CHAPTER IX.

During the days that followed she was shut up in the cottage alone; and no one entered save Jane Mitchell, who came in the morning to light the fire while the remnant of coal lasted, and then was sent away.

“I shall not require you any more,” she said to Lucas, when he came to ask if she wanted the pony. She was covered with shame, and could never drive along the roads again.

“No, I do not need any provisions,” she said to Jane Mitchell, who offered to do some shopping for her; “I have sufficient in the house, and I will not trouble you to come again, Jane, until this day week”—and, having securely fastened the outer doors, she went to the drawing-room.

“I shall be dead by then,” she thought, “and Jane will find me.”

She was terribly ill, but she did not know it. The cold and the damp of that long day in London and afterwards had laid hold on her. She coughed, and knew that swift pains went through her, and a load was on her chest, but she had no time to notice these things. She had had no food for days. Save a little milk in a cup, and some bread, there was nothing left when Jane Mitchell took her departure. She was being slowly starved; she knew it, and did not care. The awful shame, the misery, the agony, that had overtaken her, stifled all other feelings, and were killing her; she knew that, too, and waited for death. Everything had gone out of her life; there was nothing to come into it more. She had been proud of her memories, her unsullied past, her own spotlessness—“Now it is all gone,” she said to herself. Every memory was a reproach or was hideous. She sat on one of the chairs before the drawing-room fireplace, and thought and thought and thought, till she could bear it no longer. It seemed as if pain were stamping the life out of her, as if she must be dying; she could feel that she was dying; but life remained by a little, and grew keen, and tortured her again. The key was turned in the lock of Alfred Wimple’s room, but his touch was on everything in the house; and a shrinking from it was her strongest feeling concerning him. Even the sight of a cup from which he had drunk made her shudder more than the bitter cold. “The place is contaminated,” she said to herself; “it is poisoned.” Sometimes for a few minutes a little tenderness would try to push its way into her heart again, but she shrank from that most of all, and with horror and loathing of herself. She was bowed down with disgrace. She felt as if by even living she was committing an offence against the whole world. There was no one she was fit to see; she had no right of any sort left, no business to be in the light; and there was no place in which she could hide. The nights were worst of all, they were so long and still; and when she had used the two candles left in the dining-room she had no means of shortening them even by an hour. Then, quaking, she lay on the hard sofa in the drawing-room, while the darkness gathered round, and the cold fastened its sharpest fangs into her. In those long hours she suffered not only her own reproaches, but the reproaches of the dead—of the dear ones she had loved in bygone years. From every corner they seemed to come—through the closed door and in at the curtained windows; troops of them—till she could bear it no longer, and dared not see the darkness that seemed to be growing white with their faces. But when she closed her eyes it was no better: they came a little closer and touched her with their hands, as if they would push her a little farther into space; she was not fit to be among them. The friends of her girlhood, with whom she had played and shared her little secrets, came from the strange world into which they had carried the memory of their own blameless lives. They looked at her reproachfully, and went away; she would never be one of them now, even in eternity. And there was one more; she could see him coming softly through the shadows. He stood beside her, and she cowered and hid her face. Then she knew that he was sorry and understood that, in some grotesque manner, it had been done half for love of him. It comforted her a little to think this, while she turned her face down to the cushion, and sobbed, “Forgive me, I am so ashamed—so ashamed.” At last, perhaps, she would ache with fever and cold, and the sharp pains went through her again. She welcomed these almost lovingly, thinking that perhaps they meant the coming of the end; and gradually, as the morning broke, she would doze off into a weary sleep.

Sometimes a ghastly fear would seize her that Alfred Wimple was coming back. She could hear his footsteps going round the house; she fancied he was creeping beneath the verandah, that he was trying the window. He wanted to come in and strangle her. She could feel his long hands closing round her throat, and put up her own to draw them, finger by finger, away. It was not the killing she would mind, but the pollution of his touch.

Through the day she wandered from room to room—now looking at the table at which he had sat the last night of all; or seeing him, with his back to the buttery-hatch, eating the sole and the chicken she had brought from London; or standing in the doorway, when he came afterwards and asked her for the evening paper. She went to the window and looked at the garden, and the pathway down to the dip; but this was more than she could bear, and she would turn away and sit down by the empty fireplace again. She grew hungry once; a terrible craving for food came over her. She gathered some sticks together, and made a fire, all the time seeing strange visions and grinning fiends that mocked her. She took them to be the punishment of her sin—for sin she counted all that she had done—but in reality they were but signs of the illness and starvation that were contending for the mastery of her. She put a little water on to boil over the blazing sticks, and watched it greedily. She made some tea, with trembling eagerness, and found a new excitement in the strength it gave her; but when the fire had died away, and an hour had passed, she was prostrate again. Gradually she became so ill that she could scarcely drag herself from the drawing-room to the kitchen; the sense of being unfit to stay in the world grew upon her—a dread of seeing people, a haunting fear of some one coming to the door. But no one came through all those terrible days except, once or twice, Jane Mitchell, only to be told that “her services were not required.”

She thought of Walter and Florence sometimes, and was afraid of their coming back. She could never look them in the face again, or dare to speak to them, or see the children. Just as before she had exaggerated her own importance in the world and her own virtue, now she exaggerated her own disgrace. She knew what the women she had once despised felt like—“I was never lenient,” she said to herself. “I was very harsh, as if they had gone out of their way to do wrong. I ought to have shown them more clemency”—and as she said this, there came before her the face of Mrs. North. She sat and looked at it. “She was young, and there was excuse for her; and I am old, yet could not forgive her. I will make atonement now. I will write and tell her.” Her fingers were so weak she could hardly hold the pen, but she managed to put down a little entreaty for forgiveness. “I ought to have been more gentle to you,” she wrote. “I know that now, for I have been as frail”—she stopped and gave a sad little wink at the word—“as you. I know what your sufferings have been by my own, and can pity your humiliation.” The letter remained on the table—she almost forgot it; fever and blackness filled her life—she could scarcely walk across the room.

The morning brought the postman, with a letter from Walter and Florence. “Would you put a postage-stamp on this for me?” she said, giving him the one for Mrs. North. “I will repay you the next time you come; I have no change for the moment.”

She put the letter with the Monte Carlo postmark on the mantelpiece, and stood looking at the familiar handwriting, and imagining them together beneath the blue sky, Walter in high spirits, and Florence with her pretty hair plaited round her head. “Dear children,” she said. “He is growing more and more like his father.” She closed her eyes for a moment; her limbs swayed and gave way beneath her; and she fell from sheer weakness, and could make no effort to rise. Presently she pulled the cushion down, and lay on the rug again as she had on the night of Alfred Wimple’s departure. She did not know how the day passed—probably most of it went in forgetfulness. The next afternoon came, and she had not noticed the hours.

The click of the gate, and footsteps coming towards the house—Aunt Anne struggled up, panting, and listened—a quick knock at the door. She hesitated, raised herself to her feet by the armchair, and went out, but could not gather courage to undo the lock.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Let me in,” cried a voice that was familiar enough, though she could not identify it. She bowed her head—she was about to be looked at in all her humiliation—and, with trembling hands, opened the door.

Mrs. North walked in, with a happy laugh. She was perfectly dressed, as usual, and carried a white basket.

“My dear old lady,” she said, “what is the matter? Your letter frightened me out of my senses. I came off the moment it arrived. You poor old darling, what is the matter? Why, you can’t stand—I must carry you.” She supported the old lady back into the drawing-room—cheerless and cold enough it looked; that was the first impression Mrs. North had of it—and sat down beside her on the sofa.

“My love,” the old lady said, “I wrote to ask your forgiveness; it was due to you that I should, for I am worse than you. If I was harsh to you once, you may be harsh to me now.”

Mrs. North pressed her hand.

“But you are ill, dear Mrs. Wimple,” she said.

Aunt Anne looked up, with a start of horror.

“I must ask you never to call me by that name again; it is not mine. It is the symbol of my disgrace. It is my greatest punishment to remember that I ever for a single moment bore it.” And then she broke down, and, dropping her head on Mrs. North’s shoulder, sobbed as if her heart would break.

“You dear—you poor old dear,” Mrs. North said, stroking the scanty gray hair; “I can’t bear to see you cry—you mustn’t do it; you are ill. Who is here with you?”

“There is no one here. I am not fit to have any one with me. I am all alone.”

“All alone!”

“Yes”—and she shook her head.

“Then I shall stay and take care of you, and nurse you, and make you quite well again. You know I always cared for you, dear old lady”—and Mrs. North kissed her tenderly.

“And I treated you with so much severity,” Aunt Anne said ruefully.

“It was very good for me. And now,” Mrs. North said, in her sweet, coaxing voice, “put your feet up on the sofa; you are trembling and shaking with cold. Why, you have no fire; let us go into another room where there is one.”

“There is no fire in the house,” Aunt Anne answered. “The weather is very mild; moreover, the coal-cellar needs replenishing. I have not been sufficiently well to do it.”

“No fire!—and you evidently suffering from bronchitis. Oh, you do indeed need to be looked after. Have you no servant here?” Mrs. North was rapidly taking in the whole situation.

“No, my dear. I wished to be alone.”

“But this is terrible. We must set everything to rights. You appear to be killing yourself. I don’t believe you have anything to eat and drink in the house.”

“No. I have been too ill to require nourishment; I regret that I cannot ask you to stay——”

“Oh, but I am going to stay——”

“No, my love, I cannot allow it——” Aunt Anne began tremblingly.

Mrs. North looked at her, almost in despair. Then she took off her hat and gloves, and stood for a moment, a lovely picture in the middle of the dreary room, before she knelt down by Aunt Anne.

“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded, taking the two thin hands in hers; “you were always so good to me. I know that something terrible has happened to you; you shall tell me what it is by-and-by, when you are better. Now I want to take care of you; and you will let me, won’t you?”

“You shall do anything you like, my dear,” Aunt Anne gasped, too weak to offer resistance.

Then Mrs. North went out to the fly, which was still waiting at the gate, and found Jane Mitchell, who, attracted by the unusual sight, was talking to the driver.

“I want some coals sent at once, and a servant.”

“I was the servant, if you please, ma’am; only Mrs. Wimple said she didn’t want me,” remarked Jane.

“Then go in immediately and make a fire,” answered Mrs. North, imperiously; “and if there are no coals get some, from a shop or your mother’s cottage or anywhere else. There must be shops in the village. Order tea and sugar, and everything else you can think of. I will send to London for my maid and cook, to come and help you. Make haste and light a fire in the drawing-room. Where is my shawl? Here, driver, take this telegram; and order these things from the village, and say they are wanted instantly”—she had written the list on the leaf of a note-book; “and this is for your trouble,” she added.

“Now, you dear old lady,” she said, going back to her, “let me put this shawl over your feet first, for we must make you warm. Consider that I have adopted you.” In a moment she ran upstairs, and searched for a soft pillow to put under Aunt Anne’s head, and then produced some grapes and jelly from the basket which, with a certain foresight, she had brought with her. Aunt Anne sucked in a little of the jelly almost eagerly, and as she did so Mrs. North realized that she had only just come in time. “We must send for a doctor,” she thought; “but I am afraid that everything is too late.”

In twenty-four hours the cottage looked like another place. Mrs. North’s cook had taken possession of the kitchen; a comfortable-looking, middle-aged maid went up and down the stairs; the windows were open, though there were fires burning in all the grates. There were good things in the larder, and an atmosphere of home was everywhere. Aunt Anne was bewildered, but Mrs. North looked quite happy.

“I have taken possession of you,” she explained, the second morning after she came. “You ought to have sent for me sooner. In fact, you ought never to have left me. You only got into mischief, and so did I.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, feebly, “we both did.”

Mrs. North’s lips quivered for a moment.

“It shows that we ought to have stayed together,” she said, half crying. “Perhaps I should have been better if you had not gone. Oh, I shall never forget all you told me this morning.”

For Aunt Anne, in sheer desperation, as well as in penitent love and gratitude, had poured out the whole history of her life since she left Cornwall Gardens, and Mrs. North’s keen perception and quick sympathy had filled in any outlines that had been left a little vague.

“We know each other so well now, I don’t think I ought to call you Mrs. Baines any longer. I want to call you something else.”

“Let it be anything you like, my dear.”

“What does the Madon—Mrs. Hibbert, call you? But I know; she calls you ‘Aunt Anne.’ Let me do the same?”

“Yes, dear, you shall call me Aunt Anne.”

“Oh, I am so glad to be with you,” Mrs. North went on. “I have longed sometimes to put down my head on your lap and cry. I have been just as miserable as you have—more, a thousand times more; for my shame”—she liked indulging Aunt Anne in her estimate of her own conduct—“has been all my own wicked doing, but yours was only a sad mistake. I don’t think we ought to be separated any more, Aunt Anne; we ought to live together, and take care of each other.”

“My dear,” said the old lady, still lying on the sofa, “there will be no living for me; I am going to die.”

“Oh no,” Mrs. North answered, with a little gasp, “you are going to live and be taken care of, and loved properly. I wish the doctor would come again. Then I should speak on medical authority. Go to sleep a little while; I will sit by you.”

An hour passed. Aunt Anne opened her eyes.

“Could you put me by the fire, my dear? I am very cold.”

“Yes, of course I can; but wait a moment. Clarke will come and help me. Clarke,” she called, “I want you to come and help me to move Mrs. Baines.

“Now you look more comfortable,” she said, when it was done. “There is a footstool for your feet, and the peacock beside you to keep you company.”

Aunt Anne sat still for a moment, looking at the fire.

“My dear,” she said presently, “I have been thinking of what you said; we have both suffered very much; we ought to be together. Only now you have the hope of a new life before you. But we have both suffered,” she repeated.

Mrs. North knelt down beside her with a long sigh. “Suffered,” she said. “Oh, dear old lady, if you only knew what I have suffered; the loneliness of my girlhood, the misery of my marriage, the perpetual hunger for happiness, the struggle to get it. And oh! the longing to be loved, and the madness when love came, and then—then—but you know,” she whispered, passionately—“I need not go over it; the shame, and the publicity, and the relief I dared not to acknowledge even to myself, when I was set free. And then the awful dread that even he, the man for whom I did it all, would perhaps despise me as the rest of the world did. I am not wicked naturally, I am not, indeed; I don’t think any woman on this green earth has loved beautiful things and longed to do righteous things, more than I have, or felt the misery of failure more bitterly.”

“It will come right now, my love,” Aunt Anne said gently. “You are young; it will all come right. You said you had a telegram, and that he was coming back?”

“Yes, he is coming back,” Mrs. North answered, in a low voice; “but I do not want him to set it right because I did the wrong for him, or just to make reparation from a sense of honour. I do not want to spoil his life; for some people will cut him if he marries me; it is only—only—if he loves me still, and more than all the world, as I do him—that is the only chance of it all coming right. It is time I had a letter. But here is your beef-tea. Let us try and forget all our troubles, and get a little peace together.” She looked up with an April-day smile, took the beef-tea from Clarke, and, holding it before Aunt Anne, watched with satisfaction every mouthful she took.

“I fear I give you a great deal of trouble,” the old lady said gratefully.

“It isn’t trouble”—and the tears came to her eyes; “it is blessedness. I never had any one before to serve and wait on whom I loved; even my hands are sensible of the happiness of everything they do for you. It is new life. But now we have talked too much, and you must go to sleep.”

“Yes, my love,” and Aunt Anne put her head back on the pillow; “I will do as you desire, but you are very autocratic.”

“Of course.” Mrs. North laughed at hearing the familiar word, and then went to the dining-room for a little spell of quietness.

“Clarke,” she said to the maid who had been waiting there, “go in and watch by Mrs. Baines; she must not be left alone.”

Mrs. North sat down on the chair that Aunt Anne had pulled out for Alfred Wimple after her return from London.

“Oh, I wonder if it will come right?” she said to herself. “If it does—if it does—if it does! But I ought to have had a letter by this time; it is long enough since the telegram from Bombay. Something tells me that it will come right; I think that is the meaning of the happiness that has forced itself upon me lately. It is no use trying to be miserable any longer. Happiness seems to be coming near and nearer. I have a sense of forgiveness in my heart; surely I know what it means? Perhaps, as Aunt Anne says, all I have suffered has been an atonement for the wrong. One little letter, and I shall be content. The dear old lady shall never go away from me; she shall just be made as happy as possible.” She got up and went to the window, and leaned out towards the garden. “Those trees at the end,” she said to herself, “surely must hide the way down to the dip, where she listened. It is very lovely to-day”—and she looked up at the sky; “but I wish the doctor would come, I should feel more satisfied.” There was a footstep. “Yes, Clarke; is anything the matter? Why have you come? You look quite pale.”

“Mrs. Baines is going to die, ma’am; I am certain of it.”

“Going to die?” Mrs. North’s face turned white, and she went towards the door.

“I don’t mean this minute, ma’am; but just now she opened her eyes and looked round as if she didn’t see, and then she picked at her dress as dying people do at the sheet—it’s a sure sign. Besides, she is black round the mouth. I don’t believe she will live three days.”

Mrs. North clasped her hands, with fear.

“I wish she would stay in bed; the doctor said she ought to do so yesterday; but she seemed better, and begged so hard to come down this morning that I gave way.”

“It’s another sign,” said the maid; “they always want to get up towards the last.”

“The doctor promised he would be here by twelve, and now it is nearly two.”

He came an hour later. “She must be taken upstairs at once,” he said; so they carried her up, Clarke and the doctor between them, while Mrs. North followed anxiously; and all of them knew that Aunt Anne would never walk down the stairs again.

Then a telegram was sent to Florence and Walter at Monte Carlo.

But she was a little better in the evening, and Mrs. North brightened up as she saw it. Perhaps Clarke was a foolish croaker, and signs were foolish things to trouble one’s self about. The old lady might live, after all, and there would be some happiness yet.

“No, Aunt Anne, you are not going to get up yet,” she said next morning, in answer to an inquiring look; “you must wait until the doctor has been; remember it is my turn to be autocratic.”

“Yes, my love,” and she dozed off. Half her time was spent in sleep. Since Mrs. North’s arrival there had stolen over her a gradual contentment, as if a crisis had occurred, and the blackness of the past grown dim. Perhaps it was giving place to all that was in her heart, or to the sound of Mrs. North’s fresh young voice, and the loving touch of her hand. Be it what it might, Alfred Wimple and the misery that he had caused seemed to have gone farther and farther away, while peacefulness was stealing over her. “It is like being with my dear Florence and Walter,” she said to Mrs. North once—“only perhaps you understand even better than they could, for you have gone through the pain.”

“Yes, dear Aunt Anne, I have gone through the pain”—and Mrs. North sat waiting for the doctor again, not that she was very uneasy to-day, for the old lady was a little better, and hope grows up quickly when youth passes by.

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