“Nothing?”
“No—nothing. I enjoy some things more than others, of course; but, honestly, for me the happiest moment of the day is when I lie down in bed and feel that for eight hours at least I need do nothing but rest.”
“Poor darling!” cried Hope sympathetically—“poor darling! That is a matter of health, of course. But, Avice, don’t you think that perhaps if you—”
“Yes; if I what?”
Hope knitted her brows and looked distressed and nervous.
“Oh, I don’t want to preach, but perhaps if you had something to do—if you did not think quite so much of—I mean to say that if one is feeling weak and listless, and has nothing to do, one goes on feeling worse and worse. But if one gets interested—”
“Yes, I know what you mean; but how is one to get interested? That is the question. I am not clever like you, and have no hobbies to occupy my mind, and I get so bored with myself. Mother won’t let me help her. She thinks I am too delicate; and, apart from that, she is quick and I am slow, and it would fidget her to see me droning through what she could do in half the time. It is all very well to say, ‘Have an interest.’ Everything that seems new and exciting to you here is stale to me. I am sick to death of living in public as we do, entertaining one set of visitors after another, who all say the same things and amuse themselves in the same way. I am not strong enough to go out ‘slumming’ or visiting hospitals, as some girls do. Where would you find your interest if you were in my place, Hope?”
“I’d find it somewhere,” said Hope sturdily. “You have plenty of money and plenty of time, and there must be a hundred ways of putting them to account. I—I think I would try to help girls who are alone in the world and struggling to make their living. We are all together, and have enough money to keep us from actual want, but I can imagine how awful it must be for girls who are all alone, with no one to help them if they fall ill; whose lives are one long, colourless struggle, with never a ray of brightness or pleasure from Monday morning until Saturday night. Could you not think of some way of helping them? What could you do? I know; I have it! There is that sweet little lodge with no one living in it but old George and his wife, and she was lamenting to me only yesterday that her daughters were married, and there were no young folks left in the house. Why should you not furnish two rooms upstairs, and invite poor shop assistants and girl-clerks to come down for their holidays, two at a time, so that they would be companions for each other? It would be so easy to manage, for you need not think of expense; and Mrs Moss would wait upon them, while you provided their amusements. You could go round with Pipeclay and take them out for drives; you could lend them books and papers, and have them up to the house to tea. They would confide their joys and troubles to you, and tell you about their ‘friends,’ and write letters to you when they went home. When they married, you could help to provide the trousseaux. And when the first little girls were born they would be called after you, and you would knit their socks. They would be brought up to love you because you had been kind to their mothers, and it would be the dream of their lives to be asked down to see all the places of which they had heard so much. In a dozen homes all over the country people would be blessing you, and looking upon you as the good fairy who had brought them health and happiness. Oh Avice, you lucky girl! What would I give to have such a chance? I would begin to-morrow—to-day—this very afternoon!”
“Well,” said Avice reflectively—“well!” It was not in her nature to be enthusiastic like her cousin, but she smiled as if the idea found favour in her sight, and her dull eyes brightened. “It does sound nice. I suppose I could do it if I liked. Mother wouldn’t mind, and Mrs Moss would be delighted. She is one of those women who are never so happy as when they are nursing some one; and she would coddle the girls from morning till night, and give them beaten-up eggs and black-currant Jelly for their throats, and her celebrated cough mixture made out of nine ‘ingrediencies’! I really will think about it, Hope. I believe it would be interesting. Would you help me to furnish the rooms and make them pretty and artistic?”
“Rather! I adore buying things—when some one else has to pay. We would have one room blue, and one pink, with white paint and dear little white beds, and bookcases full of nice books, and comfy wicker chairs by the window, where the girls could sit and read, and rest their poor, tired backs. And I would be your town agent, and look out for likely subjects. If I were in a shop and saw a poor, anaemic-looking girl, I could find out her circumstances from the manager or head of the department; and if she had no one to look after her, and was living in the shop, or in poky little lodgings, I could send on her name to you, and you would invite her to come here for the holidays. Oh, you are going to do it, my dear! You’ll have to do it! I’ll give you no peace till you do.”