Elma lay on her bed in the pink and white room. The first warm spring sunshine in vain tried to find an opening to filter through partly closed shutter and blinds. A nurse in grey dress and white cap and apron moved silently in the half-light created by drawn blinds and an open door She nodded to Mrs. Leighton who had just come in and who now sat near the darkened window. The nurse pointedly referred her to the bed, as though she had good news for her.
Elma opened her eyes. Their misty violet seemed dazed with long sleep.
"Oh, mummy, you there?" she asked.
"Yes," said Mrs. Leighton quietly.
Elma looked at her inquiringly.
"Is there anything you want?" asked Mrs. Leighton in answer to that expression. How often had they asked the same question uselessly within the past weeks!
Elma looked up at the white walls.
"Yes, mummy, there's one thing. I should like a large ham sandwich."
"There," said Nurse emphatically. "That's it. Now the fight is really going to begin."
"I should like to have plenty of butter on it and quite a lot of mustard," said Elma.
"Mustard?" said Mrs. Leighton helplessly. "Do you know what's been wrong with you all these weeks?"
Elma moved her eyes curiously, there being not much else that she could move. It had never dawned on her till that moment to wonder what had been wrong with her.
"No, mummy," she said, "I haven't a notion."
Mrs. Leighton looked for instructions to the nurse.
"She'd better know now, Mrs. Leighton," she said, "now that she begins to ask for ham sandwiches."
"You've had typhoid fever, Elma," said her mother.
Elma sighed gently.
"Dear me," she said, "how grand. But you don't know how hungry I am or you would give me a ham sandwich. You ought to be rather glad that I'm so much better that I want to eat."
Then an expression of great cunning came into her eyes.
"I ought to be fed up if I've had a fever," she informed them.
"We shall get the doctor to see to that," said the nurse.
She came to her and held her hand firmly.
"Do you know," she said, "you have been very ill and you are ever so much better, but nothing you've gone through will worry you so much as what you've got to do now. You've got to be starved for ten days, when you are longing to eat. You will lie dreaming of food--and----"
"Ham sandwiches?" asked Elma.
"And we shall not be allowed to give them to you," said Nurse.
"Isn't she nice, mummy, she's quite sorry. And people say that nurses are hard-hearted," said Elma.
"I've had typhoid myself," said Nurse briefly.
Elma looked at her, her own eyelids heavy with sleep still to be made up.
"Well, barring the sandwich, what about lemon cheese cakes," she asked.
Mrs. Leighton let her hands fall.
"Oh, Elma," she said, "what a thing to choose at this stage."
"Or sausages," remarked Elma. "I'm simply longing for sausages."
She endeavoured to throw an appealing look towards Nurse.
"This isn't humour on my part, mummy dear," she said. "I just can't help it. I can't get sausages out of my mind," she said.
"If you would think of a little steamed fish or a soaked rusk, you'd be a little nearer it," said Nurse, "you'll have that in ten days."
Elma looked at her in a determined way.
"I've always been told that a simple lunch, a very simple lunch might be made out of a ham sandwich. Why should it be denied to me now?"
"Elma," said Mrs. Leighton, "I never knew you were so obstinate."
"You know, mummy," said Elma, "I'm not dreaming now. I'm wide awake, and I'm awfully hungry. I'm sorry I ever thought of sausages, because ham sandwiches were just about as much as I could bear. Now I've both to think of, and Nurse won't bring me either."
"Don't mind her, Mrs. Leighton," said the nurse. "It's always the same, and, without nurses, generally a relapse to follow. You aren't going to have a relapse," she said to Elma.
She gave her some milk in a methodical manner, and the down-dropping of Elma's eyelids continued till she fell asleep once more.
So she had slept since the fever had begun to go down. Probably she had had the best of the intervening weeks.
There was the slow stupor of a fever gaining ground. It began with the headache of the Turberville's dance, a headache which never lifted until Elma returned to her own again, weak and prostrate in bed. The stupor gradually cut her off from common affairs. It sent her to bed first because she could no longer stand up, and it crowded back her ideas and her memory till at last she was in the full swing of a delirium. What this illness cost Mr. and Mrs. Leighton in anxiety, probably no one knew. Elma had always covered up her claims to sympathy and petting, always been moderately well. Here she was with blazing cheeks and wandering eyes talking largely and at random about anything or every one.
Mr. Leighton used to sit by her and stroke her hair. Long years afterwards, she was to feel the touch of his fingers, hear the tones of his voice as he said, "Poor little Elma."
She faded gradually into the delirium which seemed to have cut her illness in two, the one illness where she lay with dry mouth and an everlasting headache, the other where she was merely hungry.
Mrs. Leighton was appalled by the worrying of Elma's mind. She went through some of her wild dreams with her, calling her back at places by the mere sound of her voice to a kind of sub-consciousness in which Elma grew infinitely relieved.
"Oh, is that you, mummy? Have I really been dreaming?"
She dreamt of Mabel and she dreamt of Adelaide Maud. But more than any one, she dreamt of Mr. Symington. Here is where the deceptiveness of a fever comes in. Elma pleaded so piteously with her mother to bring back Mr. Symington that Mrs. Leighton awoke to an entirely new and wrong idea of the state of Elma's affections.
"It's quite ridiculous, John," said she, "but that child, she was only a child, seems to have filled her head with notions of Mr. Symington."
"What! More of it?" asked poor Mr. Leighton.
"She begs and begs to have him back," said Mrs. Leighton.
"I've never made out why he left as he did," said Mr. Leighton. "There was always the idea with me that he cleared out for a reason. But this small child, why, she hadn't her hair up."
"She will soon be eighteen," said Mrs. Leighton.
He went into her room a little later. Elma lay with unseeing eyes staring at him. He could hardly bear it.
"Elma," he said vaguely, trying to recall her.
"Oh," she answered promptly, but still staring, "is that you, Sym--Sym--Symington!"
Her father choked down what he could of the lump that gathered, and moved quietly away.
These were dark days for every one. Elma had the best of it. She left the Symington groove after a day or so, and worked on to Isobel. Isobel invaded her mind. It was a blessing that Isobel was barred by real distaste to the business from going in to help with the nursing of Elma. What she said of her pointed to more than a mere dislike. It revolved into fear as the delirium progressed. Then a second nurse arrived, and between them the two began really to decrease the temperature. The first good news came, "Asleep for ten minutes," and after that there was no backward turn in the illness for Elma.
Throughout this time there had been the keenest inquiries made as to what had caused the illness. Cuthbert was down and "made things hum" in the matter of wakening up the sanitary authorities and so on. But no flaw in the arrangement of the White House or anything near it could be discovered. Then Dr. Merryweather called one day.
"I have another patient in Miss Annie," he said.
Miss Annie! This gave a clue.
"Typhoid at her age is unusual," he said, "but she has not developed the power of resisting disease like ordinary people. She has been in a good condition for harbouring every germ that happened to be about. I'm afraid we cannot save her." He turned to Mrs. Leighton. His kind old face twitched suddenly.
"Oh, dear, dear," she exclaimed. "What will Miss Grace do? What will little Elma do?"
"Miss Grace is all right," said Dr. Merryweather. "I've seen to that. Elma must not know, of course."
"This looks like contraction from a common cause," said Cuthbert. "I'll be at it whatever it is. We don't want any one else sacrificed."
Dr. Merryweather looked at him gravely.
"I have just been getting at the tactics of the local government," said he. "You couldn't believe they could be so prompt in Ridgetown. Three weeks ago, a gardener living near Miss Annie complained of an atrocious stench coming from over the railway. It was so bad that when the local government body at his demand approached it, they had to turn and run. An open stream had been used as a common sewer and run into the railway cutting, where it had stagnated. Can you imagine the promptness of the local government? Evans, the gardener, threatened to report to you, Mr. Leighton, since your daughter was so ill and had visited so much at Miss Annie's. They managed to keep his mouth shut, and they have removed the sewer. Too late for Miss Annie."
"Too late for my little girl," said Mr. Leighton.
It seemed an extraordinary thing that the two daughters who had gone away, and given them so much anxiety, should be coming home radiantly independent, and Elma, sheltered at home, should be lying just lately rescued from death.
The same thought seemed to strike Dr. Merryweather in another connection.
"Ah, well," he said, "we would save some gentle souls a lot of suffering if we could. It's no use evading life, you see, and its consequences. Death has stolen into Miss Annie's beautiful bedroom, from an ugly sewer across the way. Nothing we could do for her now can save her."
Miss Annie died on a quiet morning when Elma lay dreaming of ham sandwiches. Elma never forgot that, nor how dreadful it seemed that she had never asked for Miss Annie nor Miss Grace, but just dreamed of what she would eat.
"You had had a lot to stand," Nurse told her a week or two afterwards when she heard about Miss Annie for the first time, "and it's a compensation that's often given to us when we are ill, just to be peaceful and not think at all."
Dr. Merryweather had wakened up Miss Grace finally in a sharp manner.
"There's that poor child been ill all this time and you've never even seen her. Take her along some flowers and let her see that you are not grieving too much for Miss Annie. She won't get better if she worries about you."
Then to Elma.
"Cheer up Miss Grace when she comes. You have your life before you, and she has had to put all hers behind her. Don't let her be down if you can help it."
In this wise he pitted the two against one another, so that they met with great fortitude.
"Why, my dear, how pretty your hair is," Miss Grace had burst out.
Elma was lying on a couch near the window by this time. She looked infinitely fragile.
"Oh, Miss Grace, it is a wig," she replied.
Miss Grace laughed in a jerky hysterical sort of manner.
"Then I wish I wore a wig," said she.
Elma smiled.
"Do you know, that's what they all say. They come in and tell me in a most surprised manner, "Why, how well you are looking!" and say they never saw me so pretty and all that kind of thing. And then I look in my mirror, and I see quite plainly that I'm a perfect fright. But I don't care, you know. Mabel and Jean know now how ill I've been. I'm so glad they didn't before, aren't you? It would have spoiled Jean's coming home like a conqueror. They say she sings beautifully. And oh, Miss Grace, I've such a lot to tell you. One thing is about Mr. Symington. You know I never said why he went away. It was because Miss Meredith made him believe that Robin was engaged to Mabel, and she wasn't at all. It made her appear like a flirt, you know. Didn't it?"
Miss Grace nodded.
"Well, I've been thinking and thinking. I can't tell you how I've been dreaming about Mr. Symington. Well, now, I've been thinking, 'Couldn't we invite him to Isobel's wedding?'"
Miss Grace's eyes gleamed.
"Fancy Mr. Symington at breakfast at some outlandish place. A letter arrives. He opens it. 'Ha! The wedding invitation. Robin Meredith, the bounder!' I beg your pardon, Miss Grace. 'Robin Meredith to Isobel--what--niece of--why what's this?' What will he do, Miss Grace?"
"Come to the wedding, sure," said Miss Grace laughingly.
"Well, if I've to send the invitation myself, one is going to Mr. Symington."
Elma had not passed her dreaming hours in vain.
Besides, Miss Grace had got over the difficult part of meeting Elma again, and was right back in her old part of counsellor, evidently without a quiver of the pain that divided them. Yet, they both felt the barrier that was there, the barrier of that presence of Miss Annie which had always entered first into their conversations, and now could not be mentioned.
Elma thought of the visits that Miss Grace would have to make to her. She saw that Miss Grace had been warned not to agitate her. This was enough to enable her to take the matter entirely in her own hands with no agitation at all.
"I think you know, Miss Grace, that when one has been so near dying as I've been, and not minded--I mean I had no knowledge that I was so ill, and even didn't care much--since it was myself, you know, except for the trouble it gave to people----"
Elma was becoming a little long-winded.
"I want to tell you that you must always tell me about Miss Annie, not mind just because they say I'm not to be agitated, or anything of that sort. I won't be a bit agitated if you tell me about Miss Annie."
"My dear love," Miss Grace stopped abruptly.
"Dr. Merryweather said----" and she stopped again.
"Yes, Dr. Merryweather said the same to me, he said that on no account was I to speak to you of Miss Annie. Dr. Merryweather simply knows nothing about you and me."
Miss Grace shook her head drearily.
"You are a bad little invalid," said she.
But it broke the ice a little bit, and one day afterwards Miss Grace told her more than she could bear herself. Dr. Merryweather was right, Miss Grace broke down over the last loving message to Elma. She had a little pearl necklace for Elma to wear, and fastened it on without a word.
Then came Mrs. Leighton looking anxious.
"See, mummy, Miss Grace has given me a beautiful little necklace from Miss Annie."
All trace of Elma's childish nervousness had departed with her fever. She had looked right into other worlds, and it had made an easier thing of this one. Besides, Miss Grace must not be allowed to cry.
Miss Grace did not cry so much as one might have expected. Miss Annie's death was a thing she had feared for twenty-eight years, and Dr. Merryweather had given her no sympathy. He had almost made her think that Annie ought not to consider herself an invalid. How she connected typhoid fever with the neurotic illness which Dr. Merryweather would never acknowledge as an illness, it was difficult to imagine. Certainly, she had the feeling that Annie in a pathetic manner had justified her invalidism at last. It was a sad way in which to recover one's self-respect, but in an unexplained way she felt that with Dr. Merryweather she had recovered her self-respect. She could refer to Miss Annie now, and awaken that twitching of his sympathies which one could see plainly in that rugged often inscrutable face, and feel thereby that she had not misplaced her confidence by giving up all these years to Annie. Indeed, the death of Miss Annie affected Dr. Merryweather far more than one could imagine. As also the sight of Elma, thinned down and fragile, her hair gone and a wig on.
He teased her unmercifully about the wig.
"So long as I look respectable when Mabel and Jean come home! Oh! Dr. Merryweather, please have me looking respectable when Mabel and Jean come home."
Dr. Merryweather promised to have her as fat as a pumpkin.