Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

Then it was to Number Sixteen that Mr. Marsden walked every evening, wet or fine. No one knew when he returned home again. But he was always ready for his late breakfast in his own bed.

Thanks to the regularity of these habits, Enid could now come and see her mother without risk of encountering her stepfather. That cruel threat of his had been often repeated, but never converted into an explicit order; he disapproved of Mrs. Kenion's visits, and if they were brought to his notice he would certainly prohibit them. But now the house was safe ground between luncheon and dinner; and there were few Thursday afternoons on which Enid did not come with her child to share Mrs. Marsden's weekly half holiday.

Little Jane was old enough to do without the constant vigilance of a nurse; and almost old enough, it sometimes seemed, to understand that she was her mother's only joy and consolation.

"You must always be a good little girl," Mrs. Marsden used to say, "and make mummy happy, and very proud of you."

And the child, looking at granny with such wise eyes, said she was always good, and never disturbed mummy in her room, or asked to be read to when mummy was crying. Really, as she said this sort of thing, she seemed to comprehend as clearly as her grandmother that there was misery, deepening misery, in the ivy-clad farmhouse.

"Mummy mustn't cry," said Mrs. Marsden tenderly. "Mummy must remember that while she has you, she has everything.... Enid, don't give way."

For mummy was there and then beginning to do just what she mustn't do.

"Mother, I can't help it;" and Enid wiped her eyes. "I'm not brave like you. And I feel now and then that I can't go on with it."

Enid's barrier had fallen; she, too, abandoned the defence of an impossible position. Often she showed a disposition to plunge into open confidence, and tell the long tale of her trials and sorrows; but Mrs. Marsden did not encourage a confidential outbreak, indeed checked all tendencies in this direction.

She used to take the child on her lap; and, after a little fondling and whispering, Jane always fell asleep. Then, with the small flaxen head nestled against her bosom, she talked quietly to her daughter, endeavouring to put forward cheerful optimistic views, and providing the philosophic generalities from which in troublous hours one should derive stimulation and support.