An Impossible Favour
THE snow came down and hid the ruins of the ungathered harvest from
sight. The nights were long, and on some days there seemed almost no
daylight at all. It was so different from last winter, however, that
Bertha was astonished at the lack of monotony in the days which, to an
outsider, must have seemed so much alike. Nearly every day someone
happened along, either in a sledge or on snow-shoes, and although these
visitors never stayed long, it was something to see an outside face and
to hear a different voice.
Just before Christmas another mysterious packing case arrived, and, like
the previous one, it came in the night, but with this difference, that
on the second time none of the lonely household was disturbed, or knew
that anything out of the ordinary was happening. It was a bigger case
than the last one had been, and there were toys for the children, which
seemed to have been chosen by someone who had scanty knowledge of
children and their ways. There was also a great store of good things for
Christmas and the New Year, and because their neighbours had such a poor
chance of anything approaching to a merry Christmas that year, Grace and
Bertha put their heads together to see what they could do by way of
sharing their good things with these less fortunate ones.
A Christmas party on quite a big scale was the first idea, but it had to
be abandoned for several reasons. Nothing had been heard of Tom or of
the expedition, and it would be impossible to get enough of a festive
feeling to make a party enjoyable when, for all they knew to the
contrary, the master of the house might be face to face with starvation,
or suffering all sorts of hardships. Then, too, there was only one pair
of hands to make all the necessary preparations, and, willing as Bertha
was, Grace declared that she could not endure the thought of anything
which would lay an extra burden on her shoulders.
“Why not make up a parcel of things for all the people we want to send
to—I mean a parcel for each house?” said Bertha, waxing incoherent from
sheer excitement. “Then I could hitch Pucker to the sledge and take them
all round on Christmas Eve. I dare say Mrs. Smith would bring her
children over and stay with you. If she did that, I could take Dicky and
Molly with me, and the outing would be a festival to them.”
“That is a simply lovely scheme!” exclaimed Grace. “But it won’t do to
put it off to Christmas Eve, for, if I know anything about prairie
housekeeping, Mrs. Smith will be much too busy on that day to be willing
to pay a visit of uncertain length here, and the more scanty the
Christmas fare, the more careful the preparations will have to be in
order to cover the gaps in the feast. We must make our arrangements for
the day before that, and then if we tell Mrs. Smith that the happiness
of the community depends entirely on her coming here to stay with me, I
am pretty sure that she will come.”
“Then the day before Christmas Eve it shall be, and we shall just have
to get to work at once to get everything arranged,” Bertha replied; then
followed an eager discussion as to the things to be sent to this one and
to that.
From the time the big case arrived until the day of the distribution,
Bertha gave up her room as a storeplace for the things, and slept on the
couch by the kitchen stove, while the children were packed as thickly as
sardines in a tin in the beds in their mother’s room. But the festival
feeling ran so high that week, that no one minded anything about such
minor matters as overcrowding. The children lived in a continual whirl
of paper and string, of carrying parcels from one room to the other, and
of doing this and that towards helping forward the preparations for the
great distribution, that Grace declared they would all be worn out with
the dissipation.
At last the great day arrived—a fine morning, with a keen frost, and a
temperature something below zero, but with a crisp quality in the air
which made the youngsters positively hilarious, while Bertha darted to
and fro, feeling that, in spite of very pronounced drawbacks, it was
going to be a very nice Christmas indeed.
Mrs. Smith arrived in good time, a little anxious and concerned about
the work which she ought to have done that day at home, but more
resigned to the inevitable, because she had brought a great bundle of
household mending with her, which she could get through while she talked
to Grace. Her face changed, however, and a shower of tears seemed
imminent, when she was told why she had been sent for, and was presented
with her share of the contents of that wonderful packing case.
“There would have been no Christmas fare in our house this year,” she
said, her face working pitifully. “We shall have to be in debt for
necessaries later on, so we dare not have the least thing that we can by
any means do without.”
“All the more reason why we should help each other,” said Grace softly,
and then with infinite tact she managed to keep Mrs. Smith from
dissolving into tears, which would doubtless have induced a similar
shower from some of the small people; and this was no day for tears.
Dicky and Molly, wrapped up until they looked like a couple of Eskimos,
were in a state of uproarious delight. They laughed, sang, and shouted
at such a rate that old Pucker nearly did a bolt on the outward journey,
which would have been disastrous, seeing how heavily the sledge was
laden. The old horse had done so little work for weeks past, that the
outing must have been quite a pleasure trip.
Bertha herself was in a jubilant mood, and this was increased, on
arrival at the post office, by finding a letter of acceptance from a New
York editor of one of the stories she had sent to him a couple of months
before.
“Oh, it is good to be alive!” she exclaimed, as she tied Pucker fast to
the post outside the door and went in to see how it fared with Eunice.
Mrs. Humphries was doing the post-office work at the present, for Eunice
was too ill to rise from her bed, and the elation in the heart of Bertha
turned to dismay at the sight of the suffering on the face of the sick
woman.
“Don’t look like that, child,” whispered Eunice. “Your face was like a
picture with happiness when you walked in at the door, and then it
changed into dreary melancholy, all because I carry my woes of body writ
large outside for anyone to read.”
“Oh, I had hoped to find you better, and now you look like this!”
Bertha’s tone was shocked, for no one had told her of the change in
Eunice, and she had not seen here for weeks.
“The doctor says that I shall get better if I try hard enough; but I
suppose it is the indolence of my nature revolting against hard work,
for it seems too much trouble to struggle on trying to get better. Death
looks so easy and pleasant, just getting a little weaker every day and
then dropping to sleep at the last, like a child that is too tired to
play any longer,” said Eunice, and she looked so white and worn, that
Bertha thought she was actually dying then.
But instead of words of grief, or even of resignation, a torrent of
reproaches rose to the lips of Bertha, and were uttered through an
irresistible impulse, cruel though they must have sounded at the time.
“Oh, you are selfish, most dreadfully selfish, to want to die and leave
us all just when we need you so much! I have no friend outside my own
people except you, and I cannot do without you!” she wailed. “And think
how dreadful it will be for your brother when he comes home, to find no
one to give him a welcome. Oh, it is not like you to think of yourself
first and not to mind what becomes of other people!”
Great tears came into the eyes of Eunice and rolled unchecked down her
face. “I don’t want to be selfish,” she said meekly, “but I am so tired,
that I thought other people could get on without me somehow. And you
could comfort my brother, Bertha, if you would, and make him the
happiest man in the world.”
“No, I couldn’t, really, I couldn’t—oh, don’t speak of it!” cried
Bertha distressfully, turning very red in the face.
“Are you sure?” asked Eunice, and there was such a world of wistful
entreaty in the eyes of the sick woman, that Bertha turned her head away
from a fear that she might be drawn into giving promises impossible to
fulfil.
“I am quite, quite sure. Oh, please dear, do not ever speak of it to me
again—it is too dreadful!” burst out Bertha, with tremendous emphasis.
“Is there anyone else?” persisted Eunice.
An indignant denial rose to the lips of Bertha and stopped there, for
before her eyes rose the picture of a grey heaving sea, a rising tide,
cruel black rocks, and a small boat so wedged that its occupant could
not get it off the rocks. But she never could recall with any vividness
the face of the man she had rescued, that is, she could not see it so
clearly that she could be sure of knowing it again. At the time when the
wheat fired, she had felt quite sure that the man who came along with
the Smiths to help fight the fire had been the man whom she had helped,
but many times since then she had told herself that there was no real
certainty in her mind about the matter.
Of course, if she could have got hold of him afterwards, to have asked
him if he had lost a coat and anything else, it would have been
different. But Mrs. Smith, who did not know his name, had said that he
was leaving the firm for whom he travelled on the next week, and one
would want to be very sure indeed before making enquiries.
“Is there anyone else?” asked Eunice, and this time there was
undisguised anxiety in her tone.
“Oh no, of course not—it is not possible!” exclaimed Bertha, coming out
of her embarrassed reverie, and speaking in a great hurry, yet without
any conviction whatever.
Eunice looked pained and disappointed, but said no more, and Bertha made
haste to bring the uncomfortable interview to an end. It was certainly
dreadful to have to disappoint a good friend such as Eunice had been to
her, but not for forty friends could she consent to make that dreadful
Mr. Long happy. Not that he had ever ventured to ask her; his plan of
action had seemed to consist in paying her the most embarrassing sort of
attentions, which rendered him the laughing-stock of the community, and
made her simply furious with indignation. If he had asked her straight
out to marry him, she would have been able to say, “No, thank you”, and
so have ended the miserable business. But it had never entered into Mr.
Long’s calculations to do anything so sensible, and so the discomfort
for Bertha had gone on.
Somehow the flavour of the trip was spoiled for Bertha now. She was so
terribly upset by the change in Eunice, and the fear that the poor thing
would slip out of life. But she had to thrust the trouble into the
background, and be as merry as she could for the sake of the good folk
to whom she was playing an amateur Santa Claus.
It was quite late in the afternoon, the sledge was empty, and she had
turned Pucker’s head in the direction of Duck Flats, when she
encountered the doctor. She pulled up in a great hurry then to ask him
if he had been over to see Grace.
“No, not to-day. Did you want me to see her?” he asked.
“Oh no, there was no need, only, I have been away since the morning, and
I did not know if you might have been coming anywhere near us, and so
had dropped in,” she answered.
“Duck Flats is not near to anywhere. It is the most out-of-the-way
location that any man could ever have fixed upon for his home, I think,”
rejoined the doctor testily. “I can’t think how ever you manage to
endure life in such a place, Miss Bertha; but, upon my word, you seem to
thrive on it, and so do the youngsters. Why, they grow like weeds!”
“I am used to the loneliness now. Of course it is awkward to be so far
from civilization sometimes, but if one is very busy it does not matter
much in an ordinary way,” said Bertha, and then she asked anxiously, “Is
Miss Long very dangerously ill? I was frightened to see her looking so
badly.”
“She is starved,” said the doctor grimly.
“Oh, you cannot mean it!” cried Bertha, in a tone of protest, while her
face went very white.
“I do mean it, or I should not have said it,” said the doctor bluntly.
“But surely, surely that need not have been?” cried Bertha, who was
dreadfully distressed. “We are all poor, of course, and dreadfully
pushed for ready money, but so far as I know no one has had to go short
of food yet. Besides, we understood that Eunice had money from the bank
in Winnipeg, just the same as Mrs. Ellis does.”
“Of course she has had it, and that is where the maddening part of it
comes in,” said the doctor crossly. “But instead of living on the money,
as a sensible person would, and leaving her brother to make good the
value of the postal orders which were destroyed on that black Sunday,
the silly woman goes and simply starves herself to death in order that
the loss may be made good the sooner.”
“Oh, what shall I do? I have been saying the most dreadful things to her
to-day, but I did not know all this!” exclaimed Bertha. “Oh, she must
have thought me cruel, cruel! I would go back now and tell her how sorry
I am, only I should be so late home, and Mrs. Smith will not want to
stay with Mrs. Ellis much longer.”
“And pray, what was it you said that needs so much repentance?” asked
the doctor, a gleam of amusement showing on his face; for he had never
found Bertha addicted to cutting speeches.
“She said that she did not want to get better, and I told her that it
was miserably selfish of her to want to die when she was so useful, and
everyone needed her friendship and advice so much. It was horrid of me,
I know, but I felt as if I had to say it, and so out it came. Poor
Eunice, she looked so startled and surprised; for I don’t suppose that
anyone ever dreamed of calling her selfish before.”
The doctor burst into a shout of laughter. “Well done, Miss Bertha, I
should not wonder if you have half-cured my patient for me, and if so
you have earned my lasting gratitude. No one can even guess what a fight
I have had for her life, and all because of this mistaken idea of
self-sacrifice. Why, she had better have let the Government people send
her to prison for embezzling moneys entrusted to her care; for at least
she would have got enough to eat then, and this illness would have been
averted.”
But Bertha was almost reduced to tears by the thought of how
disagreeable she had been, and was not even comforted by the doctor’s
congratulations on the drastic measures she had used to bring Eunice to
a more reasonable frame of mind. The thought of the things she had said
haunted her all the way home, making her silent and absorbed, instead of
bright and merry from the pleasure of the gifts she had been out to
bestow.
Grace believed that she was tired, and so refrained from asking her any
questions. But after Mrs. Smith had gone home and the children had all
been put to bed, Bertha plunged into the story of her trouble, and told
Grace all that she had not been able to tell the doctor, of how Eunice
had asked her to be kind to the brother so that the sister might die in
peace. And then Grace did what the doctor had done, she laughed and
laughed until Bertha began to feel afraid that she would do herself an
injury.
“I can’t see anything very funny in it myself, but that is because I
lack a sense of humour, perhaps,” Bertha remarked, almost disposed to
feel affronted at having provoked so much mirth.
“Oh, my dear child, do forgive me!” cried Grace. “It is too bad to make
fun of you. But the fancy picture of you attempting to console that
dreadful Mr. Long for the loss of his sister was too much for me. Eunice
must have been a little delirious, poor dear, or she would never have
suggested such a thing.”
“Then you don’t think that it was wicked of me to refuse to make her
happy, to let her die in peace?” said Bertha, drawing a long breath of
relief, for it had been a real trial to her to refuse Eunice anything,
and the pinched white face of the sick woman haunted her still.
“Why should you throw your life away at the whim of a sick woman who
doubtless does not know what she wants?” said Grace, her voice
unconsciously stern. “Do you know, I have been so afraid of asking rash
things myself that one day, when I was fairly capable of knowing what I
was about, I got Tom to draw up a sort of statement, in which I besought
my friends to take no notice of silly favours which I might ask when
body and mind were alike under the influence of sickness.”
“But you have never asked for impossibilities,” said Bertha.
“And I trust that I never shall. But I am thankful to hear you speak of
it as an impossibility, Bertha; for I should never have forgiven myself,
nor have been able to look Anne or Hilda in the face again, if that sort
of settlement had been possible to you. Oh dear! oh dear! I think that
poor Eunice must have been mad!” cried Grace.
“Well, it is settled once and for all, and there is no more need for you
to think about it,” Bertha replied soothingly, and then, in spite of
herself, she found her thoughts back again with that stranger who had
sat so helplessly in his boat, while she swam out to his rescue, and she
wondered anew whether he would ever cross her path again, then grew
angry with herself because her thoughts would wander so persistently in
that direction.