Chapter XXII: In Dire Straits

"I do not ask my cross to understand,
My way to see;
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand
And follow Thee."—Adelaide Procter.

"SURELY it is Jean Desmond? How strange that I should not have run up against you before. I have been in town for six weeks. Are you still studying art?"

It was Meta Worth. She met Jean out of doors one day, and was looking very bright and pretty. Jean was conscious of her own shabbiness by the side of this stylish young woman.

"Yes," Jean responded. "I am working hard now, for I am obliged to."

"I saw your grandfather's death in the paper, and strangely enough I know your cousin, Mr. Oxton. He is a great friend of some friends of mine, and last time I met him, we discovered that you were a link between us. Am I to congratulate you?"

"Certainly not," said Jean, with hauteur.

Meta laughed.

"The great charm about Mr. Oxton is that he is so absolutely natural and confiding. He told me that it was a question of time with you, and I think you are very fortunate—your old home and inheritance waiting for you, and an awfully good sort of husband in the bargain."

"Have you been to Scotland lately?"

"Yes, I came from Aunt Helen's to town. I really meant to find you out, for I was charged with messages for you, but I have been simply bewildered with engagements."

"How is Sunnie?"

"Isn't it a miracle about that child? She is going through a course of massage at present. Has a massage nurse, who fights with the old one like anything! Aunt Helen seems a different being. I suppose it is Sunnie's cure that has brightened her up so. She is bound up in her child, of course, but in a different way, and has lost that iron inflexible look in her face and tone."

"Did you see anything of Mrs. Fergusson?"

"As much as usual. Why doesn't she take to me, I wonder? She won't ask me to stay with her, and I hear that she has even asked you."

Jean laughed. There was something very frank about Meta with all her society airs.

"Perhaps she knows that it isn't her society that you covet."

"George is in town," said Meta, with a little answering laugh. "He is as devoted as ever, but this is in confidence. There is no open engagement, remember. We must wait. He has so little money, poor fellow!"

Then, she hurriedly bid Jean goodbye.

"I'll come and see you one day, but I must rush away now. I have your address."

But she never came, and Jean was not surprised.

In after years, Jean often looked back to this winter as the darkest time in her life. Her portrait of the alderman's wife was finished, but not to that lady's satisfaction. Her full-blown face was stamped with her plebeian origin, and the masses of jewellery and lace she persisted in wearing did not add to her beauty. She insisted that Jean should try to show it in the Academy, and when it was refused, she was so angry that she refused to pay for it.

"I do not consider it a likeness. I would never have dreamt of paying so much for a picture that wasn't going to be shown. I would never have given you the order, only I thought your pictures would be accepted for the Academy. You have had one in it. If mine was worth anything, it would be there. My husband says you have made me a fright. Unless you can alter it, I won't pay you for it!"

Poor Jean happened to be at a very low ebb at this juncture in her money affairs. And she found it necessary to change her lodgings and take one room in a much cheaper neighbourhood, where she waited upon herself, and could economise in many little ways. The change was not beneficial to her health, but she was thankful to be able to pay her way.

Eagerly and feverishly, she worked at a picture that she hoped would bring her in money. She had taken a Bible scene, and was depicting Hannah giving her tiny boy into Eli's keeping. The three figures showed power. The mother's heart seemed divided between the anguish of parting, and pride of giving up her son for such a service. Eli was drawing the boy gently away from his mother's lingering clasp, and the child had the big tears in his eyes and the frightened look upon his face that told how much the parting meant to him. The models she hired for this picture were an expense, but they were the means to the end, and she worked on, hardly giving herself time to sleep or eat. Her face grew thin, but her spirits were good.

"It is hard times," she said to herself; "but I shall weather through."

She had many nice thoughts over her painting. The subject itself interested her. She thought over various titles for it. "A Mother's Gift" and "Lent to the Lord" were her favourites. When she came back from her teaching at the art school, her eyes would brighten as she settled to her picture, and it was only when daylight faded that she permitted herself to rest.

One day she met with a slight accident. In opening a tin of sardines for her frugal supper, she cut her right hand very severely with the tin. She did not think much of it at the time, but bandaged it, and though for a few days it was very inconvenient, she hoped it would heal speedily. This it did not do, and after a great deal of pain and inflammation, she took herself off to a doctor. He thought rather seriously of it, and told her she must give her hand complete rest or he would not answer for the consequences.

Jean stared at him blankly.

"I cannot rest it," she said. "I live by it. I am an artist."

"I am very sorry, but I say emphatically that you must give up your painting till your hand is well. I do not want to alarm you, but it has every appearance of blood-poisoning. You must take plenty of nourishment and have complete rest."

Jean walked home feeling almost crushed. Then she threw up her head and looked away to the grey fleecy clouds that were passing overhead.

"It must be all right for me," she said. "I am in God's keeping. He knows best. 'I will trust, and not be afraid.' She went into her forlorn little room. Lately, she had been feeling so tired and unfit, that she had rather neglected its appearance. She sank into a chair and looked round her.

"Oh, what would I give to see some one walk in with a cup of tea ready made!"

She felt too tired to get out of her chair and light her small oil-stove, but after making an effort to get her kettle to boil, she thought she would go straight to bed.

"I may feel better to-morrow."

Half an hour later, a little girl, her landlady's child, came up to the door.

"Please, miss, a gent wants to see yer. He giv' me this 'ere bit o' card."

Jean took it and read, as she expected—

"Mr. Charles Oxton."

Underneath was a pencil line—

"Must see you. Won't keep you a minute."

Jean's eyes looked wistful. It would be nice to see some one who might be able to help her; and how Charlie would help!

As she thought of the quantity of good things he would order in, and the money he would spend on her, she set her lips firmly together.

"I can give him nothing in return. I mustn't see him, I cannot."

She asked the child to take him a message, and wrote a note at once, sitting up in bed as she did so.

"DEAR CHARLIE,—Excuse shaky writing, it is my left hand. I have hurt my right one. I am sorry I cannot see you, but I am not very well, and have gone to bed. I shall be all right again soon. Leave a note with my landlady, if it is anything particular."

"Yours in haste,"
"JEAN."

The little girl stumped downstairs, but Jean's quick ears caught the sound of a very long colloquy on the doorstep, and her landlady's shrill tones predominated. Then, at last she heard retreating footsteps on the pavement outside, and burying her hot head in her pillow, she felt for the moment that her last chance of relief had gone.

When the next day came, after a night of sleeplessness and fever, Jean found herself unable to raise her head.

All that day she tossed on her bed. Her landlady, Mrs. Sykes by name, a rough but good-natured woman, came up and attended to her, but when the second day came and went without any improvement, the landlady began to be anxious.

"I'd best call in a doctor, miss. You be almost light-headed at times!"

"Oh no," said Jean. "I can't afford it. I shall be better. I'm tired. I hope to be up again to-morrow. I am so sorry to be such a trouble."

Mrs. Sykes left her with ominous head-shakings, and Jean caught the murmur.

"She oughter go to hospital, an' she'll 'ave to it she don't get better, for 'tis more than a hard-workin' widder can do, with four days' charin' a week an' six troublesome children!"

Hot tears ran down Jean's cheeks. Her head was aching, and her hand throbbing and burning painfully. Her landlady's words seemed the last straw. Never in all her life, had the fact of her being without any near relations so come home to her.

"Hospital will be my portion and strange nurses, and I shall be a 'number' and a 'case.' I haven't a single friend in town. Not one that would prevent me from such a fate! I have prayed and prayed. I have been willing to do and be what God wills. Is this His will for me now? Or has He never heard me, and are my prayers in vain?"

It is in the hours of weakness, that the tempter exerts all his power. Jean realised this now, but she cried again to the One who was now testing her faith.

"Help me to be like Job. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.' If it is Thy will that I should die in hospital without any one knowing where I am, or what has become of me, yet come so close Thyself and wrap me so tightly in Thy arms, that I shall feel and care for nothing else."

And as she prayed a deep, restful peace stole into her soul.

She forgot that she was at her last penny; that sickness and want had stricken her down, and that even her landlady was wanting to get rid of her. A verse that had comforted her during these dark days came with fresh force into her mind:

"The eternal God is thy refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms."

And Jean had a wonderful realisation that she was in those wonderful arms, and that she could leave herself there without any fear.

Mrs. Sykes, downstairs, was now answering a sharp ring at the door. Opening it, she was confronted by a sweet, fresh-faced young woman who had her portmanteau on a cab outside.

"If you please, does Miss Desmond live here? She is ill, is she not? May I see her? I have come to nurse her."

"It's time some one did," said Mrs. Sykes volubly, "for she be half-starved, poor thing, and now redoocing herself with fever. These 'ere hartists be very slow at makin' a livin'. Can't do it nohow. Only comes to grief."

With swift light steps, the visitor made her way to Jean's room. She drew a quick breath, as she took in with one glance the bareness and poverty of her surroundings. Then she bent over the invalid. Jean was breathing softly, and a smile was on her lips, but her face, with its hot fever-flush, looked almost transparent, and her cheek-bones showed prominently through their thin covering.

"Underneath—the everlasting arms," she murmured. And then she opened her eyes, and a quick, surprised light of recognition sprang into them.

"Barbara! You! Oh, how good of God!"

Barbara steadied her voice, for she had been near tears, but she was well versed in a sick-room, and was quite aware of the necessity of self-control.

"Yes, dear, I have come to nurse you, and I shall not leave you till you are well again."

Jean took hold of her hand.

"Can Chris spare you?"

"Perfectly. You wonder how I knew about you? Mr. Oxton came down to us and told us. He is going to stay and help with the farm, till I go back. He loves farming, you know, and Mick will be very glad to have him. Now I must leave you for a minute, while I have my luggage brought up."

She slipped away, and after a few minutes' talk with Mrs. Sykes, engaged a room for herself next to Jean's. Then after depositing her belongings in it, she walked out of the house. Half an hour later, she returned with her hands full of purchases. Jean was drowsy when she came back to her, and Barbara did not disturb her. She turned her attention to the oil-stove, and presently came up to her.

"Now, Jean dear, here is some hot soup, which I want you to take."

Jean sat up and took it, asking no questions.

"I won't talk to you yet, Barbara. You are here, and I am so thankful. I will lie still and get well. Your soup seems to have given me strength already."

She dropped asleep, and Barbara began to make herself, as well as Jean, thoroughly comfortable. She was one of those women who understand that art to perfection, and in an hour's time, Jean's room looked a different place. Then she brought in a chair-bedstead from the adjoining room, and after having some supper, went to bed. Jean was rather restless, but she told Barbara the next morning that she had not slept so well for weeks.

Barbara kept her well supplied with nourishment, and in the afternoon, she felt so much better that she was able to sit in a chair by the window and talk.

"I can't thank you, Barbara. It is just like you to come off to London to nurse a girl who happened to stay with you once for a few weeks. Who but you would have done it? But you were sent at the right time, just when I wanted you most. I need not have feared."

"You ought to have let us know, Jean."

"I couldn't! You don't know all. I'm desperately poor; I am not going to worry, but I'm terribly afraid my painting will come to a standstill, and then, how shall I live? It is such a bitter disappointment to me about my picture. I could have finished it, and I think I was doing good work."

"Mr. Oxton was in a dreadful state about you. Jean, dear, may I ask you if there is anything—"

"Anything between us? Nothing, and there never will be. He does not know what he wants. I know. It is a wife, but it will not be me. I have told him so. And Barbara, you have been getting me lots of invalid food. We must settle up accounts."

"Now look here," said Barbara, laying her hand affectionately on Jean's shoulder, "I want to tell you something. Years ago, I put aside a certain sum of money as a nest-egg for sickness or misfortune. None of us have ever needed it. I am using it now for your benefit, and you can pay me back later on, when you are busy painting again. You will let me have this pleasure, will you not?"

For a moment Jean's pride rose, then she crushed it back.

"I will regard it as a loan, Barbara. You don't need me to say how grateful I am."

She choked back a sob, and added: "Barbara, you have been my salvation. I think I should have died, if I had been taken to a hospital."

"And yet I found you so happy," said Barbara thoughtfully. "Jean, you have something that I have not. And I believe you found it enough, when you had everything else wanting!"

"Yes, I believe I did," Jean confessed.