SHADOWS.
But Janetta had not much chance of keeping her promise for some time to
come. She was alarmed to find, on her return home that evening, that her
father had come in sick and shivering, with all the symptoms of a
violent cold, followed shortly by high fever. He had caught a chill
during a long drive undertaken in order to see a motherless child who
had been suddenly taken ill, and in whose case he took a great interest.
The child rapidly recovered, but Mr. Colwyn's illness had a serious
termination. Pleurisy came on, and made such rapid inroads upon his
strength that in a very few days his recovery was pronounced impossible.
Gradually growing weaker and weaker, he was not able even to give
counsel or direction to his family, and could only whisper to Janetta,
who was his devoted nurse, a few words about "taking care" of the rest.
"I will always do my very best for them, father; you may be sure of
that," said Janetta, earnestly. The look of anxious pain in his eyes
gave her the strength to speak firmly--she must set his mind at ease at
any cost.
"My faithful Janet," she heard him whisper; and then he spoke no more.
With his hand still clasped in hers he died in the early morning of a
chill October day, and the world of Beaminster knew him no more.
The world seemed sadly changed for Janetta when her father had gone
forth from it; and yet it was not she who made the greatest
demonstration of mourning. Mrs. Colwyn passed from one hysterical fit
into another, and Nora sobbed herself ill; but Janetta went about her
duties with a calm and settled gravity, a sober tearlessness, which
caused her stepmother to dub her cold and heartless half a dozen times a
day. As a matter of fact the girl felt as if her heart were breaking,
but there was no one but herself to bear any of the commonplace little
burdens of daily life which are so hard to carry in the time of trouble;
and but for her thoughtful presence of mind the whole house would have
degenerated into a state of chaos. She wrote necessary letters, made
arrangements for the sad offices which were all that could be rendered
to her father now, interviewed the dressmaker, and ordered meals for the
children. It was to her that the servants and tradespeople came for
orders; it was she who kept her mother's room quiet, and nursed Nora,
and provided necessary occupation for the awed and bewildered children.
"You don't seem to feel it a bit, Janetta," Mrs. Colwyn said to her on
the day before the funeral. "And I'm sure you were always your father's
favorite. He never cared half so much for any of the children as he did
for you, and now you can't even give him a tributary tear."
Mrs. Colwyn was fond of stilted expressions, and the thought of "a
tributary tear" seemed so incongruous to Janetta when compared with her
own deep grief, that--much to Mrs. Colwyn's horror--she burst into an
agitated little laugh, as nervous people sometimes do on the most solemn
occasions.
"To laugh when your father is lying dead in the house!" ejaculated Mrs.
Colwyn, with awful emphasis. "And you that he thought so loving and
dutiful----!"
Then poor Janetta collapsed. She was worn out with watching and working,
and from nervous laughter she passed to tears so heart-broken and so
exhausting that Mrs. Colwyn never again dared to accuse her openly of
insensibility. And perhaps it was a good thing for Janetta that she did
break down in this way. The doctor who had attended her father was
growing very uneasy about her. He had not been deceived by her apparent
calmness. Her white face and dark-ringed eyes had told him all that
Janetta could not say. "A good thing too!" he muttered when, on a
subsequent call, Tiny told him, with rather a look of consternation,
that her sister "had been crying." "A good thing too! If she had not
cried she would have had a nervous fever before long, and then what
would become of you all?"
During these dark days Janetta was inexpressibly touched by the marks of
sympathy that reached her from all sides. Country people trudged long
distances into town that they might gaze once more on the worn face of
the man who had often assuaged not only physical but mental pain, and
had been as ready to help and comfort as to prescribe. Townsfolk sent
flowers for the dead and dainties for the living; but better than all
their gifts was the regret that they expressed for the death of a man
whom everyone liked and respected. Mr. Colwyn's practice, though never
very lucrative, had been an exceedingly large one; and only when he had
passed away did his townsfolk seem to appreciate him at his true worth.
In the sad absorption of mind which followed upon his death, Janetta
almost forgot her cousins, the Brands. But when the funeral took place,
and she went with her brother Joe to the grave, as she insisted upon
doing in spite of her stepmother's tearful remonstrances, it was a sort
of relief and satisfaction to her to see that both Wyvis and Cuthbert
Brand were present. They were her kinsmen, after all, and it was right
for them to be there. It made her feel momentarily stronger to know of
their presence in the church.
But at the grave she forgot them utterly. The beautiful and consoling
words of the Burial Service fell almost unheeded on her ear. She could
only think of the blank that was made in her life by the absence of
that loving voice, that tender sympathy, which had never failed her
once. "My faithful Janet!" he had called her. There was no one to call
her "my faithful Janet" now.
She was shaken by a storm of silent sobs as these thoughts came over
her. She made scarcely a sound, but her figure was swayed by the tempest
as if it would have fallen. Joe, the young brother, who could as yet
scarcely realize the magnitude of the loss which he had sustained,
glanced at her uneasily; but it was not he, but Wyvis Brand, who
suddenly made a step forward and gave her--just in time--the support of
his strong arm. The movement checked her and recalled her to herself.
Her weeping grew less violent, and although strong shudders still shook
her frame, she was able to walk quietly from the grave to the
carriage-door, and to shake hands with Wyvis Brand with some attempt at
calmness of demeanor.
He came to the house a few days after the funeral, but Janetta happened
to be out, and Mrs. Colwyn refused to see him. Possibly he thought that
some slight lurked within this refusal, for he did not come again, and a
visit at a later date from Mrs. Brand was so entirely embarrassing and
unsatisfactory that Janetta could hardly wish for its repetition. Mrs.
Colwyn, in the deepest of widow's weeds, with a white handkerchief in
her hand, was yet not too much overcome by grief to show that she
esteemed herself far more respectable than Mrs. Brand, and could "set
her down," if necessary; while poor Mrs. Brand, evidently comprehending
the reason of Mrs. Colwyn's bridlings and tossings, was nervous and
flurried, sat on the edge of a chair, and looked--poor, helpless,
elderly woman--as if she had never entered a drawing-room before.
The only comfort Janetta had out of the visit was a moment's
conversation in the hall when Mrs. Brand took her leave.
"My dear--my dear," said Mrs. Brand, taking the girl's hand in hers, "I
am so sorry, and I can't do anything to comfort you. Your father was
very kind to me when I was in great trouble, years ago. I shall never
forget his goodness. If there is anything I can ever do for you, you
must let me do it for his sake."
Janetta put up her face and kissed the woman to whom her father had been
"very kind." It comforted her to hear of his goodness once again. She
loved Mrs. Brand for appreciating it.
That little sentence or two did her more good than the long letters
which she was receiving every few days from Margaret, her chosen friend.
Margaret was sincerely grieved for Janetta's loss, and said many
consoling things in her sweet, tranquil, rather devotional way; but she
had not known Mr. Colwyn, and she could not say the words that Janetta's
heart was aching for--the words of praise and admiration of a nobly
unselfish life which alone could do Janetta any good. Yes, Margaret's
letters were distinctly unsatisfactory--not from want of feeling, but
from want of experience of life.
Graver necessities soon arose, however, than those of consolation in
grief. Mr. Colwyn had always been a poor man, and the sum for which he
had insured his life was only sufficient to pay his debts and funeral
expenses, and to leave a very small balance at his banker's. He had
bought the house in Gwynne Street in which he lived, and there was no
need, therefore, to seek for another home; and Mrs. Colwyn had fifty
pounds a year of her own, but of course it was necessary that the two
elder girls should do something for themselves. Nora obtained almost
immediately a post as under-teacher in a school not far from Beaminster,
and Georgie was taken in as a sort of governess-pupil, while Joe was
offered--chiefly out of consideration for his father's memory--a
clerkship in a mercantile house in the town, and was considered to be
well provided for. Curly, one of the younger boys, obtained a nomination
to a naval school in London. Thus only Mrs. Colwyn, Tiny, and "Jinks"
remained at home--with Janetta.
With Janetta!--That was the difficulty. What was Janetta to do? She
might probably with considerable ease have obtained a position as
resident governess in a family, but then she would have to be absent
from home altogether. And of late the Colwyns had found it best to
dispense with the maid-servant who had hitherto done the work of the
household--a fact which meant that Janetta, with the help of a charity
orphan of thirteen, did it nearly all herself.
"I might send home enough money for you to keep an efficient servant,
mamma," she said one day, "if I could go away and find a good
situation."
It never occurred either to her or to her stepmother that any of her
earnings were to belong to Janetta, or be used for her behoof.
"It would have to be a very good situation indeed, then," said Mrs.
Colwyn, with sharpness. "I don't suppose you could get more than fifty
pounds a year--if so much. And fifty pounds would not go far if we had a
woman in the house to feed and pay wages to. No, you had better stay at
home and get some daily teaching in the neighborhood. With your
recommendations it ought to be easy enough for you to do so."
"I am afraid not," said Janetta, with a little sigh.
"Nonsense! You could get some if you tried--if you had any energy, any
spirit: I suppose you would like to sit with your hands before you,
doing nothing, while I slaved my fingers to the bone for you," said Mrs.
Colwyn, who never got up till noon, or did anything but gossip and read
novels when she was up; "but I would be ashamed to do that if I were a
well-educated girl, whose father spent I don't know how much on her
voice, and expected her to make a living for herself by the time she was
one-and-twenty! I must say, Janetta, that I think it very wrong of you
to be so slack in trying to earn a little money, when Nora and Georgie
and Joey are all out in the world doing for themselves, and you sitting
here at home doing nothing at all."
"I am sorry, mamma," said Janetta, meekly. "I will try to get something
to do at once."
She did not think of reminding Mrs. Colwyn that she had been up since
six o'clock that morning helping the charity orphan to scrub and scour,
cooking, making beds, sewing, teaching Tiny between whiles, and scarcely
getting five minutes' rest until dinner-time. She only began to wonder
how she could manage to get all her tasks into the day if she had
lessons to give as well. "I suppose I must sit up at night and get up
earlier in the morning," she thought to herself. "It is a pity I am such
a sleepy person. But use reconciles one to all things."
Mrs. Colwyn meanwhile went on lecturing.
"And above all things, Janetta, remember that you ask high terms and get
the money always in advance. You are just like your poor father in the
way you have about money; I never saw anyone so unpractical as he was.
I'm sure half his bills are unpaid yet, and never will be paid. I hope
you won't be like _him_, I'm sure----"
"I hope I shall be like him in every possible respect," said Janetta,
with compressed lips. She rose as she spoke and caught up the basket of
socks that she was mending. "I don't know how you can bear to speak of
him in that slighting manner," she went on, almost passionately. "He was
the best, the kindest of men, and I cannot bear to hear it." And then
she hurriedly left the room and went into her father's little
surgery--as it had once been called--to relieve her overcharged heart
with a burst of weeping. It was not often that Janetta lost patience,
but a word against her father was sufficient to upset her self-command
nowadays. She rested her head against the well-worn arm-chair where he
used to sit, and kissed the back of it, and bedewed it with her tears.
"Poor father! dear father!" she murmured. "Oh, if only you were here, I
could bear anything! Or if she had loved you as you deserved, I could
bear with her and work for her willingly--cheerfully. But when she
speaks against you, father dear, how _can_ I live with her? And yet he
told me to take care of her, and I said I would. He called me 'his
faithful Janet.' I do not want to be unfaithful, but--oh father, father,
it is hard to live without you!"
The gathering shades of the wintry day began to gather round her; but
Janetta, her face buried in the depths of the arm-chair, was oblivious
of time. It was almost dark before little Tiny came running in with
cries of terror to summon her sister to Mrs. Colwyn's help.
"Mamma's ill--I think she's dying. Come, Janet, come," cried the child.
And Janetta hurried back to the dining-room.
She found Mrs. Colwyn on the sofa in a state of apparent stupor. For
this at first Janetta saw no reason, and was on the point of sending for
a doctor, when her eye fell upon a black object which had rolled from
the sofa to the ground. Janetta looked at it and stood transfixed.
There was no need to send for a doctor. And Janetta saw at once that she
could not be spared from home. The wretched woman had found a solace
from her woes, real and imaginary, in the brandy bottle.