CHAPTER XI

HIS LAST MESSAGE

IT was a cold, gloomy day towards the end of the year. Juliet, in the worst of her many possible humours, was lounging in an easy-chair by the fire, a yellow-backed novel in her hand. Her eyes looked dull and heavy; there was a flush on her cheeks that was not caused by the heat of the fire, and when she spoke her voice was very hoarse. She was suffering from a severe cold on her chest, which, much to her annoyance, had prevented her from taking her singing lesson as usual on the previous day.

Her mother, who sat with her knitting at the opposite side of the fireplace, glanced at her from time to time with an air of concern. She would have been much better in bed; but Juliet had absolutely refused to remain there.

"I do wish you would not look at me so, mother, every time I cough!" exclaimed Juliet, impatiently. "You need not think I am going to die just because I cough a little."

"My dear child, how you talk!" said Mrs. Tracy. "I only long to relieve your cough. Would you drink a little black currant tea if I made you some?"

"Oh, mother, don't worry me; you know how I hate all those decoctions. If only you would leave me alone."

And Juliet lay back wearily in her chair and took up her book again. It did not interest her particularly. Nothing interested her to-day. She was causing her mother a great deal of trouble; but she was far more troublesome to herself, and that not because her head ached, her chest was sore, and she felt ill all over. There was an inner discomfort that was far worse than her physical ailments. In her inaction, thoughts pressed upon her from which she would gladly have escaped. Her novel, exciting though the plot was, could not drive them away. Her own life-story was more absorbing to her at this time than any romance that human imagination could conceive. She found herself forced to review certain of her past actions, and to ponder their probable consequences.

Conscience had somewhat to say concerning these, and its remonstrances irritated her, though she would not own them to be well-founded. Then would come thoughts that were at once sweet and fear-inspiring' and visions of the future which sent the blood coursing more rapidly through her veins, and heightened the fever with which her whole frame was throbbing.

Her mother, watching her as she tossed from side to side of the big chair and breathed many a deep-drawn sigh, half divined that the restlessness was mental as well as physical. For several weeks, she had felt instinctively that her child was keeping something from her. It gave the mother's heart intense pain to think that Juliet was withdrawing her confidence, bus she would not attempt to force it. She waited, hoping and believing that Juliet would soon of her own accord confide to her whatever it was that troubled her.

"There are your sisters," said Mrs. Tracy, as the sound of the house door being opened by a latch-key reached her ears.

Juliet muttered something unintelligible. She had reasons of her own for not welcoming the return of Hannah and Salome, who had been taking afternoon tea with Mrs. Hayes at the rectory.

The next minute they entered the room; Salome rigidly neat in her deaconess-like dress, and Hannah well but soberly dressed, and looking very big, strong, and imposing in her warm mantle and velvet bonnet.

"Well, dears," said Mrs. Tracy, in her cheerful tones, "have you had a nice time?"

"I cannot say that it has been particularly pleasant," replied Hannah, in her distinct, deliberate utterance. "We are later than we thought we should be; but Mrs. Hayes asked us to stay a little while after the others had left. She had something to say to us."

It seemed to Juliet that Hannah looked at her as she spoke with peculiar significance in her glance. The immediate effect of the glance was to drive the girl into irritable speech.

"Why can't you shut the door after you when you come into a room, Salome?" she demanded. "There is a most frightful draught coming to me."

"You should have stayed in bed, if you feel every current of air so," said Hannah. "The room is already a great deal too warm to be healthy. Ah, I thought so," she added, as she consulted a small thermometer hanging against the wall, "seventy degrees! That is a great deal too high."

"I don't care whether it is seventy or eighty," muttered Juliet, "I mean to be warm. Oh, mother, don't fidget with that screen!" she exclaimed impatiently, as Mrs. Tracy tried to adjust the screen behind her chair so as to shelter her more effectually. "I do wish you would let me have a little peace."

"You are very ungrateful, Juliet," said Salome, as Mrs. Tracy moved quickly back to her place with a look of pain on her face; "mother has been doing nothing all day but wait upon you, and that is how you speak to her!"

Juliet hated herself for her impatient utterance as soon as it had passed her lips. But her sense that it was deserved did not make her less disposed to resent Salome's injudicious speech.

"It was your fault that mother rose to move the screen," she retorted, "for you left the door open. We were comfortable enough till you came in."

"Oh, hush, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Tracy, dreading a scene.

The heavy double knock of the postman resounding through the hall afforded a welcome diversion. Salome went out quickly, to find what he had brought. She came back into the room with two letters in her hand. One she gave to her mother; the other, after scrutinising the address with a deliberation that aroused Juliet's ire, though for once she deemed it wise to restrain, she handed to Juliet.

The girl's colour deepened as she looked at it. It was but too evident that the air of indifference with which she thrust it into her pocket and turned again to her novel was assumed.

The sisters looked at each other.

"What book are you reading, Juliet?" asked Hannah, bending forward to read the title on its back. "Oh, how can you waste your time reading such rubbish?"

"It is not rubbish," said Juliet stoutly, "it is a splendid tale."

"Utter trash, if not worse," said Hannah. "I hate to see such a book in our house."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Juliet warmly. "There is no harm in the book."

"I am afraid there can be little good," said Hannah. "What a pity you do not read something more elevating! I wish I could persuade you to join our society."

Hannah was the secretary of a "Society for the promotion of solid reading."

"I thank you," said Juliet drily; "I have not the least desire to do so. This kind of reading is quite solid enough for me. I find uncle's theory with respect to a light diet excellent when applied to the mind."

At this moment, Mrs. Tracy looked up from the letter she was reading to exclaim, "Oh, Juliet! Your poor uncle! He is very ill. Mrs. Carroll has written to tell me so."

"Mother!" And the next moment Juliet was by her mother's side, and eagerly trying to read the letter.

It was the letter of a person to whom the inditing of an epistle was a rare and difficult undertaking, and it told its story with much circumlocution and apparent irrelevance. Its purport, when at last they succeeded in grasping it, was to this effect. Some days earlier, Mr. Tracy had been caught in a heavy shower, and had taken a severe chill. But he had refused to keep his bed, and had spurned all the remedies which Mrs. Carroll's wisdom could suggest. He grew steadily worse, but would not own that he was ill. Even when he was obliged to keep his bed, he would not allow his landlady to send for a doctor, or to acquaint his friends with his condition. But to-day he was so much worse as to be unconscious, and Mrs. Carroll had taken upon herself the responsibility of summoning a medical man; and now, having with some difficulty discovered Mrs. Tracy's address, she wrote to inform her of his illness.

"What a pity she did not telegraph!" said Hannah. "But these uneducated people always do such absurd things."

"I expect she was afraid of frightening me," said Mrs. Tracy. "It is very alarming, you know, to be summoned by telegram."

"She should have telegraphed to me," exclaimed Juliet excitedly; "I would have gone to uncle at once. I could have persuaded him to have a doctor. What will you do, mother?"

"I shall go to him, of course. I must go at once."

"I will come with you," cried Juliet.

"My dear child, that is out of the question. With such a cold on your chest, I would not have you go out for the world."

"Really, Juliet, you seem to have no common-sense!" exclaimed Hannah.

Juliet flashed an angry glance at her sister, but forbore to urge her proposal.

"I shall accompany you, mother," said Hannah, in her calm, deliberate manner. "It is not fit you should go alone. Already it is dark."

"Oh, thank you, dear," said her mother gratefully. It was good in moments of agitation and uncertainty to lean upon Hannah's strong, practical sense.

They went away to get ready, and Juliet sank on to a chair, coughing with renewed violence. She was really distressed to think that the kind old man whom she had learned to love, whilst laughing at his foibles, should be so ill.

After a little while, Salome slipped out of the room, and went upstairs to exchange a few words with Hannah in private ere she quitted the house.

"Shall you tell mother what Mrs. Hayes told us?" she inquired, with some eagerness.

"Certainly not," replied Hannah; "she has enough to worry her now without that. You, of course, will say nothing to Juliet about it. Mother must hear it first."

"Yes," said Salome; "shall you tell her to-morrow?"

"That will depend upon circumstances," said Hannah sententiously. "We do not know what to-morrow may bring forth."

"Do you know," said Salome, "I believe the letter which came for Juliet just now was from that Chalcombe girl. I saw her writing once in a book she lent Juliet, and I feel sure the writing on that envelope was the same."

"Very likely," said Hannah; "it was clear from the haste with which Juliet pocketed the letter that she did not wish us to know anything about it."

Juliet was coughing when her mother came into the room to say good-bye to her.

"My dear child," she said tenderly, "I cannot bear to hear you cough so."

"You will take care of her, Salome," she added, addressing the daughter who had followed her into the room. "See that she has something hot when she goes to bed."

"If she will let me," said Salome; "Juliet is not generally very ready to take my advice."

"I shall go to bed immediately," said Juliet, her manner plainly showing that she thought an evening in bed preferable to one spent in Salome's company.

"That will be the best thing to do," said her mother quickly. "Good-bye, darling. You must think of your poor uncle, and pray for him. If I find him very ill, I shall probably stay the night, but Hannah will come back to tell you how he is."

So Juliet, subdued and saddened, went to bed, her thoughts following now a sombre and melancholy channel, very different from the thrilling fancies of an hour ago. She even forgot to read the letter which she had thrust so hastily out of sight when she saw that the writing was Flossie Chalcombe's.

Hannah returned home at night without Mrs. Tracy. She brought a gloomy report. Mr. Tracy was suffering from acute pneumonia, and the medical man who had been summoned so late to his bedside could hold out no hope of his recovery. The scant regimen to which for many years he had limited himself, had not built up a constitution which could well resist the attack of such a disease, even if it had not been left utterly unassisted at the commencement of the assault.

Juliet was distressed when she heard the news, and she lay awake for a long while that night thinking of her uncle. She could not bear the feeling of emptiness in the room, which her mother usually shared with her. She hated to sleep there alone, but not for the world would she have asked Hannah or Salome to bear her company; and it never occurred to either of them, though they saw that their young sister was really very poorly, to offer to do so.

For all her apparent courageousness, Juliet was not endowed with iron nerves. Every faintest sound that reached her ears during that night caused her to shake with nervous terror. When at last she fell asleep, she dreamed that her mother was dead, and awoke crying bitterly. The utter stillness in the room seemed to confirm the impression of her dream. Juliet longed for the morning to dawn, but fell asleep again as she watched for it.

When she woke, it was daylight, and a brighter morn than London often knows at this season of the year. The sun was shining: there was frost upon the windowpane. It must be very cold outside, and all the snugger and more inviting in consequence appeared the soft warm bed. Since no one urged her to do so, Juliet decided that she would remain in bed. Perhaps by to-morrow, her horrid cough would be better.

The brightness of the morning inspired her with hope. After all, her uncle might recover. He was not such a very old man. Doctors were often mistaken. Anyhow, she would not give up hope yet. And her thoughts took a cheerful range.

Suddenly she remembered Flossie's letter, which she had never opened. She sprang from her bed to find it; then nestling again comfortably amidst the pillows, she opened it.

To her surprise, the letter enclosed in the envelope was not from Flossie, but from Algernon. Her cheeks burned as she read it. He wrote to tell her how distressed he was at not meeting her on the previous day, and to implore her to let him know if she were ill. It was a lover's letter, though the feeling it expressed was conveyed rather by delicate insinuation and covert suggestion than in plain words. Juliet's heart beat quickly; she trembled with excitement as she read it. Her vanity was flattered by the homage so subtly offered. There were passages which she read and re-read, putting ever more and more meaning into each vaguely turned suggestive phrase.

She was half frightened at his audacity in writing to her, yet could not wholly dislike it. She should certainly tell him that he must never write to her again. But meanwhile it was sweet to hold this—her first love-letter—in her hand and dwell upon its words. It was pleasant to know that she had such a lover. All the morning the letter lay beneath her pillow, when it was not in her hand. She liked the manly style of the handwriting, so utterly different from Flossie's feeble flourishes. It was not easy to read, indeed; but even that seemed as it should be to Juliet then. She racked her brains to devise a safe hiding-place for this treasure. No eye save hers must ever look on it, yet she could not bear to tear it up. If she ventured to put it in one of her drawers, her mother's hand might some day light upon it; and Juliet shrank with a painful sense of shame from the very thought of such a possibility.

As she was pondering this difficulty, her uncle's sad condition for the time forgotten, Salome entered the room with a telegram in her hand. As she advanced to the bedside, her grave, solemn look told the nature of the news she brought ere she opened her lips.

"Oh, don't tell me!" exclaimed Juliet wildly. "Don't tell me that he is dead!"

"Perhaps you had better read the telegram, then," said Salome grimly.

Juliet glanced at the brown sheet, read the few words it contained, and dashed it from her. Then she threw herself face downwards on the pillow, drawing the coverlid well over her head. So Salome left her; but looking back ere she closed the door, she knew by the heaving of the bedclothes that Juliet was sobbing violently.

Some hours later, Mrs. Tracy came gently into the room, and approached the girl's bedside. Quietly as she entered, Juliet recognised her step, and turned her head. It was a sad, troubled young face that looked up from the pillow. As she met her mother's gaze the tears gathered anew in her eyes.

"You must not grieve, dear," said her mother gently. "His end was very peaceful."

"I must grieve!" cried Juliet bitterly. "I shall always grieve. It is too horrible to think that if—if only we had known before, it might have been prevented. That horrid Mrs. Carroll!"

"Come, come. You must not be too hard on Mrs. Carroll. She acted according to her light. She did not know what to do better."

"To think that he should die," sobbed Juliet, "just as we were beginning to know and love him—we, who never had anyone belonging to us before! And he was always so kind—and—and—to think that I shall never see him again. If only I had known when I was there a fortnight ago, that I should never see him again!"

"Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Tracy, "it is one of the saddest things in life, that we do not know when the last times are. Your uncle was conscious for a moments ere he passed away. He spoke of you. He, said, 'Give my love to Juliet, and tell her to be a good girl.'"

"Oh, mother," cried Juliet, sobbing bitterly as she threw herself into her mother's arms, "that is just what I never can be! Everything is against my being good."

"Nay, nay, dear. Everything is for us, when we seek to do right. All the powers of the spiritual world—God Himself is on our side, and what can withstand God?"

But Juliet shook her head despondingly.