Chapter Eleven.
Contrasted Fates.
While Jean was blissfully enjoying the first weeks of her married life, the friend who had been to her as a second mother was lying dangerously ill in her upper room. The bustle of the last few months, culminating in the excitement of the wedding, had proved too much for Miggles’s weak heart; and having gallantly kept on her feet until the supreme need was past, she had the less strength left with which to fight the enemy.
“Don’t tell Jean. Promise not to tell Jean!” That was her first and most insistent cry; and being satisfied on the point, she laid herself down, and spoke no more for many weary days and nights.
Once again Vanna found herself bound to the household, and had the consolation or feeling of help to the mistress and of comfort to the invalid, who seemed to cling pathetically to Jean’s friend in the absence of her own dear nursling.
Hospital nurses were much rarer luxuries in the seventies than at the present day, and in this case the duty of nursing the invalid was undertaken by Mrs Goring, her maid, and Vanna, equally. The maid slept in the sick-room, ready to pay any attention which was required during the night; Mrs Goring was exact and punctilious in administering medicines and food at the right intervals, and in seeing that the sick-room was kept scrupulously in order; it devolved upon Vanna to ease the invalid by the innumerable, gentle little offices which seem to come by instinct to women of sympathetic natures, and later on as she grew stronger, to amuse her by reading aloud, talking, and—what in this case was even more welcome—lending an attentive ear while the other discoursed.
The sudden breakdown had called attention to the state of Miggles’s heart, which had troubled her at times for some years back. The result was serious, so serious that the doctor had warned her that her days of active service were over. Henceforth she must be content to live an idle life, in some quiet country spot, where she would be free from the bustle and excitement of town life. Mr and Mrs Goring proposed that she should live in the Cottage at Seacliff, where the capable woman who acted as caretaker could wait upon her and do the work of the house, and Miggles, as usual, was full of gratitude for the suggestion.
“A haven, my dear, opened out to me at the very moment I need it,” she said ardently to Vanna. “It’s been like that with me all my life. Goodness and mercy! I’ve always loved that dear little house by the sea; there’s no place on earth where I would rather end my days. The doctor says I shall go off quite suddenly. He didn’t want to tell me, but I explained that I was not at all afraid. From battle, murder, and lingering death, that’s the way I’ve always said it—not that I wish to put myself above the Prayer Book, but one must be honest, and that’s how I felt in my heart. I’ve no claim upon any one, and a long, expensive illness is a great drag. I’d be so ashamed! ‘Our times are in His hand,’ my dear; but if it’s not presumptuous, I hope He’ll take me soon. Next summer, perhaps, before the boys want to come down for the holidays. I should like to have the winter just to be quiet and prepare. June, now! June would be a sweet month to pass away in. Would it not, my dear?”
“Miggles!” cried Vanna, half laughing, half in tears. “Miggles, how can you be so callous? I absolutely refuse to discuss the date of your death. It’s not a cheerful subject for us, whatever it may be for you; and I hope you’ll be spared for a long, long rest after your busy life. How can you talk about dying in that matter-of-fact way, as if it were a removal from one house to another? Have you no dread, not of the mere act of death—that is often a real ‘falling asleep,’ but of the leap in the dark, the unknown change, the mystery behind?”
Miggles lay back against her pillow, a large, unwieldy figure, with thin bands of hair brushed back beneath an old-fashioned night-cap, her hands clasped peacefully on her knee.