CHAPTER XXI
JANE FAIRBROTHER'S IMPENDING VISIT
"All's right with the world." The long-looked-for letter from Miss Fairbrother has arrived, and she is coming to stay with us. I read out the good news to Dimbie exultantly and most happily:—
"'LITTLE OLD PUPIL,—Shall I be glad to come to you? Why my pulses quicken at the very thought, and my heart sings when I contemplate the quiet joy of sitting in an English garden—a little green garden under an apple tree with Marguerite Westover. Kipling says: "O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont!" But I cry, "O the heat, O the heat, O the hellish, burning heat!" and I conjure up before my sun-tired eyes a vision of wondrous golden cornfields, ripening blackberries, leaves turning to crimson and russet, dewy, hazy mornings and over all the soft, mellow September sunshine—for it will be September, that sweetest of English months, when I arrive.
"'Everything I have to say to you must wait till I am at One Tree Cottage. Of your accident and suffering I cannot write, but you will know—knowing me a little—what I feel for you. But take heart. Twelve months will not pass quickly at your age. Time tarries only for the young it would seem, when for the old—who would have it linger—it flies all too quickly. But the months will pass. Think, Marguerite, if it had been for life!' (This I did not read to Dimbie, I feared my voice, for it still breaks.) 'As it is, you will get stronger each month. And then a day will come when I shall take you for your first walk, if I am anywhere near you, through the stately pine trees you loved so much as a child. Do you still love them? But, ah, I forgot—Mr. Dimbie will be there to take you. There will always be a husband now, tiresome man! Forgive me, but I want to step back to the dear old days when I had my little pupil all to myself.
"Till the fifteenth of September good-bye. I shall, on reaching London, travel straight to Pine Tree Valley. It is so good of you to ask me, and much gooder of your husband.
"'Always your affectionate,
"'JANE FAIRBROTHER.'"
I smiled up at Dimbie, who was leaning over me, but there was no response. On his face there was an expression I had never seen before. He avoided my eyes and walked across to the window.
"She seems a silly, sentimental woman," he pronounced curtly. "I can't bear people who gush." And he marched out of the room and shut the door with a bang.
For a moment I wondered whatever was the matter. Then it dawned upon me that he was jealous, and I laughed softly to myself. "Dear Dimbie, goose, that you should be jealous of anyone, when I'm—I'm—no use now, makes me absurdly happy, ridiculously puffed up with pride and——"
Dimbie was back.
"Will that woman have meals with us?"
"Where else could she have them?" I asked.
"Couldn't she have them in the kitchen with Amelia?"
"With Amelia? Miss Fairbrother is the daughter of——"
"I don't care if she is the daughter of an archbishop," he interrupted with extreme gloom. "I am not going to have her always messing round."
"She won't mess round. Miss Fairbrother is not that sort of person."
"You are prejudiced. You see her through the rose-coloured spectacles of time. It is eight years since you met. Probably she has degenerated into a prig." He threw himself on to the bottom of the bed.
"Should I be mistaken in my estimation of Miss Fairbrother, and she prove to be a prig, she shall leave within a week. I promise you that."
"How are you going to get rid of her?" He spoke eagerly.
"Why, I do believe you hope she will be one."
"Oh, I don't say that!"
"But you'll want her to go all the same?"
"Yes," he returned brazenly, "I shall. She'll go and spoil everything, I know. I was a fool to suggest her coming; but you seemed such dead nuts on her. Our pleasant afternoons in the garden will be spoiled. All our jolly talks and reading aloud and suppers under the apple tree will be at an end——"
"But she can have talks and supper under the apple tree with us. There'll be plenty of room for three," I interrupted.
"And that's just what there won't be. I'll see to that," almost shouted Dimbie in a manner very similar to Peter, I am ashamed to say.
"Are you going to be rude to Miss Fairbrother?"
"Yes, very rude."
"Very well, then, I'll cable to stop her."
"Where are you going to cable—she sailed more than a month ago—why she'll be here this week!" springing up.
"Of course," I returned. "Have you only just found that out? Amelia is already airing the best drawn-thread linen sheets."
"Then what did you mean by saying you'd cable?"
"I meant I would wire on her arrival."
"But she said she was coming straight here. You can't wire." He groaned. "Oh, Marg, Marg, what shall we do?"
"Do?" I cried impatiently. "You talk as though Miss Fairbrother were a perfect gorgon, instead of the sweetest and best woman in the world."
"That's just it." He wiped his forehead. "I don't like best women; I like 'em ordinary. In fact, I don't like them at all—no one but you."
"That is exactly the way Peter talks."
"I don't care. There are worse people in the world than Peter. Look what we're going to have planked on to us for weeks—months even."
"Hand me my desk!" I commanded in a patient voice.
"What do you want it for?"
"To write a telegram form for Amelia to take at once. It will be given to Miss Fairbrother on the boat when it arrives, I should imagine. Anyway, I will try it. She must be stopped from coming at any price."
"It's no good wiring till the boat is due."
"I don't know when it is due. Please pass me my desk."
"We'd better go through with it."
"Hand me my desk."
"Shan't! Let the infernal woman come and be done with it!"
With which exceedingly ungallant remark my husband again stumped out of the room, and again I lay and laughed and kissed the ugliest photo' of him in my possession, for which I have an unaccountable liking.
And so to-day I have lived more or less under a cloud—a cloud in the shape of a lowering frown on Dimbie's face. But I care not. I know most assuredly that it will disappear as Jane Fairbrother walks through the gate. He will like Miss Fairbrother, or Jane, as I always think of her now. He will not be able to help it. And into our days Jane will bring outside interests, a fresh, breezy atmosphere, new thoughts, new ideas, which I know will be good for both of us. Most fearful am I of becoming a self-centred invalid, thinking of myself only, of my ailments, of my weariness, of my sometimes suffering.
And if I am afraid for myself, still more desperately afraid am I of the invalid atmosphere for Dimbie. "It is not natural," my heart cries out, "that a man young and strong should be the silent witness of everlasting helplessness and weariness." When I am pretty well and able to be interested in all that goes on around me, and can smile and be happy, it matters not for him; but, oh, the days when I am too tired to do anything but lie with my eyes closed! And the nights, the long, long nights, when I am too restless to do anything but keep them wide open; when my head tosses and moves restlessly from one side of the pillow to the other, and when I long with an unspeakable longing to be able to move my helpless body in unison! That is not good for Dimbie to see; it cannot be good. He will stretch out strong, cool hands and gently lift me on to my side, or turn my pillow, or hold a cooling drink to my thirsty lips. He will speak cheerfully, he will even try to find a joking word; but, oh, the heartache that must be his, the weary heartache! And some day—as yet perhaps the burden is not too heavy, the yoke not too galling, because out of his great love for me he has learnt a great patience; but will not the day come when the burden will be too heavy, when he will falter or faint by the wayside? "O God, take me before that," I whisper out of the darkness, "take me before he gets tired of me!"
And so I look for the coming of Jane with a great thankfulness. The days in the garden, which I have feared will become long and monotonous to Dimbie, will be shared by one who, as I remember her with her vivid personality, was always engaging and interesting. I have searched the papers for the shipping intelligence, and for the date upon which the good steamship Irrawaddy is due. I have looked up every possible train by which she could come down to Pine Tree Valley. The spare room, Amelia tells me, is fit for the habitation of the Queen of England. And it is a pretty room, with its Indian matting floor coverings, soft green walls and rugs, wide, old-fashioned windows through which a white rose peeps, and airy, silken casement curtains. It seems a long time since I was in that room. Some day, perhaps, if I should get stronger, I will persuade Dimbie and Amelia to carry me upstairs, and it will be like exploring a long-forgotten country. That Amelia has flattened every piece of furniture (as much as you can flatten washstands and wardrobes) against the walls I feel pretty certain. She objects to corners and pretty angles disturbing her visual horizon. She likes furniture to be neat and orderly and placed like soldiers in a row. She looks at my bed, which I insist upon having in the window, and sighs heavily. I can see her fingers itching to bang me up against the wall. She suggests that I shall feel draughts and get a stiff neck, be bitten by earwigs taking a walk from the clematis which endeavours to climb through the window, be sun-struck in the morning, moon-struck at night, and be blown out of bed by the first gale which comes along. To all of which I say, "I don't care, Amelia"; and she, figuratively speaking, washes her hands of me, as sensible people do wash their hands of silly, contrary creatures who won't listen to reason.
Amelia really is no more pleased at the prospect of Jane's visit than Dimbie, although she has so thoroughly cleansed the spare room. She talks to me in this strain—
"Miss Fairbrother's not going to dress you, mum?"
"Of course not."
"And she won't be wanting to order the dinners?"
"I am sure she won't. Besides," with a sly smile, "I thought I ordered the dinners."
Amelia considered this, and with the wisdom of a diplomatist said—
"Of course you do, mum."
"I thought so," I agreed.
Amelia looked at me—one of the halibut looks—and continued, "And I won't have her messing about the kitchen." Had she overheard Dimbie's remark?
"Miss Fairbrother would not dream of messing about the kitchen. Miss Fairbrother is not used to kitchens and flue-brushes and 'sweetening' ovens with lime."
"Oh, of course, if she's a grand lady!" Amelia's nose tilted in the air.
"She's not a grand lady; but her work in life has lain in channels otherwise than kitchens. She teaches, she used to teach me."
"Oh——!"
I took up the paper.
"She can't know much, then!"
Now I am sure Amelia had no intention of being in the least rude.
"That depends upon what you mean by much," I said.
She began to walk away.
Unaccountably I yearned to know her definition of knowledge.
"What do you think constitutes 'knowing much'?"
She looked at me without understanding.
"What do you mean by saying Miss Fairbrother won't know much?"
"Well, she won't."
"Granted that," I was becoming impatient, "but what sort of things won't she know?"
"She'll know nothing useful."
"Amelia," I said despairingly, "if anyone can walk round and round a circle you can."
She batted her eyes and regarded the ceiling in complete vacancy.
Once again I tried.
"Will you tell me the things you consider not useful?"
"Lessons and maps and 'broidery work."
"Maps?"
"We was made to do maps in Mile End Road."
"What sort of maps?"
"Heurope in red paint."
"Don't you mean the British possessions?"
"That was it—America and——"
"But America doesn't belong to us," I interrupted.
She closed her eyes in intense boredom, but I was not to be snubbed.
"What do you call useful?"
"Gettin' bailiffs out of a house when they thinks they's settled in."
"Oh!" I said.
"I've got two lots out."
"Was it at the Tompkinses'?" I whispered.
"Tompkinses was as respectable as you, mum," she said, mildly indignant.
"Oh, I beg your—I mean the Tompkinses' pardon."
"They had salmon—lots of it."
"The bailiffs?" I knew I had been stupid the moment the words were uttered, but it was too late.
"I'm speaking of Tompkinses, mum."
"Of course you are."
"Why did you say bailiffs then?"
"A slip of the tongue."
Amelia with her eyes dared me to any more "slips."
"The Tompkinses had salmon twice a week and manase once."
"Did it agree with them?"
"Of course it did. We might afford salmon a bit oftener now as we's rich before it goes out."
"Goes out where?"
"Goes out of season, of course," and this time she left my presence with a most distinct snort.
Human nature is very much alike. Dimbie is cross about Miss Fairbrother's coming because he thinks his nose with its dear crook will be put farther out of joint. Amelia is cross because she thinks her nose will be put out of joint. And I am sufficiently human and feminine to derive considerable joy and satisfaction from their anxiety about the putting out of their said noses.