Up The Hill And Over Part 8

She had almost finished when the door opened to admit a little, grey wisp of a woman with a mild white face and large faded eyes which might once have been beautiful. She was dressed entirely in lavender, a fondness for this colour being one of the many harmless fancies born of a brain not quite normal. The rather expressionless face brightened at sight of the girl by the table.

"Why, Esther--I didn't hear you come in. Have you put a mat under the bowl? See now! You have marked the table."

Esther good humouredly reached for a table-mat, for the polish of this particular article of furniture was the pride of Aunt Amy's life. "It's all right, Auntie. It's not really a mark. Look, aren't they sweet? It is like one of father's posies. Is mother any better?"

"The children must think a lot of you, Esther!"

"Yes, although I think they would bring flowers to any one, bless 'em!

Is mother--"

"Your mother hasn't been down all day. I went up with her dinner but she didn't take any. She wouldn't answer."

"Auntie, don't you think she ought to do something about these headaches?"

"I don't know, Esther. She'll be all right to-morrow. She always is."

"Yes. But they are getting more frequent, and you know--she is so different. She can't be well. Haven't you noticed it?"

"No," vaguely.

"Well, Jane has. So it can't just be imagination. She ought to consult a doctor."

"She won't."

"But it's absurd! What shall we do if she goes on like this? If there were only some one who would talk to her! She won't listen to me because she is older and married and--all that. All the same she doesn't seem older when she acts like this--like a child!"

"Well, you know, Esther, there isn't any doctor here that your mother just fancies."

The girl stooped lower over the blue bowl, perhaps to hide the little smile which crinkled up the corner of her mouth. The faint colour on her cheek may have been a reflection from the flowers.

"Yes, but haven't you heard? There is a new doctor. He seems quite different--I mean they say he is awfully nice. Mrs. Sykes' Ann was telling me all about him. He is going to board with Mrs. Sykes. The child just worships him already. Perhaps mother might see him."

"I shouldn't worry," said Aunt Amy placidly. "This pepper-gra.s.s will be very nice for tea. Did you tell Jane she might have two apples, Esther?"

"No. I told her she might have one. But I don't suppose two will hurt her." Esther was used to Aunt Amy's inconsequences which made impossible the discussion of any subjects save the most trivial. But she sighed a little as she realised anew that there was no help here.

"Jane is feeling badly about Timothy," she explained. "Don't you think we might have tea in here, Auntie? It is so cool."

Aunt Amy, who had been anxiously rubbing an imaginary spot on the table, looked up with a startled air. "Oh, Esther!" she said, in the voice of a frightened child. Then with a child's obvious effort to control rising tears, "Of course, if you say so, Esther. But--but do you feel like risking the round table? Couldn't we have it on the little table in the corner?"

The girl settled the last of her flowers and pushed back her hair with a worried gesture. A pang of mingled irritation and anxiety lent an edge of sharpness to her soft voice.

"Auntie dear! I thought you had quite forgotten that fancy. You know it is only a fancy. Round tables are just like other tables. And you promised me--"

"Yes, I know, but--"

"Well, then, be sensible, dear. We shall have tea in here." Then seeing the real distress on the timid old face, the girl's mood softened. "No, we shan't," she declared gaily. "We'll have it as usual in the dining room. You will fix the pepper-gra.s.s and I shall set the table."

But the end of Aunt Amy's vagaries was not yet. She hesitated, flushed and more timidly, yet as one who is compelled, begged for the task of setting the table herself. "For you know, Esther, the sprigged tea-set is so hurt if any one but me arranges it. Yes, of course, it is only a fancy, I know that. But the sprigged tea-set does feel so badly if I neglect it. All the pink in it fades quite out. You must have noticed it, Esther?"

The girl sighed and gave in. Usually Aunt Amy's vagaries troubled her little. Disconcerting at first, they had quickly become a commonplace, for the coming of Aunt Amy to the doctor's household had been too great a blessing to invite criticism. Esther had soon learned to express no surprise when told that the sprigged china had a heart of extreme sensitiveness, and that the third step on the front stair disliked to be trodden upon, and that it was dangerous to sit with one's back to a window facing the east. All these and numberless other strange facts were part of Aunt Amy's twilight world. To her they were immensely important, but to the family the really important thing seemed that, with trifling exceptions, the new inmate of the household was gentle and kind; her housekeeping a miracle and her cooking a dream. In the years she had lived with them there had been but one serious thrill of anxiety, and that came when Dr. Coombe had discovered her endeavouring to infect Jane with her delusions. This had been strictly forbidden and the child's mind, duly warned, was soon safeguarded by her own growing comprehension. Jane quickly understood that it was foolish to shut the garden gate three times every time she came through it, and that no one save Aunt Amy thought it necessary to count all the boards in the sidewalk or to touch all the little posts under the bal.u.s.trade as one came down stairs. Some of the prettier, more elusive fancies she may have retained, but, if so, they did her no harm.

As for Aunt Amy herself, she lived her shadow-haunted life not unhappily. Dr. Coombe she had worshipped, yet his death had not affected her as much as might have been feared. Perhaps it was one of her compensations that death to her was not quite what it is to the more normal consciousness. It was noticeable that she always spoke of the doctor as if he were in the next room. Her devotion to him had been caused by his success in partially relieving her of the most distressing burden of her disordered brain--the delusion of persecution. Aunt Amy knew that somewhere there existed a mysterious power known vaguely as "They" who sought unceasingly to injure her. Of course it was only once in a while that "They" got a chance, for Aunt Amy was very clever in providing no opportunities. More than once had she outwitted "Them."

Still, one must be always upon one's guard! From this harrowing delusion the doctor had done much to deliver her, indeed she had become more normal in every way under his care. It was only now, a year after his death, that Esther imagined sometimes that there was a slipping back--

The ill effects of sitting at a round table, for instance? It was a long time since this particular fancy had been spoken of and Esther had considered it gone altogether. Yet here it was, cropping out again and just at a time when other problems threatened. Things seemed determined to be difficult to-day.

The fact was that Esther was suffering from the need of a confidant.

Really worried as she felt about her step-mother's health, the burden of taking any determined action against the wishes of the patient herself was a serious one for a young girl. Yet in whom could she confide? Girl friends she had in plenty but not one whose judgment she could trust before her own. Had the minister been an older man or a man of different calibre she might have gone to him, but the idea of appealing to Mr.

Macnair was distasteful. Neither among her father's friends was there one to whom she cared to go for advice concerning her father's widow.

They had one and all disapproved, she knew, of the sudden second marriage and Dr. Coombe had never quite forgiven their disapproval.

Often she felt like refusing the responsibility altogether. After all, her step-mother was a woman quite old enough to manage her own affairs.

If she wished to foolishly imperil her health why need Esther care? Why indeed? But this train of reasoning never lasted long. Always there came a counter-question, "If you do not care, who will?" And the dearth of any answer settled the burden more firmly upon her rebellious shoulders.

For one thing there was always the inner knowledge that Mary Coombe was weak and that she, Esther, was strong. She had always known this. Even when her father had brought home his pretty bride and Esther, a shy, silent child of eleven, had welcomed her, she had known that the newcomer was the weaker spirit. The bride had known it too. She had never attempted to control Esther, leaving the child entirely to her father--a bit of unwitting wisdom which did much to smooth daily life at the Elms. If the doctor saw his wife's weakness of character it is probable that it did not interfere with his love for her. Why need she be strong while he was strong enough for two? But he had forgotten one thing--the day when she would have to be strong alone!

The realisation came to him upon his death-bed. Esther was sure of this.

He could not speak, but she had read the message of his eyes, the appeal to the strength in her to help the other's weakness. No getting away from the solemn charge of that entreating look!

Esther was thinking of that look now, as she sat alone in the dusk of the veranda. Tea was over and Aunt Amy was putting Jane to bed. From her mother she had had no word. Blank silence had met her when she had taken the tea tray upstairs and called softly through the closed door. Mrs.

Coombe was probably asleep. She would be better to-morrow; but before long she would be ill again, and the interval between the attacks was becoming shorter.

There was anger as well as anxiety in the girl's mind. Her healthy and straightforward youth had little patience with her step-mother's unreasonable caprices. For her illness she had every sympathy, but for the morbid nervousness which seemed to accompany it, none at all. These constant headaches, the increasing nervous irritability from which Mrs.

Coombe suffered lay like a shadow over the house. Yet the sufferer refused to take the obvious way of relief and persisted in her refusal with a stubbornness of which no one would have dreamed her light nature capable. Still, willing or unwilling, something must be done. Aunt Amy, too, was becoming more of an anxiety. Once or twice lately she had spoken of "Them," a sign of mental distress which Dr. Coombe had always treated with the utmost seriousness. Perhaps if a doctor were called in for Aunt Amy, Mrs. Coombe would lose her foolish dread of doctors and allow him to prescribe for her also. And if the new doctor were half as clever as Mrs. Sykes said he was--Esther's heart began to warm a little as her fancy pictured such a pleasant solution of all her problems. The little smile curved her lips again as she thought of the maple by the schoolhouse steps, and the lettuce sandwiches and--and everything. She closed her eyes and tried to recall his face as he had looked up at her.

Instinctively she knew it for a good face, strong, humorous, kindly, but strong above all. And it was strength that Esther needed. When she went to bed that night her burden seemed a little lighter.

I believe he can help me, she thought, and it isn't as if he were quite a stranger. After all, we had lunch together once!

CHAPTER VI

Undoubtedly Esther slept better that night for the thought of the new doctor. It cannot be said that the doctor slept better because of her.

In fact he lay awake thinking of her. He did not want to think of her; he wanted to go to sleep. Twice only had he seen her. Once upon the occasion of the red pump and once when casually pa.s.sing her on the main street. There was no reason why her white-rose face with its strange blue eyes and its smile-curved lips should float about in the darkness of Mrs. Sykes' best room. Yet there it was. It was the eyes, perhaps.

The doctor admitted that they were peculiar eyes, startlingly blue. Dark blue in the shade of the lashes, flashing out light blue fire when the lashes lifted. But Mrs. Sykes' boarder did not want to think about eyes.

He wanted to go to sleep. He did not want to think about hair either.

Although Miss Coombe had very nice hair--cloudy hair, with little ways of growing about the temple and at the curve of the neck which a blind man could not help noticing. In the peaceful shadows of the room it seemed a still softer shadow framing the vivid girlish face.

Still, on the whole, sleep would have been better company and when at last he did drop off he did not relish being wakened by the voice of Ann at his door.

"Doc-ter, doc-ter! Are you awake? Can I come in?"

"I am not awake. Go away."

Ann's giggle came clearly through the keyhole.