When she had closed the door Joan turned round quickly upon her mother. Mrs. Joscelyn was lying back in her chair, with those expressive hands of hers lying loosely in her lap. The relief in her mind had relaxed all the nervous tightening of her muscles. She had sunk back with that softening sense of relief which makes freedom from pain no negative but an active blessedness. The pressure upon her brain, and her heart, and her very breath, seemed withdrawn. Sitting so quietly by the window, an image of domestic tranquillity, she had been a mere collection of beating pulses, of hot throbs and concussions; but now all these agitations were stilled; her heart dropped into quietness, like a bird into its nest, her blood ran softly in her veins. She smiled faintly at Joan when she went up to her, and said in a scarcely audible voice, “Thank God!”
“That’s true,” said Joan, “but how often have I told you, mother, that things would come all right if you would not make a fuss? The fellow was in no danger after all, not in any danger at any time, just as well off as a lad could be, petted by old Eadie, and with Uncle Henry to look after him. Of course I knew he must have been there.”
“You never said it, Joan.”
“No,” said Joan, with a laugh rendered unsteady by the same sense of relief, “I knew it the moment I heard it, mother. I am not setting up for more sense than other folk; the moment I heard Isaac’s voice asking for me I knew it in a moment, but not till then. Just see what fools we are, the wisest of us,” said Joan, reflectively. “I think I’ve got a little sense; but I have no more than other folk, till it’s put into my head. Well! it’s a comfort to know his address to write to, and that he’s gone to his work, and no harm done; for he has a queer temper, has Harry. He’s not just like the rest of us; he might have done a desperate thing, being the kind of lad he is. That’s always been on my mind. I would not have said it till now, but that was always in my mind. A lad like that, there was no telling what he mightn’t have done; but don’t I aye tell you, mother, if you don’t make a fuss things will always come right at the end?”
Then Joan did what was a very strange thing for her, she sat down and had a little cry all to herself. She had never betrayed the depth of her anxiety before, but the running over of her satisfaction and relief betrayed her.
“The things have come from the wash,” she said; “I’ll put them in and lock up his boxes, and send them to-night. He must have been ill off for his clothes, poor lad! and I might have sent them after him without losing any time, if I had only had the sense! Never mind, Eadie would do the best she could for him, and it’s not a week yet. Bless me! what a week it has been! It’s been like a year! I’ve been saying to myself all these days, ‘I never knew I had so much of mother in me.’ It’s a funny thing, a very funny thing, how folks are made up, a bit of one and a bit of another; but I never thought I had so much of you in me, mother; I have just been as near as possible to making a fuss myself.”
And it is impossible to say how much this breaking down on Joan’s part, temporary as it was, comforted her mother. She had never yet, she thought, been so near to any of her children. She began, poor lady! to pour forth her own dreary private self-tormentings.
“I’ve pictured him astray on the moors; I’ve pictured him on the Fell-side, Joan, with one of those dreadful mists coming on; every night in the dark I have thought of him wandering and wandering. I’ve heard his step going away, as I heard it that dreadful night; or in the water—if some one had come and said there was one found in the water——”
“Now, mother, these are nothing but fancies,” cried Joan; “that’s what I call just giving yourself up to nonsense. Was Harry such a fool as to lose himself on the Fells? now, I ask you, just take a little common sense! or the river? he that can swim like a duck. Nay, that goes beyond me. Reason is reason, however nervous you may be. Nay, nay, I would never take leave of my wits like that. If you will but mind what I say; don’t make any more fuss than you can help, and in the end you’ll find all will come right. Now I’ll go and put up the poor lad’s things; I can’t think what he can have done for shirts.”
Joan turned back, however, when she got to the door.