It was many days before Rhoda saw Miss Everett again, but, if she was
not admitted to the sick room, her mother was a frequent and welcome
visitor, and took entire charge of the invalid while the nurse fulfilled
her ordinary duties. There was little actual nursing to be done, but
the doctors were anxious to prevent solitary repinings, and to do what
was possible to raise the spirits of their patient. Evie's own mother
had come down for a few days to satisfy herself concerning her
daughter's condition, but had been obliged to hurry back to the
Vicarage, where the invalid sister was growing worse rather than better,
so that her presence could badly be spared. She was a worn, faded
edition of Evie, and looked so typical of what the girl herself might
now become that Rhoda could not bear to look at her. The two mothers,
however, became great friends, for they met with a remembrance of
kindness on the one side, and an overwhelming sympathy on the other, and
were drawn together by hours of mutual anxiety. In each case the worst
dread was unfulfilled, but what remained to be borne required all the
fortitude which they could summon. The Vicar's wife saw one of the
props of the home disabled for life, and Mrs Chester's kind heart was
wrung with anguish at the thought that her child had been the cause of
so much suffering. It seemed a strange dispensation of Providence that
she, the main object of whose life had been to help her fellow-
creatures, should have this burden laid upon her; but she bore it
uncomplainingly, striving to cheer the poor woman whose lot was so much
harder than her own.
Before they parted she broached a scheme which she had been planning in
secret, and, having received a willing consent, bided her opportunity to
lay it before the invalid herself. It came at last one chilly
afternoon, when Evie was laid on a sofa before the fire, as a sign that
convalescence had really begun. The knee was still bound up, as it was
not proposed that she should attempt to walk until the journey home had
been accomplished, and it was on this subject that Evie made her first
remark.
"I suppose," she began, looking at Mrs Chester with the brown eyes
which had grown so pathetic in their gaze in the last few weeks, "I
suppose I can travel now, as soon as it can be arranged. I shall have
to be carried about at each of the changes, and it must be planned ahead
in this busy season. I must speak to Miss Bruce, and ask her what I had
better do."
Mrs Chester bent forward and poked the fire in a flurried, embarrassed
manner; she knitted her brows, and her rosy face grew a shade deeper in
colour.
"Er--yes," she assented vaguely. "Of course; but Evie, dear, I have
been waiting to talk to you about something which has been very much on
my mind lately. We are leaving on Thursday, Rhoda and I, and are having
a through carriage and every possible appliance to make the journey
easy, and I thought that it would be so much simpler for you, dear, to
travel with us, and spend a few weeks at the Chase before going home!"
Evie smiled, with the languid courtesy with which an invalid listens to
an impossible proposition.
"It is very kind of you," she said. "Some day I shall be glad to come,
but not at present, thank you. I am not well enough to pay visits."
"But my child, it would not be like an ordinary visit; you should do
exactly as you would in your own home--stay in bed, or get up, as you
pleased, and make out your own programme for the day. You know me now,
and can surely understand that you need feel no ceremony in coming to my
house."
"No, indeed! You have been so kind to me all this time, that I should
be ungrateful if I did not realise that. I would rather be with you
than anyone else outside my own family, but--but--" the tears gathered
and rolled down the pale cheeks--"Oh, surely you understand that just
now I want to be at home with my own mother and father!"
"Yes, I do understand, poor dear; it would be unnatural if you felt
anything else; but listen, Evie, it is for your parents' sake, as well
as for your own, that I urge you to come. You need constant care and
nursing, and cheering up, and it would be very difficult for them to
manage all this just now. Your mother is overworked as it is, and has
already one invalid on her hands; but if you come to us, the whole
household will be at your service. My kind old Mary shall be your
nurse, and wait upon you hand and foot. I will drive you about so that
you can get the air without fatigue, and you shall have your couch
carried into the conservatory off the drawing-room, and lie there among
the flowers which you love so much. Every comfort that money can buy
shall be yours to help to make you strong again. I say it in no spirit
of boasting, dear, for we have been poor ourselves, and owe our riches
to no merit of our own. We look upon them as a trust from God, to be
used for the good of others even more than ourselves, and surely no one
had ever a nearer, stronger claim--"
Her voice broke off tremblingly, and Evie looked at her with a troubled
glance.
"Dear Mrs Chester, you are so good! It all sounds most attractive and
luxurious, and I am sure you would spoil me with kindness, but--would it
not be rather selfish? You say mother is overworked, and that is quite
true; but, all the same, she might feel hurt if I chose to go somewhere
else."
"Now, I'll tell you all about it," cried Mrs Chester briskly, scenting
victory in the air, and beginning to smile again in her old cheery
fashion. "Your mother and I had a talk about it before she left. She
felt grieved not to have you at home for Christmas, but for your own
sake was most anxious that you should come to us. She realised that it
would be better for you in every way, and the quickest means to the end
which we all have in view, to make you well and strong again. She left
it to me to make the suggestion, but you will find that she is quite
willing, even anxious--"
"Yes," said Evie, and lay silently gazing at the heart of the fire. The
downcast face looked very fair and fragile, but for the moment the old
sweetness was wanting. The lips were pressed together, the chin was
fixed and stubborn, outward signs of the mental fight which was going on
between the impulse to give way, and a sore, sore feeling of injury
which made it seem impossible to accept a favour from this quarter of
all others. The elder woman saw these signs, and read their meaning
with painful accuracy, and the exclamation which burst from her lips
startled the invalid by its intensity.
"Oh, my lassie!" she cried. "Oh, my lassie, be generous! You have been
sorely tried, and our hearts are broken to think of your trouble, but
don't you see this is the only way in which it is left to us to help?
Sympathy and regret are abstract things, and can do no real good, for,
though they ease our minds, they leave you untouched. My dear girl, can
you be generous enough to accept help from the hands that have injured
you? It's a hard thing to ask--I know it is; but I am an old woman, and
I plead with you to give us this opportunity! Let me be a mother to
you, dear, and ease your recovery in every way that I can. Money has
great power, and one never realises it more than in time of sickness. I
can spare you many a pain and discomfort if you will give me the
opportunity, and my poor girl is fretting herself thin by brooding over
the past--it would be new life to her to be allowed to wait upon you!
It's hard for you, dear, I know it's hard! You would rather cut
yourself adrift from us, and never see us again; but it is in your power
to return good for evil--to lighten our trouble as no one else could do.
Will you come, Evie?"
Evie looked into the quivering face, and her eyes shone--then the kind
arms opened wide and the brown head nestled down on the broad, motherly
shoulder. There was no need for words, for the answer was given far
more eloquently in look and gesture.
"God bless you, my lassie!" murmured Mrs Chester fondly, and they sat
in silence together, gazing into the fire. A few tears rose in Evie's
eyes and ran silently down her cheeks, but they were happy tears, with
which were wiped away all remains of bitterness. There is no truer way
of forgiving our enemies than by consenting to be helped at their hands,
and, if the effort be great, it brings with it an exceeding great
reward. At the end of ten minutes Evie raised her head from its resting
place and said, in her old, bright voice:
"Shall we ask Rhoda to tea? It is such a lovely fire, and you brought
in such a bountiful supply of cakes and good things that it seems greedy
to keep them all to myself. Ask Rhoda to come in and help to make a
cosy little party."
Then, as Mrs Chester stooped to kiss her cheek, she whispered hastily,
"Tell her not to mention the past--never to mention it again! We will
turn over a new leaf to-day and think only of the future."