MRS. MOUND’S OPINION.
On Christmas morning, Emma complained of a cold and a sharp pain in
her chest. She did not venture to church, as it was a bitterly bleak
day, but nursed herself up for the evening, declaring that in a snug
brougham, with furs and a foot-warmer, she could brave Greenland
itself. Mrs. Gabb and family were also spending the evening abroad.
“Hearing as you was dining and sleeping at the Abbey, ma’am, I take
the liberty of leaving you,” she explained. (It was not the first
liberty she had taken.) “I’ll have everything ready—candles and
coal and hot-water—to last till half-past seven. We—Gabb and me and
the children and Annie—are invited to my sister’s for six o’clock,
and she lives a good bit the other side of the town. But, if it will
inconvenience you, I’ll leave Annie to help you to dress, or anything.”
“No, no; not on any account.” Emma assured her that we could manage
perfectly. “Please do not trouble about us,” she added, “but just see
to the lights and fire. We will turn down the lamp before we leave.”
“There is nothing in the house for breakfast. But I suppose it won’t be
required. You won’t be back till late in the forenoon?”
To which Emma smilingly assented.
As Emma believed that this festivity would be merely the forerunner
of many, she took great pains with my dress, was most fastidious
about the arrangement of my hair and the fit of my gloves, and put
a finishing touch to my toilet in the shape of a curious old native
necklet, made of amethysts and real pearls.
At last we were ready—all save our cloaks. Emma looked wonderfully
pretty—her color was so brilliant, her eyes shone—the light of other
days was in her face. Excitement and anticipation had thrown her into
a fever of restlessness; it seemed to her active brain that so very
much—in fact, all my future—was to hinge upon this eventful evening.
If Lady Hildegarde (who was devoted to young people, and extremely fond
of society) took a fancy to me, the thing was done—I was launched. If
not, there was, I’m sure she firmly believed, an end of everything. I
was doomed, and for life, to social extinction and obscurity.
We sat waiting, with merely the blinds down, so that we could easily
scan the street. It was a bright moonlight night, and there was a sharp
frost. The lamp was sputtering and blinking and making itself extremely
unpleasant for lack of wick.
“We will turn it out,” I said, “and light the candles. There are only
two small bits, but the carriage will be here immediately—in fact, I
hear it now.”
Yes, a pair of horses, trotting briskly up the hard-frozen street. No;
they went past.
“It is Lady Bloss,” said Emma, pulling up the blind and actually
opening the window; “she is dining at the Cholmondeleys’. But I hear
another coming. Ah, it’s only a dog-cart!”
“_Do_ shut the window!” I implored; but I spoke to deaf ears.
There were wheels in the distance—a long way off—and I was not to
worry, but to put on my cloak at once.
Five minutes elapsed—ten minutes. I rose and pulled down the window
without apology. A quarter of an hour!
“Yes,” cried Emma, half-hysterically; “the carriage _is_ rather late,
but I really hear it now. It is coming at last!”
But, no; it was merely Mound the undertaker, and family, in his own
best mourning-coach. Then Emma’s little traveling-clock chimed out
eight silvery strokes.
“And they dine at eight!” said Emma, under her breath. “Perhaps it was
half-past,” she said. “Can the coachman have made a mistake?” And she
looked at me with—oh, such a piteous, wistful, eager pair of eyes.
I made no reply. I dared not put my opinion into plain, brutal words,
and tell the white-faced, anxious little inquirer, that “her friend
Lady Hildegarde had forgotten us!” The fire had died down. The candles
were expiring in their sockets. We sat together in absolute silence.
Oh, if I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget the heartache I
endured that miserable half-hour—not for myself, but for Emma.
At last she said, in a husky whisper—
“Gwen, Gwen! Are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Is it possible that she has forgotten us?”
“I’m afraid so,” I whispered.
“Oh no, she couldn’t. Christmas Day, too, and our places at
table! _That_ would remind her—two places short. Or, could it be
possible?—she was always rather heedless—yes”—now coming over to
me, and looking at me with a haggard, white face—“you are right,
she must have forgotten all about us. And she spent Christmas with me
in my palmy days, and said—oh, what is the good of recalling it all
now? Here are we two, on Christmas night, desolate and alone, without
dinner or fire, and soon we shall be in outer darkness”—pointing to
the candle. “Oh, it is too, _too_ cruel”—and she burst into tears. “I
had built on it so,” she sobbed—“this little visit, not for myself,
but for you; I thought she would ask you to stay, and befriend you
perhaps—when—when——”
“Never mind about me, darling,” I said kneeling down beside her, “she
is a hard, selfish, worldly woman. I saw through her long ago. We bored
her fearfully. She did not want us here. She was afraid we might become
an incubus, because we are poor. She asked us in a spasm of shame at
her own conduct, and on the impulse of the moment. Don’t cry—don’t,
dearest! We must make the best of it. Oh, how cold the room is! I’ll
take off my gown, and hunt up some chips and light a good fire, and go
and see if I can’t find something to eat. I wonder where the matches
are?”
In a very short time I had changed my dress and made a trip to the
lower regions. Here I found some bits of coal and chips, the heel of a
loaf, and, about a pint of skim-milk.
“Oh, Gwen dear,” gasped Emma, as I re-entered, “I must go to bed, I
feel _so_ ill. I’ve been fighting against it all day; but now there is
a pain in my chest, just like a sword being run into it.”
And Emma stood up, and clutched hold of the chimney-piece, and turned
on me a face gray and drawn with mortal suffering.
I was naturally greatly alarmed. I hurried her into her room,
undressed her, and put her to bed.
“I’m so cold—oh, _so_ cold!” she moaned; and so she was. But, alas,
there was no fire, no hot water, no anything! I was at my wits’ end;
then I suddenly bethought me of Mrs. Mound. I knew she was at home, and
ran across to the little private door. After a very short interval, and
as soon as I had breathlessly explained my troubles, Mrs. Mound (good,
kind soul!) came over bearing a kettle of hot water, some mustard, and
a lamp. She had despatched her eldest son to fetch Dr. Skuce without a
moment’s delay.
“Your mother taken ill, and you all alone!” she said. “Dear, dear,
dear! it’s terrible indeed! I’ll just fill a hot bottle and take it in,
and have a look at her.”
Emma lay on her little bed, moaning and gasping in the grip of a great
agony.
“You’ll be all right soon, ma’am. I’ll light a nice little fire, and
get you a warm drink; and I have sent one of my boys for Skuce.”
She spoke to us both in the same cheerful and encouraging manner; but I
heard her distinctly talking to her husband over the balustrades. What
she said was evidently not for my ear, and nearly turned me to stone.
“It’s a bad business, Isaac. The poor little thing is past Skuce or any
one. There will be a job for _you_ here, before many days are over.
I’ve seen pneumonia before—she has got it as bad as can be. Nothing
can save her—I knew that, the moment I saw her face. Poor lady, she
will be gone before the New Year!”