VII.
Jo did not appear that evening. Jan complained of sore throat; and the mother, in her dread of diphtheria, sent for the doctor at once, and remained at the child’s bedside, in spite of his assurances that nothing was the matter. Emily did the honours, and appeared to enjoy it.
Though each of the guests had privately resolved not to stay late for the little boy’s sake, it was two o’clock before the last had departed, and three before the house was quiet. Indeed absolute quiet there never was that whole night, for Jo, as she lay awake, heard first all sorts of unaccountable sounds proceeding from the guests’ apartment, and then an excited calling out for servants, who either could not or would not hear, followed by a knocking at her own door, and an agitated demand for laudanum, and a confused story about salad and punch, which might be the death of people who suffered from internal complaints. Tea must be infused, and hot-water bottles filled; but when Jo sprang up eager to go and help, her husband held her back authoritatively. He had feigned to be asleep all the time, but when the door was shut, while the strange sounds continued to be heard, then he was seized with such an uncontrollable fit of laughter, that Jo was infected by his merriment, and lay in mortal terror lest Emily should hear them, or Jan be awakened.
But Jan was the last to think of awaking. He slept not only the whole night, but far into the morning. Max was not permitted to go to his office before he should awake, for just as she would have thought it “very alarming” if he had not slept at all, so it seemed to be “very alarming” that he should sleep so long.
At last, about nine o’clock, he opened his eyes. The rest seemed to have done him good, for not only did he demand bread and butter, but, as soon as his glance fell on the new box of bricks papa had bought for him the day before, he jumped out of bed, and seated himself on the floor to play, as if nothing had happened.
“How is the poor little throat?” asked Jo, as soon as she had recovered from her glad surprise.
“My throat?” repeated the child wonderingly; “my throat is not ill.”
Max was so relieved, and thought it such a capital joke that he burst out laughing; even the Martendijks laughed; and Jo tried to join in, but the joy was too sudden after the anxiety she had undergone, and she broke into a hysterical fit of weeping instead.
“There you are now! I told you so—insisting on the party like that!” cried Van Elst, losing his temper completely.
“What kind of an outbreak is that?” asked Emily, forgetting the repairs at home for the moment, in order to give vent to her indignation.
“What is it? It is your fault, Emily, if she is laid up. I could have told you beforehand,—Jo is not fit for all that worry and fuss!”
Emily followed her husband from the room—the thought of the building recurring to her; while Van Elst led his wife away.
When the doctor came, he spoke of over-excitement, nervous strain, and prescribed strong beef-tea, absolute quiet, and keeping to her room. Jo submitted. Jan was nearly all right again; it had been a mere cold, and in her joy and gratitude for his recovery, she could have submitted to much; to remain in one’s room, however, is a trial to appreciate which one must be the mother of three children.
“Your visitor can surely manage the house for a few days?” the doctor had said. But, strangely enough, now the party was over Cousin Emily seemed totally incapable of domestic duties.
So Jo lay listening to piercing cries from Nonnie, who was evidently tumbling downstairs, and hungry little Ada’s wails would penetrate to her ears; or the maid would appear one moment, the “boy” the next, to ply her with questions. Worse than all were the fears she created for herself,—Jan would be sure to catch cold, or the children would venture too near the well or the cistern; who was to put away all the plate and crystal? and would not the servants appropriate all the remains of the feast?
Luckily Van Elst came home early; but he brought no balm to Jo’s heart, for when he saw that she was no better, he began by scolding her, and then abruptly left the house.
This was the very opportunity his neighbour over the way had been watching for.
With apparent unconcern he sauntered across his own grounds, where he had lain in ambush for some time; for ever since he had witnessed the doctor’s repeated visits, his curiosity had known no bounds.
“Well, Mr Van Elst,” he began, feigning great surprise at meeting him there, “and how are you all at home?”
“Oh, first-rate,” said Van Elst; “mother sick, child sick, and husband no longer master in his own house!”
“Bless me!” said Mr Smits. “Come, I’ll walk up and down a bit with you. I understand how it is when the wife is ill, especially a wife like yours, but we’ll hope she’ll soon be herself again. And then things will be all right, won’t they?”
This was very diplomatic on Mr Smits’s part; he wanted to know about more than the wife’s illness. It was a well-calculated move, for the whole story came out.
“All right! No, indeed, we shall not. What upsets my temper is those guests of mine. You will hardly believe, Mr Smits, what a tiresome, irritating fellow that Martendijk is, with his terror of infection, and his eternal complaints about his health. And what a heartless creature his wife is! But, above all, what studied egoists they both are!”
Mr Smits had to hear it all; how worn-out Jo was; how their guests had taken advantage of them; how he had been driven into giving that confounded party. “And if I could once for all just give them a piece of my mind—but you see I can’t, as they are my guests. My wife is always giving me nudges and winks to keep me quiet; and if I do break loose occasionally, I get nice little scoldings from her into the bargain. Oh, there’s no standing the life I lead just now!”
“And is there no chance of their leaving soon?” asked Mr Smits.
“Oh, no! they talk of remaining another month at least,” replied Van Elst, in so despairing a tone, that his neighbour pitied him from the bottom of his heart.
“But if there are unwelcome guests in one’s house, it’s surely easy to find some way of getting rid of them?”
“I don’t know any way. They are not particularly sensitive on some points.”
“You may ask what old Smits has to do with it,” began the bachelor; “but you must remember I have gradually grown to take an interest in you and your wife.”
“Take care, Mr Smits, I am jealous,” cried Max, who had totally recovered his good-humour now he had unbosomed himself.
“Absurd! an old fellow of sixty!” said Mr Smits, not a little flattered. “But what I wanted to ask you was, may I try to devise some plan for your deliverance?”
“Oh, yes; and if you succeed I’ll be grateful to you all my life.”
The first thing put into Van Elst’s hand next morning, when he sat down to his early coffee in the verandah, was a carefully sealed note from his old neighbour over the way. It was concise, and to the point.
“Friend,—Your wife is feverish. Your cousin has a dread of infection. Is there any danger of typhus?—Yours,
“Smits.”
With a heartier laugh than he had indulged in for a long time, Van Elst sprang to his feet. “The very thing! What a capital idea!” He would take steps at once.
“How is Cousin Jo?” asked Emily half-an-hour later at the breakfast-table.
“No better,” said Max gravely; “I would not go near her if I were you, Cousin Emily; I think she’s asleep.”
The doctor came, and pronounced the patient convalescent; so he sat chatting sociably with her for some time, and then left her, prescribing a tonic.
Scarcely was he gone when Max joined his cousins in the front verandah.
“What a long time the doctor stayed,” Emily remarked. “It’s nothing serious, is it?”
Van Elst preserved an ominous silence.
“Cousin Jo will soon be going about again, I hope?” asked Martendijk, with some concern; for domestic affairs had not gone so smoothly, nor had they, personally, fared so well, since Mrs Van Elst had been laid up.
Max’s face assumed a very serious expression. “Going about! No, indeed, not for a while yet.”
“What do you say?”
“Well, you see—h’m—after all,” said Max, as if making a sudden resolve, “I think it’s best to tell you frankly, the doctor is afraid of typhus fever.”
“Typhus!” shrieked Martendijk. “Good Heavens! Emily, d’ye hear?”
“Yes,” said Emily, and, to her credit, we must confess that her first thoughts flew to the poor husband and children, who, if the worst should happen, would lose so devoted a wife and mother. “Alas! Cousin Max,” she said, “how terrible.”
“Was the doctor quite sure of it?” asked Martendijk, his face blanched with mortal terror, the remembrance of which long remained an unfailing source of amusement to Van Elst.
“No, not at all certain; he thought it might perhaps be small-pox,” he replied.
Martendijk stared at him in the wildest consternation.
“Good God!” he stammered, “that’s no trifle either. Small-pox and typhus fever! One every bit as infectious as the other!”
“Yes,” said Max, “small-pox especially. Well, I’m off to the office,” he concluded. “Good-morning, you’ll go and see after my wife every now and then, won’t you, Emily?” he asked, as he sprang into his bendy.
“No, Emily, indeed you’ll do nothing of the kind, I hope,” cried Martendijk, as soon as Van Elst was beyond earshot. “You might bring back infection, and——”
“Ah! Piet, you really are rather a coward in that respect.”
“Yes; but, Emily, small-pox! Just fancy if you were to take it——”
“Well, of course; but you need not be so ready to accept it as a fact. If Max were sure of it he would not have been so calm about it.”
“Dearest,” and Piet’s voice was as meek as any child’s, “I hope you agree with me, we must get away from this at once.”
“What would people say if we left Jo——”
“Oh! my dearest wife, do not agitate me with all these objections!”
“It looks so cowardly, Piet. And the climate here agrees with you so well. And the building is not finished yet.”
“Well, we must just make the best of it. Anything rather than remain in this infected atmosphere. Oh, Emily, dearest Emily, have you no more affection for your husband? O Lord! the pain, the pain! The shock has set it going again!”
When Van Elst came home from his office at mid-day, his “boy” brought him another letter. It was not from Smits this time, however, but from the Martendijks.
“Dear Cousins (it ran),—You will quite understand our haste to get away, now your house is attacked by such a terrible epidemic. We would willingly have remained much longer, and it is our intention to repeat our visit soon.
“In the meantime accept our cordial thanks for the hospitality you have shown to us.
“Though your behaviour to us has not been all it might have been, dear Cousin Max, we do not bear you the slightest grudge, and are quite ready to excuse it, knowing what a bad effect the liver has on the temper.
“We wish dear Jo a speedy recovery, and earnestly trust that she may be spared to her husband and children.—With our kindest regards, your affectionate cousins,
“P. & E. Martendijk.”
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Van Elst. “Hurrah! Jo! our guests are gone!”
Though Jo received the news with considerable consternation, and thought it disgraceful and inexcusable in Max to joke about anything so terrible as typhus fever (in which Max agreed with her penitently), it was amazing how rapidly she sprang out of bed,—the departure of her guests proving more effective than all the doctor’s tonics.
So when their old neighbour strolled past the Van Elsts’ house a little later, with an air of indifference, and Max rushed out to tell him the glad news, and to thank him for his friendly and timely help, he found Mrs Van Elst in the verandah, as bright and merry as ever, ready to assure him—though she insisted on thinking it a disgraceful proceeding!—that he had done her a great service by his lucky inspiration.
An invitation to a quiet dinner on the following day was the result; and the dinner was so good, the host in such excellent spirits, and the hostess so sweet, that the solitary old bachelor caught himself thinking, as he always did when a spectator of the Van Elsts’ domestic bliss, “I might have known this sort of thing too, if only——”
Annie Foore.