CHAPTER XIII

SOMETHING FOR MILDRED TO DO

MRS. STOKES went back into her cottage, hugging Posie No. 2, and Mildred was on the point of starting for home, feeling very tired, and ready for nothing but rest. Before, however, she could turn her face in the right direction, another front door was flung open—that of the next little house, which had upon a brass plate outside an indication of "The Misses Coxen, Dressmakers," as resident there—and a plump little woman, with eyes aghast and dropping under-lip, stood in an attitude of dismayed appeal to the world in general.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed. And in her extremity of excitement, she began to dance from one foot to the other, wringing her hands. "Oh dear! Whatever in the world shall I do?"

"Can I help in any way?" asked Mildred, wondering what would happen next.

"Will you really? How good of you. But I don't believe I know who you are." Miss Sophy was far too flustered to recognise anybody unfamiliar.

"Never mind. My name is Pattison. Tell me what has happened."

"It's my sister, poor thing. We've been ever so hard at work all day; and she just got up to cross the room for a pattern, and I suppose she went too fast. Her sight isn't good, and she fell over a stool. I was too far off to be any help, and I suppose she bumped her head against the fender or the coal-scuttle. She seems half stunned, and she doesn't get up, and her hand is hurt. I'm all in a shiver at the thought of touching her, and I've got nobody to send for the doctor, for our girl is out, and I don't know what to do."

"A helpless sort of person," Mildred said to herself. Aloud she only remarked, "You had better take me to your sister."

Miss Sophy backed before her to the front sitting-room, talking volubly as she went. The room was strewn from end to end with unmade and half-made dress materials. Her sister half lay and half sat upon the rug, supporting one hand with the other and moaning distressfully, while blood ran fast from a cut across her forehead.

"You are hurt, poor thing," Mildred said, bending over her.

"It is my hand that is worst, and the pain's most dreadful," groaned Miss Coxen.

"Your right arm too. Yes, you must have come down with all your weight on this hand. I dare say it has saved you from some worse hurt. The cut on your face doesn't seem to be very deep. I see you must have fallen against the edge of that old coal-scuttle; it's as sharp as a knife."

"It might have killed me outright. I wonder it didn't. And Sophy never doing anything but stand and stare."

"Well, yes, it might; but you see it hasn't. Now, we must help you into the arm-chair, and then will see to your forehead and hand. Perhaps the pain will be better for a little bathing."

To Miss Sophy she said, "You must give an arm too, please. I cannot lift your sister up alone."

Miss Sophy obeyed, but in so limp and clumsy a style, that Mildred might almost as well have acted without her. When at the first outcry of complaint, Miss Sophy started back, leaving her sister a dead weight upon the other, Mildred, weakened by illness, nearly came down with her burden.

"That was wrong of you," Mildred said gravely. "Now please go at once for the doctor, and I will stay here till you come back."

Tiredness had to be put aside for the present. Mildred saw Miss Sophy off the premises, and then brought warm water to bathe the cut, tying it up with a clean pocket-handkerchief of her own. The hand seemed to be a more serious matter, and Miss Coxen was crying with the pain. Mildred bathed it gently pending the doctor's arrival.

"I'm sure I can't think how ever I did it," Miss Coxen said plaintively more than once. "It was being in a hurry, I suppose. We'd promised a new dress to Miss Gilbert this week, and there was something else to finish off first; and Sophy is so slow. Oh! Don't touch—please don't touch me there. Just let the water run over my hand, that's all. Sophy could never do this. She always flusters and hurts people. I do hope the doctor won't touch my hand. I couldn't stand it, if he did; I should have to scream. I wonder how soon I shall be able to work again?"

When Mr. Bateson walked in, a certain amount of "touching" was of course inevitable; and not of touching only, since the thumb proved to be badly dislocated. Putting it right meant no doubt considerable pain, and Miss Coxen did not fail to carry out her promise of screaming.

"Come, come! That isn't quite needful," Mr. Bateson observed. "Rather bad at the moment, but soon over. You'll have to keep this hand in a sling for a while, and give it complete rest. How long? Oh, for some little time. I'll come again to see how it is getting on. Work in two days? Dear me, no; nor in two weeks. Of course a great deal depends on strict attention to orders. I shall look in soon; and meanwhile you've got to take a holiday."

Miss Coxen wore an expression of dismay, and Miss Sophy's loose mouth dropped open, while Mr. Bateson turned his attention to Mildred, who had long been his patient.

"When did you come in here?" he asked.

"Perhaps half-an-hour before you did."

"Well, you have to go home now. Any hot water handy?" he demanded of Miss Sophy. "Get a cup of tea for Miss Pattison, please, as quick as you can."

Mildred protested, but the doctor refused to listen; and Mr. Bateson waited till the feat was accomplished.

"That's right," he said. "Now you'll get back without collapsing. Best thing you can do is to go to bed and get rested. No particular use in falling ill again."

He stood drawing on his gloves, and Mildred remarked, "I think I must have come across a friend of yours to-day in the churchyard. A nice-looking man, rather old, with grey hair. Is he one of your patients?"

"What makes you suppose him to be so?"

"Somebody said that he was."

"Well, I shouldn't wonder if he is—one of my inmates, at all events. 'Patient' is an ambiguous term. Willoughby arrived two days ago, and it sounds like Willoughby. If he isn't old and benevolent, he manages to appear like both."

"What is the matter with him? Not a mental case surely?"

"Not what you mean by a mental case. Been working too hard, and come down for a week's rest. That's about all. I heard of him through a friend, and had a spare room to offer."

"Then he will soon be off again. I liked him."

"So do I, thus far. Now, Miss Pattison, I must be off, and you have to go straight home."

Mildred did not protest. The doctor turned to Miss Sophy with one or two parting directions for the management of her sister, and Miss Sophy listened with an air of hopeless incapacity.

"It doesn't matter; I understand," said Miss Coxen. "Sophy always was a goose about anybody being ill. But I shall do, somehow. I wish I had you to nurse me," she added to Mildred.

"You'll manage well enough," the doctor assured her. "It's chiefly a matter of keeping the hand quiet." Then he said good-bye and vanished, and Mildred rose to put on her mantle.

Miss Sophy indulged in another sigh, and wondered whatever in the world they were to do.

"There's that new dress for Miss Gilbert that isn't so much as begun to be cut out yet," she said; "and it was promised by the end of the week. I shall never manage it alone, I'm quite sure. And Alice Mokes' gown too, and Mrs. Mokes' old one that's got to be turned."

"Alice Mokes won't mind waiting, if her mother doesn't mind. Oh dear, my poor hand! But I know Miss Gilbert can't wait. She's leaving the Vicarage on Monday for a fortnight, and she wanted this dress particularly. Well, we shall just have to tell her that it can't be done."

"And then she'll go to somebody in New Maxham, and we shall lose a good customer," complained Miss Sophy. "And so pleased as we were to get her too!"

Miss Coxen looked towards Mildred, and Miss Sophy blinked.

"I wonder if it wouldn't do," cogitated Miss Coxen, and Miss Sophy began to dance anew with excitement.

Mildred roused herself from a fit of thought to the consciousness of being talked about.

"I think I could help you, if you like," she said. "I mean, if Miss Gilbert is willing. You could let me have the stuff and I would make it up for her."

"But perhaps you mightn't do it rightly, and we should be blamed," objected Miss Sophy.

Mildred smiled.

"I'm not afraid of the risk, if you are willing."

"Miss Gilbert was in a great hurry for the dress, and she might consent," admitted Miss Coxen. "She said her regular dressmaker in London was ill; and, dear me! It seemed quite a Providence for us. And now it's all upset. I can't think how ever I could do such a silly thing as to tumble over that footstool."

Miss Sophy could not think it either, and she said so in plain terms, whereupon Miss Coxen began immediately to defend herself.

"Do just as you like about it," broke in Mildred. "If you are willing, and if Miss Gilbert does not mind, I will do my best to have the dress made in time. I must go home now, and you can let me know to-morrow morning. Terms? I do not ask any payment. Of course I hope to find work by-and-by, and to be paid for it; but this is merely to help you through a difficulty. It will be a pleasure to me."