The Third Miss Symons

by F. M. Mayor

"No, I am afraid not. Miss Symons' heart has been delicate for some years; it gives her very little strength to stand against this attack."

"Um! I was afraid so," said William, and he was glad to get out of the house, and buy a Pall Mall.

The inspector niece came down (uninvited), very energetic, and very kind in using the last few days of her holidays in nursing a disagreeable reactionary relation. She dominated the nurse, who was much meeker than nurses usually are, and quite quelled her poor aunt, too weak to protest even at attacks on the monarchy. But Henrietta was much happier when the niece's holidays came to an end, and she was left to die quietly and dully with the nurse.

Evelyn was away in Egypt with Herbert for her health, and by a most unfortunate accident she did not get the first telegram announcing Henrietta's dangerous illness. Poor Henrietta asked constantly if there was nothing from her, and as she got weaker, and a little wandering, she kept on crying like a child: "I want Evelyn." They cabled again, and when the answer came, "Starting home at once," it was too late, and Henrietta was not sufficiently herself to understand it.

As soon as Evelyn got home, she went to Bath. The little house was still as it was, but for some legacies which a careful nephew had already abstracted. But the place of the dead seemed to have been filled even more quickly than usual. Annie, as she said, had only waited "till the pore old lady was taken" to marry comfortably with a saddler, and the parlourmaid was already established in a very smart town situation. There was an unknown caretaker to look after the house, which was to let. Evelyn saw the doctor and the clergyman, who both spoke kindly of Miss Symons. "We shall miss your sister very much," said Mr. Vaughan, "she was always doing kind things,"—and he did miss her to a certain extent, but there is a ceaseless supply of generous, touchy incapable old ladies in England, and he could not be expected to miss her very much. Evelyn went to see the nurse, and could hear from her more of what she wanted. The nurse was a kind, sweet girl, the centre of an affectionate family, and engaged to a devoted young clerk.

"Oh, Mrs. Ferrers, if only you could have come back in time," she said, sobbing, "or if you could have written. She did want you so; every time there was a ring it was, 'Is that from her?' and I heard her say to herself: 'I thought she would be sure to come.' I simply had to go out in the passage, I couldn't keep back my tears, and of course one must always be bright before a patient; it is so bad for them if one isn't. Some nieces and nephews came, and one of them stayed several days, and two brothers, I think; and there were several members of the family there for the funeral, and she had some simply lovely wreaths, and the church was nice and full, numbers of her poor people were there," brought there, as surely the kind nurse knew, not from love of Henrietta, but from love of funerals, "but when your wire did come I cried for joy, though we couldn't make her take it in, poor dear; still it seemed as if someone really cared for her. Oh, she looked so lovely and peaceful at the end, all the trouble gone."

This was a comforting deception, which the nurse thought it justifiable to practise on relations, for in fact death had not changed Henrietta; there had been no transfiguration to beauty and nobility, she looked what she had been in life—insignificant, feeble, and unhappy.

"Miss Symons asked me to give you this box," said the nurse. "She made me promise I would give it you over and over again."

Evelyn found it was an inlaid sandalwood box, which she had sent from India as a present from the first baby. In it she found Herbert's letter announcing the death of little Madeline, hers and the other two babies' photographs, and a sheet of notepaper, tied with blue ribbon. On it was written, "I can't tell you how much good you have done me, I seem to have been living for this for fifteen years. Evelyn, September 23, 1890." As she read it, Evelyn remembered, what she had long forgotten, that this was what she had once said to Henrietta.

When she walked to the hotel, it was a bright, sunny afternoon, and snow was on the ground. She went to her room to take off her things, but she stood instead at the window, too intent on what she had heard to be capable of anything. Her heart was almost bursting to think that Henrietta should have treasured all these years the little love she had given her, crumbs, which she had as it were left over from her husband and boys, love not even for Henrietta's own sake, but for the sake of the dead children. She with all the riches of love poured on her, and Henrietta with so little. "I was cold, selfish, self-absorbed, I didn't think of her, I forgot her, I criticized her; it was all my fault."