THE END.
ONE evening, about ten days before Christmas, mother and I were
waiting, as we so often did, for father's return. It was earlier
than he commonly came back, so we did not expect him yet. I had been
reading to mother the fifteenth of John, and she said she did wish she
had cared more for such things. She thought, if she had, she would be
happier. And I said it wasn't too late, for God was always willing to
answer if we asked Him.
And then, all at once, there was a great noise and banging at the front
door. I went out to see what it was, and some men came in, carrying a
helpless body.
I remember shivering with the old feeling of horror and dread, not of
fear. I thought he had taken too much again.
And so he had, but that was not all. He had fallen into a cellar, and
was very much hurt. The men spoke as if they scarcely knew whether he
still breathed.
It was terrible indeed. I called mother, and she shrieked and wrung her
hands and seemed half beside herself. There was no learning particulars
at first. Father was carried upstairs, and laid on the bed, and one of
the men went off for a doctor.
Father lay quite quiet and senseless, not even moaning. Dickenson, our
former neighbour, was one of those who had come, and I took him aside,
and asked how it had all happened.
He could not tell me very much. Partly from what he had seen, and
partly from what had been told him, he knew that father had been with
Mr. Simmons in the billiard-room, and that they had been playing for
money, and that father seemed to lose over and over again and was very
much excited, while Mr. Simmons seemed trying to soothe him. Then the
two went into another room, and drink was called for, and father became
still more excited. He seemed trying to get up a quarrel with Mr.
Simmons, and he said over and over again that Mr. Simmons had ruined
him.
Mr. Simmons kept quite cool all the time, but presently he was seen
to get up and move away, in a sort of stealthy manner, making believe
that he was coming back directly. Father grew quite furious then, and
attacked him with his fists, and others in the room had to come to the
rescue. Mr. Simmons took himself off, by their advice, and seemed not
at all sorry to do so; and father went back to his seat, muttering and
grumbling, and saying "he would be even with him yet."
After a while he got up to go home, and Dickenson, seeing how unsteady
he was, followed some distance behind, not feeling sure that help
mightn't be needed. And so it was. Father had not gone half a street
length, before he seemed to fancy he saw Mr. Simmons ahead. He set up
a sort of shout, and rushed off at a blind pace, and in a moment went
headlong down a kind of open trap-door, with a deep warehouse cellar
below. The marvel was that he escaped death on the spot.
I went back to him, after hearing all this, and waited till the doctor
came. Mother was sobbing and crying and would not stay in the room. I
did not dare to touch father. He lay just as they had put him down,
helpless and senseless. Sometimes I thought he must be already gone.
The men were very good, and would not leave me alone. One was Sykes,
Mr. Johnstone's foreman, and I never shall forget his kindness, as he
tried to cheer me up.
When the doctor came, I was sent away, and there was a long
examination. Mother was sobbing so as to be quite useless, and the
doctor sent for me afterwards, to speak to me.
He said that father was terribly hurt. There were broken bones, but he
feared these were not the worst injuries. He could not say more yet,
however: so he only gave careful directions how I was to manage, and
promised to come again next day.
The next few weeks were just one long bout of nursing. It was wonderful
how good some of our old neighbours were,—those who had been grannie's
friends in earlier days. As for newer friends, who had clustered round
us when the money came, they dropped off like dead leaves from a tree
in autumn.
I don't know what we should have done without help. Mother was such a
poor nurse, and so easily overcome, and also she was in sickly health.
And I was a mere girl, quite unused to illness.
As the weeks passed on, father did not seem really better. The broken
bones were mending, but he lay still like a log, seeming to have no
power in his body and no sense in his mind. At first there was a great
deal of fever, and his thoughts wandered much; but when that passed
off, sense did not come back. He knew nobody clearly, and was like a
little child, having to be fed and cared for every hour.
And at last the doctor told us plainly that it always would be so. He
said he had feared it from the beginning. The injuries to the head and
spine were so great that father could never recover from them. He might
linger on a good many years, but he would be helpless and childish to
the end.
I can see now how this great trouble was sent in mercy to mother and
me, for we were saved by it from greater miseries. But at the time we
could not see things so. When we thought how the accident had happened,
and when we remembered what father had once been, it seemed almost more
than we could bear.
For a long while there was no time to think of anything but the
nursing. Soon, however, it became needful to give attention to
something else. Christmas bills had come in again, and tradespeople
were growing impatient. And when mother and I began to look into the
matter, we found strangely little of the five thousand pounds left.
Father had been selling out capital again and again, unknown to us;
so instead of £400 a year there was not £200, and there were demands
enough to swallow up a good part of what remained. Mr. Simmons had
fleeced poor father indeed; though of course it had not all gone in
that direction.
Mr. Simmons was nowhere to be found. He had gone away a day or two
after the accident, to pay a week's visit to a friend,—so he said.
But though a good many weeks had gone by, he had not returned, and he
never did return. Nobody knew his whereabouts: so we could ask him no
questions about father's affairs.
We let our house as quickly as possible, and we sold out a good part of
what remained of the money, so as to pay off everything. Mother said I
should manage it all my own way, and I could not bear to keep people
waiting longer for their due. I went to kind Mr. Scott, and he helped
me with advice. Then we settled to live in a tiny cottage, much smaller
than our old one, which had a second room on the ground-floor, beside
the kitchen, where father could sleep. There was just enough money left
to keep us going, with great care, and with the help of what we could
earn,—I by charing, and mother by needlework. Asaph came to live at
home, and went to a shop every day as errand boy.
[Illustration: "FATHER NEVER BECAME BETTER."]
These changes were at first a great trouble to mother. Yet in time she
learnt to be thankful that she had not been left to go on in her old
way, caring for nothing but amusing herself. And as for me, I was far
happier in the little cottage than I had been in the house.
Not that there was any harm in our having a nice house and more money,
if God gave them to us. The harm was in taking it all, without a
thought of how to use and spend according to His will.
Father never became better. He lived some years, always in the same
state. He had hardly more sense than a baby, and did not seem to
remember the past. I often said to him texts and easy hymns, but I
never could tell if he understood. He passed away suddenly at last, in
his sleep. Ah,—he was a sad wreck. Things might have been so different
with him!
We three lived on long together in the little cottage, afterwards; and
Asaph grew to be our comfort and stay. The change came only just in
time to save our boy from being quite spoilt. But father's state was
a sharp warning to him. He seemed to become more thoughtful from that
Christmas—and no wonder.
THE END.
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Edinburgh and London