JACK’S TROUBLE.
WITHOUT thinking, I strolled some distance, till almost out of sight of
my husband. Nobody else was near. And all at once I saw on the grass,
a good way from the road, a prostrate figure,—somebody lying flat and
still.
A tired excursionist, was my first thought; a sick man, my second;
somebody in trouble, my third. For I noticed a slight writhing
movement, suggestive of distress, and a low sound, much like a
smothered sob, reached me.
I went slowly nearer, without knowing why, without thinking what I
meant to do. And my attention was caught by a certain familiar look in
the outline of the shoulders. I stood still, gazed hard for an instant,
and then was kneeling beside the prostrate figure in alarm.
“Why, Jack! Jack?” I said breathlessly. “Jack, has anything happened?
are you ill?”
“I wish I were,” groaned Jack.
“My dear boy, what is wrong?” I asked, relieved to hear him speak, yet
frightened still.
“Nothing. I mean, nothing you can help. Mother, please go.”
“But you will tell me what it is,” I entreated. For hitherto Jack had
always turned to me in trouble.
“No,—no use,—nobody can help me,—I only want to be let alone.” And then
he actually broke quite down, and sobbed,—great strong fellow that he
was. I put my hand on his, but he shook it off, as if hardly able to
endure a touch.
“Jack, if anybody can comfort you, don’t you think your mother can?”
“Nobody can,” repeated the poor boy. “Mother, please leave me
alone,—just a few minutes. I’ll come soon. I’ll meet you at the
landing.”
“And you won’t tell me what is wrong?”
Jack rolled over and hid his face. “I’ve no hope of Maimie,” he
muttered. “There! you have it now. I can’t talk about it.”
“No hope of Maimie!” I repeated, at the moment stupidly not
understanding. Did he mean that he thought her ill,—hopelessly ill?
This absurd idea actually occurred to my mind first.
“Yes,—no hope,” repeated Jack fiercely. “Isn’t that plain enough? She
doesn’t care for me,—any more than for anybody else. O Maimie!”
The choking sobs came back. What could I do? To leave him was
impossible; yet I hardly dared speak or touch him. After a minute I
ventured to suggest,—“You are both so young,—Maimie almost a child.”
“Oh, I thought you were gone,” Jack said, with a kind of gasp, and he
sat up, then started to his feet. “Mother, you needn’t say anything
about me to the others. I’ll be at the landing—” and he rushed away.
Why Jack had come to Bushey Park at all, when he could not bear to
be spoken to, was rather a mystery to me, since he knew we should be
all there. But it was just like his simple and impulsive way of doing
things. Probably he could have given no clear reason himself.
No others of our party were yet in sight. As I walked slowly back
towards Robert, going through a motherly heart-ache on behalf of my
boy, Maimie suddenly emerged from some trees, and flew rather than ran
towards me.
“Where are the others?” I asked, surprised at her being alone, as well
as struck by her crimson cheeks and bright eyes.
“Oh, they are somewhere,” she said breathlessly.
“I have not seen Cherry and the boys for some time. Cress is coming—and
I don’t know where Jack is. Jack ran away from us, and I ran away from
Cress. O please, Aunt Marion, I want so much to tell you something.”
“Tell me now,” I said, and I drew her arm within my own. “We will go
for a little walk along the avenue. Uncle Robert is asleep, you see.”
She held my arm tightly, clinging with the air of one who needed
protection.
“It has been such nonsense,” she said, breathless still. “I want to
tell you everything at once, and then you won’t have any false ideas
about me,—mistaken ideas, I mean. For indeed it has not been my fault.
I never dreamt of such a thing. Why, I’m only seventeen to-day.”
“Yes, Maimie,” I said anxiously.
“Cress has been so absurd all the afternoon,—wanting to be by side, and
trying to throw poor Jack into the shade. So I talked more to Jack than
to him, and that, I suppose, vexed Cress. And at last it came to—to—I
hardly know how to explain. It would take so long to tell exactly all
that passed. But Cress said something about my being by-and-by ‘his
little wife.’ Jack laughed, and then Cress fired up, and said Jack
might laugh if he chose, but it was no laughing matter, for I should be
his wife.”
“Rather cool of Cress,” I said soothingly, for Maimie trembled like a
leaf.
“Yes,—so I thought. And I said to him, ‘I am not to be disposed of
quite so easily, I can tell you, Cress.’ And he actually said,—I know
you like me well enough, and I mean you to be mine some day. I’ll never
give you any peace till you say ‘Yes.’”
“And your answer?” I asked.
“I said I wished he wouldn’t be so ridiculous. As if we couldn’t be
brothers and sisters all together, without such nonsense! Cherry was
not at hand to help me, and Cress kept saying again and again,—‘But you
like me,—I know you like me,—say you like me, Maimie.’ And I said at
last,—’ Yes, of course I like you,—and I like a great many other people
too. I should like you much better if you did not tease me like this.’
And he said,—‘It isn’t teasing, Maimie. I want you to say that you like
me best,—better than anybody,—better than Jack.’”
“What did Jack say?” I asked.
“He said,—‘Do you, Maimie?’ in a low voice. And I said,—‘No, of course
I don’t. I like you all,—Jack and Cress and Owen and all of you.’ I am
afraid Jack didn’t like the way I spoke, he turned so white, and looked
vexed. But what else could I say?”
“It was the best answer you could make, I dare say,” I said.
“Of course it was, because it was the true one,” Maimie said, with
spirit. “Cress went on teasing me, and wanted to know if I was quite
sure I liked him exactly in the same way as Jack. I said,—‘No,
because Jack is my pupil as well as my brother, and I am proud of
his spelling.’ And Jack looked graver than ever. And Cress said,—‘It
doesn’t matter. You’ll never marry anybody but me, Maimie.’ And I said,
‘Then I shall not marry at all, for I should never think of marrying
you.’ I am afraid I was getting a little angry, for it really was too
bad of him. I heard Jack say softly,—‘Or me?’ and I wanted not to take
any notice, but Cress said, ‘You’ll not marry Jack!’ in a sort of
threatening tone. And I said,—‘I certainly shall not ask your leave,
Cress. But I don’t mean to marry you or Jack or anybody. The whole
thing is ridiculous. I love Aunt Marion more than anybody else in the
world, and I don’t want ever to leave her.’”
“Thank you, Maimie,” I said, and I gave her a kiss; yet my heart was
sore for poor Jack.
“Then you don’t think I answered too sharply. It was so provoking of
them both. Jack must have been vexed, for he went straight off and left
us. And Cress began upon me again, so I ran away in another direction
and left him. I lost my way in the grounds, or I should have been here
much sooner. I did so want to tell you first, before Cress.”
“I do not suppose Cress will say much to me,” I remarked. “He has
behaved like a very foolish boy.”
“Yes, foolish,” repeated Maimie. “Just think of our ages—eighteen and
seventeen. It is too absurd. There are all sorts of things I want to do
and to learn before I even think of marrying.”
“I could never advise an early marriage upon poor means,” I said,
speaking out of sad experience.
“No, indeed. And why should I? I am so happy as things are. I do wish
Cress had let me alone. Cress, of all people! Of course I like him—as
a boy, but that is all. I think a girl at seventeen is much older than
a boy at eighteen or nineteen. And if I were to marry I must have
somebody to look up to,—not a mere boy. Besides, they are both much too
young to know their minds yet. Either of them might like me well enough
now, and yet not care for me at all a few years hence. Do you think I
did rightly?”
“Quite rightly,” I said. “Feeling as you do, I don’t see what other
answer was possible.”
“Only they are your boys and I can’t bear to give pain to anybody
belonging to you. But it always seems to me as if marriage were such
a very solemn thing. To promise always to love and obey another,
always to live with him, always to honour him and put him first,—oh, I
couldn’t, unless I felt so very very sure of what he was. I should want
such a good, good man, and so kind and pleasant,—somebody whom I could
really love better than all the world beside. And, of course, it would
have to be somebody I could look up to,—somebody cleverer and wiser
than myself.”
Poor Jack!
“I don’t mean that I ever have thought very much about it,” she
pursued. “Only, of course, I know the sort of people I like. Cress
would never never do. He is kind to me, but he thinks much too much
about his food, and his comforts, and having his own way. O no; I
couldn’t be the wife of a person like Cress. I shouldn’t be able to
look up to him.”
“You could look up to Jack more than to Cress,” I ventured to suggest.
“Yes,—perhaps. He is strong, and always kind. O yes, one does respect
Jack’s strength, and the use he makes of it. Poor Jack is really good,
I am sure; only he is rather slow over books. I can do a long sum in a
quarter the time he takes.”
Alas, it was too true. And Maimie was devoted to books, and thought so
much of knowledge.
“Anyhow, I don’t mean to think about marrying yet,” she said brightly.
“Not for years to come. I shan’t mind now I have told you. Cress must
learn to hold his tongue. I believe he was half in joke all the time.”
Cress might have been; but I knew it was not so with Jack.
We had gone some distance, and now we turned, Maimie continuing in the
same strain, flushed and bright-eyed still. Cherry and the two small
boys came to meet us, and Cress was sitting beside his father, looking
moody and dismal. Poor silly boy! What could have become of Jack? That
question rose next. I said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Jack was here
before you all came back. He will meet us at the landing.”
Then Robert woke up, and we began to talk of going home.
Cress evidently wanted to show Maimie by his manner that he was very
wretched. But Maimie hardly looked at him, and clung persistently to my
side. On the border of the river we found Jack, looking so white and
spiritless, that Cherry asked if he had a headache, and Maimie gave a
guilty start, as if she felt herself to blame.
The return trip was not so cheery as the morning row had been. Jack
worked at his oar persistently, saying little; while Cress chose to
consider himself too tired for exertion, putting off his share of work
upon other people.
Cherry was the merriest of the party, in her quiet way, but gradually
she woke up to the fact of something unusual, and became silent like
the rest. It was not till we had left the boat and were walking home
that I found an opportunity to whisper a few words as to what had
passed. She said only, “O dear, how silly! And poor Jack’s day is all
spoilt!”
“We mustn’t let Maimie think we pity Jack too much,” I said. “I want
her to feel perfectly free; and they are so absurdly young at present.
The less we make of the affair, the better.”
“But it is no mere fancy with Jack,” Cherry said; and I felt sure from
her manner that Jack had already confided to her his hopes for the
future. “Mother she will learn to love him some day; don’t you think
so?”
“I don’t know at all,” I said. “Maimie loves him now as a cousin,—as a
brother, perhaps. But whether he could ever be anything more to her is
another question.”
“Our dear good Jack,” Cherry said warmly.
“Yes; but Maimie is clever, and Jack is not. And for a wife to have
more brains than her husband is—well, not always a thing to be desired.”
“O mother, you to say that of Jack,” Cherry murmured reproachfully. And
then we were interrupted.
It was almost dark by the time home was reached. Jack opened the door
with his latch-key, and disappeared. Maimie had been walking with my
husband, and they came in close after Cherry and me. We made our way
straight into the sitting-room.
“Cherry, do pull up the blind,” I said, “We must have lights directly.
I suppose supper will soon be ready. You told the girl to lay the
table, did you not?”
“How do you do, Maimie?” a man’s voice said.
I don’t think I am given to screaming, but I did scream then. I was
dreadfully startled, never dreaming that anybody was in the room.
Cherry had just pulled up the blind, and happily she had presence of
mind not to let it drop.
A stout man with a black beard rose out of an easy chair, where he
seemed to have been much at home, and came a step towards us. It was
too dusk for any recognition of features.
“How do you all do?” he said again. “You don’t expect me, of course,
Maimie,—why, how the child has grown! Much obliged to you all for
giving her a home at a pinch. Well, Maimie, don’t you know me?”
“Father!” Maimie said hesitatingly. She did not greet him with delight,
as she would once have done. His long neglect had naturally chilled her
feelings of affection.
“To be sure! One would think you had lost your memory. It’s rather
dark, certainly; but I knew you, child, in a moment. Haven’t you a kiss
for me? Well, Robert, here I am at last.”