A True Friend Part 20

"Oh, _will_ you, Cousin Wyvis?"

She turned an eager, sparkling face upon him. It occurred to him, almost for the first time, to admire her. With that light in her eye, that color in her cheek, Janetta was almost beautiful. He smiled.

"I shall be only too glad of an excuse," he said, with more simplicity and earnestness than she had as yet distinguished in his voice. "And then--you will come again?"

"I will--gladly."

"Shake hands on it after your English fas.h.i.+on," he said, stopping short, and holding out his own hand. "I have been so long abroad that I almost forget the way. But it is a sign of friendliness, is it not?"

Janetta turned and laid her hand in his with a look of bright and trustful confidence. Somehow it made Wyvis Brand feel himself unworthy.

He said almost nothing more until they parted at Mr. Colwyn's door.

CHAPTER XIII.

SHADOWS.

But Janetta had not much chance of keeping her promise for some time to come. She was alarmed to find, on her return home that evening, that her father had come in sick and s.h.i.+vering, with all the symptoms of a violent cold, followed shortly by high fever. He had caught a chill during a long drive undertaken in order to see a motherless child who had been suddenly taken ill, and in whose case he took a great interest.

The child rapidly recovered, but Mr. Colwyn's illness had a serious termination. Pleurisy came on, and made such rapid inroads upon his strength that in a very few days his recovery was p.r.o.nounced impossible.

Gradually growing weaker and weaker, he was not able even to give counsel or direction to his family, and could only whisper to Janetta, who was his devoted nurse, a few words about "taking care" of the rest.

"I will always do my very best for them, father; you may be sure of that," said Janetta, earnestly. The look of anxious pain in his eyes gave her the strength to speak firmly--she must set his mind at ease at any cost.

"My faithful Janet," she heard him whisper; and then he spoke no more.

With his hand still clasped in hers he died in the early morning of a chill October day, and the world of Beaminster knew him no more.

The world seemed sadly changed for Janetta when her father had gone forth from it; and yet it was not she who made the greatest demonstration of mourning. Mrs. Colwyn pa.s.sed from one hysterical fit into another, and Nora sobbed herself ill; but Janetta went about her duties with a calm and settled gravity, a sober tearlessness, which caused her stepmother to dub her cold and heartless half a dozen times a day. As a matter of fact the girl felt as if her heart were breaking, but there was no one but herself to bear any of the commonplace little burdens of daily life which are so hard to carry in the time of trouble; and but for her thoughtful presence of mind the whole house would have degenerated into a state of chaos. She wrote necessary letters, made arrangements for the sad offices which were all that could be rendered to her father now, interviewed the dressmaker, and ordered meals for the children. It was to her that the servants and tradespeople came for orders; it was she who kept her mother's room quiet, and nursed Nora, and provided necessary occupation for the awed and bewildered children.

"You don't seem to feel it a bit, Janetta," Mrs. Colwyn said to her on the day before the funeral. "And I'm sure you were always your father's favorite. He never cared half so much for any of the children as he did for you, and now you can't even give him a tributary tear."

Mrs. Colwyn was fond of stilted expressions, and the thought of "a tributary tear" seemed so incongruous to Janetta when compared with her own deep grief, that--much to Mrs. Colwyn's horror--she burst into an agitated little laugh, as nervous people sometimes do on the most solemn occasions.

"To laugh when your father is lying dead in the house!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs.

Colwyn, with awful emphasis. "And you that he thought so loving and dutiful----!"

Then poor Janetta collapsed. She was worn out with watching and working, and from nervous laughter she pa.s.sed to tears so heart-broken and so exhausting that Mrs. Colwyn never again dared to accuse her openly of insensibility. And perhaps it was a good thing for Janetta that she did break down in this way. The doctor who had attended her father was growing very uneasy about her. He had not been deceived by her apparent calmness. Her white face and dark-ringed eyes had told him all that Janetta could not say. "A good thing too!" he muttered when, on a subsequent call, Tiny told him, with rather a look of consternation, that her sister "had been crying." "A good thing too! If she had not cried she would have had a nervous fever before long, and then what would become of you all?"

During these dark days Janetta was inexpressibly touched by the marks of sympathy that reached her from all sides. Country people trudged long distances into town that they might gaze once more on the worn face of the man who had often a.s.suaged not only physical but mental pain, and had been as ready to help and comfort as to prescribe. Townsfolk sent flowers for the dead and dainties for the living; but better than all their gifts was the regret that they expressed for the death of a man whom everyone liked and respected. Mr. Colwyn's practice, though never very lucrative, had been an exceedingly large one; and only when he had pa.s.sed away did his townsfolk seem to appreciate him at his true worth.

In the sad absorption of mind which followed upon his death, Janetta almost forgot her cousins, the Brands. But when the funeral took place, and she went with her brother Joe to the grave, as she insisted upon doing in spite of her stepmother's tearful remonstrances, it was a sort of relief and satisfaction to her to see that both Wyvis and Cuthbert Brand were present. They were her kinsmen, after all, and it was right for them to be there. It made her feel momentarily stronger to know of their presence in the church.

But at the grave she forgot them utterly. The beautiful and consoling words of the Burial Service fell almost unheeded on her ear. She could only think of the blank that was made in her life by the absence of that loving voice, that tender sympathy, which had never failed her once. "My faithful Janet!" he had called her. There was no one to call her "my faithful Janet" now.

She was shaken by a storm of silent sobs as these thoughts came over her. She made scarcely a sound, but her figure was swayed by the tempest as if it would have fallen. Joe, the young brother, who could as yet scarcely realize the magnitude of the loss which he had sustained, glanced at her uneasily; but it was not he, but Wyvis Brand, who suddenly made a step forward and gave her--just in time--the support of his strong arm. The movement checked her and recalled her to herself.

Her weeping grew less violent, and although strong shudders still shook her frame, she was able to walk quietly from the grave to the carriage-door, and to shake hands with Wyvis Brand with some attempt at calmness of demeanor.

He came to the house a few days after the funeral, but Janetta happened to be out, and Mrs. Colwyn refused to see him. Possibly he thought that some slight lurked within this refusal, for he did not come again, and a visit at a later date from Mrs. Brand was so entirely embarra.s.sing and unsatisfactory that Janetta could hardly wish for its repet.i.tion. Mrs.

Colwyn, in the deepest of widow's weeds, with a white handkerchief in her hand, was yet not too much overcome by grief to show that she esteemed herself far more respectable than Mrs. Brand, and could "set her down," if necessary; while poor Mrs. Brand, evidently comprehending the reason of Mrs. Colwyn's bridlings and tossings, was nervous and flurried, sat on the edge of a chair, and looked--poor, helpless, elderly woman--as if she had never entered a drawing-room before.

The only comfort Janetta had out of the visit was a moment's conversation in the hall when Mrs. Brand took her leave.

"My dear--my dear," said Mrs. Brand, taking the girl's hand in hers, "I am so sorry, and I can't do anything to comfort you. Your father was very kind to me when I was in great trouble, years ago. I shall never forget his goodness. If there is anything I can ever do for you, you must let me do it for his sake."

Janetta put up her face and kissed the woman to whom her father had been "very kind." It comforted her to hear of his goodness once again. She loved Mrs. Brand for appreciating it.

That little sentence or two did her more good than the long letters which she was receiving every few days from Margaret, her chosen friend.

Margaret was sincerely grieved for Janetta's loss, and said many consoling things in her sweet, tranquil, rather devotional way; but she had not known Mr. Colwyn, and she could not say the words that Janetta's heart was aching for--the words of praise and admiration of a n.o.bly unselfish life which alone could do Janetta any good. Yes, Margaret's letters were distinctly unsatisfactory--not from want of feeling, but from want of experience of life.

Graver necessities soon arose, however, than those of consolation in grief. Mr. Colwyn had always been a poor man, and the sum for which he had insured his life was only sufficient to pay his debts and funeral expenses, and to leave a very small balance at his banker's. He had bought the house in Gwynne Street in which he lived, and there was no need, therefore, to seek for another home; and Mrs. Colwyn had fifty pounds a year of her own, but of course it was necessary that the two elder girls should do something for themselves. Nora obtained almost immediately a post as under-teacher in a school not far from Beaminster, and Georgie was taken in as a sort of governess-pupil, while Joe was offered--chiefly out of consideration for his father's memory--a clerks.h.i.+p in a mercantile house in the town, and was considered to be well provided for. Curly, one of the younger boys, obtained a nomination to a naval school in London. Thus only Mrs. Colwyn, Tiny, and "Jinks"

remained at home--with Janetta.

With Janetta!--That was the difficulty. What was Janetta to do? She might probably with considerable ease have obtained a position as resident governess in a family, but then she would have to be absent from home altogether. And of late the Colwyns had found it best to dispense with the maid-servant who had hitherto done the work of the household--a fact which meant that Janetta, with the help of a charity orphan of thirteen, did it nearly all herself.

"I might send home enough money for you to keep an efficient servant, mamma," she said one day, "if I could go away and find a good situation."

It never occurred either to her or to her stepmother that any of her earnings were to belong to Janetta, or be used for her behoof.

"It would have to be a very good situation indeed, then," said Mrs.

Colwyn, with sharpness. "I don't suppose you could get more than fifty pounds a year--if so much. And fifty pounds would not go far if we had a woman in the house to feed and pay wages to. No, you had better stay at home and get some daily teaching in the neighborhood. With your recommendations it ought to be easy enough for you to do so."

"I am afraid not," said Janetta, with a little sigh.

"Nonsense! You could get some if you tried--if you had any energy, any spirit: I suppose you would like to sit with your hands before you, doing nothing, while I slaved my fingers to the bone for you," said Mrs.

Colwyn, who never got up till noon, or did anything but gossip and read novels when she was up; "but I would be ashamed to do that if I were a well-educated girl, whose father spent I don't know how much on her voice, and expected her to make a living for herself by the time she was one-and-twenty! I must say, Janetta, that I think it very wrong of you to be so slack in trying to earn a little money, when Nora and Georgie and Joey are all out in the world doing for themselves, and you sitting here at home doing nothing at all."

"I am sorry, mamma," said Janetta, meekly. "I will try to get something to do at once."

She did not think of reminding Mrs. Colwyn that she had been up since six o'clock that morning helping the charity orphan to scrub and scour, cooking, making beds, sewing, teaching Tiny between whiles, and scarcely getting five minutes' rest until dinner-time. She only began to wonder how she could manage to get all her tasks into the day if she had lessons to give as well. "I suppose I must sit up at night and get up earlier in the morning," she thought to herself. "It is a pity I am such a sleepy person. But use reconciles one to all things."

Mrs. Colwyn meanwhile went on lecturing.

"And above all things, Janetta, remember that you ask high terms and get the money always in advance. You are just like your poor father in the way you have about money; I never saw anyone so unpractical as he was.

I'm sure half his bills are unpaid yet, and never will be paid. I hope you won't be like _him_, I'm sure----"

"I hope I shall be like him in every possible respect," said Janetta, with compressed lips. She rose as she spoke and caught up the basket of socks that she was mending. "I don't know how you can bear to speak of him in that slighting manner," she went on, almost pa.s.sionately. "He was the best, the kindest of men, and I cannot bear to hear it." And then she hurriedly left the room and went into her father's little surgery--as it had once been called--to relieve her overcharged heart with a burst of weeping. It was not often that Janetta lost patience, but a word against her father was sufficient to upset her self-command nowadays. She rested her head against the well-worn arm-chair where he used to sit, and kissed the back of it, and bedewed it with her tears.

"Poor father! dear father!" she murmured. "Oh, if only you were here, I could bear anything! Or if she had loved you as you deserved, I could bear with her and work for her willingly--cheerfully. But when she speaks against you, father dear, how _can_ I live with her? And yet he told me to take care of her, and I said I would. He called me 'his faithful Janet.' I do not want to be unfaithful, but--oh father, father, it is hard to live without you!"

The gathering shades of the wintry day began to gather round her; but Janetta, her face buried in the depths of the arm-chair, was oblivious of time. It was almost dark before little Tiny came running in with cries of terror to summon her sister to Mrs. Colwyn's help.

"Mamma's ill--I think she's dying. Come, Janet, come," cried the child.

And Janetta hurried back to the dining-room.

She found Mrs. Colwyn on the sofa in a state of apparent stupor. For this at first Janetta saw no reason, and was on the point of sending for a doctor, when her eye fell upon a black object which had rolled from the sofa to the ground. Janetta looked at it and stood transfixed.

There was no need to send for a doctor. And Janetta saw at once that she could not be spared from home. The wretched woman had found a solace from her woes, real and imaginary, in the brandy bottle.