OUTSIDE THE GREAT NORTHERN.
WHILE Gertrude was away, Mrs. Leigh was surrounded by her audience of
young people, who did not know how time passed in their interest in the
beautiful young mother and her little invalid.
"I cannot think how you can bear it all!" said Mollie, as they stood
gazing at the little impassive face.
"Do you really want to know, Mollie?" asked Mrs. Leigh, taking the tall
girl's hand in hers.
"Oh, I was only wondering. Some people can bear things better than
others, I suppose."
Mollie drew her hand away a little shyly.
Mrs. Leigh did not reply, but continued to look down at her child
thoughtfully.
"I don't believe it is that," said Hugh in an undertone to Daisy. "Mrs.
Leigh looks as if a breath would blow her away; it is not that she is
stronger than most people."
Daisy shook her head assentingly, but Rose had heard the remark, so she
said—
"It would be very wrong of me to take the credit to myself, Daisy. I
could not bear it at all if it were not for looking up from moment
to moment to Jesus. He is my refuge; were it not for Him I should be
distracted."
Hugh smiled brightly. In his own little difficulties he had found it
the same. How wonderful it was that the Lord Jesus could be just the
Friend for everybody!—he thought.
When Gertrude came in from the Strange House, a telegraph boy was at
the door, and handed in an envelope as the maid opened to her.
"It is for my sister," she said, and ran up-stairs with it.
"Fritz wants one of us to meet him at Euston," said Rose, when she had
read it. "I cannot leave Lester. Will you go, Gertrude? Do you think
Mrs. Shaddock would spare you?"
"But he will be here half an hour after," objected Gertrude; "is it not
almost a pity—"
"Perhaps he wishes to hear all particulars before he gets here," said
Rose. "At any rate, he says, 'Will Gertrude meet me, or you?' It is
evident he wants one of us."
So Mrs. Shaddock was again consulted. And soon Gertrude set off,
Conway, who had just returned from school, volunteering to escort her
if she wished.
But she rightly guessed that her brother-in-law would prefer to hear
all the sad story without a stranger being there, so she went alone.
As she stood on the arrival platform of the great terminus, with the
screaming whistles round her, the buzz of the coming and going trains,
the roar of London outside, she felt as if the world of Hampstead and
that quiet bedside were far-away and indistinct; as if she could hardly
belong to both.
She wondered vaguely what the next few hours would bring to her and her
sister; what Fritz would decide about his invalid child; how he would
bear the shock of her intelligence; and while she was thinking all
this, she was conscious that the porters, who had been waiting about,
suddenly seemed to be alert, the cabs made a move to draw up at the
other side of the platform, and when she looked down the dim lines, two
great eyes seemed to come creeping towards her, and in a moment the
long train from the north was in the station.
She stood back, almost bewildered, for in her quiet life at home she
had never seen such confusion or bustle before.
Where was her brother-in-law? Had he not come after all? She looked
hopelessly up and down the emptying carriages, but no Fritz was
emerging from them, that she could see.
Then a hand was laid upon hers, and a voice said so like Fritz's that
she thought it was his, and yet—no, it was not Fritz who said in that
tone—
"Gertrude! At last! Did you think we had not come?"
"Otto!" she said.
And then Fritz came hurrying up, too, followed by a porter with two
portmanteaus.
"I hoped you would come," said Fritz at once, "because Otto would have
been so disappointed not to see you, and we must drop him at the Great
Northern Hotel as we pass. I could not bring him on to Mrs. Shaddock's,
could I?"
"You 'could,'" said Gertrude, watching the portmanteaus being thrown on
to the cab, and wondering what she ought to say. "But if you have made
arrangements otherwise, perhaps it would be better. But they are the
kindest people I ever saw."
Otto was holding the cab door open; she got in, and in a moment they
were off.
"Tell me all!" said Fritz. "I felt as if I must bear it before I saw
him. What is it?—What has happened to him?"
Before Gertrude had said more than a few words, the cab drew up at the
Great Northern, and Otto had come to his destination.
"I cannot say good-bye yet," he exclaimed. "Have my luggage put in
here, Fritz, and order our rooms. I will go on to Hampstead and come
back again by and by."
Fritz got out to give the desired order, and Gertrude and Otto looked
after him.
How well afterwards Gertrude remembered that ceaseless roar of
omnibuses and cabs passing and repassing along the crowded street.
"Gertrude," said Otto's voice, "can we not manage to go somewhere
together to-morrow? I have one day in Town, and I feel as if I could
not go home again without seeing you?"
"I do not know, Otto. I cannot plan my own days now; already I feel I
have run away from my pupils dreadfully."
"Bring them with you," he said hastily; "we will go to the Kensington
Museum, or somewhere, to-morrow afternoon. There will be the doctor in
the morning. Oh, Gertrude! If you only knew—"
Then Fritz came hurrying back and jumped into the cab, and they were
off again.
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