An Act in a Backwater

by E. F. Benson

Evidently for Phœbe the day of little things was not over. Uncertainty had worried her, the relief of certainty had let her tiny occupations resume their wonted importance. It seemed to Jeannie that condolence or congratulations on her bravery would be alike misplaced. It is good to weep with those who weep, but weeping friends are bad company if one does not show any inclination to weep one’s self, and certainly Phœbe showed none. And to continue congratulating any one on their fortitude is gratuitous. Courage, above all the virtues, brings its own reward, for it is warming to the heart.

“But Clara offered to take off my hands all the work of the household,” continued Phœbe, “which was very thoughtful of her, for she had noticed, she said, that it seemed to have fatigued me these last few weeks. And so, Miss Avesham, I have been spending a holiday morning with my music. I have hardly any pain this morning.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” said Jeannie, “and I see you have Funiculi. I know it, so I will accompany you.”

Clara upstairs, employed in looking out the towels in the bed-room, heard the light-hearted, rollicking tune vibrate through the house, and guessed Jeannie had come. Clara had a marked bedside manner, and her custom when any one was ill was to batter them with innocent questions as to whether they would have the door shut or the window opened, and to look at them with anxious, deprecating eyes, and to walk on a creaking tip-toe. Phœbe’s faint tinkling had been inaudible upstairs, and to play that song now seemed scarcely proper. She felt as she would have felt if some one in the house was dead and the blinds had not been drawn down.

She was nearly at an end of her tour of inspection, and when, a few minutes later, she entered the drawing-room, the third verse of the song was not yet ended. She closed the door with elaborate precaution, and walking on tip-toe to Phœbe’s side, gazed into her face with a sad smile. But Phœbe only frowned; Jeannie was taking the song at a pace she was not used to, and it was as much as she could do to keep up.

“Turn over quick, Clara,” she said. “Now!” and Phœbe’s soul was in the thrumming of the mandolin.

The verse came to an end, and Jeannie turned round.

“That’s more the pace,” she said. “I remember I was with my father and mother in Naples when it came out, and it was the first sound you heard in the morning and the last you heard at night. I have a book of those Neapolitan airs; I’ll send them round to you if you like.”

Jeannie’s manner was anything but the ideal mortal-disease attitude which Clara had expected. She had expected to find her sitting by Phœbe’s side, with one hand in hers, talking about the next world and the lessons to be learned from pain. Perhaps she might with advantage have been found playing a hymn on the soft pedal, but instead of that she was thumping Neapolitan songs, and Phœbe seemed to be enjoying it. Was it possible that Dr. Maitland was wrong, and had told Jeannie so? In that case surely Jeannie would have let her know.