Chapter Eleven.
A Bear’s Hug.
About a fortnight after the events mentioned in the last chapter, my quiet time in the queer little lodgings at Putney came to an end. Jack was declared free from infection, Hetty was quite well again, and with some difficulty we managed to get them both admitted to a Convalescent Home at Broadstairs.
It was quite affecting to see the meeting between Jack and Hetty. Jack’s illness had both improved and refined him. He was always the best-looking of the family, and he really looked quite handsome as he took that little confiding gentle wife of his into his arms and kissed her three or four times. Poor Jack,—he kissed me too with a fervour he had never hitherto shown. He murmured something I could not quite catch about never being able to show sufficient gratitude to me, and then he and Hetty went away.
I saw them off from the railway station. The last glimpse I got of Hetty, she was sitting very close to her husband, and looking into his face. That poor young face of his looked worn and anxious enough, but Hetty knew nothing of the anxiety, and nothing of Jack’s fall from the paths of honour;—to her he was a prince—the first of men.
I sighed as I left the railway station. “Poor Jack!” I said to myself, “the path that lies before him will not be too easy to climb. Fancy having a little wife like Hetty to look after and support, and no means whatever to earn money for either of them. His character and chance of success practically gone. What is to be done with them both after their fortnight at Broadstairs is over?”
I returned home that afternoon to my dear mother. It was mid-winter and bitterly cold. Christmas was come and gone, we were well into January; snow rested on the ground, and as I entered the cottage, I saw by the look of the sky that more was likely to fall.
My mother welcomed me with just that degree of warmth which seemed to me the perfection of greeting. It consisted of very little in the way of embraces, scarcely anything in the shape of endearing words, but the expression in my mother’s eyes told me all I wanted to know. She was very, very happy to have me back again; and as to me, I felt for the time being rested and satisfied. Why not? I was with the human being I loved best on earth.
We had tea together, and then my mother began to speak.