Never in her life had Pam worked so hard as she did in that week before Sophy was married. The house must be scrubbed from top to bottom. It had seemed clean enough for everyday occupation, and she would not have troubled about it until some wet spell had given her the leisure from outside tasks necessary for cleaning out the one or two rooms which seemed to need it most. But the wedding altered everything. Pam cared not at all because the place needed almost everything in the way of household plenishing; that was not her fault, nor her responsibility. But her pride would have been hurt in its most vital part if those neighbour women had come in to find dirty floors, and windows bunged up with cobwebs. She was astir at dawn on Monday morning, and started on her campaign against dirt in the most energetic fashion possible. When she began to stir the rooms out she was dismayed to find how really dirty they were, and she worked so hard that Jack declared there would be nothing of her left by Thursday.
Sophy wanted to help with the cleaning, but was sternly reminded that brides were looked upon as being rather ornamental than useful, and she was not allowed to soil her hands for that one week at least. Don came over on Tuesday and scrubbed the big kitchen for Pam; he had been away over the week-end with George Lester, and knew nothing of the trouble at home until he got back late on Monday evening, to find himself billeted at the stores, in company with George, and ordered to keep away from home. The two children who had sickened were not really ill, but of course the next cases might be very bad indeed, so the Doctor was taking no risks. Mrs. Grierson shut herself up with the small invalids, and the rest of the children were taken to a lone house where there were no other children, and their father saw them twice a day to make certain they were not developing the complaint.
Dr. Grierson had done so many kind things for people in his time that all the neighbours vied with each other in their efforts to smooth for him the present embarrassment. Pam had to refuse so many offers of help, and to insist so strongly that supplies should be kept down to the limit she had asked for, that she was amazed, not only at the kindness of everyone, but also at the resources at their disposal. She would not allow them to bring anything to the house until Wednesday, by which time she would have the place in fit trim to receive all the things that were to be loaned, and all the food that was to be given.
She had refused to let Jack scrub, for she had her own ideas as to how the work should be done, and she meant to have the house brought up to standard somehow. But when Don appeared and took bucket and brush away from her by sheer force, there was nothing for it but to give way, because he was the stronger, and she knew she could not get the things away from him if she tried. Then, too, he did the work in a masterly fashion. It was pure pleasure to see the energy he put into the brush-work, and the capable manner in which he swabbed up the water; the corners, too, got such a routing-out that after watching him for five minutes, Pam stretched her weary arms above her head, and went away to put her hair straight, feeling that so far as the scrubbing was concerned, her responsibility was at an end.
By Wednesday night the house was so transformed that Pam declared her grandfather would not know the place if he came back.
“Do you think he will come back?” asked Jack, as the two had a final look round before going to bed.
“Nathan said that if anything would bring him back it would be the wedding. He would be so scandalized at the thought of having so many women and girls about the place that he would certainly turn up if he were still alive. That is one of the reasons why I have been so keen to have a great fuss. Of course he may be very angry, but even that will be worth while if it only ends this suspense, and lets us know where we are.” Pam sighed. She was so very tired of the uncertainty of her present life, and she so badly wanted her mother and the others to come before the summer was really over. Their help would be useful, too, for each day brought so many things to be done, and two pairs of hands seemed quite inadequate for the task.
Sophy’s trunks were packed and labelled for the far west. There was nothing left to be done, except the custards and the coffee, and there would be plenty of help in the morning for them. Dr. Grierson had been over for a last talk with his daughter, and Sophy had gone off to bed drowned in tears, for it did seem cruelly hard that she could not have the support of her mother’s presence at this, the most important time in her life. But her father had promised that her mother should come to pay her a visit before very long, and that was a very real consolation. Still, there were tears to be shed, and Sophy was just having a really good cry before Pam came upstairs.
Jack was going to sleep on the settle in the kitchen to-night, because his bedroom had been requisitioned as an extra sitting-room, and it was all arranged, and in the most splendid order. A big table formed from boards from the barn stretched the length of the kitchen, and was duly spread for the feast with borrowed knives and forks, spoons, and crockery. Oh, it was a fine sight! for no one had been niggardly, and everyone had done their bit to give the Doctor’s daughter a good send-off.
“What a lot of fuss for one wedding!” remarked Jack. “If I were you and Don, I would get married at the same time, now that we have got all the things here. It seems a real pity to waste all this fine spread on one couple, and you could not get such a smart carpet every day.”