* * * * * *
When her sister left her, accompanied by Thornton Carey, Mrs. Jenkins returned to her watch in Helen's room, from which she removed the infant, by this time awake.
Lurking under all her true womanly sympathy and acts of helpfulness in the great calamity of the household was a sense of deep personal disappointment; the heart of Mrs. Jenkins was filled with two great affections, one towards her husband, the other towards her sister, and her intellect contemplated but two absorbing pleasures; the first, the presence of her Ephraim was denied to her by Fate in so conclusive a manner that she had ceased to fret over it, for practical common sense had a large share in her organisation; the second, a personal observation of her sister's celebrity, success, and proficiency in her profession she had counted upon as within her reach, and now the great event had taken place, the star actor and his company were in possession of the boards of the Varieties, all New York was talking of Miss Montressor, the papers contained specific and voluminous descriptions of her appearance, dress, manners, and also indulged in dainty anecdotes respecting off-the-boards utterances of hers to the favoured few who had yet seen her in private. From all these glories and delights Mrs. Jenkins was excluded by hard Fate, which had hit her by a back-handed blow. Once or twice she had cherished for a moment the notion of slipping out for half an hour, and occupying some unobtrusive corner of the theatre, where she might see her sister for a few minutes in one of her great impersonations, and slipping back again unsuspected, but her better feelings utterly prevailed over the temptation. She could not leave her mistress, and she could not bear the contrast which the gaiety and brilliancy and pleasure of a theatre would present to the awful desolation of the fine house to which she had once thought of coming from the poverty and the difficulties that had condemned her to parting with Ephraim. 'It must be sheer heaven to live so,' she said with just one sigh, given to the recollection of the high hope with which she had heard the promise of her sister's coming, she went back to the painful round of her duties, many of them self-imposed.
Helen Griswold had the faculty of winning the love of all those in her employment, and there was not a servant in the house who would not willingly have shared Mrs. Jenkins's watch, but she had a notion that as she was the only wife and mother among them, she could draw nearer to the bereaved wife and mother who still lay there in merciful unconsciousness; so the hours wore away and Mrs. Jenkins watched her patient. The doctor came, looked at the sleeping form on the bed, felt the pulse, touched the clammy forehead, listened to the faltering breath, and went his way, declaring it still safe to leave her undisturbed.
'If she could sleep all round the clock,' said he, 'so much the better. Twenty-four hours' oblivion is not to be lightly thought of in such a case as hers.'
'I am afraid, sir,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'she will have to see the police people tomorrow, that it cannot be put off longer, because they talk of sending an agent to England by the next mail.'
'In that case,' said the doctor, 'when she wakes let her have food and stimulants; take her up, give her a warm bath, and, according as you find her nerves stronger and her mind clearer, prepare her for the task that lies before her. I shall see her in the morning, and will remain here to meet the gentlemen who are coming.'
Late that night Thornton Carey again called to hear the doctor's last report, which he did from Mrs. Jenkins, and then, begging, if possible, to prepare Mrs. Griswold for the trying visit upon which they were obliged to insist, at eleven o'clock on the following day, he went down to the theatre, where the performance was just coming to a close, and joined Bryan Duval. They returned to the Fifth-avenue Hotel together, and held a long conference, which lasted long into the night.
Immediately after Thornton Carey left Mrs. Jenkins, she once more pressed into her service the indefatigable Jim, despatching him with a note to Miss Montressor, adopting the periodical fiction that Mr. Carey had employed her to communicate on his behalf with that lady, who wished to know the latest accounts of Mrs. Griswold; but the purport of her note was to beg that Clara would come up to the house as early as she could on the following morning. 'The truth is,' wrote Mrs. Jenkins to her sister, 'I am exceedingly worn out, and though they are very willing up here, they have not much sense; and in case there is a great to-do to-morrow morning with the gentlemen and the police people, I do not feel equal to it all by myself or with only Justine, who is as incapable as any foreigner I have ever met, though not bad meaning. So, my dear Clara, come up if you can at all. Mrs. Griswold, who has been sitting up and talking quite rational, has taken a great fancy to you, and would, I am sure, be very glad that you should be with her in case I broke down altogether, which does not seem unlikely, and would be a very had job, especially for baby.'
As this invention jumped precisely with Miss Montressor's own wishes, she acceded to it with great alacrity, and with the full and cordial consent of Bryan Duval, with whom she communicated that very night.