TROUBLE STILL.
NEARLY a month had passed since the day of the collision, and George
Rutherford still lay in the Cross Arms Hotel. It had been impossible to
move him to his own home.
He had gone very near to the gates of death. Had the scalds alone been
in question, it would have been, as Mr. Forest said, a hard fight to
pull him through; but there were severe injuries in addition to these.
A less vigorous constitution must have succumbed.
For three weeks there came no glimmer of consciousness. He escaped much
suffering thereby, and the surface wounds healed, as they hardly could
have healed if he had been awake to pain, and restless under it. Danger
from the scalds was not now talked of, but the doctors still looked
serious, and spoke with increasing gravity of the blow to the head.
Some signs of his awaking to life had shown themselves, only they were
faint and feeble signs; and when he spoke it was like a little child
speaking.
[Illustration: “What do you mean? What do you want?” demanded Joan.]
All through this month Marian Brooke had not seen Joan a second time.
For Joan was in close attendance upon her father at the hotel, and
Marian was in attendance upon Dulcibel at the Hall.
Almost immediately after the accident Dulcibel had been ordered home by
Mr. Forest; and she continued from day to day so weak and shaken as to
be still quite an invalid, able to sit up only for an hour or two in
the day, and strictly forbidden to see her husband. Indeed, the mention
of his name, or the slightest hint of peril to his life, brought on
violent hysterical attacks.
Nessie devoted herself to Dulcibel, and Marian became gradually a
necessity to them both. Dulcibel took a fancy to this stranger from
the first, and waywardly refused attendance from anybody else, thereby
giving no little offence to the Hall servants. Marian showed calm
indifference to their displeasure, and quietly submitted to Dulcibel’s
will, never revealing her ceaseless desire for one more glimpse of
Joan. Thus far she was known at the Hall only as “Marian,” or “Nurse.”
Leonard Ackroyd had taken up his abode in Woodleigh, though it would
be hard to say whether the Hall or the hotel was more strictly his
headquarters; he was constantly backwards and forwards between the two.
Indeed, had he been George Rutherford’s own son he could not possibly
have acted with more kind thought and helpfulness.
Two London trained nurses undertook the actual care of George
Rutherford, but Joan was constantly present also. From the first there
had been no withholding her.
She did not look well, though the cut on her forehead was healed. The
long and terrible anxiety about her adopted father had told upon her
severely. Even Mr. Forest’s authority did not suffice to make her take
enough sleep and exercise. Appetite and energy were alike gone, and she
seemed to care for nothing but to sit hour after hour, day after day,
in the semi-darkness of the sick-room, gazing on the loved features,
for the first time in her life irresponsive to her voice.
“Joan, you cannot go on like this,” Leo said one day.
He had called at the hotel, as usual, for news of his uncle, and Joan
came downstairs to see him. He was struck with the change in her
appearance, the fixed pallor, and the spiritless, sad droop of the
black eyes. She shook hands, saying, “Good-morning,” and then sat down
in an easy-chair, leaning back with a worn-out, strengthless air.
“Joan, you cannot go on like this. We must make a change. It is too
much for you to be constantly in the room.”
“Oh, no—I could not be anywhere else,” said Joan. She raised her eyes
to meet his, with a mournful smile. “It is nothing,” she said. “If only
father were himself again I should be all right: I can’t be well while
he is ill.”
“He is better,” Leo began, and then paused. “But—”
“Yes, I know,” Joan responded. “Mr. Forest says ‘But’ so often. I
suppose it isn’t cruel of you both. I suppose one ought to understand.”
Leonard was silent, his eyes bent pityingly upon Joan from beneath the
full brows; and he passed the fingers of one hand slowly through his
tawny beard with a puzzled gesture. Joan looked up, and an expression
of sharp pain crossed her face.
“Don’t, Lee—oh, don’t!” she cried. “Oh, please don’t! I can’t bear it.”
“Don’t—what?” he asked, in surprise.
“That! Father does it. Oh, don’t, please! If only you were not so like
him!”
She held both hands over her eyes, shivering. “Joan, you are quite
overwrought,” he said gravely. “We shall have you ill next.”
“I’m not ill. I am not going to be ill. I am only—only—wretched.”
“But things are a little better than they were, dear Joan,” he said in
soothing tones, which thrilled her again.
“Yes, I know. I wish you wouldn’t speak in that voice—like his! Yes, I
know he is better from the burns; but it is so dreadful to see him like
this, day after day the same, just knowing all of us, and not seeming
to care—like himself speaking from behind a great thick curtain;
and I can’t get at him—I can’t touch him. It isn’t he that speaks,
and it isn’t me that he hears. I never thought illness could be so
dreadful—could change a person so. And he isn’t changed really. It is
his own dear self that is there, only one can’t reach him, one can’t
touch him. And nobody seems able to do anything. Mr. Forest only says
we are to wait—wait. I wonder how long! It’s enough to kill one.”
Her hands went over her eyes again, with a moan.
“‘Call upon me in the day of trouble!’” Leo said quietly.
“Yes. Father would tell me to think of that; but I can’t,” said Joan,
looking up again, with inexpressible dreariness in her black eyes. “How
can I? I can’t think of anything except father. I have tried to pray,
and it is no use—there seems nobody to hear. God is so far-away; and
now father seems far-away too; even when I am close beside him there is
that dreadful far-away feeling, as if a black cloud were wrapping him
all round, and keeping us off. Do you know the feeling? I always have
it when I try to pray, and that keeps me from praying. But I never had
it with dear, dear father before. I have always had him, and it was all
I wanted; and now he can’t understand or answer, and nobody else is of
any use. All the world is nothing to me except father.”
Joan did not know that she had given Leo pain, perhaps she would not
have cared if she had known it. Sorrow makes some people selfish, and
Joan was selfish in this grief. There seemed no room in her oppressed
and burdened heart for sympathy with others. She could not have told
why she turned now to Leonard in her trouble, only it was a relief to
speak freely to somebody, and he had always stood in the position of
brother to herself and Nessie. The years of his absence in India had
modified that position, perhaps much more than any of them were aware.
It might have been that the very resemblance to George Rutherford, from
which she shrank with positive suffering, yet helped to draw her out.
“What does Mr. Forest say to you about father?” she asked suddenly.
He was thinking of Joan’s last words, and did not at once take in the
meaning of the question.
“Mr. Forest? About your father?” Leo repeated dreamily.
“Yea, of course—about father,” said Joan with impatience.
“Much the same, I suspect, as he says to you.”
“He says nothing to me—about what we may expect, I mean. He only talks
of waiting, and being patient, and taking each day as it comes. But I
am tired of waiting, and I never was patient; and I like to look on.
And then he lectures me about going out; and I hate to go out. The
sunshine seems such a mockery, when father is lying like this. I can’t
enjoy anything if he can’t enjoy it too. I only want to sit in a dark
room till he is well.”
“But is that right, Joan?”
“Right I don’t know. And I am sure I don’t know why I should talk to
you like this,” continued Joan, lifting her eyes once more, with a
perplexed look. “It seems so foolish, only one must speak out a little
now and then, and nobody else can understand. I don’t know whether you
can—but you look a little as if you could. Nessie can say nothing,
except ‘I’m sorry;’ and mother and I never do understand each other the
very least.”
“I think you and I do, Joan,” said Leo.
“Oh, I don’t know!” repeated Joan, falling into a languid tone. “Only,
as I say, one must speak to some one. But I am going back to father
now, unless you will tell me first what Mr. Forest really thinks. I do
want to know.”
“It is hardly possible that he should say anything decided at present,”
said Leo.
“Of course. Everybody knows that,” responded Joan, listlessly, yet
with a touch of petulance. “But I suppose he says a good deal more to
you than he does to me. He thinks I can’t stand hearing the truth. And
he doesn’t guess how much worse it is not hearing, only being left to
think and imagine, and—Leo, won’t you tell me?”
“Yes,” Leo said in his gentlest voice. “If you will put your bonnet on
and come for a little walk, Joan, I will tell you all Mr. Forest has
said to me?”
“And not without?”
“No.”
“It is cruel,” Joan said, rising. “I am so tired, and the sunshine
makes me miserable. But I suppose you will keep to what you say.”
“For your sake, Joan,” he said, apologetically. “You must have air, and
you have not been out for three days.”
“I don’t want to go out.”
Yet he did not withdraw his condition, and she moved away, returning
presently in hat and jacket.
“Where are you going to take me?” she asked, as they left the hotel
together.
Leo was watching anxiously her faltering steps. “Do you think that you
can walk, Joan?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I must,” she said, with a faint smile. “It is only the
glare of the light and the fresh air that make me so dizzy. Oh, yes,
I’ll manage, if I may take your arm for a moment!”
Leonard gave her his arm, but stood still, sending a boy round the
corner for a carriage. Another minute, and Joan was leaning back
against the cushions, with shut eyes, and a strange sensation of being
whirled through space. She made no attempt to rouse herself; and Leo
said not a word; but presently the keen air, at first too strong,
proved reviving, and Joan sat up.
They were by this time in a country lane, flanked by hedges, dressed
in a sparkling veil of hoar-frost. Though a cold day, it was entirely
still, and the sun shone from a blue sky.
“Better?” her companion asked.
“Yes. It is nothing—I am only stupid! What are you going to tell me
about father?”
“We have not had our walk yet. No, I am not going to be unreasonable—”
as she exclaimed indignantly. “But I don’t wish you to look again as
you did ten minutes ago.”
She gave him a terrified glance.
“Then it is to be bad news?”
“Nothing definite; only uncertainties and possibilities.”
Joan sighed heavily.
“Try not to think for a little while. Look at that coating of
hoar-frost on the trees. Cannot you enjoy this?”
There was no enjoyment in Joan’s face. She looked from side to side
with a weary indifference, and at last said—
“Are you taking me home?”
“I had not made up my mind whether to turn that way. Would you like to
see Aunt Dulcibel and Nessie?”
“I don’t care.”
Leo seemed to be debating the point. When they reached a certain turn,
which would have led them round by the Hall, he said nothing to the
driver, and they went straight on. Something of relief appeared in
Joan’s face; but presently she said—
“There’s another turning that would do as well.”
“Yes. Better for you to have a good round first,” Leo replied.
“Then you mean to stop at home on the way back?”
“Not if you decide against it.”
A pause; and then—
“No; perhaps we may as well—just for five minutes. I needn’t stay
longer than that. Perhaps we may as well—before you tell me more
exactly what Mr. Forest thinks about father.”
The same thought had occurred to Leo, though he by no means expected to
hear it from Joan’s lips.
“Mother is sure to question me,” added Joan. “I had better be able to
say that I really don’t know. But please don’t make me stay long, Leo.
I do want to get back to father quickly.”