Chapter IX: An Invalid's Whim

"God sets some souls in shade alone;
They have no daylight of their own.
Only in lives of happier ones
They see the shine of distant suns."

"MY DEAREST PAULINE,

"How can I begin my letter to you? I want to write sheets, and sheets, and sheets to make up for my long silence! And there is much that I could tell you, but which I cannot write. I have sent you one or two scraps before. My visit to Dr. Vernon seemed a failure. I tell you this now, though I kept it from you at first. I left him and tried to get work in London, and I utterly failed. Then he made a proposal, which I think will suit me. And I came back here to try it. He is an unmarried man with one sister, a good deal older than himself, who is rather a character in her way. What do you think she is doing? Writing an account of the Vernon family. They go back before the Conquest. She has been working at their pedigree for about five years. They have had pretty much the usual antecedents, I should think. A few have been great politicians and soldiers, but not many of very great note. But she is devoting all her life to their biographies, and Dr. Vernon, I can see, regards it as a harmless hobby.

"Did I tell you this is a big private school; and I am a kind of lady matron over the small boys' part of it? An elderly widow lady is the real head, but she does not do very much. She has what she calls her surgery, where she doctors the boys, and anoints their bruises and plasters their cuts. Someone is always in the wars, and it is a very useful role. I find plenty to do. I have the store cupboards and linen room in my charge; I am doing housekeeping, and I teach three tiny boys for two hours every morning, and help about twelve others with their preparation from six to seven every evening. I go out for walks with them, and I love them all, especially a very naughty scapegrace called Wriggles—his real name is Martin Price. His first act was to fill my boots with live snails!

"I never thought I could be so happy as I am. Everyone here seems to have the hearty, fresh cheerfulness of the boys with whom we have to do. I hardly ever set eyes on Dr. Vernon. But, oh, Pauline, how he preaches! I never shall forget my first Sunday. He takes the morning service in the boys' chapel, and a curate from the parish church conducts the evening one. It seemed such a strange congregation to me, rows and rows of fresh smiling boys' faces. He took for his text:

"'Without Me ye can do nothing!'

"I wish you had heard it. Of course, he spoke straight to the boys, and said that this would be a hard saying to them, as they all felt so sure of themselves and their future, so confident that they could get along by themselves, so angry at being managed by anyone, so eager and anxious to prove their independence. I tell you, Pauline, his words cut into 'me.' And then he went on to show how weak is our strength at its best, and what the real life of each of us ought to be, a life linked to Christ, like the links of a chain, impossible to be broken. It has given me such deep thought, for my life is not joined on to Christ's. It never has been, I'm afraid. Oh, how I wish I could talk to you instead of this dreadful pen and paper business! His eyes seemed to glow, and his whole face was burning with eloquence. The boys listened with open mouth and eyes. This is his style, very simple, but so wonderfully clear—

"'Without Me you cannot get your sins forgiven. Without Me you cannot enter heaven. Without Me you cannot be saved. Without Me you cannot resist temptation. Without Me you cannot please God. Without Me you cannot live straight, speak straight, and walk straight. "Without Me ye can do 'nothing.'"'

"And he took up every one of these points and dwelt on it, and my mind is in a tumult, Pauline, for the Second Person of the Trinity has never so entered into my calculations. I have tried to serve God afar off. The Son of God has not touched my lite or soul, or brought me into contact with Himself. So the whole of my twenty-five years of life has been wasted. I have lived away from Him Who said: 'Without Me ye can do nothing!'

"I always felt in my inner being that I was a fraud, and now I know
I am one.

"Well, what else can I tell you? Life is very full to me here. And my one desire has been gratified. There is the most splendid school library here. And I am allowed to take any book and change it as often as I like, so I am imbibing book lore voraciously. And I am cramming myself with all the necessary knowledge for helping on my small boys. I am rubbing up my Latin and French and history dates. I am dipping into the most entrancing biographies of men and women of whom I frankly confess I had never heard. I am beginning a course of philosophy, and want to grasp political economy.

"At eight o'clock, all our small boys are in bed. Mrs. Bonar writes letters and works. I devour my books over the fire. I feel, Pauline, I can say in the language of the Psalmist:

"'Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them
unto their desired haven.'

"I really felt battered to pieces in London with a genuine storm from
my West gate, and it is indeed a haven here.

"Do you think me very heartless, I wonder, to be so quickly pleased, when it is such a short time since dear father died? But that trouble lies too deep for me to touch upon often. It is there still. If only I had known he was going to be taken from me so soon, how differently I should have behaved!

"Now, after this selfish outpouring, how are you, and your mother? Do you miss me? I am sure you must. My passionate outbursts always tried you, though you pretended you liked them. Oh, Pauline, shall I ever go through life with that wonderful radiant serenity of spirit which you possess? You're always shining and glowing with happiness, and you've nothing on earth to make you so. I wish, I wish I could have a talk with you. Don't wear yourself to death, and do try to get undisturbed nights sometimes. I don't believe you ever stay in your bed for a whole night, and you ought to do so. Good-bye. Write to me. And if you see those inquisitive spinsters, tell them what I am doing.

"Yours very lovingly,

"AUDREY HUME."

Pauline read this letter over her solitary breakfast one frosty morning in October.

She was intensely relieved to hear from Audrey, for she had been very anxious about her. She had a letter from Honor a short time before, in which she mentioned having seen her.

"I am afraid Audrey is not finding it easy to get what she wants," she wrote. "She looked dreadfully thin and ill when I saw her. I suppose you know about her affairs better than I do. She only told me her father's friend had been a failure, and I don't think she wanted this mentioned. Between you and me, I'm afraid she is starving herself. It seems a dreadful thing to say, but she dined with me and I fancied she was really hungry—painfully so."

On the top of this, one of the Miss Blunts met Pauline in the village one morning.

"My dear, have you heard from Audrey Hume lately? Such an extraordinary thing! You know she went to that great friend of her father's, a Dr. Vernon. He wrote to my brother yesterday asking for her address! We have quite believed her to be either staying with him in London or doing work in connection with him. We have often said to our brother that it was very curious her going to London directly, but she has made a mystery of the whole thing. Of course, we all know how she panted to go to London! She was so very restless and excitable, and so extremely independent! But it is a terrible thing to think of her in London alone, and with no one to guide or advise her. Do you think she ever went to Dr. Vernon at all? One does not know what she might have done. He evidently knows nothing of her."

"I know she went to him," said Pauline quietly, "and I know she is in quiet, respectable lodgings. Audrey is old enough to take care of herself. And she has such energy and strength of character that she is bound to make her way."

Miss Blunt shook her head doubtfully as she walked away.

And Pauline had been uneasy ever since, though she did not show her anxiety to outsiders. Audrey's letter brought a bright smile to her lips.

"I knew she would find her feet. It seems the very thing for her. She never could have stayed on here. And I am so thankful she is busy and happy. Dr. Vernon has not failed her after all."

Here she was called upstairs to her mother.

Mrs. Erskine was slowly and gradually getting worse, yet no one saw it but the doctor and Pauline. She herself was more restless and irritable in consequence, and her active brain was always planning impossible projects which Pauline was obliged to quench, for the doctor had told her that her mother could not be moved.

"Pauline," she began querulously, when she came into the bedroom, "I am quite certain it is the unhealthiness of this house that is telling on my health. Mary has been telling me how damp her kitchen is. We never get a glimpse of sun, and I really feel inclined to go right away. I happen to have heard from an old cousin of mine this morning. You don't know her—oh, yes, you do. You stayed with her just before your father's death. Do you remember her?"

Could Pauline ever forget that memorable visit? Her pulses throbbed as she answered:

"I remember her very well. Cousin Bertha, you mean. She has been living abroad, has she not?"

"Yes, at Cannes. I feel inclined to go to the Riviera for a part of this winter."

"But, mother dear, you could not travel; and think of the expense!"

"I have a small deposit account at the bank which I could draw from. I am quite as fit to travel as many invalids. I certainly do not get better here. I seem steadily getting worse. It is the damp climate. I am sure of it. Don't set yourself against everything for my benefit, Pauline. You are an extraordinary girl. Anyone would think the idea of travelling would fill you with delight. But you seem quite content to live on here in this mouldy, wretched cottage from year's end to year's end. I cannot stand another winter here. It will kill me. Do you want me to get worse instead of better? It seems like it."

"Mother dear, I would do anything in the world to make you better, but I know a long journey would be too much for you. I know the house is rather cheerless in the winter. I had thought of cutting some of the trees in front. The branches must be lopped."

"Don't be ridiculous. A branch more or less couldn't affect my health. I will speak to the doctor about it when he comes. Is this his day?"

"No, he came yesterday. He will not be here till next Saturday, unless you specially want him."

"I do want him—at once. Write a note and leave it at his surgery. He will have it when he comes in from his morning rounds. I wish to see him this afternoon."

"Very well."

Pauline moved across to her mother's writing-table. For the next few minutes, only the sound of her pen was heard.

"Would you like me to take this at once? As long as he gets it before one o'clock, it will be time enough."

"You can read the paper to me first."

"What does Cousin Bertha say for herself?"

"She is not going abroad this winter. She says she is so well that she does not need to do so. I dare say if I had done as she has, I should be well, too. She has gone back to her house in London, and asks me if we ever come to town. She says something about liking to see me again."

"I suppose," Pauline said slowly, "that you would not like to ask her to pay you a visit here?"

"It's quite out of the question. Bertha is accustomed to luxuries. I should be ashamed to offer her such poor hospitality."

"But don't you think, mother, that as one gets older, one values society more than bodily comforts? She and you would love to see each other again. I could make her comfortable, I am sure. And if I remember her rightly, her tastes are very simple!"

"I should not think of beginning to entertain after so many years of retirement. I am not strong enough to do it."

"But—"

"How you do argue, Pauline! My head cannot stand it. You always want to do differently from what I wish. Are you going to read the paper or not?"

Pauline took up the "Morning Post," and commenced reading.

When she went out later to take the note to the doctor's, her heart was full of loving pity for her mother. She felt herself that in sunnier, cheerier surroundings, her mother's spirits, if not her health, would improve. Yet she knew the doctor would not hear of a move.

"If only mother would see some of our neighbours," she thought, "it would do her a lot of good. But she will not do so, and we are shut up together, and I know I am very dull company."

Yet all the time she was out, Pauline was using her eyes and ears for the benefit of her mother. Mrs. Erskine was always ready to hear about her neighbours if she would not see them. And when Pauline returned from the shortest errand, it was always:

"Well, whom have you seen?"

This morning, she returned to her mother's room with more than her usual animation.

"I found the three little Rectory children at the post office. Poor mites! They were quite alone. They told me Miss Paton was altering a dress for 'mummy.' And they were full of importance, having just posted a letter to Honor, to beseech her to come back to them! Chatty's fingers were through her gloves, and Minnie's thick, curly hair looked as if it sadly wanted a good brushing. I am afraid Miss Paton is a better companion to their mother than a governess to them."

"They ought to have Honor back. I consider it was a most selfish thing of her to do—to leave them in such a manner. It seems the one desire of every girl nowadays to get away from home. Did you see the doctor?"

"No, he wasn't in. I took pity on the children, and we all went to the pine woods and gathered some fir cones. I have brought some back for your fire. I knew how you liked them. It was quite delicious in the wood; the sun came out, and the hoar-frost on the larches and pines made the place look like fairyland. A robin was singing as we left; I do wish you could have heard him. Coming home, I met Mrs. Daventry walking with one of the Miss Blunts. I was glad to give them news of Audrey. I did not tell you I had heard from her, did I?"

"You generally keep all your correspondence to yourself."

"Oh, mother! I haven't many letters, I assure you."

Pauline then told her mother the gist of Audrey's letter.

"Mrs. Daventry was very pleased. She said it was so good for Audrey to have her hands full, and, mother dear, Mrs. Daventry asked me if I would go to tea with her this afternoon. Do you think you could spare me? I should not be away more than an hour. She has a tea-party, and wants me to help her entertain."

"You seem perpetually going out to tea."

Pauline had been three weeks without going anywhere. Mrs. Daventry had urged her so much that she did not want to refuse.

"Well, we will see," she said cheerfully. "I cannot leave you till the doctor has been."

Dr. Mann came at half-past three, and, as Pauline had feared, would not hear of Mrs. Erskine travelling. She was at first indignant with him, and broadly hinted that it was to his advantage to keep her from leaving. Then she dismissed him abruptly, and vented her displeasure upon her daughter.

"I suppose you have been talking to him and persuading him to prevent the move. But I shall not submit to be managed by either of you, and if I do not go abroad, I shall go up to London. I have wanted to see a specialist for some time. I am convinced that Dr. Mann is treating me quite wrongly. These country practitioners have neither knowledge nor experience. I meant to have gone to him long ago, but you managed to prevent it. This quite decides me. Now I want you to write to Bertha for me. My talk with that obstinate, ignorant man has quite unnerved me. Ask her if she knows of any quiet lodgings near her, and tell her how we are situated here, and how my health is getting worse instead of better."

"I suppose I had better not go to Mrs. Daventry's?"

Pauline spoke a little reluctantly. She very much wished to go, as there were two people coming from a distance who were old friends of hers.

"It must be quite four o'clock now. It is too late. You can't possibly want to go. Tea parties in this part must be the dullest form of entertainment imaginable."

Pauline said no more, but sat down to write the letter, and though she wrote from her mother's standpoint, she managed to let her old cousin see that the move would be a great risk.

"You see, mother," she said, turning round, pen in hand, "personally, I should love to go to London, but I dread a return of that pain for you. And it is only whilst you lie absolutely quiet that you have relief from it."

"I never have relief from it night or day. But I know myself better than anyone else. I will not stay here to die by inches, and I am perfectly strong enough to go up to town in a reserved compartment. I cannot afford to have doctors down. And I am determined to have other advice. Dr. Mann will find he has made a great mistake in opposing my wishes."

Pauline hoped that her mother's restless mind would change from her present purpose. But to her dismay, it did not, and day after day she reiterated her determination to go, until at last Dr. Mann said she was doing herself more harm by her ceaseless fret about it than the actual journey would do.

They accordingly, after much thought and preparation, moved up to quiet rooms in town. The old cousin, Mrs. Repton, did all she could to help in the matter.

Mrs. Erskine bore the journey wonderfully. Her strong will kept her up, and she did not flag until the visit had been paid to the specialist.

That was a trying day to Pauline. She dreaded lest her mother's unusually buoyant hope should be dashed to the ground by the doctor's verdict. She spent a very bad half-hour in the waiting-room. Her mother would not let her accompany her into the specialist's presence.

But when she came out, as impassive and calm as when she entered, Pauline impulsively sprang forward—into the consulting-room.

"I want to know what you think of my mother," she said.

The doctor looked quietly at her.

"She must go on as she is doing. A quiet country life with no excitement will prolong her life. But you must treat her as an invalid and humour her."

"There is no immediate danger?"

"Not at present."

"Is this all that you can tell me?"

Pauline's tone was desperate. She added.

"We think—our doctor and I—that she is getting worse. Is she? Please tell me. I know she cannot be cured."

"Her life may be prolonged by great care. I can say no more."

"And this is all we have got by coming to London and spending more money in a week than we should do in a month at home," thought Pauline, as she joined her mother.

Mrs. Erskine looked at her with a little laugh.

"Well, Pauline, did he say to you the same inanities that he said to me?"

"What did you expect him to say, mother?"

"That a little wholesome change would be good for me, that it was my circumstances which were to be blamed for my present state of health."

Pauline smiled.

"Instead of which he says that quiet is essential to you, and your present life your one hope."

"All doctors are humbugs," said Mrs. Erskine irritably. "I shall go home to-morrow."

That evening, Pauline went round to her cousin's house for an hour or two after her mother was comfortably settled in bed. It was the same house in which she had met Justin Pembroke ten years previously, and the memories that surged up in a flood almost overcame her.

"My dear," said Mrs. Repton, "you have grown into a grand woman. How proud your father would have been of you had he lived! He said to me once, 'My little Pauline will be an unusual woman, and I believe a very good one.'"

Sudden tears filled Pauline's eyes. It was not often that her father's name was mentioned to her.

"Can't you afford to get your mother a good maid?" Mrs. Repton went on. "It is wrong that you should be so tied to her sick-room. You are young yet, and youth soon slips away. You ought to be having your good time now!"

"I am," said Pauline, looking at her cousin with her clear, shining eyes. "I am having a good time every day."

"I can't follow you. Your mother has not changed. And I knew her very well in the old days."

"Oh," said Pauline, "I don't believe any of us ought to feel we are having a bad time if we are doing what we are meant to do. And in the country, Cousin Bertha, life is very full. There are so many that live round us, and whose lives we are bound to touch. I am very interested in my fellow-creatures. I always have been. And if my life is monotonous, some of their lives are not! Do I sound priggish?"

"Not at all. No one who leads the life you do, and who looks as you do, is a prig. Pauline, do you remember Mr. Pembroke? I once thought he was smitten by you, but you were taken away from me before it came to anything."

Pauline schooled herself to reply very steadily: "Yes, I remember him. Is he well?"

"He has been in the wilds of Australia for many years, and came home last week, and is in London now. You may come across him."

"We are going home to-morrow."

"What a pity! I might have had him to dinner, and asked you to meet him. You must marry, child. Have you any admirers down in the country?"

Pauline laughed and shook her head.

But when she returned to her rooms that night, she took herself to task for feeling her heart throb at the mention of one who had once been so much in her thoughts. The very fact of his being in London, of there being a possibility of a meeting, stirred her to the depths of her soul. She shook her head half-humorously at her reflection in the glass, as she stood before it plaiting her abundant golden hair that evening.

"Will nothing but the statement of his marriage with someone convince you that he has never had you in his thoughts?"

And then she went to bed and slept till she heard the usual restless call of her mother.