“I am so sorry for keeping you waiting,” she said, penitently, as she did so. “I had no idea it was you, mother.”
“I have been looking for you all over the house, and began to think you must have gone out,” said her mother, in a slightly aggrieved tone. “It is nearly tea-time, and I want to hasten it, for possibly a cup of tea may do your father good. It is about him I wanted you, Mary. He seems to me decidedly less well this evening, and I have just been wondering if we should not ask Dr Brandreth to come to see him to-morrow. The postman will be here directly. What do you think?”
“Would papa not mind?” said Mary, consideringly.
“I don’t know—that is the difficulty. He is always pleased to see Dr Brandreth, and often enjoys a talk with him; but whenever I have proposed it lately, he has begun worrying about the expense. Dr Brandreth is very kind—to do any good to your father I know he would gladly come for nothing at all; but your father would not have that. He has always paid our doctor’s charges to the full, and would be miserable not to do so. But it can’t be helped; we are certainly unusually short of money just now, but where your father is concerned, Mary dear, I seem to grow reckless.”
Mary had drawn her mother within the threshold of her room. They stood talking near the door-way in low tones.
“If that is the only hesitation,” the girl replied, eagerly, with a suppressed excitement in her voice which, had she been a whit less preoccupied, her mother could not but have noticed, “if that is the only difficulty, oh! mother dear, don’t hesitate an instant.”
Mrs Western sighed. Her heart only too thoroughly agreed with Mary, but, alas! to her life experience of poverty it seemed no longer unendurable and inconceivable, no longer anything but sadly inevitable that, even in such a matter as a question of health or sickness, possibly even of life or death, considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence should force themselves to the front. She only sighed and hesitated.
“Mother dear,” persisted Mary, “let me write to Dr Brandreth at once. I know it is right. And oh, mother, I have such wonderful news to tell you. I have a letter from Lilias—it was to read it quietly I had locked myself into my room. Mother I don’t know how to tell you what she has written about.”
Mrs Western’s mind was still running on the fors and againsts of sending for Dr Brandreth. She hardly took in the sense of Mary’s words.
“A letter from Lilias!” she repeated. “Poor Lily, I am glad she is enjoying herself. But, Mary, if you really think we should send for Dr Brandreth, there is no time to lose. Josey called out as I came up-stairs that she heard Jacob’s ‘make-ready’ whistle at the end of the lane, and when he whistles so far off it’s always a sign that he is in a hurry.”