The immediate danger lasted only a few days; but recovery was fitful and slow. Cecilia at length insisted on hearing the whole truth from her doctor: and it was a truth which she had long suspected. She was the victim of complicated and hopeless disease. She might to some extent rally, and even resume ordinary life; but she would never again be strong, or fit for teaching; and at any time, an acute attack might carry her off.
Miss Anderson said not a word of this to Felix or Lettice. She thought it over quietly: and when again able to sit up, she determined to write to the only near relative she possessed—her uncle, Dr. Bryant, alienated many many years earlier by his only sister's marriage to Francis Anderson.
This decision was hastened by an opening for Felix, as accountant in a stationer's shop. He would begin at once going daily, to learn his business: and after a fortnight, would receive the sum of 17s. 6d. weekly, with prospects of an early rise, if he gave satisfaction. Cecilia had looked for something widely different, but others told her how fortunate he was; and the commonsense of the boy acquiesced. Cecilia gave in, and wrote to Dr. Bryant, resolved that Felix should at least, if possible, be unhampered.
The reply was prompt. If Cecilia would travel down to the west with Lettice, as soon as she could bear the journey, Dr. Bryant would give them both a home. To meet immediate expenses, he enclosed a £10 note. The letter was not in style affectionate, but Maurice Bryant never had written affectionately. Some people, demonstrative in manner, are icy by post; and some, who never thaw in personal intercourse, are unexpectedly genial in correspondence. He might be none the less warm, because he expressed himself coldly.
On the whole, satisfaction predominated in Cecilia's mind. To be compelled to seek aid from any one was a source of distress; but she was not a person of puny make, always in arms against imaginary slights, neither was she herself demonstrative. Why should she expect a show of feeling from others?
"We will offer you a home!" Dr. Bryant wrote, and she wondered over the plural pronoun. She had always thought of her uncle as an old bachelor, possibly an eccentric one: but he might have married, without the fact reaching her ears. If so, the future happiness of herself and Lettice would depend greatly upon the manner of wife he had chosen.
Cecilia was not a woman of many friends, using the word in a sense which implies intimacy—partly in consequence of her innate reserve, partly because she held back from possible friendships. She was proud as well as reserved; and she would not endure to have it said that she went after anybody with an object. Neither would she permit towards herself kindness which might border on patronage. Even the families of long-standing pupils would drop away, when the engagement ended. People admired and respected Miss Anderson, but few loved her; and all her thought and care were concentrated in Felix and Lettice—more especially in Felix.
So when these troubles came, she had no one to turn to for help: none except the lodging-house keeper, Mrs. Crofton, who, like everybody, admired and respected her lodger, and who would have done anything in the world for Lettice. Mrs. Crofton did do much; nursing the invalid night and day through the worst of the illness, and afterward sparing every possible moment from work to the sick room.
The doctor, summoned at haphazard from a neighbouring street, was kindness itself: and the clergyman of the parish called often. But though Miss Anderson had been years in this house, she was a stranger to both of them. Despite all their efforts to break through her shield of reticence, she and they remained "strangers yet." Nor was she so grateful as she might have been for their exertions on behalf of Felix, since the result meant to herself deep disappointment.
"I have been talking with Mrs. Crofton about you, Felix; and we both wish you to stay on here, when Lettice and I are gone."