The doctor went suddenly silent, stirred his coffee with an air of impatience, as if angry at being bothered, although in reality he hated to give pain, then he said gruffly: “There is injury to the spine, and I am afraid, I am very much afraid, that she will be a helpless invalid for the remainder of her days.”
CHAPTER XI
A Wild Revolt
Bertha stared at the doctor in speechless horror, but he was stirring his coffee again and frowning at the tablecloth as if it had offended him. Then she turned and walked out-of-doors, feeling her way with her hands because she could not see.
It was awful, too awful for words! Busy, active Grace, with her tribe of little children, a hopeless, helpless invalid! Why, surely sudden death would have been kinder! What would they do? Who would nurse Grace and mother the children, wash, cook, and mend for the household? Who would do all these things?
“I shall have to do them myself,” she groaned, then realizing all that it would mean to her cherished prospects and the tremendous giving up that it would involve, she muttered between her set teeth as she clutched at the post of the veranda to keep herself from falling, “I can’t do it, and I won’t! Oh, I won’t!”
How long she stood there she had no idea. She knew that the doctor went past her on his way to the barn; she heard Eunice come to the door and call softly to Bill Humphries and then go back again. But mercifully no one took the slightest notice of her, so she clung fast to her post, while the whirling revolt in her heart grew blacker and wilder, until she felt as if she would go off her head.
It was the cry of a child which brought her to her senses again. Baby Noll had come to grief again, and was yelling in the whole-hearted fashion in which he always voiced his woes. Tom must not hear him, and the crying of the child would be sure to rouse him. Bertha remembered how Grace had often said that Tom always heard the children cry at night long before they roused her.
Moving slowly, because she felt so weak and spent, Bertha went to pick up the crying child, and comforted him, as she had often done before, until he was soon laughing again; for happily his griefs did not last long. Then she went back to the house. It was all very well to make up her mind that she would accept no responsibility with regard to this distressful family in the immediate future, but to save her own self-respect, and because her heart was kinder than she believed it to be, she had got to do her duty by them at the present. She was clearing up the kitchen, moving in a dull, mechanical fashion because of her dreadful weariness, when Eunice came out of the bedroom and laid forcible hands upon her.
“You must have some rest or you will break down, and you have been such a dear, brave child,” said the little woman kindly.
“I can’t rest yet; I have to call the doctor at three o’clock, and this muddle must be cleared up,” said Bertha, stoutly resisting any attempt to make her rest, but secretly wincing at the words of praise from Eunice, because she knew herself unworthy of them.