“Not a sound out of her since you left! Poor thing! First chance of a bit of peace and quietness she’s had for many a long day.”
“Well, Mary, you and I are going to give her plenty more!” I said graciously, and Mary made me a slice of buttered toast on the spot to seal the partnership.
Tea was over when the door opened, and a sleepy, flushed face peeped round the door to look at the clock. When she saw the hands pointing to five, she looked as guilty as if she had robbed the bank.
Oh, it’s a glorious thing to be able to help other people! It gives one a warm, glowey feeling about the heart which comes in no other way. These last days I have just lived for the moment when I could tuck that poor little woman in her cosy bed, and the other moment when I saw her rested, freshened face on rising. Even at the end of one week she looked a different creature, and felt it too.
“Actually, dear Miss Harding, I begin to feel as if I—I should like a new hat!” she said to me one day over tea. “Do you know the feeling? I think it is the best sign of convalescence a woman could have. For months, almost for years, I have not cared what I wore. Something to cover my head—that was all that was needed. To be always tired—deadly, hopelessly tired—takes the spirit out of one.”
“No one should go on being too tired. It’s very wrong to allow it.”
She looked at me; a long look, affectionate, grateful, reproachfully amused.
“My dear, you live alone, and you have two maids. Evidently—excuse me—you have a comfortable income. My husband’s business has been steadily falling off for the last two years. It is not his fault; he works like a horse; no man could have done more, but circumstances have been against him. We keep one maid, who washes, bakes, and cooks, while I tend the babies, make their clothes and my own, knit, and mend, and patch, and darn, take the children out, bathe them, put them to bed, attend to them through the night, do the housekeeping by day, and struggle over the bills when they are in bed. Bobby is three years and a half old, and has had bronchitis and measles. Baby is eleven months, and cuts her teeth with croup. Between them came the little one who died. And then you sit there and tell me I ought not to be tired!”
“I beg your pardon. I’m sorry. I spoke without thinking. You are quite right—I know nothing about it. People who preach to others very often don’t. Forgive me!”
“Don’t be so penitent! It is really almost a relief to meet a woman who doesn’t understand. All my friends are in pretty much the same case as myself, and they haven’t got”—she stretched out her hand and timidly patted my arm—“my kind neighbour to help. Miss Harding, I think you must have been a fascinating girl!”