The days grew very peaceful at Leaside. Joan seldom went beyond the front door, except to buy food; walking made her legs ache, and in any case she didn't care to leave her mother for long. Father Cuthbert came and went as he had done for years past, but now Mrs. Ogden showed no pleasure at his visits. While he was there she listened quietly to what he said, or appeared to do so, but when he left she no longer expatiated on his merits to Joan, but just sat on with folded hands and apparently forgot him.
The doctor's bill came in; it was very high and likely to get higher. Joan felt that some of it must be paid off at once, so she sold the Indian silver. Major Boyle, who loved a depressing errand, volunteered to take it to a firm in London, and was able to shake his head mournfully over the small amount it realized.
"He's missed his vocation," thought Joan irritably, "he ought to have been a mute at funerals."
She dreaded the moment when her mother would miss the silver from the sideboard, and begin to ask questions; but three days elapsed before Mrs. Ogden noticed the empty spaces. When she did so, and Joan told her the truth, she only sighed, and nodded slowly. "Oh, well!" was all she said.
The sale of the silver did not realize nearly enough to meet the bills which had been accumulating. Everything cost so much these days, even simple necessities, and when to these were added all the extras in food and fires that her mother's health required, Joan awoke to the fact that they were living beyond their meagre income. She considered the advisability of dismissing the servant, as her mother had once done; but at the thought of all that this would entail, her heart utterly failed her. The girl's wages were at least double what they would have been prior to the war, and she expected to eat meat three times a day; but she was a pleasant, willing creature to have about the house, and Joan decided that she must stay.
A kind of recklessness seized her; it seemed so useless to try and make ends meet, with reduced dividends and abnormal taxes, and then she was so terribly tired. Her tiredness had become like physical pain, it enveloped her and prevented sleep. She did the simplest things with a feeling of reluctance, dragging her body after her like a corpse to which she was attached. If there was not enough money for immediate necessities, why then they must sell out a little capital. She feared opposition from her mother, but decided that the time had arrived when desperate straits required desperate remedies, so broached the subject without preliminaries.
"Mother, we're behindhand with the bills, and we can't very well overdraw again at the bank."
Mrs. Ogden looked up with dim, brown eyes. "Are we, dear?" she said indifferently.
"Yes, the doctor's bill cripples us most, and then there are others, but his is the worst."
"It would be," sighed Mrs. Ogden.