WHAT WAS TO BE DONE NEXT
THOUGH Miss Perkins might say to Mildred, "Don't think," with reference
to her isolation in the world, Miss Perkins made no effort herself to
refrain from thinking. Without friends, and without a home. Did that
also mean, without any means of livelihood?
It might easily do so. Miss Perkins was greatly exercised in spirit on
this question. She had offered, under a sudden gust of pity, to take
the shipwrecked wanderer for a few days, looking upon the arrangement
as a transitory one; and when Millie, instead of rallying quickly,
became worse, needing constant attention, she had buckled bravely
to the task, devoting her time and her energies, with really few
complaints.
She had received a cheque for five guineas from Mr. Gilbert, given out
of his own slender resources; but five guineas would not cover the
additional outlay in which she was involved; and though she know that
others might come forward, she knew also that such coming forward was
doubtful. People in general are glad enough to put off trouble and
expense upon another. Money in Old Maxham could not be regarded as a
plentiful commodity; and those who possessed any considerable amount of
it—Mr. Mokes, for example, was credited with large savings—were by no
means too fond of parting with the same.
For a few days, or for two or three weeks, Miss Perkins had met her
responsibilities pluckily. But Mildred's words had now opened out a
new vista. If Mildred had no home, no friends, no money, no means of
livelihood, would Miss Perkins be expected to make her a permanent
inmate of Periwinkle Cottage, without remuneration? That was the
question.
Miss Perkins had begun to view her own action in the matter as foolish
and impulsive; though she would have been the last to acknowledge as
much to anybody else; and though, it is to be hoped, she would have
done precisely the same over again, had the condition of affairs been
repeated.
For a while these doubts only troubled her when she was away from
Millie. In Mildred's presence such sensations had no weight. But as
days went on, a feeling of provocation even there sometimes assailed
Miss Perkins. Mildred was very feeble still, with no energy to arouse
herself, or to think of plans and ways and means; and day after day she
lay, spiritless and pale, just moving from the bed to an easy-chair,
apparently content with her shelter and not in the least degree anxious
as to how or by whom her needs were supplied. She was too utterly
saddened to have room in her mind for personal cares. Miss Perkins
began to think that the time was come when Mildred ought to bestir
herself and ought to be troubled.
Another element also was entering into the question. Jessie had always
been a light-hearted maiden; partly because life had hitherto shown to
her chiefly its sunny side; but she was by no means without a share of
that true womanliness, which happily few women entirely lack, and which
means being drawn by the sight of suffering.
Only the most spoilt and the most selfish of women are repelled by
sickness and sorrow; for in true woman-nature, there is a natural
craving to give help where help is needed.
Miss Perkins had pitied most when Mildred lay powerless and
unconscious. Jessie pitied most now that Mildred was awake to her own
lonely and forlorn condition. And Jessie not only pitied, but loved.
She gave her warm girl-heart first to Hero, and then unreservedly to
Hero's mistress. Not many days passed from Millie's first awakening
into full sense, before Jessie found an absolute delight in knowing
her. To be left in charge of Mildred, it did not matter how long, was
the best thing that could happen.
Miss Perkins perceived this, and the iron entered into her soul. She
had done much for Jessie—had kept her from destitution, had given her
a home, had supplied her requirements, had provided her with necessary
teaching; but with all the amount of her practical kindnesses, she had
never won her niece's heart after this fashion. If Jessie loved Miss
Perkins, it was with a duty-love. There was no real clinging affection,
no delight in Miss Perkins' presence, no craving for Miss Perkins'
smile. The most Jessie commonly hoped for was to avoid a "fuss," to
please her aunt so far as not to be scolded or grumbled at.
To see this passive stranger winning in a week what Miss Perkins had
failed to win in fourteen or fifteen years was a bitter pill. Miss
Perkins did not make allowance for the eccentricities of a young
girl's fancy; still less did she allow for the repellent effects of
her own dry manner and uncertain temper. She said nothing, and only
nursed her annoyance in private; but the jealousy threatened to colour
her after-relations with Mildred. As the invalid grew stronger, Miss
Perkins became more tart; reverting to the mode of speech and action
usually characteristic of her, with some added acidity from the cause
above mentioned.
Jessie saw the change, and did not divine its root. She never dreamt of
such a possibility as that Miss Perkins could be greedy of warmer love
from the niece whom she systematically snubbed, and whom she always
seemed to regard as an unwelcome burden.
"Aunt Barbara care!" she would have exclaimed, had the idea been
suggested to her. "Oh, that isn't her way at all. She only wants not to
be bothered."
But it was very much Miss Perkins' way, only always below the surface.
Mr. Gilbert was still entirely laid aside, able to sleep little with
the ceaseless pain of his crushed arm, and altogether in a state of
great exhaustion. His sister had come from a distance to assist in
nursing him; and though he had repeatedly inquired after Millie, and
had sent many kind messages of interest in her condition, he was not
yet fit for callers; so nobody had seen him except his own household
and the doctor. The "mending" in his arm was exceedingly slow; and he
had had a succession of relapses.
Jack Groates, on the contrary, although it was true that his leg had
sustained a compound fracture, was doing well, lying in bed to be
nursed by his cheery little mother. The bones were joining nicely, and
he had had no "drawbacks" at all.
One way and another Jessie heard of Jack often; but naturally she was
very busy at home, and after what had passed, she was sensible enough
to know that it would not do for her to be perpetually running down to
the Groates' Store with inquiries after him. Jessie had a due amount
of self-respect, and she felt that she had to act with circumspection
and with girlish reserve. She had thus far escaped an encounter with
Miss Sophia Coxen. No whisper of gossip about herself and Jack had as
yet reached her ears. It might be that for once Miss Sophia Coxen was
restraining her love of talk. Jessie earnestly hoped that this was
the case. But between Millie, Hero, and Miss Perkins, she found small
leisure at this date.
"Folks 'll begin to think soon about coming to the sea," Miss Perkins
one day remarked tentatively to Jessie. She had not made up her
own mind what steps to take next, and a talk might clear the air
of difficulties. In her present mood, if Jessie took one side of a
question, Miss Perkins would instantly take the other side, out of
sheer perversity. "And I shall be wanting my spare room."
"But—Millie!" Jessie exclaimed. Mildred's surname was now, of course,
known, and people were trying to get into the way of calling her
"Miss Pattison," after for two or three weeks thinking of her only as
"Mildred." Jessie and her aunt had, at Mildred's particular request,
kept to the Christian name, and Jessie had soon adopted the shortened
form.
Miss Perkins' answer came with a snap. "Well, I s'pose she'll have to
go. She'll be fit to travel soon, I s'pose."
"I don't believe she's got anywhere to go to."
Jessie's opposition was as good as a sign-post to Miss Perkins, who
immediately took the reverse road to that indicated.
"She'll have to find somewhere, then. Anyhow, she isn't going to
stop here. Don't you be a goose, Jessie. She's got letters this very
morning. Of course she knows people. And she don't belong to us; and
I'm not going to keep her, neither. It's little enough I've got to live
on—and you to keep as well as myself."
Jessie was for the moment silenced. She did not believe that Mildred
had any idea of moving at present; yet it could hardly be expected that
Miss Perkins should undertake the support of this stranger, as she had
undertaken the support of her own niece.
Miss Perkins had a nice little life-annuity of her own, the fruit of
her father's careful savings in past days; and so long as she lived,
Miss Perkins and her niece were secured from destitution. But the
annuity was scarcely enough to keep them in comfort without the help of
occasional lodgers; and since it would die with Miss Perkins, any small
sum that could be saved she might naturally wish to lay by for Jessie's
future. A third person could hardly subsist upon the annuity, and then,
Hero's appetite was not small.
Curiously, though not so curiously as might seem at first sight,
Mildred herself opened the subject less than two hours later. It
was not so curious because the cause which had led to Miss Perkins'
utterances was the same which led to her own. Millie had received two
letters by that morning's post, and Miss Perkins was aware of the fact.
When Miss Perkins entered the spare room, big with ideas which
contracted her face into a grim solemnity, speech on her part was
forestalled. Millie took the initiative, saying, in her slow spiritless
voice, the very words which Miss Perkins had been debating how to speak.
"Isn't it almost time for us to talk a little about my plans? I don't
think—" with a faint tinge of colour—"that I ought to let things go
on so any longer. Only I have dreaded having to face life again.
Everything is so changed for me."
Miss Perkins was not good at the expression of sympathy, especially in
one of her perverse moods. She cleared her throat, and stood gazing at
Millie, sorry below, grim above.
"It did not seem as if I could let myself think sooner. But I know time
is getting on, and I must not be a coward. Things have to be arranged.
You have been very good to me, Miss Perkins."
Miss Perkins sniffed, and hoped she'd done her duty.
"More than your duty." This was a needless assertion, since no man can
do more than his duty in any walk of life. Duty includes the utmost,
and the utmost cannot be surpassed.
"But," continued Millie, "the spring is getting on, and I suppose—"
Millie came to a pause. Miss Perkins felt that the opportunity was not
to be lost.
"It'll soon be the time of letting, if it isn't that now," she said.
"Yes; so I thought. How much do you get for this room generally?"
Miss Perkins replied with due caution. The price differed at different
seasons. It was more in August than in June. It was more for a short
let than for a longer let. She at length named two or three prices.
"And if the room were taken for the whole year round?"
Miss Perkins looked dubiously at Millie.
"I have not much of my own, but there will be a little—rather more than
I have expected. I heard that this morning. Enough to pay for all my
expenses lately, and—"
A murmur of disclaimer came. The better side of Miss Perkins rose
uppermost. "She had not expected repayment."
"I am sure you have not; but that is a matter of course. I could not
let you suffer for all you have done for me. This will not make any
difference to my feeling of gratitude. I might have been penniless;
you did not know that I was not; and it has made no difference to your
action. But I am thankful to say that you will at least not be the
poorer for what you have done."
"I couldn't take all you've got. I couldn't, and I wouldn't, and that's
flat." Miss Perkins spoke in the tone of a deeply injured individual.
If she had been uneasy before at the pull to which her generosity might
be subjected, she was disappointed now to find that it would be no
question of generosity at all, except as to the matter of intention.
"O no, you will not take all. I shall have a tiny income of my own—not
much, but enough to pay for a room, and even to keep me going for a
time with care. I must try to find work of some kind, so as to add to
it, and perhaps to lay by a little. It may or may not be possible here,
and I don't know what I may do by-and-by; but for the present I would
rather stay quietly where I am. Will you let me do so? I shall feel
that I am among friends, and I am not strong enough yet to fight my
way in a new place. I am quite willing for the next few weeks to pay
just what you would have had from other lodgers. If, a little later,
I should decide to make it my home, we could come, perhaps, to some
arrangement. You must not be a loser, of course; but I think it might
repay you better to have a permanent lodger, even on rather lower
terms, than to let only for two or three months in the year."
Miss Perkins had so often said exactly the same herself, that she could
not contradict Mildred, dearly as she loved to contradict everybody.
She hardly knew whether to feel pleased or not.
"An old friend of my father's, living in London, has asked me to go to
him and his wife; but I do not think I could stand London, or life in a
large noisy household. My home has always been in the country, and to
go back to my old home would be too sad. Will you let me stay, at all
events for a time?"
"It don't make any difference," began Miss Perkins: "but—but there's
the dog."
"Ah, Hero! You don't like Hero, I'm afraid. Yet he does not trouble
you, does he? If Hero goes, I go; but if you can put up with him, I
shall be glad to stay. This room begins to look a little home-like to
me. I must start afresh somewhere; I could not endure to go back to all
the old surroundings. Everything would be so empty and changed. But
Hero is the one thing left to me, and he saved my life. I could not
part with him."
Miss Perkins was silent. In her heart she felt that if Millie could
have parted with Hero, she would hardly have been worthy of the name of
woman. Giving in was never easy, however, to Miss Perkins.
"Please think about it, and let me know," continued Mildred, after a
break. "If you are willing, I shall send for the rest of my things from
the south of Wales—just two or three boxes. The furniture was all sold
before I went to sea."