“Oh, first-rate,” said Van Elst; “mother sick, child sick, and husband no longer master in his own house!”
“Bless me!” said Mr Smits. “Come, I’ll walk up and down a bit with you. I understand how it is when the wife is ill, especially a wife like yours, but we’ll hope she’ll soon be herself again. And then things will be all right, won’t they?”
This was very diplomatic on Mr Smits’s part; he wanted to know about more than the wife’s illness. It was a well-calculated move, for the whole story came out.
“All right!No, indeed, we shall not. What upsets my temper is those guests of mine. You will hardly believe, Mr Smits, what a tiresome, irritating fellow that Martendijk is, with his terror of infection, and his eternal complaints about his health. And what a heartless creature his wife is! But, above all, what studied egoists they both are!”
Mr Smits had to hear it all; how worn-out Jo was; how their guests had taken advantage of them; how he had been driven into giving that confounded party. “And if I could once for all just give them a piece of my mind—butyou see I can’t, as they are my guests. My wife is always giving me nudges and winks to keep me quiet; and if I do break loose occasionally, I get nice little scoldings from her into the bargain. Oh, there’s no standing the life I lead just now!”
“And is there no chance of their leaving soon?” asked Mr Smits.
“Oh, no! they talk of remaining another month at least,” replied Van Elst, in so despairing a tone, that his neighbour pitied him from the bottom of his heart.
“But if there are unwelcome guests in one’s house, it’s surely easy to find some way of getting rid of them?”
“I don’t know any way. They are not particularly sensitive on some points.”
“You may ask what old Smits has to do with it,” began the bachelor; “but you must remember I have gradually grown to take an interest in you and your wife.”
“Take care, Mr Smits, I am jealous,” cried Max, who had totally recovered his good-humour now he had unbosomed himself.
“Absurd! an old fellow of sixty!” said Mr Smits, not a little flattered. “But what I wanted to ask you was, may I try to devise some plan for your deliverance?”
“Oh, yes; and if you succeed I’ll be grateful to you all my life.”
The first thing put into Van Elst’s hand next morning, when he sat down to his early coffee in the verandah, was a carefully sealed note from his old neighbour over the way. It was concise, and to the point.
“Friend,—Your wife is feverish. Your cousin has a dread of infection. Is there any danger of typhus?—Yours,
“Smits.”
“Smits.”
“Smits.”
“Smits.”
With a heartier laugh than he had indulged in for a longtime, Van Elst sprang to his feet. “The very thing! What a capital idea!” He would take steps at once.
“How is Cousin Jo?” asked Emily half-an-hour later at the breakfast-table.
“No better,” said Max gravely; “I would not go near her if I were you, Cousin Emily; I think she’s asleep.”
The doctor came, and pronounced the patient convalescent; so he sat chatting sociably with her for some time, and then left her, prescribing a tonic.
Scarcely was he gone when Max joined his cousins in the front verandah.
“What a long time the doctor stayed,” Emily remarked. “It’s nothing serious, is it?”
Van Elst preserved an ominous silence.
“Cousin Jo will soon be going about again, I hope?” asked Martendijk, with some concern; for domestic affairs had not gone so smoothly, nor had they, personally, fared so well, since Mrs Van Elst had been laid up.
Max’s face assumed a very serious expression. “Going about! No, indeed, not for a while yet.”
“What do you say?”
“Well, you see—h’m—after all,” said Max, as if making a sudden resolve, “I think it’s best to tell you frankly, the doctor is afraid of typhus fever.”
“Typhus!” shrieked Martendijk. “Good Heavens! Emily, d’ye hear?”
“Yes,” said Emily, and, to her credit, we must confess that her first thoughts flew to the poor husband and children, who, if the worst should happen, would lose so devoted a wife and mother. “Alas! Cousin Max,” she said, “how terrible.”
“Was the doctor quite sure of it?” asked Martendijk, his face blanched with mortal terror, the remembrance of which long remained an unfailing source of amusement to Van Elst.
“No, not at all certain; he thought it might perhaps be small-pox,” he replied.
Martendijk stared at him in the wildest consternation.
“Good God!” he stammered, “that’s no trifle either. Small-pox and typhus fever! One every bit as infectious as the other!”
“Yes,” said Max, “small-pox especially. Well, I’m off to the office,” he concluded. “Good-morning, you’ll go and see after my wife every now and then, won’t you, Emily?” he asked, as he sprang into hisbendy.
“No, Emily, indeed you’ll do nothing of the kind, I hope,” cried Martendijk, as soon as Van Elst was beyond earshot. “You might bring back infection, and——”
“Ah! Piet, you really are rather a coward in that respect.”
“Yes; but, Emily,small-pox! Just fancy if you were to take it——”
“Well, of course; but you need not be so ready to accept it as a fact. If Max were sure of it he would not have been so calm about it.”
“Dearest,” and Piet’s voice was as meek as any child’s, “I hope you agree with me, we must get away from thisat once.”
“What would people say if we left Jo——”
“Oh! my dearest wife, do not agitate me with all these objections!”
“It looks so cowardly, Piet. And the climate here agrees with you so well. And the building is not finished yet.”
“Well, we must just make the best of it. Anything rather than remain in this infected atmosphere. Oh, Emily, dearest Emily, have you no more affection for your husband? O Lord! the pain, the pain! The shock has set it going again!”
When Van Elst came home from his office at mid-day, his “boy” brought him another letter. It was not from Smits this time, however, but from the Martendijks.
“Dear Cousins(it ran),—You will quite understand our haste to get away, now your house is attacked by such a terrible epidemic. We would willingly have remained much longer, and it is our intention to repeat our visit soon.
“In the meantime accept our cordial thanks for the hospitality you have shown to us.
“Though your behaviour to us has not been all it might have been, dear Cousin Max, we do not bear you the slightest grudge, and are quite ready to excuse it, knowing what a bad effect the liver has on the temper.
“We wish dear Jo a speedy recovery, and earnestly trust that she may be spared to her husband and children.—With our kindest regards, your affectionate cousins,
“P. & E. Martendijk.”
“P. & E. Martendijk.”
“P. & E. Martendijk.”
“P. & E. Martendijk.”
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Van Elst. “Hurrah! Jo! our guests are gone!”
Though Jo received the news with considerable consternation, and thought it disgraceful and inexcusable in Max to joke about anything so terrible as typhus fever (in which Max agreed with her penitently), it was amazing how rapidly she sprang out of bed,—the departure of her guests proving more effective than all the doctor’s tonics.
So when their old neighbour strolled past the Van Elsts’ house a little later, with an air of indifference, and Max rushed out to tell him the glad news, and to thank him for his friendly and timely help, he found Mrs Van Elst in the verandah, as bright and merry as ever, ready to assure him—though she insisted on thinking it a disgraceful proceeding!—that he had done her a great service by his lucky inspiration.
An invitation to a quiet dinner on the following day was the result; and the dinner was so good, the host in such excellent spirits, and the hostess so sweet, that the solitary old bachelor caught himself thinking, as he always did when a spectator of the Van Elsts’ domestic bliss, “I might have known this sort of thing too, if only——”
Annie Foore.
Annie Foore.
Annie Foore.
Annie Foore.