CHAPTER XVI

Next morning, Marigold, in the patchwork gown and a pretty muslin apron, went in very early to take Patches his breakfast. He was still in bed, so she went upstairs, calling:

“Patches! here’s your breakfast, and the nurse.”

It was such a little cupboard of a bedroom, and such a tiny make-believe of a bed, and everything was so poor and shabby, that Marigold’s throat went quite lumpy again.

Only, on the wall, opposite the bed, was a beautiful painting of a woman’s head--a very tender, delicate face, with a haunting look in the eyes, half-laughter, half-tenderness.

When Marigold saw that face, the lumps went out of her throat, and she felt very jealous. “Who is that, Patches?” she asked, standing to look.

“I don’t know,” he answered; “Dr Quack brought it, and set it up there for me to look at when the night is long. He says she was a very good woman, and she died a long time ago. He says she was so beautiful and good, that even the Serpent loved her, and she went to Heaven.”

“Are you sure she’s dead? It seems to me I--I know her. Her eyes--they seem to follow one so.”

“Yes; and the longer you look at her, the more you love her. I’ve made her my best queen. But oh! Miss Rags, how--how prettily you’re dressed. You’ve all the loveliest colours, no bigger than sixpences--and--and you haven’t a rag.”

“I know. I’m respectable now. I’ve turned nurse in earnest. This cap makes me look quite matronly and old. You’ve to have your breakfast, and then I’m going to wash and dress you, and sit with you downstairs. And this afternoon I’ve got a treat in store for you. But I’m not going to mention it till I’ve asked the doctor, in case he says ‘no’--but, if he says ‘no,’ then I’ll find something else just as good.”

“But you’re not going to stay with me all day?”

“Yes, I am, and all night too. You want some one in the night, and your poor mother’s too tired. I’m going to send her to sleep in my room, and I’m coming to sleep in hers.”

For a minute he was silent, then he said:

“That lady looks after me at night.”

And Marigold said quite softly and wistfully:

“She won’t mind me. If she is so very good, she won’t mind me at all.”

So she gave him his breakfast, and dressed him, and washed him, and she brushed and combed his hair very gently, and ended by pinning a red rose in his little coat. And Patches, who had felt rather shy at first, soon felt all right--and quite happy and thankful, because dressing had been a very big business lately. And when they got downstairs, what was his surprise to find all the little kitchen beautiful, and lovely flowers on the table and the dresser, and in his arm-chair a lovely patchwork cushion, like Marigold’s dress, as soft as soft, and with the scent of wood violets.

She sat down on a chair by the fire opposite to him, laughing at his surprise.

“The little green men brought the flowers last night when the moon was shining, and laid them on the doorstep. My aunt and I found them this morning, and brought them in.”

And then he looked at them as if he more than half believed her.

“I’m not going to be called Miss Rags any longer,” she said, taking up a woollen comforter that she had brought for knitting. “I’m going to be called Mrs Patches. Mr and Mrs Patches we shall be--because you’re to be my sweetheart. I haven’t got a grown-up one.”

“But you wouldn’t care to have a cripple for a sweetheart?” he asked, the childish flush again dyeing his cheeks.

She looked up at him, a strange kind of power and beauty filling her eyes.

“You haven’t got a crippled soul, Patches. You’ll make a really beautiful spirit--and who cares about the body then? There was a wonderful man came on to Lucifram once, and he did nothing but talk to little children, and he said they’d best be lame, without a leg, and go to Heaven, than, having both legs, go nowhere, or even worse than that.”

“What did they call him?”

“They called him the Son of the Serpent, and some people said he came from Hell.”

So on they talked, each interesting the other, till, with a start from each, the door opened.

If Mr Barringcourt felt surprised, he had got to that state of perfection when, unless he wished to, he did not show it.

Marigold got up from her chair with a dignity it was quite impossible to mistake.

“I have come to nurse Timothy. You said he was too ill to be left long, and my aunt is busy.”

“That is very kind of you,” he answered simply. “Did you bring the flowers and the cushion?”

“Yes, and his breakfast. I think we will look after him altogether now. He has been so neglected, except when you have come.” And then she sat down again.

Mr Barringcourt looked at her and bit his lips; and suddenly she got up, with her eyes on the ground, and said very nervously:

“Let me stay. If I go away, I shall only go into the Temple grounds. I would rather stay.”

She never knew what it was that prompted her to speak so--not till long afterwards.

And looking up for the answer, she caught the look of utter surprise in his eyes, that her dress and neatness had not occasioned. He looked at her more closely, then he said quietly:

“Yes, you may stay. But this is a very uninteresting hour to the outsider. It is Timothy’s bedtime.”

“You see it’s like this,” Timothy now put in for himself, having been long enough out of the conversation. “When I sleep at night I’m more tired than ever after it. When I wake up, all my bones are aching, and all the perspiration is running out of me, and from being all hot and steam, I go quite cold. But when I sleep, and Dr Quack stays awake to look after me, then I waken up all right, as if I really had been asleep, and I’m not all trickling in big drops.”

“You see,” said Mr Barringcourt, speaking quietly and looking down at her, “I am a quack, and so I believe in faith cure. I am strong, and Timothy is weak. When he knows my arms are round him, then he feels safe, and therefore happier, so what time I can in the day I spare to him.” And so saying, he sat down in the chair and took the cripple on his knee.

And Marigold, being no more than a child in heart, and just past the verge of womanhood in years, thought how nice it would have been if she could have taken the other knee--if--if only they’d been friends. And then she sat up very straight, feeling real annoyance at her own want of dignified emotions.

“Would you like a paper?” he asked, drawing a bundle from his pocket.

“No, thank you. I don’t understand the art of reading newspapers. It’s a man’s work.”

He took her at her word, and passed no more remarks, but was soon lost in the contents. Only, when he wanted the paper turning, she got up and turned it for him. Twice she did it, and twice he thanked her very pleasantly and kindly. And, after a while, he laid the paper down, Timothy still sleeping, and said:

“This little boy is very ill.”

“I know.”

“He won’t last many more weeks, and he won’t be able to get up much longer.”

“No.”

“You intend to nurse him to the end, I suppose?”

“Yes. I am coming in here to sleep to-night, and his mother is going into our cottage. She has enough work without having restless nights tacked on to it.”

“You cannot nurse him both day and night.”

“Oh yes, I must! His mother never hears him.”

“I think you must not. And to-morrow I am sending two nurses in from Todbrook’s home--night- and day-nurses.”

“But _I_ mean to nurse him.”

“No doubt. But he cannot exactly be left to your tender mercies. Whilst the novelty lasts, I don’t doubt you will be untiring; after that, you will want to return to your usual occupation--gallivanting out after questionable companions.”

“No. I will nurse him till he dies. You must not send the nurses.”

For some time he sat looking at her, then he said:

“I will send one for the night. It is absurd your trying to do both; I doubt if you have the strength to carry out one successfully.”

“I love him so well that I don’t feel it a trouble at all.”

“Women, such as you, shouldn’t talk of love. You should say you’d taken a fancy to him.”

“Why! what kind of a woman am I?”

“Very shallow--easily moved by flattery--the shallowest flattery.”

Marigold sat silent, too dignified to speak or to show any annoyance, and again he spoke.

“I think perhaps I should be honest with you. Personally, I do not want you nursing this sick child. I would prefer to see you in your own house, minding your own business. But you have come, and he likes you, and it would be cruel to him to send you away. Not only that, but here you are out of the way of mischief for a time, for women of your stamp often work more havoc than they ever think. But listen. Promise me, as long as the child lives, you will see no more of the High Priest. You will promise to forget him, otherwise you can go. I will not have you round here, even for the child’s sake, with the sacredness of death shadowing the house, with that man’s presence to contaminate you.”

And Marigold got up, and she said very quietly:

“I will promise you. But I think you do me a great wrong in--in----”

“You forget. I saw you yesterday before you saw me.”

“Yes. Perhaps you are right then. But I will nurse him to the best of my ability, and I shall not tire. And for the rest, I am not really what you seem to think. I was trying to find out what the High Priest was like--I meant nothing more.”

Mr Barringcourt raised his eyebrows.

“Then I should advise you never to make ignorant experiments with humanity--the most explosive of all substances.”

“Do you think so?” asked Marigold seriously.

“Think? I am positive.”

“Then perhaps he _isn’t_ human.”

The unguarded laugh that followed from her companion awoke little Patches, who smiled too, well pleased to find himself, on waking, in such pleasant company.

And then Marigold disclosed the treat she had in store--that she and Alice might take him out for a short time in the afternoon in a bath-chair they had borrowed. And the doctor agreed. Yet, when he went away, he seemed more cold and distant than ever, so Marigold thought, though to Patches he was just the same.

“I don’t believe he likes me,” she said to herself very sadly. “He thinks--I don’t know what dreadful things he thinks of me. I think he is prejudiced against me, for some reason I can’t understand.”