Ten Degrees Backward

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

I knew it was very weak of me to go on trying to justify myself in Ponty's eyes; but I did it nevertheless. "You see, I thought it would be too quiet for her ladyship to be shut up to an old husband like me, and that it would be more cheerful for her with Miss Annabel and Mr. Wildacre here as well."

Ponty looked at me with a fresh influx of contempt: "That's just what you would think, Master Reggie: even as a little boy you were always one for taking the wrong end of a stick. You're not at all old—quite a boy you seem to me; and old or not old, nobody could deny that you're still a very handsome gentleman. And no woman ought to feel it dull to live with her own husband, even if he were one of the plain sort, and hadn't your good looks. She's taken him for better for worse, and for rougher for smoother, according to the Marriage Service, and she ought to abide by it."

"Always verify your quotations," I murmured, but Ponty took no notice of my interruption.

"Not that I don't hold with relations," she went on, "in moderation, and at the proper time and place. I remember when you and Miss Annabel were children, her late ladyship gave me a fortnight's holiday after a bad cold I'd had, and I went to stay with a sister-in-law who was a widow, living some twenty miles from Poppenhall. It happened that my sister-in-law died two days after I got there, which turned out most fortunate for me, as such a lot of relations came to the funeral, I can tell you I saw more of my own family then than I'd seen for years, and I quite enjoyed myself. I always say there's nothing like your own relations for a pick-me-up, as you might say: but you don't want 'em hanging about all the time, and telling you how to manage your own home and husband."

At that moment there was a tap at the nursery door, and Jeavons came in to say that old Parkins had sent a message to know if I could come and ease his pain as I had done before, it being specially severe that morning.

I responded at once: and the request brought the first ray of light that had shone on my life since Fay left me. It showed that I still had my uses, and was not a mere cumberer of the ground. Even if life was over as far as I myself was concerned, I could still help others by means of my healing power. So I entered the Parkins's cottage less miserable than I had been for months.

I found the poor old man in great agony, and I knelt down by the bed as was my custom, laying my hand upon the painful part. But for the first time since I had received the gift, I found the heavens as brass above me. I was conscious of no Presence in the room—of no vital force flowing through me. My prayers were dull and lifeless, and no virtue went either in or out of me.

"It don't seem to answer this time, Sir Reginald," the old man groaned at last: "the pain do get worse instead of better. Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do? Nothing seems to do me any good, not even you!"

Sick at heart I tried again, but to no purpose. There was no blinking the fact. The power of healing had gone from me.

Making what poor excuse I could, I stumbled out of the cottage and into the open air: and then I found my way into a little wood, and fell on my face, and prayed that I might die. It seemed as if God Himself had forsaken me.