CHAPTER XI

NEVER SENT!

"MOTHER, I've got a letter from Euphrasia!" Kenred burst into the house as he spoke, sending the words in advance of himself.

"A letter from Euphrasia!" repeated Flo in his rear, and her pretty little face was flushed with delight.

"At last!" A faint suspicion of hurt feeling might be detected in the tone. Nobody had expected that the absent member of the household would allow almost a whole fortnight to elapse with no further communication than a scribbled statement of her safe arrival.

"And the queer part of it is, mother, that she doesn't say one word about why she hasn't written, or what she has been doing. Not one word! She only wants to know why 'we' haven't written, and says she is afraid somebody can't be well."

"Your father is not well of course. He hasn't been for weeks and months past, and she knows it. Besides, I told her in my last letter that he did not seem particularly better."

"But she says she has not heard at all." The boy flung himself down on the sofa, beside Mrs. Mackenzie and her mending-basket. "You'll see. There is the letter. Couldn't be much shorter. Eyebright is a funny girl, isn't she? One might think 'she' had been sending heaps of letters all the time."

"But I wrote last. I have written twice, and she has never answered either of my letters."

"I don't believe Euphrasia is enjoying herself one bit," murmured Flo, when Mrs. Mackenzie had perused the short note, and had pronounced it unsatisfactory. "She writes in such a dull sort of way, and she doesn't say a word about anything or anybody there."

"As likely as not, she is disappointed with her friend. Euphrasia would never confess that she had been taken in. Girls never do! I don't think the note does sound very happy: but she will manage to get some enjoyment out of her visit. If not, why should she stay on, and not come home sooner? I cannot understand about the letters. Not had a single one from anybody, since three days after she left! Well, if she had not, she hasn't written either! But she forgets."

"Flo and I made up a long letter to go with yours last week, mother—a joint concern. She couldn't have forgotten that. It was the day you had such a long call from old Mr. Brown."

A recollection came to Mrs. Mackenzie, summoned up as such recollections often are, by a passing word. She started up, opened a drawer, and after some rummaging drew thence a stamped and addressed envelope.

"How stupid of me! I remember now. Your speaking of Mr. Brown brought it back. When he came, I popped the letter in here to be safe, meaning to post it directly he was gone. Somebody must have pushed it out of sight afterwards, and I declare I never thought about it again until this moment."

"Poor Euphrasia!" exclaimed Flo.

"My dear, if she had taken the trouble to write home just a little oftener, we should soon have found out about it." Mrs. Mackenzie really had been pained by her eldest's prolonged silence.

"Shall I post it now?" asked Ken.

Mrs. Mackenzie debated, then wrote outside—"Just found this; ought to have gone off days ago."

"Yes, do, Ken; and some of us will write in a day or two. I really can't to-day; I have so much to do. And there is Mrs. Landor coming in; so run away, Flo dear, because I want to speak to her particularly."

Flo obeyed. And Mrs. Mackenzie received her visitor with a careworn expression, quite unconsciously and involuntarily assumed. Mrs. Landor was at all times so absolutely at leisure, so free to hear her friends' worries, and to bestow sympathy for the same—albeit with the sympathy went sometimes a less welcome word of warning, or even of reproof—that a temptation existed to make claims upon her sympathy, even without especial cause; and Mrs. Mackenzie occasionally yielded to this temptation. She did not so much as notice, being wrapped up in her own thoughts, that Mrs. Landor looked paler than usual, and that her air of kind attention was, to a slight degree, forced—as if the mind were trying to wander, and required reining in.

The note from Euphrasia had to be shown first, with sundry comments on its tardy arrival, on its limited contents, and on her wish that Euphrasia cared more for home interests, less for mere pleasure.

Mrs. Landor read the note, and said—"It does not give one the idea that she is having too much pleasure."

"Well, no. I always thought she would be disappointed with those people. But of course a good many things are going on—sure to be, in a place like Clifton—and she does not somehow find time to write to us as she might."

"She says nothing about the many things going on. How is Mr. Mackenzie to-day?"

This led to a fresh assortment of cares. Mr. Mackenzie was not at all the thing, not by any means well. He could not be described as positively ill, but Mrs. Mackenzie was very anxious, very worried about him. He had seen Dr. North again; and Dr. North, as usual, laid it chiefly to the state of his nerves—wherein Mrs. Mackenzie was not at all sure that the doctor might not be mistaken, as Mrs. Landor knew doctors so often were. But anyhow, Dr. North recommended a thorough change for her husband, some day soon, if it could be managed.

"And how we are to afford it, I am sure I don't know, and I can't imagine. Colin's income is not much, as, of course, everybody knows. And expenses are so heavy. And there's always something or other that must be got, whether one can afford it or no. It always seems to me every year that we shall never manage to fight our way through, or keep our heads above water."

"And yet, somehow, you always do."

"Well—somehow—at least, we always have, so far. But nobody can be sure about the future."

"Except that we have the absolute certainty that 'He' Who has cared for us in past years will never grow forgetful or indifferent."

"Oh, of course—I do try to trust. One knows one must, of course. But it is dreadfully hard to make both ends meet. And as for this idea of a change for my husband—I really don't see how it is to be managed. If it must be, it must, but I can't see how." Far back in her mind Mrs. Mackenzie was saying—"So easy for Mrs. Landor! Why, she only has to sit down and write a cheque, and there would be enough in a moment to take away all one's bother. She wouldn't even miss it. But people don't do that sort of thing, unfortunately. I wish they did."

"There can hardly be a 'must' for anything that is clearly impossible. Still, it would do your husband good. I do not doubt that his nerves are out of order, but it is partly the result of long years of work, and he has fairly earned a holiday."

"So Dr. North says. It is not a necessity, I suppose, exactly; only he would be ever so much the better for a thorough change. He is always so down-hearted now; not like himself. It may be partly Euphrasia being away and not writing. But he isn't as he ought to be; and Dr. North says a change would be the best remedy."

"If it is the right thing for him, you will see your way to it."

Mrs. Mackenzie counted this rather hard. She had been building a little structure of hopes, founded on Mrs. Landor's wealth and liberality, and the apparent collapse of that structure made her feel irritable.

"Of course it is the right thing for Colin to get away. It is not a question of what is the right thing, but of whether we can do it. It seems to me that most of the right things for us in life are just kept away from us for no reason at all."

"You do not really think so, Mrs. Mackenzie."

"I don't know why not—" rather faintly. "That is what I often notice."

"It is not my experience. But if a thing is kept from me, I am so sure that it is 'not' the right thing for me to have. We look at the question from different standpoints."

"You don't understand; you don't know what it really is," protested Mrs. Mackenzie, plaintive, because she felt herself in the wrong. "To have one's deposit getting lower and lower in the bank, and to know that nothing more is coming in for ever so long, and to see all the family needs, when there is no money to get what is wanted, and to have one's husband falling ill for want of a little holiday, and no holiday possible—at least, to know one can't rightly afford it;—oh, I dare say I ought to be sure that everything is always right, and it is very easy for people to preach, but—"

"It seems to me a simple opportunity for exercising a little trust—just to show that one knows 'Him!'" Mrs. Landor spoke in a curious dreamy tone, almost as if addressing the words to herself.

"People always talk such a lot about trusting. And it is generally those who don't need to trust, because they have got everything they want."

"Is that the case, I wonder, with any human being? Money anxieties are not by any means the only ones in the world. And few of us escape even them sooner or later, in one form or another." Mrs. Landor stood up, as if wishing to end the discussion. "Would you ask your husband to come round to the Rectory by-and-by if he is able. I should be glad of a few words with him. And, Mrs. Mackenzie, if I may make the suggestion, don't you think a more courageous spirit would be a happier one? It is such a help to feel absolute certainty in the Divine love which watches over us . . . I am not speaking out of ignorance of what anxiety means . . . But another day you shall hear more. We have used all the time that I can spare just now."

Mrs. Mackenzie had a dismayed sense of having stopped some interesting communication, and curiosity vied with something like fear. "Oh, do wait!" she begged, with about as much result as if she had endeavoured to check the inflow of the tide.

Mrs. Landor smiled, bade a kind farewell, and was gone.

"What does she mean?" inquired Mrs. Mackenzie of herself, no one else being present. "Is Mr. Landor ill? He didn't look so on Sunday. Why on earth couldn't she explain? I wish people would not be so puzzling. There comes Colin—what a pace. I have not seen him walk so fast for ever so long. He will meet Mrs. Landor; oh no, she has turned the other way, and doesn't see him. I do detest mysteries; and of course Colin will know nothing."

But Colin came in with an absorbed face. "I see Mrs. Landor has been here. Has she told you?"

"No! Told me what? She said she had not time to wait any longer. And she wants to see you presently. What is it all about?"

"I'll go, of course. Did she say when?"

"I don't think so. I don't know. Colin, what is wrong? Has anything happened?"

"Yes—"

[Illustration: "Is Mr. Landor not well? There can't be much the matter with him, or she would not be out. Besides, she seemed just like her usual self. Colin, do speak out. Make haste."]

"What? Do tell me!"

"The Landors—"

"Is Mr. Landor not well? There can't be much the matter with him, or she would not be out. Besides, she seemed just like her usual self. Colin, do speak out. Make haste."

"My dear, you allow me no opportunity. Mrs. Landor—"

"Yes. Go on! Make haste! O dear, you men are so slow!"

"Mrs. Landor—"

"Yes, I hear! Oh, make haste!"

"—Has lost pretty nearly everything she has."

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