The doctor gave her something in a bottle when he had asked a few questions, and she went back to the cottage to go on bearing what was left of the interminable, intolerable day.
That was the day when she set out the fair white writing paper, and the rosy blotting-paper, and the black ink and the black fountain pen, and sat and looked at them for hours and hours. She prayed for help—but no help came.
“I’m probably praying to the wrong people,” she said, when through the dusk the square of paper showed vague as a tombstone in twilit grass—“the wrong people—No, there are no tombstones in the sea—the wrong people. If St Anthony helps you to find things, and the other saints help you to be good, perhaps the dead people who used to write themselves are the ones to help one to write!”
Jane is ashamed to be quite sure that she remembers praying to Dante and Shakespeare, and at last to Christina Rossetti, because she was a woman and loved her brothers.
But no help came. The old woman fussed in and out with wood for the fire—candles—food. Very kindly, it appears, but Jane wished she wouldn’t. Jane thinks she must have eaten some of the food, or the old woman would not have left her as she did.
Jane took the draught, and went to bed.
When Mrs Beale came into the sitting-room next morning, a neat pile of manuscript lay on the table, and when she took a cup of tea to Jane’s bedside, Jane was sleeping so placidly that the old woman had not the heart to disturb her, and set the tea down on a chair by the pillow to turn white and cold.
When Jane came into the sitting-room, she stood long looking at the manuscript. At last she picked it up, and, still standing, read it through. When she had finished, she stood a long time with it in her hand. At last she shrugged her shoulders and sat down. She wrote to Milly.
“Here is the story. I don’t know how I’ve done it, but here it is. Do read it—because I really am a little mad, and if it’s any good, send it in at once to the Monthly Multitude. I slept all last night. I shall soon be well now. Everything is so delightful, and the air is splendid. A thousand thanks for sending me here. I am enjoying the rest and change immensely.—Your grateful