Chapter XI: Down in a Valley

I HARDLY know how we got through the next month.

A doctor had to be called in, and Maimie’s attack proved to be, as she had expected, one of severe inflammation. She was very very ill, though by her own account not so ill as the former time.

A more patient and gentle invalid could hardly have been found. From the moment when she was acknowledged to be really ill, excitement and wilfulness were at an end. She did as she was told, submitted to painful remedies without a murmur, took the most unpleasant medicines smilingly, and smothered the faintest approach to complaint. “Maimie, I do wish you would indulge in a grumble now and then,” Cherry said one day; and she answered, “How can I, when you are all so sweet to me?”

Through two or three days, at the worst, we did not think Maimie would ever be up and about again. We were all very sad and grieved. Even Cress shed a few tears, though much ashamed of doing so. Poor Jack’s misery was touching to see. He spent hours on the stairs, outside the sick-room, watching for news. Still, in trouble he turned to his mother for comfort; and I was content.

Then the worst was past; and Maimie came slowly back to everyday life. As she improved, many little delicacies in the way of food were needed, and somehow we procured them, I hardly know how. Day by day we were just able to get on. The fog which lay ahead cleared away for us step by step, never more than one step in advance. Often I felt afraid as to the next step; yet, when it had to be taken it could be taken.

My children all put their shoulders to the wheel, and did their best to help. The younger boys had never been so quiet, so thoughtful, so ready in every way to assist Cherry and me with household work. Cress had never been so careful of his clothes, had never wanted so few things mended or bought. What little pocket-money they had was spent in delicacies for Maimie’s capricious appetite.

Kind help came too, in our time of need, from other quarters. The doctor, though a Parish doctor only, with a large family, himself an elderly and poor man, brought many a little gift to his winning patient.

Jack’s employers, hearing of our trouble, not only passed over various blunders committed by him under distress of mind, but sent eggs and fowls fresh from the country, and bottles of wine from their own cellars. And one day, when anxieties pressed with especial heaviness, the post brought an unexpected letter from Aunt Briscoe, enclosing a five pound note.

“I don’t say that you are not very foolish to undertake the girl,” she wrote. “Mary Browne is nothing to you, nor you to her. She may be very agreeable. Jack seems half insane about her—” Jack had been to see Aunt Briscoe, and no doubt he had enlarged on Maimie’s charms in his artless fashion;—“but I do not see what that has to do with the matter. However, I enclose a gift of five pounds towards your extra expenses just now. Of course you will not expect it to be repeated.”

No, that we certainly did not. But how thankful we were, and how I wondered over my own want of trust, my “little faith.”

Five pounds did not make things easy for us; and four times five pounds would not have done so either. But the gift came just in time to tide us over a serious difficulty. Help that is sent does so often come just in time,—not more, but also not less, than “just in time.”

So weeks went by, and at last the day came when Maimie might walk downstairs. Then in a little while she slipped quietly out of her invalidism, and joined our family life again; only we had to be very careful lest she should do too much.

I saw a great change in Maimie. I don’t know whether others did. Not only in her having grown thin and colourless, and having lost much of the flaxen hair. Her smile was as sweet as ever, sweeter than ever, I think; but she seemed more silent and gentle, and often more grave.

It was singular how she clung to me. Her love for Robert and Cherry was not lessened; but I think her love for me was greatest. When tired, she used to sit on the ground beside me, with her head on my knee. If I advised the sofa, she would say, “Please let me be here. I like this so much. It feels as if I had mother again.”

Maimie was very anxious to resume her share of work and mending; but at present Cherry and I set our faces against her doing so. She was still weak and easily worn out; and the change of air which might have set her up lay quite out of our reach.

“Aunt Marion,” she said thoughtfully one day, “I do think it so strange that my father never writes.”

“He may be ill,” I said to her, as she had once said to me.

“Would he be ill so long as this?”

“I don’t know. It does not seem likely, Maimie, but there is no knowing. We may hear yet, some day.”

“I am afraid he doesn’t care for me so much as I thought he did,” she murmured. “And yet he really did seem kind, he really seemed fond of me. Aunt Marion, I was so angry when I first came, because you thought he did not mean to write. But after all you were right.”

“We may hope the best still,” I said.

“Ah, but I should not have been so angry. It was very very wrong. I am trying hard not to be so easily vexed at things.”

“I think you are different since your illness, Maimie.”

“Things are different,” she answered. “I’m not so dreadfully alone now; and I know you do all love me. It is such a feeling, to know that nobody cares for one. When I first came to London, I had nobody in the world except father, and I couldn’t bear to think that perhaps he did not really love to have me with him. I’m not sure, Aunt Marion, that I didn’t really believe the same as you thought, deep down in my heart; but I wouldn’t let myself think it. I couldn’t! it was too dreadful, when I had nobody else.”

“Had you no friends in America?” I asked.

“Oh—friends—I don’t know. People were kind, but I don’t think I cared for anybody very particularly,—not as I care for you.”

“Perhaps, after all, we shall find some day that your father has had a good reason for his silence,” I observed. “Churton always did things in an odd way.”

“I would much rather think him, odd than cold,” said Maimie, sighing. “Yes, perhaps, some day,—we shall know all about it by-and-by, I suppose. But that may be a long way off. And I do so want to be useful now.”

“I can’t have you working again yet.”

“I needn’t begin with mending,—though I do really mean to make myself like that. But I could wash up, and make the beds.”

“Not just yet,” I repeated,—“more than you do already.”

“And that is so little,” she said.

I think it was the evening of the same day, that Jack came in with a grave face. After tea, he took a seat beside me, and fidgeted in silence with my scissors for a quarter of an hour or more. Then he said suddenly—

“Mother, I’ve had a warning to-day.”

“What, more blunders, Jack?”

“Yes. And the very next, I’ll have to give up. They are very sorry, but they say it really can’t go on.”

“O Jack!” I said sorrowfully.

“I wish I could help myself, mother! But what on earth am I to do? Sometimes I think I’ll run away and enlist.”

“And break my heart,” I said, in a low voice.

Jack buried his face in his hands, and breathed hard. I did not know what to say next. We had gone over and over the old ground so often and so uselessly. Jack was always sorry, always angry with himself and distressed for my sake; and he always meant to do better,—only somehow he never did do better.

“I don’t know what in the world is to become of me,” he groaned at length. “Only I don’t mean to be a burden on you and father,—that’s certain.”

I think I said nothing, for I could not trust my voice. Tears were fighting to make their way, and I could not bear him to see me cry. I knew it would make him still more unhappy. But this did indeed seem to be the one drop too much in our cup.

“How long a time will they give you?” Cherry asked mournfully.

“Just till my next blunder. That’s all. To-morrow, most likely.”

“They won’t dismiss you at an hour’s notice. Impossible, Jack!”

“O no. But that will settle the question.”

He had lifted his head for a moment, but now it was down in his hands again.

Only Cherry and I were in the room beside Jack,—except Maimie, who was, as we believed, sleeping on the sofa.

But she had not been asleep; or our voices had aroused her. For at this moment she sat up, and looked at us, one after another. Then she rose, and came softly to Jack’s side, and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Jack, may I ask a question?” she said. “I want to see if I can’t help you.”