Tom and Some Other Girls Part 20

And this was the end of Rhoda's first meeting with Laura Everett after her accident!

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

MRS. CHESTER'S PLAN.

It was many days before Rhoda saw Miss Everett again, but, if she was not admitted to the sick room, her mother was a frequent and welcome visitor, and took entire charge of the invalid while the nurse fulfilled her ordinary duties. There was little actual nursing to be done, but the doctors were anxious to prevent solitary repinings, and to do what was possible to raise the spirits of their patient. Evie's own mother had come down for a few days to satisfy herself concerning her daughter's condition, but had been obliged to hurry back to the Vicarage, where the invalid sister was growing worse rather than better, so that her presence could badly be spared. She was a worn, faded edition of Evie, and looked so typical of what the girl herself might now become that Rhoda could not bear to look at her. The two mothers, however, became great friends, for they met with a remembrance of kindness on the one side, and an overwhelming sympathy on the other, and were drawn together by hours of mutual anxiety. In each case the worst dread was unfulfilled, but what remained to be borne required all the fort.i.tude which they could summon. The Vicar's wife saw one of the props of the home disabled for life, and Mrs Chester's kind heart was wrung with anguish at the thought that her child had been the cause of so much suffering. It seemed a strange dispensation of Providence that she, the main object of whose life had been to help her fellow- creatures, should have this burden laid upon her; but she bore it uncomplainingly, striving to cheer the poor woman whose lot was so much harder than her own.

Before they parted she broached a scheme which she had been planning in secret, and, having received a willing consent, bided her opportunity to lay it before the invalid herself. It came at last one chilly afternoon, when Evie was laid on a sofa before the fire, as a sign that convalescence had really begun. The knee was still bound up, as it was not proposed that she should attempt to walk until the journey home had been accomplished, and it was on this subject that Evie made her first remark.

"I suppose," she began, looking at Mrs Chester with the brown eyes which had grown so pathetic in their gaze in the last few weeks, "I suppose I can travel now, as soon as it can be arranged. I shall have to be carried about at each of the changes, and it must be planned ahead in this busy season. I must speak to Miss Bruce, and ask her what I had better do."

Mrs Chester bent forward and poked the fire in a flurried, embarra.s.sed manner; she knitted her brows, and her rosy face grew a shade deeper in colour.

"Er--yes," she a.s.sented vaguely. "Of course; but Evie, dear, I have been waiting to talk to you about something which has been very much on my mind lately. We are leaving on Thursday, Rhoda and I, and are having a through carriage and every possible appliance to make the journey easy, and I thought that it would be so much simpler for you, dear, to travel with us, and spend a few weeks at the Chase before going home!"

Evie smiled, with the languid courtesy with which an invalid listens to an impossible proposition.

"It is very kind of you," she said. "Some day I shall be glad to come, but not at present, thank you. I am not well enough to pay visits."

"But my child, it would not be like an ordinary visit; you should do exactly as you would in your own home--stay in bed, or get up, as you pleased, and make out your own programme for the day. You know me now, and can surely understand that you need feel no ceremony in coming to my house."

"No, indeed! You have been so kind to me all this time, that I should be ungrateful if I did not realise that. I would rather be with you than anyone else outside my own family, but--but--" the tears gathered and rolled down the pale cheeks--"Oh, surely you understand that just now I want to be at home with my own mother and father!"

"Yes, I do understand, poor dear; it would be unnatural if you felt anything else; but listen, Evie, it is for your parents' sake, as well as for your own, that I urge you to come. You need constant care and nursing, and cheering up, and it would be very difficult for them to manage all this just now. Your mother is overworked as it is, and has already one invalid on her hands; but if you come to us, the whole household will be at your service. My kind old Mary shall be your nurse, and wait upon you hand and foot. I will drive you about so that you can get the air without fatigue, and you shall have your couch carried into the conservatory off the drawing-room, and lie there among the flowers which you love so much. Every comfort that money can buy shall be yours to help to make you strong again. I say it in no spirit of boasting, dear, for we have been poor ourselves, and owe our riches to no merit of our own. We look upon them as a trust from G.o.d, to be used for the good of others even more than ourselves, and surely no one had ever a nearer, stronger claim--"

Her voice broke off tremblingly, and Evie looked at her with a troubled glance.

"Dear Mrs Chester, you are so good! It all sounds most attractive and luxurious, and I am sure you would spoil me with kindness, but--would it not be rather selfish? You say mother is overworked, and that is quite true; but, all the same, she might feel hurt if I chose to go somewhere else."

"Now, I'll tell you all about it," cried Mrs Chester briskly, scenting victory in the air, and beginning to smile again in her old cheery fashion. "Your mother and I had a talk about it before she left. She felt grieved not to have you at home for Christmas, but for your own sake was most anxious that you should come to us. She realised that it would be better for you in every way, and the quickest means to the end which we all have in view, to make you well and strong again. She left it to me to make the suggestion, but you will find that she is quite willing, even anxious--"

"Yes," said Evie, and lay silently gazing at the heart of the fire. The downcast face looked very fair and fragile, but for the moment the old sweetness was wanting. The lips were pressed together, the chin was fixed and stubborn, outward signs of the mental fight which was going on between the impulse to give way, and a sore, sore feeling of injury which made it seem impossible to accept a favour from this quarter of all others. The elder woman saw these signs, and read their meaning with painful accuracy, and the exclamation which burst from her lips startled the invalid by its intensity.

"Oh, my la.s.sie!" she cried. "Oh, my la.s.sie, be generous! You have been sorely tried, and our hearts are broken to think of your trouble, but don't you see this is the only way in which it is left to us to help?

Sympathy and regret are abstract things, and can do no real good, for, though they ease our minds, they leave you untouched. My dear girl, can you be generous enough to accept help from the hands that have injured you? It's a hard thing to ask--I know it is; but I am an old woman, and I plead with you to give us this opportunity! Let me be a mother to you, dear, and ease your recovery in every way that I can. Money has great power, and one never realises it more than in time of sickness. I can spare you many a pain and discomfort if you will give me the opportunity, and my poor girl is fretting herself thin by brooding over the past--it would be new life to her to be allowed to wait upon you!

It's hard for you, dear, I know it's hard! You would rather cut yourself adrift from us, and never see us again; but it is in your power to return good for evil--to lighten our trouble as no one else could do.

Will you come, Evie?"

Evie looked into the quivering face, and her eyes shone--then the kind arms opened wide and the brown head nestled down on the broad, motherly shoulder. There was no need for words, for the answer was given far more eloquently in look and gesture.

"G.o.d bless you, my la.s.sie!" murmured Mrs Chester fondly, and they sat in silence together, gazing into the fire. A few tears rose in Evie's eyes and ran silently down her cheeks, but they were happy tears, with which were wiped away all remains of bitterness. There is no truer way of forgiving our enemies than by consenting to be helped at their hands, and, if the effort be great, it brings with it an exceeding great reward. At the end of ten minutes Evie raised her head from its resting place and said, in her old, bright voice:

"Shall we ask Rhoda to tea? It is such a lovely fire, and you brought in such a bountiful supply of cakes and good things that it seems greedy to keep them all to myself. Ask Rhoda to come in and help to make a cosy little party."

Then, as Mrs Chester stooped to kiss her cheek, she whispered hastily, "Tell her not to mention the past--never to mention it again! We will turn over a new leaf to-day and think only of the future."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

GOOD-BYE TO HURST MANOR.

The morning of the day dawned on which the invalids were to travel to Erley Chase, and Rhoda lay awake upon her bed, listening to the echo of the girls' voices as they sang the morning hymn in the hall below. Her heart was softened with a feeling at once of thankfulness and dread-- thankfulness that Evie's life had been spared, and her friendship renewed, and dread because, she dimly realised, this was the last of the dear school days as they had been. Even if she returned after the holidays, which seemed doubtful, it would be a changed house indeed, with the older girls scattered all over the country, and Evie no longer at hand to soothe and lighten every trouble. Her thoughts went back to her first coming to Hurst Manor eighteen months before, and dwelt sadly on her own ambitious hopes. It had all seemed so easy, so certain; she had planned her career with such happy a.s.surance, with never a thought but that success and distinction lay waiting for her grasp; and it had all ended in this--that she was returning home, enfeebled in health, foiled in ambition, with the bitter weight on her conscience that her self-will had inflicted a life-long injury on the kindest of friends.

"I have failed!" sighed Rhoda humbly to herself. "But why? I never meant to do wrong. I intended only to work hard and get on. Surely, surely, there was nothing wicked in that? It can't be possible to be too industrious, and yet Evie evidently thought something was wrong, and the Vicar... What can it have been? I wish, I wish I knew! I'm tired of going my own way, for it leads to nothing but misery and disappointment. I should like to find out the secret of being happy and contented like other people." Her eyes filled with tears, those blue eyes which had been so full of confidence, and she clasped her fingers upon the counterpane. The roll of the organ sounded through the house, and the girls' clear voices singing a familiar tune. She listened unthinkingly, until suddenly one verse struck sharply on her ear, and startled her into vivid attention:--

"The trivial round, the common task, Will furnish all we ought to ask; Room to deny ourselves, a road To bring us daily nearer G.o.d."

She had heard those words a hundred times before, had repeated them at her mother's knee, had sung them in church, not once, but many times, yet it seemed that until that moment no conception of their meaning had penetrated to her brain. What was it, which was all we ought to ask?

"_Room to deny ourselves_!"--to put ourselves last--to be careless of our own position? And this path of self-denial was the road that led to G.o.d Himself? Was this what Evie had meant when she spoke of the secret which each one must find out for herself? Was this the explanation of the contentment which the Vicar had found in his ill-paying parish?

"_Room to deny oneself_!" Oh, but this had been far, far from her own ambitions. She had asked for room to distinguish herself, to shine among her fellows, to be first and foremost, praised and applauded. Her own advancement had been the one absorbing aim in life, and to gratify it she had been willing to see others fail, and to congratulate herself in the face of their distress. Never once in all the miseries of disappointment which she had undergone had it occurred to her that the explanation of her difficulties lay in the _motive_ underlying her efforts--the point of view from which she had started. Other girls had worked as hard as herself, but with some definite and worthy aim, such as to help their parents, or to fit themselves for work in life. Rhoda was honest, even when honesty was to her own hurt, and she acknowledged it had been far otherwise in her case when she had failed in her examination, it had not been deficiency in knowledge which she had deplored, but the certificate, the star to her name, the outward and visible signs of success. When she realised the hopelessness of seeing her name on the Record Wall, loss of honour and glory had been her regret, not sorrow for the thought that she had pa.s.sed through school and failed to leave behind a tradition of well-doing whereby future scholars might be strengthened and encouraged!

Rhoda hid her face in the pillow and lay still, communing with her own heart. How bitter they are, these moments of self-revelation! How mysterious is the way in which the veil seems suddenly to lift and show us the true figure, instead of the mythical vision which we have cherished in our thoughts! They come suddenly at the most unexpected moments, roused by apparently the most trivial of causes, so that the friend by our side has no idea of the crisis through which we are pa.s.sing.

Rhoda Chester never forgot that last morning at school; she could never hear that hymn sung without a thrill of painful remembrance. When the years had pa.s.sed and she had daughters of her own, the sound of the familiar words would still bring a flush to her cheeks, but no human friend ever knew all that it meant to her. Rhoda learnt her lesson none the less surely for keeping silence concerning it.

A few hours later the travellers were ready to depart, and Evie was carried down the staircase into the hall.

Mrs Chester had promised that everything that wealth could secure should be done for the comfort of her guest, and royally did she keep her promise. If she had been a Princess of the Blood, Evie declared she could not have had a more luxuriously comfortable journey. An ambulance drove up to the door to convey the little party to the station, and inside sat a surgical nurse, ready to give her skilled attention to any need that might arise. The girls flocked in hall and doorway to wave farewells, edging to the front to cry "Come back soon!" in confident treble, and then retiring to the background to gulp back the tears which rose at the sight of the thin little face, which told such a pathetic story of suffering. Not a single tear did Evie see, however, nor any face that was not wreathed in smiles, and when the strains of "For she's a jolly good fellow" followed the ambulance down the drive, she laughed merrily, and waved her handkerchief out of the window, never suspecting with what swelling throats many of the singers joined in the strain.

Rhoda laughed too, but she did not wave her handkerchief. Curiously enough, it never occurred to her to think that she herself was included in that farewell demonstration, or to resent the apparent indifference with which she had been allowed to depart. Her own special friends had embraced her warmly enough, but even they had given the lion's share of attention to Evie, while the majority of the girls had no eyes nor attention for anyone else. The Rhoda of six months or a year ago would have bitterly resented such a slight, but to-day she found no reason to blame others for following her own example.

Evie was the supreme consideration, and the girl was so entirely absorbed in looking after her comfort that she had forgotten all about her own poor little importance. Love is the gentlest as well as the cleverest of schoolmasters, and teaches his lessons so subtly that we are unconscious of our progress, until, lo! the hill difficulty is overcome, and we find ourselves erect on the wide, breezy plain.

At the station a saloon carriage was waiting labelled "Engaged," inside which were all manner of provisions for the comfort of the journey.

Hot-water bottles, cushions, rugs, piles of papers and magazines, and a hamper of dainty eatables from the Chase Evie was wrapped in Mrs Chester's sable cloak and banked up with cushions by the window, so that she might look out and be amused by the sight of the Christmas traffic at the various stations. She stared about her with the enjoyment of a convalescent who has had more than enough of her own society, and the lingerers on the platform stared back at the pretty, fragile-looking invalid who was travelling in such pomp and circ.u.mstance.

"They think I am a princess!" cried Evie. "I _hope_ they think I am a princess!" and she laid her little head against the cushions, and sniffed at a big silver-mounted bottle of smelling salts with an air of languid complacency which vastly amused her companions. Presently nurse lighted an Etna and warmed some cups of soup, while one good thing after another came out of the hamper to add to the feast; then followed a stoppage, with the arrival of obsequious porters with fresh foot- warmers; then, dusk closing in over the wintry landscape, the lighting of electric lamps, and the refreshing cup of tea. It was Evie's first experience of luxurious travelling, and she told herself with a sigh that it was very, very comfortable. Much more comfortable than shivering in a draughty third cla.s.s carriage, and changing three times over to wait in still more draughty stations!

With the arrival at Erley Chase came more pleasant surprises, for she was not carried upstairs, but into a room on the ground floor, which was ordinarily used as Mrs Chester's boudoir, and had been transformed into the most cheerful and delightful of bedrooms. There was really little to distinguish it from a sitting-room, except the bed with its silken cover, and even this was hidden behind a screen in the daytime. A couch was drawn up before the fire, and over it lay the daintiest pink silk dressing-gown that was ever seen, with the warmest of linings inside, and trimmed without with a profusion of those airy frills and laces dear to the feminine heart.

"For me?" gasped Evie, staring at its splendour with big, astonished eyes. A glow of colour came into her cheeks as she turned it over and over to inspect its intricacies. "I should think I _would_ come in to dinner just, with such a gown to wear!" she cried laughingly. "I am longing to put it on and see what it feels like to be a fashionable lady."

She would not acknowledge that she was tired, but even after an hour's sleep she still looked so fragile that the two members of the household who had not seen her before were deeply impressed with the change which had taken place since their last meeting. Very charming did she look when the sofa was wheeled into the dining-room, and she lay in her pretty pink fineries the centre of attraction and attention; but the flush of excitement soon faded, and the dark eyes looked pathetic in spite of their smiles. Rhoda watched the faces of father and mother, and her heart sank as she saw the elder man knit his brow, and the younger look away quickly and bite his lip under his moustache as if the sight were too painful to be endured. Beyond a few loving words at greeting, neither had manifested any concern about herself, and once again she had not noticed the omission.

"I've had such a happy day. I feel like a princess--such a spoiled princess!" said Evie, when she went to bed that night; but there were sad days in store for the poor little princess from which all the care and love of her friends could not save her.

When the decree went forth that she should make her first attempt to walk, Rhoda clapped her hands with joy, and could not understand the reason of the quick, grave glance which the nurse cast upon her. She and her mother had decided that the attempt must be made in the drawing- room after tea, and nurse made no objection, hoping, perhaps, that the presence of onlookers would give her patient extra strength for the ordeal. She knew what it meant if the others did not; but, alas! they all learned soon enough, as, at the first slight movement, Evie's white face turned grey, and she groaned in mingled anguish and dismay.

"I can't!" she cried; "Oh, I can't! It is like knives going through me!

I can't move!"

"Ah, but you must, my dear. It has to be done; and the braver you are, the sooner it will be over. You are bound to suffer the first few times, but it would be ten times worse to allow the joint to stiffen.

Now be brave, and try to take just two steps with me! I will support you on one side, and--" Nurse looked round questioningly--"Mr Harold will take the other. You can lean all your weight on us. We won't let you fall."

Harold stepped forward without a word and put his strong arm under hers, and, as he did so, Evie raised her eyes to his with a look which those who saw it never forgot--a look such as might have been given by an animal caught in a snare from which it was powerless to escape. Rhoda told herself savagely that Harold was a brute to persist in the face of that dumb appeal, but he did not quail even when the sob rose to a cry, and a trembling plea for mercy. The two steps were taken, and henceforth, for weeks to come, the nightmare of repeated effort weighed upon the spirits of the household. At eleven o'clock, after tea, after dinner--three times a day--was the inexorable programme repeated, in spite of prayers and protestations. Mrs Chester's theory was that it was brutal to torture the child, and that if she were to be lame, for pity's sake let her be lame in peace. Rhoda suffered agonies of remorse and pa.s.sionate revolts against the mystery of pain, but the nurse and her a.s.sistant never showed a sign of wavering. As a rule, Evie made a gallant attempt to control her sufferings, but there were occasions when even her fort.i.tude gave was, as, on one afternoon, when, after taking a certain number of steps, she was informed that still more must be attempted. She was powerless in the hands that held her, but when she collapsed into helpless sobbings on the sofa, Rhoda turned on her brother with furious indignation: