Lawrence had then been missing five days. It was seven o'clock in the evening, and Mrs. McGillicuddy had already put the After-Clap to bed when she started for Mrs. Lawrence's quarters. There was no one to open the door, and Mrs. McGillicuddy walked unceremoniously into the little sitting-room, where the boy sat, silent and lonely and frightened, by the window. Mrs. McGillicuddy spoke a cheery word to him, and then passed into the bedroom beyond. The light was dim but she could see Mrs. Lawrence lying, fully dressed, on the bed. At the sight of Mrs. McGillicuddy she turned her face away.
"Come now," said Mrs. McGillicuddy undauntedly, "I think I know why you don't want to see me. Well, Patrick McGillicuddy is as good a man as wears shoe-leather, but every Sergeant that ever lived has made some sort of a mistake in his life. So Patrick wants me to do all I can for you until something turns up, and I hope that something will be your husband—and my husband will be mighty easy on him at the court-martial."
Mrs. Lawrence made no reply. Then Mrs. McGillicuddy went into the little kitchen, and stirring up the fire soon had a comfortable meal ready, and calling to the little boy, gave him his first good supper in the five days that had passed since his father came no more.
"You'd feel sorry for McGillicuddy if you could see him," Mrs. McGillicuddy kept on, ignoring Mrs. Lawrence's cold silence. "And recollect, if you feel sorry for your husband, I feel sorry for mine. 'Taint right to keep the little feller here while you can't lift a hand to do for him, so I'm goin' to take him to my house, with my eight children, because there's luck in odd numbers, and I'll feed him up, pore little soul, and wash him and mend him, and start him to playin' with Ignatius and Aloysius, for children ought to play, and Patrick 'll come every morning and start your fire, although he is a Sergeant, and we want to help you, and you must help us."
Mrs. Lawrence was not made of stone, and could not forever resist Mrs. McGillicuddy's kindness, and so it came about that the McGillicuddys took care of Lawrence's boy, whose face grew round and rosy with the generous McGillicuddy fare. A part of Mrs. McGillicuddy's good will to him was that she instructed Ignatius and Aloysius McGillicuddy, both excellent fist fighters for their age, that they were to lick any boy, no matter what his age or size, who dared to taunt little Ronald about his father or anything else. These orders were extremely agreeable to the McGillicuddy boys, who loved fighting for fighting's sake, and who sought occasions to practise the manly art.
Colonel Fortescue sent word to Mrs. Lawrence that she could occupy her quarters until she was able to make some plan for the future. It seemed, however, utterly indefinite when Mrs. Lawrence would be able to plan anything. She lay in her bed or sat in her chair, silent, pale, and as weak as a child. The blow of her husband's desertion seemed to have stopped all the springs of action. Neither the chaplain, the post-surgeon, nor Mrs. McGillicuddy, singly or united, could rouse Mrs. Lawrence from the deadly lassitude of a broken heart. Both the chaplain and the surgeon had seen such cases, and nothing in the pharmacopoeia could cure them.
Mrs. Fortescue, whose heart was not less tender from long dwelling on the airy heights of happiness and perfect love, was full of sympathy for Lawrence's unfortunate wife, and would have gone to see her, but Mrs. McGillicuddy, who delivered the message, brought back a discouraging reply.
"She says, mum, as she don't need nothin' at all, and I think, mum, she kinder shrinks from the orficers' wives more than from the soldiers' wives."
Anita, who was sitting by, went to her mother and, putting her arms around Mrs. Fortescue's neck, whispered:
"Mother, let me go to see Mrs. Lawrence. I don't think she will mind seeing me. You and daddy are always telling me that I am only a child."