Friends I Have Made

“I felt more like one found out than ever; and I believe that if my boy had been within reach I should have kicked him severely, as I blundered, and asked, in a confused, stupid way, what were her commands, when she laid half a dozen volumes before me.

“‘If you won’t take it one way, you shall another,’ I muttered, as I seemed to recover myself a bit; for I could see that she looked more pinched and haggard than at the last visit. So I took up the books, turned them over, examined the binding, the title-pages, the finis, put them down and took a pinch of snuff – every moment growing more confident, and chuckling to myself as I thought of what I meant to do. I shook my head at one volume, as I began to go over them again; screwed up my mouth at another; made a wry face at a third; and pitched a fourth contemptuously aside, watching her out of the corner of my eye the while; and I could see her face working, and a tear drop down upon her dress.

“‘Weak, poor soul,’ I muttered; and I went on turning the books over, and keeping her on the rack, expecting every moment that she would speak. Then I muttered something about the date and edition, laid them all together, and held them up to examine the backs; and once more laid them on the counter, and took snuff, with my under lip thrust out, shaking my head the while.

“‘Perhaps I could bring you some other books that would be more saleable,’ she said, at last; and I could hardly keep up my acting as I listened to the poor child’s trembling voice, and watched her quivering lips.

“‘They’re saleable enough,’ I said, ‘at a price, though – at a price;’ and I stared at her very hard.

“‘I only want what you consider to be the value of them,’ she answered sadly, ‘I – ’

“She stopped short, having evidently been about to say something of which she repented.

“‘Well,’ I said coolly, ‘I’m afraid that I can’t give you more than a couple of pounds for them,’ and I pushed them across the counter, as if expecting her to snatch them away and hurry out of the shop.

“‘Two – two pounds,’ she stammered, and then her eyes rested upon me so pitifully, that if I had not had spectacles on, I could not have kept up my character. But I kept on looking her full in the face, seeing her flush a little as if resenting what I said, then turn paler than before, as she seemed to be unable to comprehend whether I was in earnest, or merely seeking an excuse for helping her. In a few moments she appeared to decide that the latter was the case, and drawing herself up proudly, she took the books, but only to clutch the next moment at the counter, as the place swam before her eyes, and I had hardly time to open the flap and catch her in my arms before she had fainted dead away.

“I carried her into my little back room and laid her upon the sofa there, with bookshelves all around, and my wife bathed her poor pale face, and chafed her hands till she gave two or three sighs, and her eyes began slowly to open, and she gazed up at the ceiling in a strange vacant way, till her gaze fell upon our withered old faces, when catching my hands in hers, she kissed them and began to sob bitterly.

“There was no pride now; she had seen plainly enough my motive, and I could keep it up no longer, for being a weak, childish old fellow, whose thoughts would go back to some one who, had she lived, might have been just such a tall, graceful girl, my spectacles got so that I could not see through them, and when I spoke and tried to soothe her, it was in a cracked choking voice that I did not know for mine.

“She left us at last, taking the money I had obtained for the first four volumes, and leaving me the others to sell for her – that was how we settled it was to be; and I’m afraid there was a little deceit about those last books when she came again. And that time I went home with her to the one room she occupied with her mother, and I wanted no telling, it was all plain enough what they had suffered, and that when the poor girl came to me she was weak and faint for want of food.

“Her mother was lying upon a sort of sofa-bed when I went, and it had been arranged that I was to have come about some books; for the old lady, though she lay there in pain, worn to a shadow, and was busily sewing together little scraps of skins for the furriers, was that proud that she would have resented anything she could have called charity; so I was very respectful and quiet, and went away again with a couple of books, after asking leave to call again for more.

“Sometimes I think the poor lady must have seen through it all; but she made no sign, but kept it up till one day, surprised that I had not seen the daughter for a week, I called to find her kneeling by the side of the couch; for the furriers had lost one of their assistants, and the poor lady had gone to a happier home.

“This all seems as if I were talking about how I did this, and how I did that; but being so mixed up with it as I was, I can’t tell it all and leave myself out. The poor lady was laid to her rest, and after a deal of persuasion, her daughter consented to come and stay with us – to help make up a catalogue of my books, for until I thought of that, she would not hear of it. And in the long winter evenings I got to know a good deal about her and her family; for the father had been a pensioned officer of the Indian army, who had died three years before, leaving his widow and child to exist on the sale of their furniture, and such money as they could earn by their needles.

“But I learned, too, that there was some one expected home from somewhere; and he came one day, to be almost angry, at first, to find her in such condition; but only to make us uncomfortable afterwards with his thanks for the little we had done.

“He took her away at last, and she came to see us again and again as his bonny wife – God bless her! and then we went to see them many times, till they went away, over the seas, thousands of miles from here; but I often picture her pale fair face, and her gentle ways, and feel again the kiss she gave me when she left; and those thoughts seem to brighten up the present and make some of our dullest days a bit more cheery. And then we sit and think about the sorrows of this life, and the goodness by which they are assuaged; and wonder whether it may please God that we should see her face again – a face that seems to us like that of a dear child, for we should like to look upon it once again before we die.”

But the old people never set eyes upon her again for at the end of a couple of months the damp place and the cold paving had been too much for the old bookseller, and he had died; while from the wife of a policeman in charge of the next house I learned how prophetic had been my thoughts respecting them at our first meeting. I recalled the simple act that I had seen – how the poor old lady had laid her hand affectionately upon her husband’s arm – just, too, as at our last meeting, when sick herself, she had listened quietly to her old companion’s words, and smilingly upbraided him for being too generous in his trade.

“They found her kneeling down, ma’am,” said the policeman’s wife, “just aside the bed, with her cheek upon his dead hand – she dead and cold too; and no wonder neither – the place was damp enough to kill a horse.”

Chapter Twenty.

Kate’s Ordeal

I have mentioned Mary Sanders to you as the dear friend drawn to my side by a trifling act of kindness during her illness. Some were good enough to say that I risked my life in attending her; but I don’t know: I fancy the risk of catching a complaint is as great to those who take endless care as to those who take scarcely any. Ninety-nine precautions are taken, and the hundredth window is left open through which the disease enters unawares.

Be that as it may, I tended her, and we became great friends.

I have in my memory a little incident in her life, which I will endeavour to repeat almost in her own words as she told me one evening as we sat together. It was a story of her childhood – of what she called her baby days – before she had to go out into the world.

“‘Ah, those were good old times,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘when dear old Sally, our maid, used to scold us so. Then it used to be – and I remember one occasion well – the day Kate came down to us – There, you’re banging that door again, Miss Mary. I declare to goodness you children would worrit the patience out of a saint.’

“‘Oh, never mind, Sally,’ I said, panting, after a race to get into the house first – a race I had won, for Lil and Cissy were yards behind.

“‘Never mind, indeed!’ cried Sally, ‘and there’s your fine cousin coming down to-day from London. I wonder what she will say when she sees you racing about the meadow like so many wild colts, and your arms all brown and scratched, and the hooks off your dress. I never see such children, never.’

“‘But you like us, Sally,’ I said, getting hold of her rough, fat, red arm, and laying my cheek against it.

“‘I don’t, I declare I don’t,’ she cried impetuously; and to show her dislike she threw her arms round me, and squeezed my nose nearly flat against the piece of hard wood she used to wear inside her dress.

“Sally was our housemaid, parlour-maid, and nursemaid all in one; and it used to seem to me that she spent all her leisure time in quarrelling with the cook and snubbing us; but, for all that, one of my principal recollections, during the fever I had so long, was waking at all times to see Sally’s red face watching by my bedside; and I know she did all cook’s work for six weeks as well as her own, when the poor thing had such a sad accident and cut her hand.

“We three – Lil, Cissy, and I – had a long discussion about cousin Kate and her visit; and we all felt what dreadful little ragamuffins we should seem to her, for I’m afraid we had been running wild; though papa only used to laugh about it, and would come into the school-room when mamma was busy with us over our lessons, whenever it was a fine morning, and cry, ‘Now then, girls, the sun shines and the birds are calling. Out with you! Learn lessons when it rains.’

“I knew afterwards why this was. Papa had a horrible nervous dread of our growing up weak and sickly, for his was a delicate family; and I had heard that our cousins were often very ill.

“‘I can guess why cousin Kate’s coming to stay with us,’ said Lil.

“‘I know why she’s coming,’ I said.

“‘It’s because she’s ill,’ shouted Lil, for fear I should show my knowledge first.

“‘Sally will take her up new warm milk and an egg in it before she gets out of bed in the morning,’ said Cissy solemnly; ‘that will soon make her well.’

“‘She shall have all the eggs Speckle lays,’ said Lil, ‘and Mary will take her every morning to the old garden-seat under the trees. She’s sure to get well there.’

“And so we did, for cousin Kate came that afternoon – a tall, pale girl, with a sad weary look in her face, as she gazed wistfully from one to the other.

“We three girls stood back, quite in awe of the well-dressed, fashionable-looking body, who was so different from what we had expected, while mamma went up to welcome her, and took her in her arms in a tender affectionate way, saying, ‘My dear child, we are so glad to see you.’

“Cousin Kate threw her arms round mamma’s neck and burst into a fit of sobbing, hiding her face from our sight.

We girls did not see any more of our cousin Kate that day; but our young interest was deeply excited, and somehow, perhaps, fostered by dark hints dropped by Sally – who was a blighted flower, having been crossed in a love affair with the horse-keeper at a neighbouring farm – we girls got to think of our cousin’s illness as a kind of mystery connected in some way, how we did not know, with the heart.

“Our awe of the sweet gentle cousin fell off the very next day, when we took possession of her, and led her round our dear old country home, with its wilderness of an orchard, great garden, shrubberies, and pleasant meadow.

“Her coming seemed to mark an epoch in our young lives, for, seeing how weak and delicate she was, we used to vie one with the other in being quiet and gentle, waiting upon her in the most unnecessary way, like slaves, and always ready to rush off most willing messengers to forestall any little wants she expressed.

“This came natural to us; but on my part it was increased by a few words which I heard pass between mamma and papa, mamma saying that she did not think poor Kate would ever grow strong again, but slowly wither away. I gave a great gulp as I heard those words, and then burst out sobbing violently.

“‘You here, Mary!’ said mamma. ‘Well, my dear, as you have heard what we said, it must be your secret too. Never let your poor cousin know what we think, and never behave to her as if you thought she could not recover.’

“I promised readily, and at fourteen the possession of that secret seemed to make me more womanly than my sisters, as I redoubled my tenderness to the suffering girl.

“The invalid was twenty-one – a great age in our estimation – and I used to look up to her with veneration, gazing in her soft sweet face and wistful eyes, wondering why she was so ill, and what was the great sorrow that had come upon her like a blight upon one of the roses round our porch.

“Cousin Kate came to us in the spring, and the months flew by till it was the height of summer; and many and many a night had I turned my face to the wall, so that Lil should not know, and cried silently till my pillow was wet. For I knew so well that Kate was weaker, much weaker than when she came, a walk across the lawn to the old garden-seat in the shade being as much now as she could bear.

“‘Cousin Kate,’ I said, one day when we were alone, Lil and Cissy having rushed off to get some flowers, ‘couldn’t any doctor make you well?’

“She looked at me with a wild strange gaze which almost startled me, before she replied, and then in a way that made my heart beat she sobbed out —