Emilie the Peacemaker Part 3

Fred was delighted when he came in to tea, and John no less so. All the rude speeches were forgotten, and Emilie was as sympathetic in her joy as an elder sister could have been. "I don't know what you will do without Miss Schomberg," said Mr. Parker, as he sipped his tea.

"She had better come and live with us," said Fred, "and keep us all in order. I'm sure I should have no objection."

Emilie felt quite paid for the little self-denial she had exercised, when she found that her greatest enemy, he who had declared he would "plague her to death, and pay her off for not letting them send up their fire-works," was really conquered by that powerful weapon, _love_.

Fred had thought more than he chose to acknowledge of Emilie's kindness; he could not forget it. It was so different to the treatment he had met with from his a.s.sociates generally. It made him ask what could be the reason of Emilie's conduct. She had nothing to get by it, that was certain, and Fred made up his mind to have some talk with Miss Schomberg on the subject the first time they were alone. He had some trials at school with a boy who was bent on annoying him, and trying to stir up his temper; perhaps the peacemaker might tell him how to deal with this lad. Fred was an impetuous boy, and now began to like Miss Schomberg as warmly as he had previously disliked her.

On their way to old Joe's house that night, Emilie thought she would call in on Miss Webster, not having parted from her very warmly on the first night of the holidays. A fortnight of these holidays had pa.s.sed away, and Emilie began to long for her quiet evenings, and to see dear aunt Agnes again. She looked quite affectionately up to the little sitting room window, where her geraniums stood, and even thought kindly of Miss Webster herself, to whom it was not quite so easy to feel genial. She entered the shop. The apprentice sate there at work, busily tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a fine rice straw bonnet for the lodger within. She looked up joyously at Emilie's approach. She thought how often that kind German face had been to her like a sunbeam on a dull path; how often her musical voice had spoken words of counsel, and comfort, and sympathy, to her in her hard life. How she had pressed her hand when she (the apprentice) came home one night and told her, "My poor mother is dead,"

and how she had said, "We are both orphans now, Lucy. We can feel for one another." How she had taught her by example, often, and by word sometimes, not to answer again if any thing annoyed or irritated her, and in short how much Lucy had missed the young lady only Lucy could say.

Emilie inquired for her mistress, but the words were scarcely out of her lips, than she said, "Oh, Miss, she's so bad! She has scalt her foot, and is quite laid up, and the lodgers are very angry. They say they don't get properly attended to and so they mean to go. Dear me, there is such a commotion, but her foot is very had, poor thing, and I have to mind the shop, or I would wait upon her more; and the girl is very inattentive and saucy, so that I don't see what we are to do. Will you go and see Miss Webster, Miss?"

Emilie cheerfully consented, leaving Edith with Lucy to learn straw plaiting, if she liked, and to listen to her artless talk. Lucy had less veneration for the name of Queen Victoria than for that of Schomberg.

Emilie was to her the very perfection of human nature, and accordingly she sang her praises loud and long.

On the sofa, the very sofa for which M. Schomberg had so longed, lay Miss Webster, the expression of her face manifesting the greatest pain.

The servant girl had just brought up her mistress's tea, a cold, slopped, miserable looking mess. A slice of thick bread and b.u.t.ter, half soaked in the spilled beverage, was on a plate, and that a dirty one; and the tray which held the meal was offered to the poor sick woman so carelessly, that the contents were nearly shot into her lap. It was easy to see that love formed no part of Betsey's service of her mistress, and that she rendered every attention grudgingly and ill. Emilie went up cordially to Miss Webster, and was not prepared for the repulsive reception with which she met. She wondered what she could have said or done, except, indeed, in the refusal of the instrument, and that was atoned for. Emilie might have known, however, that nothing makes our manners so distant and cold to another, as the knowledge that we have injured or offended him. Miss Webster, in receiving Emilie's advances, truly was experiencing the truth of the scripture saying, that coals of fire should be heaped on her head.

Poor Miss Webster! "There! set down the tray, you may go, and don't let me see you in that filthy cap again, not fit to be touched with a pair of tongs; and don't go up to Mrs. Newson in that slipshod fashion, don't Betsey; and when you have taken up tea come here, I have an errand for you to go. Shut the door gently. Oh, dear! dear, these servants!"

This was so continually the lament of Miss Webster, that Emilie would not have noticed it, but that she appeared so miserable, and she therefore kindly said, "I am afraid Betsey does not wait on you nicely, Miss Webster, she is so very young. I had no idea of this accident, how did it happen?"

How it happened took Miss Webster some time to tell. It happened in no very unusual manner, and the effect was a scalt foot, which she forthwith shewed Miss Schomberg. There was no doubt that it was a very bad foot, and Emilie saw that it needed a good nurse more than a good doctor. Mr. Parker was a medical man, and Emilie knew she should have no difficulty in obtaining that kind of a.s.sistance for her. But the nursing! Miss Webster was feverish and uneasy, and in such suffering that something must be done. At the sight of her pain all was forgotten, but that she was a fellow-creature, helpless and forsaken, and that she must be helped.

All this time any one coming in might have imagined that Emilie had been the cause of the disaster, so affronted was Miss Webster's manner, and so pettishly did she reject all her visitor's suggestions as preposterous and impossible.

"Will you give up your walk to-night, Edith," said Emilie on her return to the shop, "Poor Miss Webster is in such pain I cannot leave her, and if you would run home and ask your papa to step in and see her, and say she has scalt her foot badly, I would thank you very much."

Emilie spoke earnestly, so earnestly that Edith asked if she were grown very fond of that "sour old maid all of a sudden."

"Very fond! No Edith; but it does not, or ought not to require us to be very fond of people to do our duty to them."

"Well, I don't see what duty you owe to that mean creature, and I see no reason why I should lose my walk again to-night. You treat people you don't love better than those you do it seems; or else your professions of loving me mean nothing. All day long you have been after Fred's balloon, and now I suppose mean to be all night long after Miss Webster's foot."

Emilie made no reply; she could only have reproached Edith for selfishness and temper at least equal to Miss Webster's, but telling Lucy she should soon return, hastened to Mr. Parker's house, followed by Edith; he was soon at the patient's side, and as Emilie foretold, it was a case more for an attentive nurse than a skilful doctor. He promised to send her an application, but, "Miss Schomberg," said he, "sleep is what she wants; she tells me she has had no rest since the accident occurred.

What is to be done?" "Can you not send for a neighbour, Miss Webster, or some one to attend to your household, and to nurse you too. If you worry yourself in this way you will be quite ill."

Poor Miss Webster was ill, she knew it; and having neither neighbour nor friend within reach, she did what was very natural in her case, she took up her handkerchief and began to cry. "Oh, come, Miss Webster,"

said Emilie, cheerfully, "I will get you to bed, and Lucy shall come when the shop is closed, and to-morrow I will get aunt Agnes to come and nurse you. Keep up your spirits."

"Ah, it is very well to talk of keeping up spirits, and as to your aunt Agnes, there never was any love lost between us. No thank you, Miss Schomberg, no thank you. If I may just trouble you to help me to the side of my bed, I can get in, and do very well alone. _Good_ night."

Emilie stood looking pitifully at her. "I hope I don't keep you, Miss Schomberg, pray don't stay, you cannot help me," and here Miss Webster rose, but the agony of putting her foot to the ground was so great that she could not restrain a cry, and Emilie, who saw that the poor sufferer was like a child in helplessness, and like a child, moreover, in petulance, calmly but resolutely declared her intention of remaining until Lucy could leave the shop.

Having helped her landlady into bed, she ran down-stairs to try and appease the indignant lodgers, who protested, and with truth, that they had rung, rung, rung, and no one answered the bell; that they wanted tea, that Miss Webster had undertaken to wait on them, that they were _not_ waited on, and that accordingly they would seek other lodgings on the morrow, they would, &c., &c. "Miss Webster, ma'am, is very ill to-night. She has a young careless servant girl, and is, I a.s.sure you, very much distressed that you should be put out thus. I will bring up your tea, ma'am, in five minutes, if you will allow me. It is very disagreeable for you, but I am sure if you could see the poor woman, ma'am, you would pity her." Mrs. Harmer did pity her only from Emilie's simple account of her state, and declared she was very sorry she had seemed angry, but the girl did not say her mistress was ill, only that she was lying down, which appeared very disrespectful and inattentive, when they had been waiting two hours for tea.

The shop was by this time cleared up, and Lucy was able to attend to the lodgers. Whilst Emilie having applied the rags soaked in the lotion which had arrived, proceeded to get Miss Webster a warm and neatly served cup of tea.

It would have been very cheering to hear a pleasant "thank you;" but Miss Webster received all these attentions with stiff and almost silent displeasure. Do not blame her too severely, a hard struggle was going on; but the law of kindness is at work, and it will not fail.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

BETTER THINGS.

"Ah, if Miss Schomberg had asked me to wait on _her_, how gladly would I have done it, night after night, day after day, and should have thought myself well paid with a smile; but to sit up all night with a person, who cares no more for me, than I for her, and that is nothing! and then to have to get down to-morrow and attend to the shop, all the same as if I had slept well, is no joke. Oh, dear me! how sleepy I am, two o'clock!

I was to change those rags at two; I really scarcely dare attempt it, she seems so irritable now." So soliloquized Lucy, who, kindhearted as she was, could not be expected to take quite so much delight in nursing her cross mistress, who never befriended her, as she would have done a kinder, gentler person; but Lucy read her Bible, and she had been trying, though not so long as Emilie, nor always so successfully it must be owned, to live as though she read it.

"Miss Webster, ma'am, the doctor said those rags were to be changed every two hours. May I do it for you? I can't do it as well as Miss Schomberg, but I will do my very best not to hurt you."

"I want sleep child," said Miss Webster, "I want _sleep_, leave me alone."

"You can't sleep in such pain, ma'am," said poor Lucy, quite at her wits ends.

"Don't you think, I must know that as well as you? There! there's that rush light gone out, and you never put any water in the tin; a pretty nurse you make, now I shall have that smell in my nose all night. You must have set it in a draught. What business has a rush light to go out in a couple of hours? I wonder."

Lucy put the obnoxious night shade out of the room, and went back to the bedside. For a long time she was unsuccessful, but at last Miss Webster consented to have her foot dressed, and even cheered her young nurse by the acknowledgment that she did it very well, considering; and thus the night wore away.

Quite early Emilie was at her post, and was grieved to see that Miss Webster still looked haggard and suffering, and as if she had not slept.

In answer to her inquiries, Lucy said that she had no rest all night.

"Rest! and how can I rest, Miss Schomberg? I can't afford to lose my lodgers, and lose them I shall."

"Only try and keep quiet," said Emilie, "and I will see that they do not suffer from want of attendance. _You_ cannot help them, do consent to leave all thought, all management, to those who can think and manage.

May aunt Agnes come and nurse you, and attend to the housekeeping?"

"Yes," was reluctantly, and not very graciously uttered.

"Well then, Lucy will have time to attend to you. I would gladly nurse you myself, but you know I may not neglect Miss Parker; now take this draught, and try and sleep."

"Miss Schomberg," said the poor woman, "you won't lack friends to nurse you on a sick bed; I have none."

"Miss Webster, if I were to be laid on a sick bed, and were to lose aunt Agnes, I should be alone in a country that is not my own country, without money and without friends; but we may both of us have a friend who sticketh closer than a brother, think of him, ma'am, now, and ask him to make your bed in your sickness."

She took the feverish hand of the patient as she said this, who, bursting into a flood of tears, replied, "Ah, Miss Schomberg! I don't deserve it of you, and that is the truth; but keep my hand, it feels like a friend's, hold it, will you, and I think I shall sleep a little while;" and Emilie stood and held her hand, stood till she was faint and weary, and then withdrawing it as gently as ever mother unloosed an infant's hold, she withdrew, shaded the light from the sleeper's eyes, and stole out of the room, leaving the sufferer at ease, and in one of those heavy sleeps which exhaustion and illness often produce.

Her visit to the kitchen was most discouraging. Betsey was only just down, and the kettle did not boil, nor were any preparations made for the lodgers' breakfast, to which it only wanted an hour. Emilie could have found it in her heart to scold the lazy, selfish girl, who had enjoyed a sound sleep all night, whilst Lucy had gone unrefreshed to her daily duties, but she forebore. "Scolding never does answer,"

thought Emilie, "and I won't begin to-day, but I must try and reform this girl at all events, by some means, and that shall be done at once."

"Come, Betsey," said Emilie pleasantly, "now, we shall see what sort of a manager you will be; you must do all you can to make things tidy and comfortable for the lodgers. Is their room swept and dusted?"

"Oh, deary me, Miss, what time have I had for that, I should like to know?"

"Well now, get every thing ready for their breakfast, and pray don't bang doors or make a great clatter with the china, as you set the table.

Every sound is heard in this small house, and your mistress has had no sleep all night."

"Well, she'll be doubly cross to day, then, I'll be bound. Howsoever, I shall only stay my month, and it don't much matter what I do, she never gives a servant a good character, and I don't expect it."