“Give me a bad pneumonia, and I’m happy!” said she, frankly, and she meant what she said.
At those rare intervals when Billie fell into a fitful sleep, I used to steal out of the room and pay a visit to the dining-room, where, on two arm-chairs on opposite sides of the fire, the poor father and his friend sat drearily smoking, and waiting until the small hours of the morning. It was useless to tell Mr Thorold to go to bed. His wife had breathed her last at two o’clock in the morning, and he was possessed by a dread that Billie would do the same. At three or thereabouts he might be persuaded to move, but until then it was but a waste of breath to ask it. Poor fellow! To have his old friend by his side was the best comfort that was left, but how he must have missed his wife, and how endlessly, breathlessly long the hours must have seemed, sitting with folded hands, with nothing to do but to wait! Even I—an outsider—was oppressed by the difference in the atmosphere of the two rooms. In the sick-room there was suffering indeed, but there was also a constant, earnest fight; here, the heavy, smoke-filled air seemed to breathe of despair!
On those midnight visits, the first thing I did after giving my report, was to open the window, and the second to make a jug of chocolate, beating the powder in the milk till it foamed, in tempting continental fashion. The men shivered and protested. They were in a draught; they were not hungry; they wanted neither chocolate nor sandwiches; but I went on with my preparations in an elderly, persistent fashion, and said if they didn’t—well, I did, and I hoped they would not grudge me a little refreshment in the midst of my labours. By the time that the little meal was prepared, the smoke had cleared away and left a little air to breathe, so then I made a favour of shutting the window and poking the fire, and we would sit down together, and—it was wonderful how much we could eat! If Aunt Eliza could have seen me then, what—oh, what would she have said! How I blessed the grey wig and the spectacles, and the few deft, disfiguring touches which made my presence so easy and comfortable, not only for myself but for those two poor, sad, helpless young men. However much one may rail against convention, it remains an unalterable fact that youth and good looks are not the best qualification for indiscriminate work among one’s fellow-creatures. I must remember this fact when I grow really old, and apply it as balm to my wounded vanity.
Over the chocolate and sandwiches we would talk—not about Billie, if possible; and I learnt that the two men had first met at Harrow, had then been separated for many years, and had renewed the old friendship during the last two years.
There is evidently a strong sympathy between them—a sympathy of suffering, I think, for with all his charm, it is evident that Mr Hallett is not a happy man. He says little about himself, but I gather that he travels a great deal, that he writes for various reviews, and that—to say the least of it—he is not overburdened with wealth. He never mentions any “belongings,” and is evidently unmarried. I wonder why, for he is certainly unusually attractive. Sometimes when we have been sitting talking together, I have been so conscious of this attraction that I have had quite a violent longing to be Evelyn Wastneys once more, and to meet him, so to speak, on his own ground!
He is most nice to me—oh, most nice! He thinks me a kind, sensible, generous old dear; says I deserve a Victoria Cross, and that no block of mansions is complete without me. One night he asked me smilingly if I would come and nurse him if he were ill; another time he said he could almost find it in his heart to wish that my money would disappear, so that he could engage me as a permanent housekeeper. Then Mr Thorold interrupted, and said that the first claim was his, and that if my services were to be bought, no other man should have them unless over his own dead body. They argued jestingly, while I blushed—a hot, overwhelming blush, and seeing it, they paused, looking mystified and distressed, and abruptly changed the conversation. Did they think me ridiculous and a prude, or did that blush for the moment obliterate the sham signs of age, and show them for the moment the face of a girl? I should like to know, but probably I never shall.
For four long weeks Billie’s life hung in the balance, for after the pneumonia crisis was passed, unconsciousness continued, and the terrible word “meningitis” was whispered from lip to lip. There were heart-breaking days to be lived through, when the terror was no longer that he might die, but that he might live—deprived of speech, of hearing, possibly of reason itself. Never while I live shall I forget those days; but looking back, I can realise that they have taught me one great lesson, branded it on heart and brain so that I can never, never forget. The lesson is that death is not the last and worst enemy which we are so apt to think it when our dear ones are in its grasp. Oh, there were hours of darkness in which death seemed to us a lovely and beautiful thing, when we blamed ourselves for shrinking from the wrench of giving back a little child into God’s tender care. Who could compare a darkened life on earth with the perfected powers, the unimaginable glories of eternity? There were times when our prayers were reversed, and we asked God to take Billie home!
But he lived; he spoke; he opened his dark eyes and smiled upon us; he demanded a battered “boy stout” doll, and hugged it to his pneumonia jacket; he drank his milk, and said “More!” he grew cross and fractious—oh, welcome, gladdening sign!—and said, “Doe away! No more daddies! No more nursies! Don’t want nobodies! Boo-hoo-hoo!” and we went and wept for gladness.
Illness, the really critical touch-and-go illness which nurses call “a good case,” turns a home into an isolation camp. The outer world retreats to an immeasurable distance, and the watchers stare out of the windows, and behold with stupefaction hard-hearted men and women walking abroad on two legs, with hats on their heads, and umbrellas in their hands, talking and laughing and pursuing their petty avocations, not in the least affected by the fact that the temperature had again soared up to 104, and the doctor spoke gravely about heart strain. It seems inconceivable that human creatures, living a few yards away, are actually going to parties, and attending theatres, trying on new clothes, and worrying about cracked cups.
It was with much the same shock of incredulity that, on descending to my flat one afternoon, I was met with the news that a gentleman was in the drawing-room waiting to see me. Bridget was out walking with the little girls, and the orphan, as usual, had opened the door. I demanded to be told “all about it,” upon which she inhaled a deep breath, and set forth her tale after the manner of a witness in the police court.