A True Friend Part 50

"But--but--you call me naughty sometimes?" the child said, fixing a pair of innocent, inquiring eyes upon her.

"Ah, but, my dear, I do not love you the less," said Janetta, out of the fullness of her heart, and she took him in her arms and kissed him.

"You are more like what I always think a mother ought to be," said Julian. What stabs children inflict on us sometimes by their artless words! Janetta shuddered a little as he spoke. "Then ought I to love her, whether she is good or bad?"

Janetta paused. She was very anxious to say only what was right.

"Yes, my darling," she said at last. "Love her always, through everything. She is your mother, and she has a right to your love."

And then, in simple words, she talked to him about right and wrong, about love and duty and life, until, with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, he flung his arms about her, and said----

"Yes, I understand now. And I will love her and take care of her always, because G.o.d sent me to her to do that."

And he objected no more to the daily visit to his mother's room.

The sick woman's restless eyes, sharpened by illness, soon discerned the change in his demeanor.

"You've been talking to that boy about me," she said one day to Janetta, in a quick, sensitive voice.

"Nothing that would hurt you," Janetta replied, smiling.

"Oh, indeed, I'm not so sure of that. He used to run away from me, and now he sits beside me like a lamb. I know what you've been saying."

"What?" said Janetta.

"You've been saying that I'm going to die, and that he won't be bothered with me long. Eh?"

"No; nothing of that kind."

"What did you say, then?"

"I told him," said Janetta, slowly, "that G.o.d sent him to you as a little baby to be a help and comfort to you; and that it was a son's duty to protect and sustain his mother, as she had once protected and sustained him."

"And you think he understood that sort of nonsense?"

"You see for yourself whether he does or not," said Janetta, gently. "He likes to come and see you and sit beside you now."

Mrs. Wyvis Brand was silent for a minute or two. A tear gathered in each of her defiant black eyes, but she did not allow either of them to fall.

"You're a queer one," she said, with a hard laugh. "I never met anybody like you before. You're religious, aren't you?"

"I don't know: I should like to be," said Janetta, soberly.

"That's the queerest thing you've said yet. And all you religious people look down on folks like me."

"Then I'm not religious, for I don't look down on folks like you at all," said Janetta, calmly adopting Mrs. Brand's vocabulary.

"Well, you ought to. I'm not a very good sort myself."

Janetta smiled, but made no other answer: And presently Juliet Brand remarked--

"I dare say I'm not so bad as some people, but I've never been a saint, you know. And the day I came here I was in an awful temper. I struck you, didn't I?"

"Oh, never mind that," said Janetta, hastily. "You were tired: you hardly knew what you were doing."

"Yes, I did," said Mrs. Brand. "I knew perfectly well. But I hated you, because you lived here and had care of Julian. I had heard all about you at Beaminster, you see. And people said that you would probably marry Wyvis when he came home again. Oh, I've made you blush, have I? It was true then?"

"Not at all; and you have no right to say so."

"Don't be angry, my dear. I don't want to vex you. But it looks to me rather as though----Well, we won't say any more about it since it vexes you. I shan't trouble you long, most likely, and then Wyvis can do as he pleases. But you see it was that thought that maddened me when I came here, and I felt as if I'd like to fall upon you and tear you limb from limb. So I struck you on the face when you tried to thwart me."

"But--I don't understand," said Janetta, tremulously. "I thought you did not--_love_--Wyvis."

Mrs. Brand laughed. "Not in your way," she said in an enigmatic tone.

"But a woman can hate a man and be jealous of him too. And I was jealous of you, and struck you. And in return for that you've nursed me night and day, and waited on me, until you're nearly worn out, and the doctor says I owe my life to you. Don't you think I'm right when I say you're a queer one?"

"It would be very odd if I neglected you when you were ill just because of a moment of pa.s.sion on your part," said Janetta, rather stiffly. It was difficult to her to be perfectly natural just then.

"Would it? Some people wouldn't say so. But come--you say I don't love Wyvis?"

"I thought so--certainly."

"Well, look here," said Wyvis' wife. "I'll tell you something. Wyvis was tired of me before ever he married me. I soon found that out. And you think I should be caring for him then? Not I. But there _was_ a time when I would have kissed the very ground he walked on. But he never cared for me like that."

"Then--why----".

"Why did he marry me? Chiefly because his old fool of a mother egged him on. She should have let us alone."

"Did she want him to marry you?" said Janetta, in some amaze.

"It doesn't seem likely, does it?" said Mrs. Brand, with a sharp, heartless little laugh. "But she sets up for having a conscience now and then. I was a girl in a shop, I may tell you, and Wyvis made love to me without the slightest idea of marrying me. Then Mrs. Brand comes on the scene: 'Oh, my dear boy, you mustn't make that young woman unhappy. I was made unhappy by a gentleman when I was a girl, and I don't want you to behave as he did."

"And that was very good of Mrs. Brand!" said Janetta, courageously.

Juliet made a grimace. "After a fashion. She had better have let us alone. She put Wyvis into a fume about his honor; and so he asked me to marry him. And I cared for him--though I cared more about his position--and I said yes. So we were married, and a nice cat and dog life we had of it together."

"And then you left him?"

"Yes, I did. I got tired of it all at last. But I always lived respectably, except for taking a little too much stimulant now and then; and I never brought any dishonor on his name. And at last I thought the best thing for us both would be to set him free. And I wrote to him that he _was_ free. But there was some hitch--I don't know what exactly. Any way, we're bound to each other as fast as ever we were, so we needn't think to get rid of each other just yet."

Janetta felt a throb of thankfulness, for Margaret's sake. Suppose she had yielded to Wyvis' solicitations and become his wife, to be proved only no wife at all? Her want of love for Wyvis had at least saved her from terrible misery. Mrs. Brand went on, reflectively--

"When I'm gone, he can marry whom he likes. I only hope it'll be anybody as good as you. You'd make a capital mother to Julian. And I don't suppose I shall trouble anybody very long."

"You are getting better--you will soon be perfectly well."

"Nonsense: nothing of the kind. But if I am, I know one thing," said Mrs. Brand, in a petulant tone; "I won't be kept out of my rights any longer. This house seems to be nice and comfortable: I shall stay here.

I am tired of wandering about the world."