the darker side of life, which hitherto she had not known.
A step made her look up. Miss Perkins stood gazing at Mildred.
Jessie whispered under her breath, "She's been asking questions."
"And you've told her?"
"Yes."
"Well, it had to be done. It's a good thing over."
If Mildred heard, she made no sign. An hour and more passed before she again stirred or opened her eyes. Then she encountered, not Jessie's face, but that of Miss Perkins.
"Aunt Barbara, I suppose?" she murmured.
"My name's Barbara Perkins. I'm Jessie's aunt." Miss Perkins always spoke in a possibly combative style.
"Is that Jessie? I like her."
"She's a middling sort of girl. Nothing particular."
"How good of you to take me in."
"Somebody 'd got to do it. And I'd got a spare bedroom,—just till you could go on to your home."
"I have no home."
Miss Perkins experienced a sense of dismay.
"No home, and no one belonging to me! All are gone. Phil and little Lou were the last."
"Well, well, I wouldn't think about it now. You've got to get well first," said Miss Perkins, her duty as nurse rising uppermost.
WHAT WAS TO BE DONE NEXT
THOUGH Miss Perkins might say to Mildred, "Don't think," with reference to her isolation in the world, Miss Perkins made no effort herself to refrain from thinking. Without friends, and without a home. Did that also mean, without any means of livelihood?
It might easily do so. Miss Perkins was greatly exercised in spirit on this question. She had offered, under a sudden gust of pity, to take the shipwrecked wanderer for a few days, looking upon the arrangement as a transitory one; and when Millie, instead of rallying quickly, became worse, needing constant attention, she had buckled bravely to the task, devoting her time and her energies, with really few complaints.
She had received a cheque for five guineas from Mr. Gilbert, given out of his own slender resources; but five guineas would not cover the additional outlay in which she was involved; and though she know that others might come forward, she knew also that such coming forward was doubtful. People in general are glad enough to put off trouble and expense upon another. Money in Old Maxham could not be regarded as a plentiful commodity; and those who possessed any considerable amount of it—Mr. Mokes, for example, was credited with large savings—were by no means too fond of parting with the same.
For a few days, or for two or three weeks, Miss Perkins had met her responsibilities pluckily. But Mildred's words had now opened out a new vista. If Mildred had no home, no friends, no money, no means of livelihood, would Miss Perkins be expected to make her a permanent inmate of Periwinkle Cottage, without remuneration? That was the question.
Miss Perkins had begun to view her own action in the matter as foolish and impulsive; though she would have been the last to acknowledge as much to anybody else; and though, it is to be hoped, she would have done precisely the same over again, had the condition of affairs been repeated.
For a while these doubts only troubled her when she was away from Millie. In Mildred's presence such sensations had no weight. But as days went on, a feeling of provocation even there sometimes assailed Miss Perkins. Mildred was very feeble still, with no energy to arouse herself, or to think of plans and ways and means; and day after day she lay, spiritless and pale, just moving from the bed to an easy-chair, apparently content with her shelter and not in the least degree anxious as to how or by whom her needs were supplied. She was too utterly saddened to have room in her mind for personal cares. Miss Perkins began to think that the time was come when Mildred ought to bestir herself and ought to be troubled.
Another element also was entering into the question. Jessie had always been a light-hearted maiden; partly because life had hitherto shown to her chiefly its sunny side; but she was by no means without a share of that true womanliness, which happily few women entirely lack, and which means being drawn by the sight of suffering.
Only the most spoilt and the most selfish of women are repelled by sickness and sorrow; for in true woman-nature, there is a natural craving to give help where help is needed.
Miss Perkins had pitied most when Mildred lay powerless and unconscious. Jessie pitied most now that Mildred was awake to her own lonely and forlorn condition. And Jessie not only pitied, but loved. She gave her warm girl-heart first to Hero, and then unreservedly to Hero's mistress. Not many days passed from Millie's first awakening into full sense, before Jessie found an absolute delight in knowing her. To be left in charge of Mildred, it did not matter how long, was the best thing that could happen.
Miss Perkins perceived this, and the iron entered into her soul. She had done much for Jessie—had kept her from destitution, had given her a home, had supplied her requirements, had provided her with necessary teaching; but with all the amount of her practical kindnesses, she had never won her niece's heart after this fashion. If Jessie loved Miss Perkins, it was with a duty-love. There was no real clinging affection, no delight in Miss Perkins' presence, no craving for Miss Perkins' smile. The most Jessie commonly hoped for was to avoid a "fuss," to please her aunt so far as not to be scolded or grumbled at.
To see this passive stranger winning in a week what Miss Perkins had failed to win in fourteen or fifteen years was a bitter pill. Miss Perkins did not make allowance for the eccentricities of a young girl's fancy; still less did she allow for the repellent effects of her own dry manner and uncertain temper. She said nothing, and only nursed her annoyance in private; but the jealousy threatened to colour her after-relations with Mildred. As the invalid grew stronger, Miss Perkins became more tart; reverting to the mode of speech and action usually characteristic of her, with some added acidity from the cause above mentioned.
Jessie saw the change, and did not divine its root. She never dreamt of such a possibility as that Miss Perkins could be greedy of warmer love from the niece whom she systematically snubbed, and whom she always seemed to regard as an unwelcome burden.
"Aunt Barbara care!" she would have exclaimed, had the idea been suggested to her. "Oh, that isn't her way at all. She only wants not to be bothered."
But it was very much Miss Perkins' way, only always below the surface.
Mr. Gilbert was still entirely laid aside, able to sleep little with the ceaseless pain of his crushed arm, and altogether in a state of great exhaustion. His sister had come from a distance to assist in nursing him; and though he had repeatedly inquired after Millie, and had sent many kind messages of interest in her condition, he was not yet fit for callers; so nobody had seen him except his own household and the doctor. The "mending" in his arm was exceedingly slow; and he had had a succession of relapses.
Jack Groates, on the contrary, although it was true that his leg had sustained a compound fracture, was doing well, lying in bed to be nursed by his cheery little mother. The bones were joining nicely, and he had had no "drawbacks" at all.
One way and another Jessie heard of Jack often; but naturally she was very busy at home, and after what had passed, she was sensible enough to know that it would not do for her to be perpetually running down to the Groates' Store with inquiries after him. Jessie had a due amount of self-respect, and she felt that she had to act with circumspection and with girlish reserve. She had thus far escaped an encounter with Miss Sophia Coxen. No whisper of gossip about herself and Jack had as yet reached her ears. It might be that for once Miss Sophia Coxen was restraining her love of talk. Jessie earnestly hoped that this was the case. But between Millie, Hero, and Miss Perkins, she found small leisure at this date.
"Folks 'll begin to think soon about coming to the sea," Miss Perkins one day remarked tentatively to Jessie. She had not made up her own mind what steps to take next, and a talk might clear the air of difficulties. In her present mood, if Jessie took one side of a question, Miss Perkins would instantly take the other side, out of sheer perversity. "And I shall be wanting my spare room."
"But—Millie!" Jessie exclaimed. Mildred's surname was now, of course, known, and people were trying to get into the way of calling her "Miss Pattison," after for two or three weeks thinking of her only as "Mildred." Jessie and her aunt had, at Mildred's particular request, kept to the Christian name, and Jessie had soon adopted the shortened form.
Miss Perkins' answer came with a snap. "Well, I s'pose she'll have to go. She'll be fit to travel soon, I s'pose."
"I don't believe she's got anywhere to go to."
Jessie's opposition was as good as a sign-post to Miss Perkins, who immediately took the reverse road to that indicated.
"She'll have to find somewhere, then. Anyhow, she isn't going to stop here. Don't you be a goose, Jessie. She's got letters this very morning. Of course she knows people. And she don't belong to us; and I'm not going to keep her, neither. It's little enough I've got to live on—and you to keep as well as myself."
Jessie was for the moment silenced. She did not believe that Mildred had any idea of moving at present; yet it could hardly be expected that Miss Perkins should undertake the support of this stranger, as she had undertaken the support of her own niece.
Miss Perkins had a nice little life-annuity of her own, the fruit of her father's careful savings in past days; and so long as she lived, Miss Perkins and her niece were secured from destitution. But the annuity was scarcely enough to keep them in comfort without the help of occasional lodgers; and since it would die with Miss Perkins, any small sum that could be saved she might naturally wish to lay by for Jessie's future. A third person could hardly subsist upon the annuity, and then, Hero's appetite was not small.
Curiously, though not so curiously as might seem at first sight, Mildred herself opened the subject less than two hours later. It was not so curious because the cause which had led to Miss Perkins' utterances was the same which led to her own. Millie had received two letters by that morning's post, and Miss Perkins was aware of the fact.
When Miss Perkins entered the spare room, big with ideas which contracted her face into a grim solemnity, speech on her part was forestalled. Millie took the initiative, saying, in her slow spiritless voice, the very words which Miss Perkins had been debating how to speak.
"Isn't it almost time for us to talk a little about my plans? I don't think—" with a faint tinge of colour—"that I ought to let things go on so any longer. Only I have dreaded having to face life again. Everything is so changed for me."
Miss Perkins was not good at the expression of sympathy, especially in one of her perverse moods. She cleared her throat, and stood gazing at Millie, sorry below, grim above.
"It did not seem as if I could let myself think sooner. But I know time is getting on, and I must not be a coward. Things have to be arranged. You have been very good to me, Miss Perkins."
Miss Perkins sniffed, and hoped she'd done her duty.
"More than your duty." This was a needless assertion, since no man can do more than his duty in any walk of life. Duty includes the utmost, and the utmost cannot be surpassed.
"But," continued Millie, "the spring is getting on, and I suppose—"
Millie came to a pause. Miss Perkins felt that the opportunity was not to be lost.
"It'll soon be the time of letting, if it isn't that now," she said.
"Yes; so I thought. How much do you get for this room generally?"
Miss Perkins replied with due caution. The price differed at different seasons. It was more in August than in June. It was more for a short let than for a longer let. She at length named two or three prices.
"And if the room were taken for the whole year round?"
Miss Perkins looked dubiously at Millie.
"I have not much of my own, but there will be a little—rather more than I have expected. I heard that this morning. Enough to pay for all my expenses lately, and—"
A murmur of disclaimer came. The better side of Miss Perkins rose uppermost. "She had not expected repayment."
"I am sure you have not; but that is a matter of course. I could not let you suffer for all you have done for me. This will not make any difference to my feeling of gratitude. I might have been penniless; you did not know that I was not; and it has made no difference to your action. But I am thankful to say that you will at least not be the poorer for what you have done."
"I couldn't take all you've got. I couldn't, and I wouldn't, and that's flat." Miss Perkins spoke in the tone of a deeply injured individual. If she had been uneasy before at the pull to which her generosity might be subjected, she was disappointed now to find that it would be no question of generosity at all, except as to the matter of intention.
"O no, you will not take all. I shall have a tiny income of my own—not much, but enough to pay for a room, and even to keep me going for a time with care. I must try to find work of some kind, so as to add to it, and perhaps to lay by a little. It may or may not be possible here, and I don't know what I may do by-and-by; but for the present I would rather stay quietly where I am. Will you let me do so? I shall feel that I am among friends, and I am not strong enough yet to fight my way in a new place. I am quite willing for the next few weeks to pay just what you would have had from other lodgers. If, a little later, I should decide to make it my home, we could come, perhaps, to some arrangement. You must not be a loser, of course; but I think it might repay you better to have a permanent lodger, even on rather lower terms, than to let only for two or three months in the year."
Miss Perkins had so often said exactly the same herself, that she could not contradict Mildred, dearly as she loved to contradict everybody. She hardly knew whether to feel pleased or not.
"An old friend of my father's, living in London, has asked me to go to him and his wife; but I do not think I could stand London, or life in a large noisy household. My home has always been in the country, and to go back to my old home would be too sad. Will you let me stay, at all events for a time?"
"It don't make any difference," began Miss Perkins: "but—but there's the dog."
"Ah, Hero! You don't like Hero, I'm afraid. Yet he does not trouble you, does he? If Hero goes, I go; but if you can put up with him, I shall be glad to stay. This room begins to look a little home-like to me. I must start afresh somewhere; I could not endure to go back to all the old surroundings. Everything would be so empty and changed. But Hero is the one thing left to me, and he saved my life. I could not part with him."
Miss Perkins was silent. In her heart she felt that if Millie could have parted with Hero, she would hardly have been worthy of the name of woman. Giving in was never easy, however, to Miss Perkins.
"Please think about it, and let me know," continued Mildred, after a break. "If you are willing, I shall send for the rest of my things from the south of Wales—just two or three boxes. The furniture was all sold before I went to sea."
JESSIE'S DECLARATION
"AND you'll stay here always, Millie! Won't you? Promise not to go away. Promise not to think about any other home."
Jessie had flown eagerly upstairs, two steps at a time, after lengthy confabulation with Miss Perkins. The state of affairs had gradually oozed out, in response to judicious squeezing; and Jessie had controlled her own ardent pleasure, lest from a sheer spirit of opposition, Miss Perkins should decide against having a permanent lodger. Difficulties lay in the path of an immediate settlement of the question. Hero was the ostensible stumbling-stone; jealousy of Jessie's love for Mildred was a more potent barrier.
Of the latter fact Jessie was ignorant, but she had abundance to say in defence of Hero. He was the dearest and sweetest of dogs! Always good, and always obedient. He never dug holes in the garden; and he was learning to rub his paws on the doormat whenever he came in. Had not aunt Barbara herself, seeing him at the occupation two days earlier, remarked that he did it "uncommon like a Christian"? Miss Perkins could not disavow so recent an utterance.
"Well, I don't know as I care—particular. It's got to be, I s'pose. Things has mostly got to be as nobody wouldn't ever choose," said Miss Perkins, In a mood of depressed philosophising. "But I'm not a-going to have a fuss made about Mildred, mind. She'll have to take things as she finds them; and if she don't like 'em, she'll have to go. And you'll have the doing of her room. I've enough of my own to see to, and it's time you should help. We shall find it a lot of bother, all the year round."
Jessie forbore to remind Miss Perkins of her oft-uttered longing for a permanent lodger. She forbore even to protest against the insinuation that hitherto she had not helped. In her eagerness to keep Mildred, she would have endured more than this.
"O I'll do the room all right," she made answer cheerfully. And the moment she could escape, she fled to Mildred's retreat.
"You will stay always, won't you, Mildred?" she reiterated.
"'Always' means a great deal. I should like to stay for a time, at any rate."
"Only for a time! Not to live here!"
"It must depend, partly, on whether I can find any work to do. I couldn't be idle, Jessie. I think I should go out of my mind. You don't know what the feeling of loneliness is—not a person in the world belonging to me; not one relation nearer than a cousin of my father's, and he is a crusty old man, who never even writes. I have no real ties now, and it is so strange."
Jessie listened seriously. "I haven't ties either, I suppose. Ought I to care, Millie? I don't think I do, very much. There are so many nice people in the world. Of course aunt Barbara is a tie; but I am not so very fond of her. I am much more fond of other friends,—of you!"
"And of the Groates', for instance?"
"Yes," blushing, "I do like Mrs. Groates. And so will you when you get to know her. But what sort of work do you want to find?"
Mildred explained slowly. She could teach, she said, if only the simpler branches of teaching were required; but she would very much prefer dressmaking. No, she had never been a dressmaker. Her father had had a good post in a country bank, and he had toiled to the last. Mildred had never had to work for her living, as a matter of necessity. She had, however, always loved work, especially dressmaking. She knew herself to be very good at cutting out and fitting. She had always made her own dresses, and often those of her friends.
Jessie listened with round eyes and exclamations barely suppressed. "It's the very thing," she could have cried, remembering the Miss Coxens, and their laments over the difficulty of obtaining any efficient help. Jessie restrained the first impulse to tell Millie her thought. It would be better to see the Miss Coxens first, and to lay the matter before them.
"I should think you might easily get dresses to make," she remarked judiciously. "We have not many dressmakers here, you know. And if you can, then you will make Old Maxham your real home! And now I've got to go out for something, and you must rest, because you look quite tired with so much talking."
Impulsive Jessie was half-way down the street, before a recollection surged up of the last time she had seen Miss Sophy Coxen. With the remembrance came an unpleasantly hot blush. But Miss Sophy Coxen had to be encountered some time; and the present hour was as good as any other. So Jessie hurried on.
"Dear me! Why, it actually is Jessie Perkins at last!" declared Miss Coxen, peeping out of the window. "I began to wonder if she ever meant to come near us again."
"And what a colour she has, to be sure!" chimed in Miss Sophy. "She hadn't that when I saw her over the way—you know, sister! She was as pasty as a tallow candle, and as shaky as anything."
"I wouldn't say one word to Jessie about that, Sophy, if I was you. Girls don't like to have it thought that they care for anybody in particular, you know; and I dare say it would vex her to know that we think what we do think."
"Ah, well, we know what we know, and nothing can undo that," sighed Miss Sophy oracularly. "But mum's the word, sister."
Miss Sophy spoke the word in happy oblivion of the fact that she had already told her story to at least fifteen individuals belonging to Old Maxham.
"Well, Jessie, how d'you do? Come in, my dear," Miss Coxen said with great cordiality, and both sisters squeezed Jessie's hands in affectionate style.
Jessie, still wearing a high colour, seated herself promptly with her back to the window, and proceeded to pour forth particulars of Mildred and of Mildred's prospects. This was a disappointment to the pair, for they wanted her to talk about Jack, not about Mildred, and Jessie refused to be turned aside from her subject.
She had so often heard them lament the absence of any good dressmaking in the place, except their own, that she was greatly disappointed to find her overtures on behalf of Millie met with blank looks and solemn silence. Miss Coxen smoothed her apron, and Miss Sophy pulled her ringlets, and neither uttered any response.
"I thought you'd be quite delighted," hazarded Jessie.
"My dear, you expect—really—too much!" Sophy took her cue from Miss Coxen's face. "That we should be delighted—" Miss Sophy began to sniffle, "delighted—to have the bread taken out of our mouths!" Another sniffle,—"By this interloper from foreign parts—"
"But—" protested the dismayed Jessie.
"She is no doubt quite an experienced dressmaker. O yes, and up in all the fashions! She will leave us far behind!" sighed Miss Coxen.
"And to think of Miss Perkins being the one to bring this calamity on our heads," wept Miss Sophy—"our old friend, Miss Perkins! And Jessie!—that I dandled on my lap, when she wasn't that high—" and Miss Sophy sniffled anew.
"But I thought you wanted help so much. I'm sure you have always said so."
"O dear, dear, how people do misunderstand one!" moaned Miss Sophy in mournful tones.
"A little moderate amount of help, my dear, just at pressing times, we might require; but not to be supplanted,—not to have the food taken out of our mouths by a London dressmaker," murmured Miss Coxen. "A first-class London dressmaker!"
No doubt, Jessie, in describing her friend's powers, real or supposed, had laid the colours on rather thickly, and Miss Coxen had immediately proceeded to deepen them still further.
"Millie isn't a London dressmaker. She isn't anything of that sort. Why, I told you she had always lived in the country, and had only done dressmaking for her own amusement. And I think you ought to be glad to help her,—all alone in the world as she is, with no home or friends. Other people have tried to help her, at any rate. She won't take the bread out of anybody's mouth; she is a great deal more likely to take it out of her own. Mildred isn't at all a sort of person to do harm to other people. And you have often and often told me that you might easily take in a lot more work, if only you had a third pair of hands to depend upon. And now that you might have the third pair, you just turn against it."
Jessie's little outburst was not without effect. The sisters looked one at another, shook their respective heads, and finally promised to "think about things."
"We couldn't always give her work, that is certain. Not when there isn't much doing, you know. But just now and then, perhaps. We might try what she is worth, you know. People so often say they can work who really can't put two breadths together. But of course we should like to do anything we can to help her. You ought to be sure of that, my dear. And if we find her capable and not pushing, and willing to do what she is told, why, then, just once in a way—"
INNUENDOS
MISS COXEN came to a pause, and Jessie felt the prospect unsatisfactory. Her visions of great success and crowded time for Mildred had waxed dim.
She was, however, wise enough to be thankful for small things, and her neatly expressed thanks went far towards disarming the sisters of their spirit of opposition to the scheme. Again they promised to "think it over," each enforcing the other's words with repetitions, and Jessie had to say, "Thank you so much," at least six times in acknowledgment.
After all this, the temptation to recur to Jack Groates became irresistible. Miss Coxen looked across the road, opening and shutting her eyes with meaning, and Miss Sophy gave vent to little sympathetic gasps.
"And how is that poor young fellow getting on?" asked Miss Coxen in benignant tones.
Jessie's mother-wit came quickly to her aid.
"What poor fellow?" she inquired, with lifted eyebrows, and with scarcely so much as a blush. Necessity lent her self-control.
"What poor fellow? O now, Jessie, Jessie, as if you didn't know! The idea of pretending!" ejaculated Miss Sophy, shaking a pair of scissors at her. "And such friends as you and he are too!"
"He hasn't been here long enough," Jessie replied, with a coolness which astonished herself, though, indeed, her cheeks were no longer cool. "I like him, of course, but not so much as the old Vicar yet."
"Dear me! She means the Vicar, sister," in an audible aside.
"But we mean poor young Jack Groates, Jessie. How is he getting on?" asked the older sister with an indulgent smile.
"O well enough, I dare say," responded Jessie indifferently. "I'm too busy to go and ask; but they say he'll be walking soon."
"Brave young fellow."
"Was he? Other people were brave too. Aunt Barbara said he had no business to go at all."
"My dear Jessie!" ejaculated one sister.
And "Jessie, my dear!" echoed the other.
"That was what aunt Barbara said. I didn't say it. She said it wasn't Jack's business. Of course I don't know. They might all have been drowned, of course."
"Ah, it is easy to speak so now, Jessie, when the young fellow is all right in his own room. If he had been drowned, I know very well who would have broken her poor little heart."
"You don't know!" retorted Jessie indignantly, unable any longer to keep up a show of indifference. "I can guess what you mean, I suppose, and it is all nonsense. Of course I was sorry; anybody would be sorry to know of people being drowned—people they knew! But I think it is very unkind to make so much out of nothing, and to twit people with it afterwards. I'm very fond of Mrs. Groates, and it seemed so dreadful to think of what she would have to bear. And then to be accused—" Jessie broke down, nearly in tears.
"Yes, yes, my dear; of course that is all clear and right," pursued Miss Sophy, not in the least convinced, and smiling away in a manner which exasperated Jessie. "Of course it's quite proper and sensible to talk like that, and every one knows what it is worth. We'll all wait and see. And some day, when Jack Groates speaks out,—"
"Speaks out what?" cried Jessie angrily.
"Really, Jessie, I wouldn't give way to temper; I wouldn't really," expostulated Miss Coxen. "It is such a pity. You ought to be able to take kindly a little interest in your affairs from such old friends—such very old friends as we are. We are only pleased for your sake, because we know you so well, and because we are fond of you."
"Pleased about what?" asked Jessie tartly.
Miss Coxen hesitated; Miss Sophy did not hesitate. "About you and Jack Groates," she said, beaming.
"What about me and Jack Groates?"
Jessie was too wrathful now to remember her manners.
"My dear, of course you know what I mean."
"I don't; or if I do, nobody has any business to say such things. That's nobody's business except my own," declared Jessie. "Jack has never asked me to marry him; and if he did—"
Jessie came to a pause. Indignation had carried her on farther than she had meant to go. She found suddenly whither her words were tending.
"And if he did?" echoed Miss Sophy.
"I wouldn't have him, of course."
"Now, Jessie!"
"Why should I? You don't suppose I'm going to have the first man that wants me, if I don't care for him! Not I!" cried Jessie.
"You wouldn't marry that fine young fellow if he wanted to have you, Jessie?"
Jessie flung her head back, and stood up.
"Marry Jack Groates! Thank you! Not I!"
The sisters stared each at the other, aghast. "Aunt Barbara will want me. I've got to go home now."
Good-byes were brief, and Jessie was speedily hastening homeward. But she did not at once report herself to Miss Perkins, or go to Mildred. She ran upstairs to her own little room, shut the door, and stood still to think.
"How they do meddle, and how I do hate meddling! Was I wrong to say that? But what else could I say? And now they will go and repeat what I have said all over the place. And Jack will hear it too. Well, let him! If he really cares for me, he ought to understand; and if he doesn't, it's the best thing he can hear. Will he mind? Poor Jack! O I wish, I wish, people wouldn't interfere in what doesn't concern them. What does it signify to Miss Sophy whether I like Jack or don't like him? It's our business, not hers.
"Aunt Barbara declared it was no business of Jack's to go and save the sailors, and I think that was his business. It was everybody's business. But I'm sure this isn't everybody's business. I do detest the way Miss Sophy goes on. And if Jack hears what I said! I wish I hadn't said so much! And yet if I hadn't, Miss Sophy would have gone talking everywhere, as if I wanted to marry Jack. And I don't—unless he wants it! Of course I don't. But if Jack hears, what will he think?"
Jessie's fears were not without foundation. So interesting a conversation could not possibly be kept by the sisters for their own private delectation, and it was whispered in detail to one acquaintance after another, always under injunctions to secrecy.
Such injunctions are not worth much, since each acquaintance was pretty sure to repeat the whisper to somebody else. In this manner the tale travelled in a very short time, not exactly across the road, but round by longer routes, till it arrived inside Groates' store. Had Jack's mother heard it, she would never have said a word to Jack; but unhappily Mimy was the recipient, and Mimy always told everything to Jack. She never thought of making this an exception. Jack listened with grieved eyes.
"Jessie said she wouldn't have me! Mimy, are you sure it isn't a mistake? What could have made her speak so? I've never told her yet in plain words that I do want her; but she must have seen. I thought she understood, and I thought she cared for me. I did really think it."
"I'm sure I did too, Jack. Jessie must be a heartless sort of girl to talk in such a way—just now when you are ill, too."
"We don't know what made her talk so. You're quite sure she really did say it?"
"Miss Sophy is telling everybody that she did. I don't see why Miss Sophy should make up such a story for nothing. And Jessie hasn't been here nearly so often the last few weeks, Jack. Mother and I could not think why. Perhaps she has changed somehow."
"I couldn't have thought it of her," muttered Jack. He hid his face, and actually groaned aloud. "I thought there wasn't another girl in the world like Jessie." Then he looked up at his sister.
"Mimy, don't tell mother. I can't talk about it yet, and she would be so sorry. Just leave it for me to tell her. I'll do it some day; not yet. But I did think Jessie was different. I did think she cared for me a little."
WHAT LIFE LOOKED LIKE TO MILDRED
MILDRED PATTISON came out of Periwinkle Cottage with a slow step, and stood gazing up the village street. She wanted to go to the Churchyard, but she rather mistrusted her own powers. Miss Perkins was gone out and Jessie was not within sight, and a wish had come over Millie to find her way to the little mound of earth, already turning green, where slept the remains of Louey, washed up the day after the wreck. The Captain's body had never been recovered. Like his wife, he had found his grave below ocean waters.
Mildred had not yet been out alone for any distance. Her strength was tardy in its return, and she had only once been toward the Churchyard, just near enough to see the little mound in a quiet corner some way off under a walnut-tree. Then she had felt weak, and had turned homeward again. That day Jessie had been her companion: and this was her first attempt at a solitary ramble.
A heavy sense of being alone in the world weighed her down. She began to wonder whether she had done wisely in settling at Old Maxham, even for a time, where she belonged to nobody and where nobody belonged to her. Work was long in appearing, and time hung on her hands.
Jessie seemed very fond of Mildred, but during some days past Jessie had been absent in mind and apparently much wrapped up in some trouble or worry of her own; and this afforded the one little additional touch which was required to make Millie's state of isolation almost more than she knew how to bear.
What did it matter to anybody whether she stayed or did not stay? What did it matter to anybody whether she lived or died? If she were called away that very night, no one in Old Maxham would do more than drop a passing tear, with a half careless "Dear me, how sad!"
"If only somebody belonged to me," sighed Millie as she went languidly along the street, with Hero close behind. "If only I did not feel myself so alone."
A small girl in pink sunbonnet and pinafore, with clustering fair hair and blue eyes, smiled up in her face, and Millie had no spirit to return the smile. So the small child grew quickly grave again, and looked as if she had received a slight sprinkle of cold water. Mildred went wearily onward in her mood of sadness till she reached the old Church in its old churchyard. Then, feeling spent, she made her way to the tiny mound under the walnut-tree, and sat down upon a flat tombstone.
The little mound was just in front. Mildred meant soon to have a simple stone put there to the memory of her dear ones. Sitting here she seemed to be nearer to them than in Periwinkle Cottage, and it brought back the past vividly, that past which was seldom out of her mind.
"Not that they are in the graveyard," she murmured. "Louey herself—her dear little self—is not here under the soil. Phil is not under the sea. They are all together, at Home, as Phil said they might be that very night. Why was I the only one spared when no one wants me? Not a single being in all the world who really needs me, not one who would really care if I died to-night."
"Are you quite sure nobody needs you?" asked a voice close by.
Mildred looked up, hardly able at first to see through a mist of tears. She had not known herself to be speaking aloud. The mist cleared, and she found an elderly man to be standing beside the mound, his hands planted on a stick with a knob handle, his eyes bent pityingly on herself. He had long grey hair which curled naturally and fell almost to his shoulders.
"I wouldn't cry if I were you. Not so much at least. You look as if you had nearly cried your eyes out in the last few weeks. It would make your friends sorry if they knew; don't you think so?"
Mildred could scarcely reply, "I don't know."
"You were saved in the wreck lately, were you not? Ah, I felt sure it was so. And this is the grave of the pretty little one who was drowned? Your niece? Yes, yes! And you miss her very much? Yes, of course, that has to be so. But still I wouldn't cry too much. After all, they are happy; it isn't half so bad, don't you see, as if you were happy and they were unhappy. Don't you think I'm right?"
It was a new view of the question to Mildred. She did not quite know what to say.
"And if I were you, I wouldn't be too sure that nobody wanted me. How can you tell that?"
"Nobody is left who belongs to me. I am alone in the world." Mildred spoke rather coldly. She did not know who the stranger might be, and she could not even recall having seen him pass Periwinkle Cottage. Yet his face was full of goodness.
"You can't be alone. Look at all the people in Old Maxham."
"They don't care for me."
"Then you can care for them."
"None of them belong to me."
"But you belong to them."
Mildred was silent. She wished he would go, and leave her alone with her sorrow.
"Such a number of them as there are," he went on musingly. "And some of them need such a lot of looking after, and get so little."
A faint smile came to Mildred's lips. "If I could be useful to any one, I would be," she said.
"That's right. I thought you must be that sort from your face. Well, well, you won't wait long for somebody or other to be useful to. Can't do much here, can you?" And he glanced from one headstone to another. "They've gone through it all, poor dears, and they are free now.
"'Marianne Morris, aged seventy-three.' I dare say she had plenty to bear, off and on, in her life, and I dare say it doesn't seem very much to her now where she is gone. And 'Susan Willis, aged ninety'; she had long enough of it. But it's all over with them. You can't give them a helping hand in the land where they are now. It's to be hoped they don't need it.
"If all those nice texts are not put out of politeness, Old Maxham has had a lot of uncommonly good people. And here's a nice little grave, just like that of yours. 'Posie, aged three.' Little dear, she had no long fight. But there are thousands of children, like Posie and your little niece, who are in the battle still, and in danger of going down under water, just for want of a helping hand to keep them up. Thousands of little ones who want looking after. Little ones that our dear Lord would like you to help take care of for Him. Don't you see?"
Mildred's eyes were wet with soft tears. "Are there—here?" she asked. "Not in Old Maxham."