CHAPTER X
HOW MUCH LONGER?
EUPHRASIA read slowly, for there was no need to hurry. She had nothing else to occupy her time. When she had reached the last verse, it took shape in the tones of Mrs. Landor, and she knew then where she had heard the words. She saw herself in Mrs. Landor's room, with Mrs. Landor by her side.
"My dear, try for yourself! Only try, and prove for yourself how kind and true a Master He is!" This also came back in Mrs. Landor's quiet voice.
"Is He so kind?" the girl asked dreamily. "So very very kind! I have always thought of Him as good and just and true—all that, of course. And angry, if one did wrong—only 'angry' never seems quite the right word. But KIND—'most wonderfully kind'—is that what God is really and truly like?" Another utterance sprang from her very heart,—"If He is, how I could love Him!"
"Why don't I?" came next.
"I suppose I haven't known before what He is really like—that He is so truly kind."
Recollections arose, unbidden, of the "old old story" of how the Son of God went to and fro on earth, ever with infinite kindness listening to all who spoke, answering all who petitioned, accompanying all who asked Him to go.
"He was kind—He is kind—and He was—is—God! He is just the same now as then. No difference at all. 'The heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind!' Doesn't that mean that He is kind still, even when He sends trouble, because He only sends it for our good? . . . I wonder how this can be for my good, except to make me do next time exactly what I think I ought. Yes, it may be that. But wouldn't my visit alone have been disappointing enough without the accident? I did expect so much from it; and it has all turned out to be worth nothing,—Letitia to be no real friend at all. Wouldn't that have been punishment enough, I wonder, without my having to be shut up here for a whole month or more, where nobody wants me? And I can do no good to anybody, and I am wanted at home! Is it just a punishment for being wilful? Well, I shan't soon forget it all!
"'There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven—'
"Is that true too? I never even thought of such a thing before. Are the angels sorry up There when any of us are in trouble?—sorry now because I am dull and alone! And most of all, is God Himself sorry, even though He has sent the trouble? Of course, I brought it on myself by being careless and in a hurry, and by coming here at all. But still I suppose God allowed it. And now, perhaps, all the while He really is sorry for me, because He is so wonderfully kind!"
Euphrasia was startled to find some quick drops falling.
"How do you do?" a voice said by her side, not an echo this time of past utterances. Mr. Wells took her hand as he spoke. "Did you not hear me ask leave to come in? The door was open, and I saw you lying here in full view."
"Oh, was the door open? I didn't know. I thought I was alone." Euphrasia spoke shamefacedly, conscious of huskiness and wet eyes.
"No bad news from home?"
"No letters at all—I hope my father is not ill. They don't generally leave me so long. But then I have not written either, till yesterday."
"I would not lie and conjure up imaginary ills. It is a waste of power. Whatever may or may not be the cause, you are pretty certain to picture to yourself worse than the reality. Some most commonplace reason may have prevented them from writing."
"If it were anything very bad, I should hear, of course; only my father was not well when I came away."
"And you have too much time for thinking. Rather solitary work, is it not? Three or four days would be all very well, or even a week, but you have some right to get tired of it now."
"It won't be much longer."
"I hope not. So you have been reading." Mr. Wells took up the hymnbook, glanced at its open page, and looked over the edge at Euphrasia. "Nothing else to read except this!"
"That is nice enough. Why should I have anything else?"
"Variety is sometimes good for people, the more so if they are in a mood to take melancholy views of things."
"And you think I am in a mood to do that?"
"Possibly, just in the last half-hour."
Euphrasia's look was one of protest. She could not explain. She could only feel that if the thoughts which had brought tears into her eyes were "melancholy," it was a melancholy which she would fain keep for life.
Mr. Wells read something unexpected in her face.
"I see I used the wrong word. Not melancholy, only perhaps a little sober—a little serious. And when one is laid by, and a good deal alone, it is just possible to dwell too long at a time upon the very serious side of things. I don't say that it has been so with you at this moment, but a change of ideas might be advantageous. I should certainly like you to have some variety in your reading; and I do not see much variety within reach." He glanced round critically.
"I could have asked for a book, of course."
"Letitia ought not to have waited to be asked."
"Oh, she was busy. There was the wedding. Please don't say anything to her."
Mr. Wells gave his attention to the lame knee, and presently remarked, "Yes, it is getting on fairly well, perhaps as fast as we ought to expect. But you are too much run down yourself."
"I shall be all right as soon as I get home. When may I go?"
"By-and-by. You must get into another room first."
"I shall like that. I mean, if I may walk. I would rather not do it at all, if it means giving extra trouble."
"Is that the chief bugbear of your existence?" asked Mr. Wells smiling.
"I wonder how much longer this is to go on?" sighed Mrs. Johnston, next morning.
"This!" echoed her eldest son. The younger brother was a mere boy, away at school.
"Nonsense, Howard. As if you didn't understand! Euphrasia Mackenzie, of course. Here has she been nearly a fortnight in the house, and the servants are run off their legs—or, at all events, they think so, which comes to the same thing. I am sure, I did feel that we had done as much as could be expected of us. And now Robert must needs make all this stir about nothing."
"What stir?"
"Oh, he declares we leave her a great deal too much alone, and let her feel dull, and don't attend to her as we ought. He fairly scolded Letitia. Poor dear, I do pity her, having to go and sit in that stuffy little room for an hour at a time!"
"Something must be wrong with our household arrangements if we put our guests into stuffy little rooms."
"You know what I mean. Not exactly stuffy, but one doesn't want to sit there half the day. And poor Letitia was so bent on going to Bath with the Fearings. Of course I made her give that up, but it was rather hard on the child. And she says Euphrasia is quite changed from what she used to be, so stiff and cold."
"I wonder whether Letitia ever does sit with Miss Mackenzie for anything like half-a-day—or even for an hour at a time?"
"I'm sure I can't tell. I only know I am perpetually at her about it. And I shall be thankful when it is all over. Euphrasia is not an interesting invalid. And she hardly ever says a word of apology for the trouble she gives."
"Does she not? Robert speaks of her as excruciatingly anxious not to be a bother."
"Oh, as to that—I suppose she doesn't make more work than she can help. I don't complain of the girl. Some people in her position would be much more thoughtless. But, of course, there are no end of things to be done. And now Robert wants us to have her wheeled every day into Letitia's boudoir—"
"Where is that?"
"The little room that used to be her nursery. Letitia turned it into a sitting-room when she came home from school, but she never sits there now by any chance. And Robert wants us to contrive not to leave Euphrasia so much alone. That is the worst of having a near relative for one's doctor. He feels free to say whatever he happens to think. It seems he found her crying with nothing to read. So absurd not to ask for what she wanted, if she had not a book! Robert does not commonly make such a fuss about his patients, and why he should with Euphrasia Mackenzie, I can't imagine. I never in my life saw a more unattractive girl; did you?"
"That wasn't precisely my impression, I confess. I thought she looked sensible."
"Oh, sensible—if you think so much of being just sensible! Yes, I dare say she is sensible—any amount! But not attractive—not pretty, or clever, or anything." Then, reverting to her former subject, "As likely as not, if I tell Horris that he is to wheel the sofa in and out of that room every day, he will say he hasn't time, and can't do it. That man gives himself such airs! I believe he will want to go the next thing."
"Let him go, by all means. If he does not want it, I shall, so soon as I find him indulging in airs. Plenty more men in the kingdom."
"You always talk like that. I can't bear the worry of change."
"A man who will not do his duty is a much worse worry, to my mind. Never mind; I'll see to replacing Horris if he goes. Meantime, if he is too grand or too lazy to wheel Miss Mackenzie's chair—no, sofa—a few paces, I am neither. Let me know when it wants doing."
"Oh, Horris must do it, of course, if he is told. But as for somebody to sit in the room—Letitia never does a single thing she doesn't wish. And as for dragging myself up those stairs more than once in twenty-four hours, I really could not undertake the exertion!"
"Pray don't think of it," her son answered politely.
CHAPTER XI
NEVER SENT!
"MOTHER, I've got a letter from Euphrasia!" Kenred burst into the house as he spoke, sending the words in advance of himself.
"A letter from Euphrasia!" repeated Flo in his rear, and her pretty little face was flushed with delight.
"At last!" A faint suspicion of hurt feeling might be detected in the tone. Nobody had expected that the absent member of the household would allow almost a whole fortnight to elapse with no further communication than a scribbled statement of her safe arrival.
"And the queer part of it is, mother, that she doesn't say one word about why she hasn't written, or what she has been doing. Not one word! She only wants to know why 'we' haven't written, and says she is afraid somebody can't be well."
"Your father is not well of course. He hasn't been for weeks and months past, and she knows it. Besides, I told her in my last letter that he did not seem particularly better."
"But she says she has not heard at all." The boy flung himself down on the sofa, beside Mrs. Mackenzie and her mending-basket. "You'll see. There is the letter. Couldn't be much shorter. Eyebright is a funny girl, isn't she? One might think 'she' had been sending heaps of letters all the time."
"But I wrote last. I have written twice, and she has never answered either of my letters."
"I don't believe Euphrasia is enjoying herself one bit," murmured Flo, when Mrs. Mackenzie had perused the short note, and had pronounced it unsatisfactory. "She writes in such a dull sort of way, and she doesn't say a word about anything or anybody there."
"As likely as not, she is disappointed with her friend. Euphrasia would never confess that she had been taken in. Girls never do! I don't think the note does sound very happy: but she will manage to get some enjoyment out of her visit. If not, why should she stay on, and not come home sooner? I cannot understand about the letters. Not had a single one from anybody, since three days after she left! Well, if she had not, she hasn't written either! But she forgets."
"Flo and I made up a long letter to go with yours last week, mother—a joint concern. She couldn't have forgotten that. It was the day you had such a long call from old Mr. Brown."
A recollection came to Mrs. Mackenzie, summoned up as such recollections often are, by a passing word. She started up, opened a drawer, and after some rummaging drew thence a stamped and addressed envelope.
"How stupid of me! I remember now. Your speaking of Mr. Brown brought it back. When he came, I popped the letter in here to be safe, meaning to post it directly he was gone. Somebody must have pushed it out of sight afterwards, and I declare I never thought about it again until this moment."
"Poor Euphrasia!" exclaimed Flo.
"My dear, if she had taken the trouble to write home just a little oftener, we should soon have found out about it." Mrs. Mackenzie really had been pained by her eldest's prolonged silence.
"Shall I post it now?" asked Ken.
Mrs. Mackenzie debated, then wrote outside—"Just found this; ought to have gone off days ago."
"Yes, do, Ken; and some of us will write in a day or two. I really can't to-day; I have so much to do. And there is Mrs. Landor coming in; so run away, Flo dear, because I want to speak to her particularly."
Flo obeyed. And Mrs. Mackenzie received her visitor with a careworn expression, quite unconsciously and involuntarily assumed. Mrs. Landor was at all times so absolutely at leisure, so free to hear her friends' worries, and to bestow sympathy for the same—albeit with the sympathy went sometimes a less welcome word of warning, or even of reproof—that a temptation existed to make claims upon her sympathy, even without especial cause; and Mrs. Mackenzie occasionally yielded to this temptation. She did not so much as notice, being wrapped up in her own thoughts, that Mrs. Landor looked paler than usual, and that her air of kind attention was, to a slight degree, forced—as if the mind were trying to wander, and required reining in.
The note from Euphrasia had to be shown first, with sundry comments on its tardy arrival, on its limited contents, and on her wish that Euphrasia cared more for home interests, less for mere pleasure.
Mrs. Landor read the note, and said—"It does not give one the idea that she is having too much pleasure."
"Well, no. I always thought she would be disappointed with those people. But of course a good many things are going on—sure to be, in a place like Clifton—and she does not somehow find time to write to us as she might."
"She says nothing about the many things going on. How is Mr. Mackenzie to-day?"
This led to a fresh assortment of cares. Mr. Mackenzie was not at all the thing, not by any means well. He could not be described as positively ill, but Mrs. Mackenzie was very anxious, very worried about him. He had seen Dr. North again; and Dr. North, as usual, laid it chiefly to the state of his nerves—wherein Mrs. Mackenzie was not at all sure that the doctor might not be mistaken, as Mrs. Landor knew doctors so often were. But anyhow, Dr. North recommended a thorough change for her husband, some day soon, if it could be managed.
"And how we are to afford it, I am sure I don't know, and I can't imagine. Colin's income is not much, as, of course, everybody knows. And expenses are so heavy. And there's always something or other that must be got, whether one can afford it or no. It always seems to me every year that we shall never manage to fight our way through, or keep our heads above water."
"And yet, somehow, you always do."
"Well—somehow—at least, we always have, so far. But nobody can be sure about the future."
"Except that we have the absolute certainty that 'He' Who has cared for us in past years will never grow forgetful or indifferent."
"Oh, of course—I do try to trust. One knows one must, of course. But it is dreadfully hard to make both ends meet. And as for this idea of a change for my husband—I really don't see how it is to be managed. If it must be, it must, but I can't see how." Far back in her mind Mrs. Mackenzie was saying—"So easy for Mrs. Landor! Why, she only has to sit down and write a cheque, and there would be enough in a moment to take away all one's bother. She wouldn't even miss it. But people don't do that sort of thing, unfortunately. I wish they did."
"There can hardly be a 'must' for anything that is clearly impossible. Still, it would do your husband good. I do not doubt that his nerves are out of order, but it is partly the result of long years of work, and he has fairly earned a holiday."
"So Dr. North says. It is not a necessity, I suppose, exactly; only he would be ever so much the better for a thorough change. He is always so down-hearted now; not like himself. It may be partly Euphrasia being away and not writing. But he isn't as he ought to be; and Dr. North says a change would be the best remedy."
"If it is the right thing for him, you will see your way to it."
Mrs. Mackenzie counted this rather hard. She had been building a little structure of hopes, founded on Mrs. Landor's wealth and liberality, and the apparent collapse of that structure made her feel irritable.
"Of course it is the right thing for Colin to get away. It is not a question of what is the right thing, but of whether we can do it. It seems to me that most of the right things for us in life are just kept away from us for no reason at all."
"You do not really think so, Mrs. Mackenzie."
"I don't know why not—" rather faintly. "That is what I often notice."
"It is not my experience. But if a thing is kept from me, I am so sure that it is 'not' the right thing for me to have. We look at the question from different standpoints."
"You don't understand; you don't know what it really is," protested Mrs. Mackenzie, plaintive, because she felt herself in the wrong. "To have one's deposit getting lower and lower in the bank, and to know that nothing more is coming in for ever so long, and to see all the family needs, when there is no money to get what is wanted, and to have one's husband falling ill for want of a little holiday, and no holiday possible—at least, to know one can't rightly afford it;—oh, I dare say I ought to be sure that everything is always right, and it is very easy for people to preach, but—"
"It seems to me a simple opportunity for exercising a little trust—just to show that one knows 'Him!'" Mrs. Landor spoke in a curious dreamy tone, almost as if addressing the words to herself.
"People always talk such a lot about trusting. And it is generally those who don't need to trust, because they have got everything they want."
"Is that the case, I wonder, with any human being? Money anxieties are not by any means the only ones in the world. And few of us escape even them sooner or later, in one form or another." Mrs. Landor stood up, as if wishing to end the discussion. "Would you ask your husband to come round to the Rectory by-and-by if he is able. I should be glad of a few words with him. And, Mrs. Mackenzie, if I may make the suggestion, don't you think a more courageous spirit would be a happier one? It is such a help to feel absolute certainty in the Divine love which watches over us . . . I am not speaking out of ignorance of what anxiety means . . . But another day you shall hear more. We have used all the time that I can spare just now."
Mrs. Mackenzie had a dismayed sense of having stopped some interesting communication, and curiosity vied with something like fear. "Oh, do wait!" she begged, with about as much result as if she had endeavoured to check the inflow of the tide.
Mrs. Landor smiled, bade a kind farewell, and was gone.
"What does she mean?" inquired Mrs. Mackenzie of herself, no one else being present. "Is Mr. Landor ill? He didn't look so on Sunday. Why on earth couldn't she explain? I wish people would not be so puzzling. There comes Colin—what a pace. I have not seen him walk so fast for ever so long. He will meet Mrs. Landor; oh no, she has turned the other way, and doesn't see him. I do detest mysteries; and of course Colin will know nothing."
But Colin came in with an absorbed face. "I see Mrs. Landor has been here. Has she told you?"
"No! Told me what? She said she had not time to wait any longer. And she wants to see you presently. What is it all about?"
"I'll go, of course. Did she say when?"
"I don't think so. I don't know. Colin, what is wrong? Has anything happened?"
"Yes—"
"Is Mr. Landor not well? There can't be much the matter
with him, or she would not be out. Besides, she seemed just like
her usual self. Colin, do speak out. Make haste."
"What? Do tell me!"
"The Landors—"
"Is Mr. Landor not well? There can't be much the matter with him, or she would not be out. Besides, she seemed just like her usual self. Colin, do speak out. Make haste."
"My dear, you allow me no opportunity. Mrs. Landor—"
"Yes. Go on! Make haste! O dear, you men are so slow!"
"Mrs. Landor—"
"Yes, I hear! Oh, make haste!"
"—Has lost pretty nearly everything she has."
CHAPTER XII
GENUINE!
MRS. MACKENZIE had to sit down, absolutely panting under the blow, and for once without words, as her husband gave a few particulars. It appeared that the Landors' affairs had been for some years in an involved condition, unknown to many of their most intimate friends. Losses here and embarrassments there dated nearly, though not quite, so far back as their marriage. The prosperous widow chosen by Mr. Landor for his wife had been since by no means so prosperous as was commonly supposed. But inasmuch as he had chosen her for herself, and not for her money, this fact had had no power to touch their happiness.
They had hoped to emerge in the end from their difficulties. And in the ordinary course of events, the hope might have been fulfilled. Now however, at one blow, the main bulk of Mrs. Landor's possessions was swept away by the collapse of the great Company in which most of her money was embarked. An immediate sale of the estate was inevitable, and the utmost that it could be expected to bring in would be swallowed up by previously-existing liabilities.
"The extraordinary thing is that nobody should have expected anything of the sort! No one seems to have so much as guessed what was coming. If you had asked me about that Company, I could have declared that it was almost as staunch as the Bank of England." Mr. Mackenzie looked back to his own haunting fears, as partly expressed to Euphrasia, about the bank with which he was himself closely connected, in a kind of wonder. Clear vision had come suddenly, and he realised now the futility, the needlessness, of his fears.
At this instant, the imaginations which had made him wretched for months past looked absolutely absurd, the mere fruit of a disorganised nervous system, with no positive foundation in fact. That which he had so feared for himself, and for those dependent on him, had not come, might never come. But the blow which none had foretold for the Landors had fallen with startling abruptness. He woke out of a dream to the sound of his wife's voice:—
"Do tell me! What are you thinking about? Do pray tell me. What will they have to live on?"
"My dear, I fear almost nothing—beyond Mr. Landor's stipend."
"A stipend of eighty-five pounds a year!"
Mrs. Mackenzie burst into tears. She might be habitually a good deal self-occupied, and not a little addicted to nursing her own troubles, but she had a warm heart, and a very real affection for his long-tried friend.
"She can't do it, Colin. At her age, and all her life accustomed to have everything she could want. And he is getting elderly, and not strong. It is perfectly dreadful! Of course, they have had some worries now and then, everybody has, but nothing of this sort. Why, she has always been able to get every single thing she wanted. And just think of eighty-five pounds a year!"
"Yes, it's the suddenness of it—and the change from what she is used to. That makes it so much worse."
"Worse! It makes it awful for them. How you can talk of it so quietly! And what in the world are they to do now? This is what I cannot imagine. Brought up as she has been. Eighty-five pounds a year. She must be half dazed with it. Of course she does not see yet what it all really means—she can't. And, oh dear, to think of what I have been saying to her. How I could!"
Colin made a sound of enquiry.
"Oh, I don't know—I mean—Oh, of course I didn't know anything about this; and she never told me. But it must have sounded so horribly unfeeling. I told her about the doctor wanting you to get away, and she said I ought to trust more. And I thought it was so easy for her to talk when she had got everything she wanted, and I said something of the sort. She won't be vexed, I know, because it is not her way, but I am vexed with myself."
"Perhaps it is a little lesson just to be more careful next time, my dear."
Mrs. Mackenzie rather resented having "little lessons" pointed out to her, however clearly she might perceive them for herself. And she hastened to explain that "another time" was very unlikely to recur. In fact, one might think that this was the only time in her life that she had ever been betrayed into hasty speech. But in the midst of her defence, she relapsed into tears.
"Mrs. Landor wanted you to go and see her, Colin. Don't you think I might go too, and tell her how sorry I am?"
"No, my dear. If Mrs. Landor asked for me only, she did not mean you too. It is always best, when people are in trouble, to do exactly what they ask, and not more. It may be that she wishes to put some business questions," observed Colin, in his most oracular tone.
He had his way, and started alone, bearing a long message of unlimited apology and sympathy, which went utterly out of his head by the time he quitted the garden gate.
It was a trying visit to pay. He was a tenderhearted man, and could not endure to look upon distress. And, judging from people generally, he expected to find the Landors overwhelmed by the blow which had fallen upon them, Mr. Landor in depths of despair, Mrs. Landor in floods of tears. She had kept up, it was true, while calling on his wife, doubtless for her sake, but that she should continue to keep up was beyond the bounds of reasonable expectation. Colin wondered sorrowfully what he should say to comfort them.
Of course Mrs. Landor would "trust." Both of them would of course "trust." He felt no doubt on that head. He always asserted the fact of his own "trust," no matter how dismally certain he might feel that everything was going wrong, no matter how dolefully hopeless he might be of any help arriving in time to tide him over rocks ahead. His idea of trust was vague, and therefore was quite compatible with a general hopelessness.
By the time he reached the Rectory, his face had grown portentously long over the thought of his friends' grief. Rather oddly, this blow to them had acted with a rousing force upon himself. He had not for months felt so hopeful, so light-hearted about his own affairs. It was almost as if he had foreseen that something would happen, and had only been mistaken in supposing it to be a something concerning himself. Probably a truer explanation would be that Colin Mackenzie, after repeated attacks of severe influenza, coming upon long years of hard work, had fallen into a dyspeptic and nervous condition of body, which condition had reacted on the mind, rendering him unable to take a fair and reasonable view of things in general, more especially of business questions.
As Mrs. Landor had once said, molehills grew to mountains in his eyes, and a usually unselfish nature had become for the time morbidly self-centred—a state of things largely physical, but not on that account altogether free from blame.
Wakened now by the shock of his friends' trouble, he looked back upon his own past mental condition with a curious sense of surprise, almost of disgust. What could have made him talk as he had done to Euphrasia, the day before she left home? Absurd,—when really there had been no sufficient cause, but only some needful business uncertainties, and a desperate fit of the "blues," inclining him to see everything on its darkest side. Dyspepsia, of course, as Dr. North had at the time assured him. While Colin, because of that same dyspepsia, had counted himself wiser than any number of doctors, and had refused to believe the explanation. Now he knew better!
Poor little Eyebright! How she might have worried herself! Only of course she had not, or she would have written oftener. No doubt she had not grasped his full meaning. Still, he might have spoilt her visit with his ill-considered remarks. He would write at once, this very evening—cheerily, and in a different strain.
But then he would have to tell her about the Landors. She would feel that down in the depth of her loving little heart, which Colin knew to be really loving, though some might count her to be of a cold disposition. No, he would not write yet. Better to wait, since evidently she was not grieving. Mr. Mackenzie, like his wife, had been somewhat hurt by Euphrasia's long silence, even while telling himself that it meant nothing.
Then he reached the Rectory, and his courage was at a low ebb, though not now for himself.
Floods of tears! States of despair! Not a whit! As he stood in the hall, lugubrious with the weight of his pity, he heard the merriest laugh, coming through the closed study door. That Mrs. Landor! And a deeper-toned masculine laugh, no less cheerful. That the poverty-stricken and despairing Rector! Colin could hardly believe his own ears.
CHAPTER XIII
NOT CAST DOWN
"HERE, sir, please." Into the study Colin was welcomed—by the Rector with a smiling face, by Mrs. Landor with outstretched hand and look of welcome. In all the years he had known that sweet serene woman, he had never seen her so bright. Calm she had usually been, but seldom bright. Was this forced, unnatural, the result of over-strain?
"Come in, pray come in, Mr. Mackenzie. Come in and sit down. If you don't mind an economical cup of tea. My husband and I are practising at once for the future. No use to put off, is it? You see, we cannot possibly afford any longer the most expensive Souchong, so I picked up a pound of one-and-sixpenny tea as I came along; and we have made it with half the usual quantity. It 'really' isn't bad. Like Dickens' Marchioness, one only has to exercise one's imagination a little. And, after all, the most important ingredient is real boiling water."
Colin received his cup from those slender hands, and had some difficulty in swallowing the first mouthful.
"Some cake, or bread and butter? I did not tell your wife about our affairs because I thought it would take too long, as she had a good deal to say first. So you must explain it all to her, and say that it is nothing for her to fret about. Is it, dear?" lovingly to her husband. "The less one has to carry in life, the more lightly one ought to be able to go!"
Colin might appropriately have delivered his message here, but he was in no state of mind to remember it.
"Most people think the burden of anxiety a great deal heavier than the burden of wealth," he could not help saying.
"If one must be anxious," she said, smiling a little.
"For my part, I am sure of one thing," observed Mr. Landor placidly, "and that is that it is worth a great deal to know what sort of a wife one has. I thought I did know before—pretty well—but it seems I didn't!"
"Why, the whole matter is so simple." Mrs. Landor was too much interested in her view of the question to notice at the moment what he said. "So very simple and plain. All these years God has chosen to give us money in plenty, to use for Him; and I do think we have tried to use it rightly. And now He has chosen to take it away. Hasn't He a perfect right to do as He will? It is His, not ours. I do think it would be so utterly ungrateful of us to grumble."
"I am afraid if I had lost everything—"
"Ah, everything!" she echoed with a quick breath. "But it is not that. Not everything! My husband is left to me still. And our health. It is not like Job."
"If health broke down, or if the call came to me to go, you would say the same still, my dear," interposed the Rector. "I know you would, because it would still be His will."
Mrs. Landor smiled again, though tears were in her eyes.
"Few would feel as you do, in your position," said Colin.
"Perhaps because they have been accustomed to look upon the money as strictly their own. I do not think we have ever done that." She spoke in a thoughtful tone, as if considering the question.
"It is harder for her than for me," the old Rector said softly, looking towards Colin. "I was poor for years before I married, and she does not know what it is to be poor."
"So every one tells me. But is not the unknown sometimes more alarming than what one does know? Well, we are to have a new experience together—you and I! It will be a new kind of life entirely. We shall have to make every single penny go as far as it possibly can, instead of never troubling one's head about the matter. I am bent on proving that, at least, luxury has not spoiled me, Mr. Mackenzie. Don't think I am putting on a cheerfulness which I do not really feel. Perhaps, as my husband says, I don't know what it all means as yet. But what I 'cannot' understand is the sense of doubt and terror in looking forward, which I seem to be expected to feel. Of course there is uncertainty. We have not the least idea how we are to manage. Expenses must be cut down to the utmost; and even then it is a mystery in what way we can get along. Only—we shall get along! We simply have to wait till the 'how' becomes clear."
"I suppose something always turns up somehow," remarked Colin, in a reflection of his wife's favourite tone.
"Is that enough for you? It would not be for me. 'Something turning up somehow' sounds dreary. With me it is the direct and positive care of a Father for His child; not a mere turning up of something, one hardly knows how. Of course, one is left in the dark now and then—if only to give one the opportunity of trusting Him!—and of course we have to do the very utmost that we can do towards helping ourselves. But when we can do no more, and still it is not sufficient, then comes the waiting, because it is just there that God steps in."
"If everybody felt as sure."
"Does 'everybody' know God well enough?" she asked with a curious keen smile. "Even on earth one must know a person before one can repose trust in him; and for the absolute repose of perfect trust, very full knowledge of his character is needful. Not quite everybody knows God so well as that!"
"No, indeed!" Colin spoke in a conscience-stricken voice.
"And yet—one may. It is His wish for us all. And when one does know Him, even a little, all is altered by it. Without any boasting, but just as a matter of common reasonableness, I am absolutely sure that He will take care of us. Absolutely sure! That He should fail us in our need is, I know, a thing impossible. Then what nonsense it would be to fret and worry. Why should we feel anxious, any more than your Flo does? She knows you will provide for her, to the extent of your power—knows it with a perfectly undoubting trust in your love. Your powers are limited, and you might fail in providing for her, not through lack of love, but through poverty of means.
"My Father's powers are without limit; and His love is boundless. Would it not be the height of absurdity for us to keep worrying about the future, when we 'know' that He will supply all our needs? All our real needs. We may have to do without a good many things that we are used to, but what then? It may be something of a trial. Just a little of life's discipline, and no more! Don't you see?"—with a smile which had become positively radiant.
It had a quiet reflection in her husband's face.
Colin listened, like one dumbfoundered. Another manner of trust, this, from any exercised by himself!
*****
Was Euphrasia "not at all an interesting invalid?" Howard Johnston, recalling his mother's words, began to doubt their truth—not so much with respect to himself, as with respect to his cousin, the doctor. Howard still held that Euphrasia was a "sensible" girl, and he liked her for being sensible. That was all. He felt nothing more than a general approval, a general wish to be polite and kind to an unfortunate guest. But apparently that was by no means all, so far as Robert Wells was concerned.
So much the better, thought Howard. Everybody had long said that Mr. Wells ought to marry; and he had shown himself reprehensibly slow in following this wise advice. His position as a medical man was good, and it promised to be better, and his patients liked him: but year after year he remained wifeless. Possibly he had once wanted a wife whom he could not get, and the failure might have left him indisposed to try again.
He could quite well afford to marry. If he chose to fall in love with the penniless daughter of the Manager of a country Branch Bank, there was no reason whatever why he should not ask her to be his wife. He was not entirely dependent upon his profession, and he had no near relatives dependent upon him. This was Howard's view of the matter. And he watched the doctor's growing absorption in Euphrasia Mackenzie with amused interest, saying nothing to anybody. Had he suggested such a notion to his mother, she would doubtless have exerted all her faculties to put a spoke in the wheel.
The dullest period of Euphrasia's imprisonment was now over. Long hours of enforced thought had been good for her, as many things are good for us, not at the time enjoyable; and all her life she would be the better in character for that trying experience. Now, however, she was kept well supplied with books, and she was able to enjoy them. The knee had steadily improved, although she was still forbidden to walk more than a few steps, and the doctor had thus far declined to hear any mention of a journey. Euphrasia saw signs of growing impatience in her "friend," and even Mrs. Johnston's politeness failed to conceal entirely a measure of the same.
One budget of letters had arrived from home, nearly a week old when despatched, as notified by an outside inscription; and further letters failed again to come. But at least she knew that nothing was seriously wrong with her father.
The services of a certain fine gentleman belowstairs were not required for the wheeling of Euphrasia's couch from room to room, since the doctor himself always undertook that office during his morning visit. And in the afternoon, earlier or later, Howard was unusually to the fore.
Euphrasia was not permitted to protest. It was "only a pleasure" with them both.
Were these daily visits from the doctor an absolute necessity? Euphrasia had her doubts on that score. He looked at the knee every day, and asked questions, but little could be done beyond ordering continued rest. He almost invariably stayed for a chat, sometimes as long as twenty minutes or half-an-hour; and Euphrasia would have felt very dull without these cheery visits. She had learnt quite to look forward to them through the twenty-four hours. If only they would not all have to be paid for! There was the rub. Euphrasia's heart sometimes went down to a low level, at the thought of the future "bill" in connection with the state of home finances.
Was it truly needful that he should examine the knee so often? If not, kind though his attentions might be, Euphrasia could not feel that she would be right to let things continue thus. She debated much with herself, and several times resolved to put out a most delicate feeler of one kind or another, to discover whether, perhaps, twice a week might not be sufficient. But Euphrasia was not gifted in the art of putting out delicate feelers, and when it came to the point, she always failed to say anything at all. He was so pleasant, and it would be so "horrid" to hurt his feelings.
So she decided finally that the utmost she could do was to hasten her departure. Now that her month was almost ended, matters might be pressed to a point. It had been a long month, very long—except the last few days. She would be glad to get away—yes, certainly, very glad indeed to feel herself no longer an unwelcome burden on her friend's hospitality. Yes, certainly, very glad, repeated Euphrasia with emphasis, just because she was aware of an opposite sensation below.
One strong regret was asserting itself, and would not be put down; one real pain, in the thought of parting from Mr. Wells. He had not been only the doctor to her: he had been a friend in a season of trouble. Looking back upon the past month, she saw his figure more prominently than any other. The prominence of any figure in one's surroundings depends, after all, mainly upon one's own interest in that figure.
Would she ever see him again? Would she never see him again? The question was unwelcome, and it haunted her. Never again, through all her life! A second visit to the Johnston lay beyond all bounds of probability. She had no other friends in Clifton. West Norton was an unlikely place for anybody to visit; and in their little home, they seldom entertained friends from a distance. Why should he and she ever meet again? He had done his duty as doctor, perhaps a good deal more than his bare duty because he was kind-hearted, and because she had been lonely and uncomfortable. And she was merely his patient, a "case" to be dismissed when done with, and thought about no more.
Still, she had to leave, and her duty was to go so soon as she might. The odd part of the matter was that, after all her earlier impatience, now the time for departure was near, she did not want to go. She had told herself that she would be glad, but in her heart she knew she would not be glad. Notwithstanding all the unpleasantness of giving trouble to comparative strangers, notwithstanding Letitia's coldness, and Mrs. Johnston's hardly-veiled impatience, she would have given much to feel herself compelled to stay another month. Euphrasia's very consciousness of this reluctance made her the more determined to bring about a decision.
"I think I ought to write home now, and tell them about my knee," she said abruptly, after much previous consideration. "And fix the day for going."
To which, Mr. Wells responded by a deliberate—"Ah!"
"This is Thursday. Could not I say Saturday?"
"You are in a great hurry to run away from us all."
"Oh, I should not like to stay a day longer than I must!" The words came back to herself with an ungracious sound in them; and she saw the doctor biting his moustache. "Please don't think I am not grateful; I really am. I have been such a bother all this time, and you have been so kind to me. But it wouldn't be right to put off any longer. I ought to get home as soon as possible. And—" hurriedly, under a sudden impulse to use her opportunity, knowing that Mrs. Johnston would be back immediately—"and, if you don't mind, I think before I go, I ought just to know how much—I mean, if you could tell me, so that I can tell my father—and then he would send to you as soon as—if you don't mind—"
Euphrasia fell into a hopeless bungle, blushing more and more, while Mr. Wells looked so intensely grave that she feared she must have said exactly the wrong thing in her inexperience. "I think you know what I mean," she faltered, but he made no sign of comprehension. "You have been so often, and—and—of course—of course there must be—owing—" the last word being hardly audible.
"Much too often, under the circumstances, if things were as you suppose."
"But you know—but you must—but I could not—it would not be right,—"
"Nothing else could be right, or possible. My cousins ought to have explained. Mrs. Johnston undertook to do so. I am one of the family; and you must please to regard my visits in that light. Nothing else is possible."
"I didn't know,—I mean, I couldn't, of course—" Euphrasia came to another bungle, actually trembling. That he was pained at something she could see; she did not exactly divine what. Why should he care at all? "Please forgive me for asking you, but indeed I do not think it is right."
"It is a matter of course. I am only sorry that you could suppose anything else to be possible," said Mr. Wells coldly.
Mrs. Johnston's step could be heard returning. She always came up with the doctor, and very often used the opportunity of being "up" to attend to certain household matters in a neighbouring room, since nothing would induce her nephew to be as quick about the knee as she desired. But here she came, and no more could be said.
Robert Wells bade an abrupt good-bye this day, not remaining for his usual chat.
Euphrasia felt bewildered. Had she seriously offended him?