It is possible that but for Aunt Elsie’s eager second to this suggestion the young girl’s reply might have been different. As it was, she ignored her aunt entirely, and said in charming mimicry of her sister’s tone and manner: “Ray, dear, I won’t do any such thing. I hate rubbers to walk in, and I have nearly a mile to walk. I do wish we had cross-town cars somewhere near this point.”
There followed for those left at home an uncomfortable afternoon. Ray watched the swift-moving clouds with poorly concealed anxiety, and Florence openly worried. Jean was by no means strong; she took cold easily, and a cold with her always meant a more or less serious illness. Florence, at the window watching the growing evidences of storm, lamented that “mother” had not been at home to issue positive orders to that reckless child. Why hadn’t Ray asserted authority as the oldest sister and insisted on her taking at least an umbrella?
“She will ruin her hat, and it is the one with a plume, of course; it will serve her right, too. There! it’s begun! do hear the pour down! and there’s mother! she ran in at the basement door just in time to escape dash!”
Mrs. Forman’s first word was about Jean. Had she gone prepared for the storm? It had been gathering for several hours; why hadn’t they insisted on at least an umbrella?
It proved to be no passing shower; the rain fell in torrents until the streets were flooded, and then, after a while, settled into a steady downpour. The Formans comforted one another as well as they could; they said that it was a good thing it had rained so terribly hard; Jean would, of course, wait until the storm was over, or until some one came for her; she would never think of starting out in so wild a storm without even an umbrella. As soon as Derrick arrived he was laden with raincoat, rubbers, and injunctions, and started forth again. But Jean, her reckless mood continuing, had grown tired of waiting, and started out during a lull in the storm, making herself believe that she could get home before it began again, or at least get across town to a car line that would take her home by a circuitous route. In this way Derrick missed her. Before she was a block from the music school the rain was upon her again in full force. Even then she persisted; it was of no use to turn back, she assured herself; she was wet to the skin already, she might better keep on than sit in wet clothes waiting. But she had not gone much farther when she regretted that decision; the wind seemed to her to be rising every moment; it was all she could do to keep from being blown quite into the road. She had now reached a street lined on either side with wholesale houses, whose closed and gloomy fronts told her that the day was done, and furnished her with not so much as an awning under which to hide. She struggled on, feeling the water soak into her thin-soled, cloth-top boots; yonder, two blocks away, was the high school; if she could only reach it, Derrick might still be there and he could do something. She had only a carfare with her, and this she believed made it impossible for her to call a taxi. All her hopes centred in Dick, and he, poor fellow, was making all possible speed homeward in the hope of finding his sister safely arrived there. Alas for Jean, the high school was as closed and silent and aloof as though hundreds of eager feet had not but an hour or two before raced down its many steps and sped away from the storm. She could not find even the janitor, and it seemed to her that she could never walk those long, long blocks facing that dreadful wind, and being pelted by the merciless rain.
[CHAPTER X]
DANGER, AND FEAR, AND ASSURANCE
BUT she accomplished it; drenched to the skin and too much exhausted to give an account of her adventures or to answer the eager questions of Derrick and Florence. The mother cut the questionings short, and herself undressed and wrapped in blankets the shivering girl, while Ray ran for hot water and Aunt Elsie herself limped to the kitchen to prepare a hot drink. They all worked swiftly and skillfully to avert what they feared, and did not succeed. Before morning it had become evident that Jean was seriously ill. With the first glimmerings of dawn the family physician’s machine waited at the door, while its owner made an unusually long call. In spite of all that skill and prayer could do, Jean grew steadily worse; there were three dreadful days in which, without words passing between them, it was understood in the family that a life hung in the balance; followed by an awful one in which friends from outside went about the still house on tiptoe, and explained in whispers to anxious inquirers in only three words: “She is sinking.” Then, suddenly, all unexpectedly she rallied, and in a few hours the word went forth that she had come back as by a miracle from the verge.
During all this time and in the anxious weeks that followed Aunt Elsie was the very embodiment of rest and hope to every member of the family. Her face remained calm even during those first terrible days; she was able to smile a “good-morning,” and to say in cheerful tones, “She isn’t a bit worse than she was last night; the doctor says so; and that is real encouraging, you know.”
Through those early, fateful days Aunt Elsie had chiefly busied herself for the comfort of those who watched, leaving to them the chance to wait on the trained nurse, and do the little that they could under her direction for their darling, and then to wait and hover about, and interview the doctor, and know to the minutest detail from minute to minute what was being done; while downstairs, rooms got themselves put in order in unobtrusive ways, the open grate fire was fed at just the right moment, Mr. Forman’s big easy chair was always standing invitingly near in case he should be able to use it, and the couch near it, with fresh pillows and a light cover, was waiting to entice Mrs. Forman to drop down on it for a few minutes of rest. When Ray, conscience-smitten over the heavy burdens of the little maid in the kitchen, would rush down to help, she would find everything serene and Rebecca voluble: “There ain’t a thing for you to ’tend to, Miss Ray, not a blessed thing; you just run back and stay with her all you can, poor dear! and you needn’t to worry about anything down here; your aunt peeled the potatoes, fixed a salad and done all the extras, and she is coming to season the soup the way you like it; she’s a comfort, Miss Ray, she is that!”
Ray, as she sped back to the sick room, echoed Rebecca’s conclusion with a full heart. In this time of stress what could they do without Aunt Elsie! They had reason to emphasize this as the days passed; the slow thump of the lame woman’s crutch was heard from all parts of the house, and evidences of her thoughtful ministrations were everywhere. When the immediate danger was past, and all that the sick one needed was skillful care, Aunt Elsie rose up in a new capacity, joyfully installing herself as “head nurse,” and insisting that the worn-out mother and elder sister should take much-needed rest. She had discovered a way, she declared, by which she could get up and down stairs once a day without hurting her a bit; indeed, she believed that the exercise would do her good; hadn’t she been trying it since Jean was sick? One day she went up and down three times; and she was alive yet and good for any amount of nursing. She proved it in the weeks that followed. Outside of Jean’s room the house assumed normal conditions. Mr. Forman returned to the desk where he spent his days, Florence took up her work again in the city library, Derrick got the consent of himself to go back to school, and Jean was left very largely in Aunt Elsie’s care. Her mother was so manifestly exhausted by the heavy strain that had been upon her, following as it had years of undue strain and anxiety, that Jean was among the first to urge strenuously for her complete freedom from care. Ray was installed head of the culinary department, and by common consent Aunt Elsie reigned in the sick room. And contrary to Ray’s fears, Jean not only made no objection to this arrangement, but seemed to like it; she had evidently lost the strange aversion she had shown for her aunt. Certainly there could never have been a more satisfying attendant upon a convalescent; Aunt Elsie was alert, and cheerful, and competent; ready to read aloud in any book desired, or tell bright stories of the long ago, or gossip about the daily doings and sayings of the neighborhood, or be entirely silent, according to the whim of the moment. It was during one of those periods of silence that Jean, who had been quiet for a longer time than usual, suddenly asked: