CHAPTER IX

WHAT WAS TO BE DONE NEXT

THOUGH Miss Perkins might say to Mildred, "Don't think," with reference to her isolation in the world, Miss Perkins made no effort herself to refrain from thinking. Without friends, and without a home. Did that also mean, without any means of livelihood?

It might easily do so. Miss Perkins was greatly exercised in spirit on this question. She had offered, under a sudden gust of pity, to take the shipwrecked wanderer for a few days, looking upon the arrangement as a transitory one; and when Millie, instead of rallying quickly, became worse, needing constant attention, she had buckled bravely to the task, devoting her time and her energies, with really few complaints.

She had received a cheque for five guineas from Mr. Gilbert, given out of his own slender resources; but five guineas would not cover the additional outlay in which she was involved; and though she know that others might come forward, she knew also that such coming forward was doubtful. People in general are glad enough to put off trouble and expense upon another. Money in Old Maxham could not be regarded as a plentiful commodity; and those who possessed any considerable amount of it—Mr. Mokes, for example, was credited with large savings—were by no means too fond of parting with the same.

For a few days, or for two or three weeks, Miss Perkins had met her responsibilities pluckily. But Mildred's words had now opened out a new vista. If Mildred had no home, no friends, no money, no means of livelihood, would Miss Perkins be expected to make her a permanent inmate of Periwinkle Cottage, without remuneration? That was the question.

Miss Perkins had begun to view her own action in the matter as foolish and impulsive; though she would have been the last to acknowledge as much to anybody else; and though, it is to be hoped, she would have done precisely the same over again, had the condition of affairs been repeated.

For a while these doubts only troubled her when she was away from Millie. In Mildred's presence such sensations had no weight. But as days went on, a feeling of provocation even there sometimes assailed Miss Perkins. Mildred was very feeble still, with no energy to arouse herself, or to think of plans and ways and means; and day after day she lay, spiritless and pale, just moving from the bed to an easy-chair, apparently content with her shelter and not in the least degree anxious as to how or by whom her needs were supplied. She was too utterly saddened to have room in her mind for personal cares. Miss Perkins began to think that the time was come when Mildred ought to bestir herself and ought to be troubled.

Another element also was entering into the question. Jessie had always been a light-hearted maiden; partly because life had hitherto shown to her chiefly its sunny side; but she was by no means without a share of that true womanliness, which happily few women entirely lack, and which means being drawn by the sight of suffering.

Only the most spoilt and the most selfish of women are repelled by sickness and sorrow; for in true woman-nature, there is a natural craving to give help where help is needed.

Miss Perkins had pitied most when Mildred lay powerless and unconscious. Jessie pitied most now that Mildred was awake to her own lonely and forlorn condition. And Jessie not only pitied, but loved. She gave her warm girl-heart first to Hero, and then unreservedly to Hero's mistress. Not many days passed from Millie's first awakening into full sense, before Jessie found an absolute delight in knowing her. To be left in charge of Mildred, it did not matter how long, was the best thing that could happen.

Miss Perkins perceived this, and the iron entered into her soul. She had done much for Jessie—had kept her from destitution, had given her a home, had supplied her requirements, had provided her with necessary teaching; but with all the amount of her practical kindnesses, she had never won her niece's heart after this fashion. If Jessie loved Miss Perkins, it was with a duty-love. There was no real clinging affection, no delight in Miss Perkins' presence, no craving for Miss Perkins' smile. The most Jessie commonly hoped for was to avoid a "fuss," to please her aunt so far as not to be scolded or grumbled at.

To see this passive stranger winning in a week what Miss Perkins had failed to win in fourteen or fifteen years was a bitter pill. Miss Perkins did not make allowance for the eccentricities of a young girl's fancy; still less did she allow for the repellent effects of her own dry manner and uncertain temper. She said nothing, and only nursed her annoyance in private; but the jealousy threatened to colour her after-relations with Mildred. As the invalid grew stronger, Miss Perkins became more tart; reverting to the mode of speech and action usually characteristic of her, with some added acidity from the cause above mentioned.

Jessie saw the change, and did not divine its root. She never dreamt of such a possibility as that Miss Perkins could be greedy of warmer love from the niece whom she systematically snubbed, and whom she always seemed to regard as an unwelcome burden.

"Aunt Barbara care!" she would have exclaimed, had the idea been suggested to her. "Oh, that isn't her way at all. She only wants not to be bothered."

But it was very much Miss Perkins' way, only always below the surface.

Mr. Gilbert was still entirely laid aside, able to sleep little with the ceaseless pain of his crushed arm, and altogether in a state of great exhaustion. His sister had come from a distance to assist in nursing him; and though he had repeatedly inquired after Millie, and had sent many kind messages of interest in her condition, he was not yet fit for callers; so nobody had seen him except his own household and the doctor. The "mending" in his arm was exceedingly slow; and he had had a succession of relapses.

Jack Groates, on the contrary, although it was true that his leg had sustained a compound fracture, was doing well, lying in bed to be nursed by his cheery little mother. The bones were joining nicely, and he had had no "drawbacks" at all.

One way and another Jessie heard of Jack often; but naturally she was very busy at home, and after what had passed, she was sensible enough to know that it would not do for her to be perpetually running down to the Groates' Store with inquiries after him. Jessie had a due amount of self-respect, and she felt that she had to act with circumspection and with girlish reserve. She had thus far escaped an encounter with Miss Sophia Coxen. No whisper of gossip about herself and Jack had as yet reached her ears. It might be that for once Miss Sophia Coxen was restraining her love of talk. Jessie earnestly hoped that this was the case. But between Millie, Hero, and Miss Perkins, she found small leisure at this date.

"Folks 'll begin to think soon about coming to the sea," Miss Perkins one day remarked tentatively to Jessie. She had not made up her own mind what steps to take next, and a talk might clear the air of difficulties. In her present mood, if Jessie took one side of a question, Miss Perkins would instantly take the other side, out of sheer perversity. "And I shall be wanting my spare room."

"But—Millie!" Jessie exclaimed. Mildred's surname was now, of course, known, and people were trying to get into the way of calling her "Miss Pattison," after for two or three weeks thinking of her only as "Mildred." Jessie and her aunt had, at Mildred's particular request, kept to the Christian name, and Jessie had soon adopted the shortened form.

Miss Perkins' answer came with a snap. "Well, I s'pose she'll have to go. She'll be fit to travel soon, I s'pose."

"I don't believe she's got anywhere to go to."

Jessie's opposition was as good as a sign-post to Miss Perkins, who immediately took the reverse road to that indicated.

"She'll have to find somewhere, then. Anyhow, she isn't going to stop here. Don't you be a goose, Jessie. She's got letters this very morning. Of course she knows people. And she don't belong to us; and I'm not going to keep her, neither. It's little enough I've got to live on—and you to keep as well as myself."

Jessie was for the moment silenced. She did not believe that Mildred had any idea of moving at present; yet it could hardly be expected that Miss Perkins should undertake the support of this stranger, as she had undertaken the support of her own niece.

Miss Perkins had a nice little life-annuity of her own, the fruit of her father's careful savings in past days; and so long as she lived, Miss Perkins and her niece were secured from destitution. But the annuity was scarcely enough to keep them in comfort without the help of occasional lodgers; and since it would die with Miss Perkins, any small sum that could be saved she might naturally wish to lay by for Jessie's future. A third person could hardly subsist upon the annuity, and then, Hero's appetite was not small.

Curiously, though not so curiously as might seem at first sight, Mildred herself opened the subject less than two hours later. It was not so curious because the cause which had led to Miss Perkins' utterances was the same which led to her own. Millie had received two letters by that morning's post, and Miss Perkins was aware of the fact.

When Miss Perkins entered the spare room, big with ideas which contracted her face into a grim solemnity, speech on her part was forestalled. Millie took the initiative, saying, in her slow spiritless voice, the very words which Miss Perkins had been debating how to speak.

"Isn't it almost time for us to talk a little about my plans? I don't think—" with a faint tinge of colour—"that I ought to let things go on so any longer. Only I have dreaded having to face life again. Everything is so changed for me."

Miss Perkins was not good at the expression of sympathy, especially in one of her perverse moods. She cleared her throat, and stood gazing at Millie, sorry below, grim above.

"It did not seem as if I could let myself think sooner. But I know time is getting on, and I must not be a coward. Things have to be arranged. You have been very good to me, Miss Perkins."

Miss Perkins sniffed, and hoped she'd done her duty.

"More than your duty." This was a needless assertion, since no man can do more than his duty in any walk of life. Duty includes the utmost, and the utmost cannot be surpassed.

"But," continued Millie, "the spring is getting on, and I suppose—"

Millie came to a pause. Miss Perkins felt that the opportunity was not to be lost.

"It'll soon be the time of letting, if it isn't that now," she said.

"Yes; so I thought. How much do you get for this room generally?"

Miss Perkins replied with due caution. The price differed at different seasons. It was more in August than in June. It was more for a short let than for a longer let. She at length named two or three prices.

"And if the room were taken for the whole year round?"

Miss Perkins looked dubiously at Millie.

"I have not much of my own, but there will be a little—rather more than I have expected. I heard that this morning. Enough to pay for all my expenses lately, and—"

A murmur of disclaimer came. The better side of Miss Perkins rose uppermost. "She had not expected repayment."

"I am sure you have not; but that is a matter of course. I could not let you suffer for all you have done for me. This will not make any difference to my feeling of gratitude. I might have been penniless; you did not know that I was not; and it has made no difference to your action. But I am thankful to say that you will at least not be the poorer for what you have done."

"I couldn't take all you've got. I couldn't, and I wouldn't, and that's flat." Miss Perkins spoke in the tone of a deeply injured individual. If she had been uneasy before at the pull to which her generosity might be subjected, she was disappointed now to find that it would be no question of generosity at all, except as to the matter of intention.

"O no, you will not take all. I shall have a tiny income of my own—not much, but enough to pay for a room, and even to keep me going for a time with care. I must try to find work of some kind, so as to add to it, and perhaps to lay by a little. It may or may not be possible here, and I don't know what I may do by-and-by; but for the present I would rather stay quietly where I am. Will you let me do so? I shall feel that I am among friends, and I am not strong enough yet to fight my way in a new place. I am quite willing for the next few weeks to pay just what you would have had from other lodgers. If, a little later, I should decide to make it my home, we could come, perhaps, to some arrangement. You must not be a loser, of course; but I think it might repay you better to have a permanent lodger, even on rather lower terms, than to let only for two or three months in the year."

Miss Perkins had so often said exactly the same herself, that she could not contradict Mildred, dearly as she loved to contradict everybody. She hardly knew whether to feel pleased or not.

"An old friend of my father's, living in London, has asked me to go to him and his wife; but I do not think I could stand London, or life in a large noisy household. My home has always been in the country, and to go back to my old home would be too sad. Will you let me stay, at all events for a time?"

"It don't make any difference," began Miss Perkins: "but—but there's the dog."

"Ah, Hero! You don't like Hero, I'm afraid. Yet he does not trouble you, does he? If Hero goes, I go; but if you can put up with him, I shall be glad to stay. This room begins to look a little home-like to me. I must start afresh somewhere; I could not endure to go back to all the old surroundings. Everything would be so empty and changed. But Hero is the one thing left to me, and he saved my life. I could not part with him."

Miss Perkins was silent. In her heart she felt that if Millie could have parted with Hero, she would hardly have been worthy of the name of woman. Giving in was never easy, however, to Miss Perkins.

"Please think about it, and let me know," continued Mildred, after a break. "If you are willing, I shall send for the rest of my things from the south of Wales—just two or three boxes. The furniture was all sold before I went to sea."