The strange house or, A moment's mistake
"No," answered his mother. "Miss Ashlyn will be busy with her sister."
"That's a good thing!" said Randall.
While Daisy looked shocked, and said reproachfully, "I am sure,
Randall, you need not talk so, Miss Ashlyn makes school very
interesting."
Mrs. Leigh looked up now. "Do not allow my being here to interrupt
lessons," she entreated. "I cannot but accept your great kindness—but
it would indeed be a pity to make any difference."
"Miss Ashlyn will say what she thinks best," suggested Mollie, which
was decidedly nice of her, as she was longing to throw her influence
into the scale of a holiday.
"Yes," assented Mrs. Shaddock; "we will ask her."
And when Gertrude was asked, as Mollie expected, she begged that
lessons might proceed as usual for the morning, offering, however, to
give a holiday in the afternoon if Mrs. Shaddock approved.
"Then we can sit with little Lester!" said Daisy.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SET TO WORK.
IT seemed a long morning to all concerned, if the truth must be told,
to all at any rate but Mrs. Leigh, who found absorbing employment in
ministering to the wants of her darling.
At length school was over, and the children were released.
"Oh, may we go?" exclaimed Mollie. "I do want to see little Lester so
much!"
Gertrude consented at once, hoping, however, that Randall would make
himself an exception.
But he had no such intention; curiosity overcame everything else, and
he ran on tiptoe with the others across the landing to Mrs. Leigh's
room.
"Are we too many?" whispered Mollie, when, after her low tap, Mrs.
Leigh came to the door.
"Come in, dears," was her ready response. "I know, after all your
thoughtfulness for us, that you will be longing to see my little
Lester."
The children advanced, Randall pushing in front of the others, so as to
be able to see well; Hugh, who was kept at home by a cold, and was with
the others, hardly getting a place at all.
"Come here, Hugh," said Gertrude softly; "this chair will bring you
close to Lester's pillow. You can stand here."
The little boy looked up gratefully. Rose was uncovering her child, and
showing them his bright, golden curls.
"Can't he be dressed?" asked Randall.
"He has no clothes," said Mrs. Leigh, smiling a little. Then her face
resumed its quiet, grave expression as she added, "But I am afraid he
has hardly strength just yet."
"We have heaps of Randall's clothes up-stairs," said Mollie. "I shall
ask mother if he could not have some of those."
"Do not trouble her, thank you, dear," said Rose. "I can easily get
some when I can go to a shop. He will do very well till the doctor has
seen him."
Mrs. Shaddock, however, had been before any of them in her thought for
the little stranger under her roof. She came in at the moment, followed
by nurse bearing a heap of dainty clothes, which a few years ago had
adorned her youngest boy.
"You are entirely welcome to these!" she exclaimed. "I have no use for
them at all. I believe I ought to have given them away long ago, but
you see I never have."
But when she bent over little Lester, her manner changed, and she added
gently—"Perhaps it would be kinder not to disturb him with clothes and
fussing at present. What do you think, nurse?"
Nurse was entirely agreed. "Let him be, ma'am, and give him as much
nourishment as he is able to take," was her advice.
The little clothes were folded together in a drawer, and no more was
said about them.
"Has he been out of bed yet?" asked Daisy shyly.
"Only to be washed. Oh, he is so thin!" answered his mother, looking up
at Gertrude. "I feel as if I could hardly wait till Fritz comes."
"I am sure you must," said Gertrude, "but a few more hours will soon
pass now, and perhaps Fritz may have some special doctor he wishes to
consult."
So Gertrude left the children with her sister, and put on her hat to
make her promised visit to Mrs. Swift at the Strange House.
She was quickly admitted, and the woman led the way into her kitchen
without a word.
"I have come," said Gertrude.
"Yes, I knew you would. Have you any good news to tell me about the
little boy? What does the doctor say?" she asked abruptly. She seemed
as if she had strung herself up to ask those questions, for her lips
looked dry and parched.
"Not yet," answered Gertrude. "We are waiting for his father."
The woman gave one of those gasps which Gertrude had noticed before,
and then said hurriedly—
"It seems funny to have kept him so long myself without a doctor, and
now to be sorry that you are even waiting a single day! And yet I am,
miss. I'm afraid whether the little dear is not dying!"
Gertrude felt as if her blood grew cold to her finger-tips. But she
answered after a moment quite calmly—
"I hope not—I trust not. Our Heavenly Father, who has so lovingly given
him back to us, will lead us straight on now."
The woman glanced up with a faint smile. The first which she had seen
on that woe-begone face, Gertrude thought.
"Ah! What a thing it is to have God to trust!" she exclaimed. "Dear
miss! I believe if I had had my Saviour to go to two years ago, this
would never have happened."
"I feel sure of that," answered Gertrude heartily. "Things will be
different for you now, will they not?"
The smile faded, but the woman answered steadily—
"Yes, indeed, miss. But this is the last time you will see me. My
husband says he cannot bear the house, and I am sure no more can I; so
we have decided to go at once. You see, miss, we've got a little money
coming in regularly, or we couldn't do it. We shall go somewhere where
I can get to and from Johnnie's grave. That's all I care about now."
Gertrude put her hand on the woman's arm gently.
"Time will soften your sorrow," she said tenderly, "but there is
something better for you than time. Jesus will soften your sorrow—nay,
has He not already?—And will give you something to do for Him."
"My working days are over," said the woman dejectedly; "I seem to have
lived my life."
"Yes, so you have, your past life. Now it is the new life you have
to live; the life by faith in the Son of God, who loved you and gave
Himself for you!"
"Dear miss, I wish I could."
"Ask Him, and He will show you how."
"Now Johnnie and the little one are gone, I seem to have nothing to do!"
"But there is your husband. There is everything to do for him, is there
not?"
CHAPTER XXXV.
OUTSIDE THE GREAT NORTHERN.
WHILE Gertrude was away, Mrs. Leigh was surrounded by her audience of
young people, who did not know how time passed in their interest in the
beautiful young mother and her little invalid.
"I cannot think how you can bear it all!" said Mollie, as they stood
gazing at the little impassive face.
"Do you really want to know, Mollie?" asked Mrs. Leigh, taking the tall
girl's hand in hers.
"Oh, I was only wondering. Some people can bear things better than
others, I suppose."
Mollie drew her hand away a little shyly.
Mrs. Leigh did not reply, but continued to look down at her child
thoughtfully.
"I don't believe it is that," said Hugh in an undertone to Daisy. "Mrs.
Leigh looks as if a breath would blow her away; it is not that she is
stronger than most people."
Daisy shook her head assentingly, but Rose had heard the remark, so she
said—
"It would be very wrong of me to take the credit to myself, Daisy. I
could not bear it at all if it were not for looking up from moment
to moment to Jesus. He is my refuge; were it not for Him I should be
distracted."
Hugh smiled brightly. In his own little difficulties he had found it
the same. How wonderful it was that the Lord Jesus could be just the
Friend for everybody!—he thought.
When Gertrude came in from the Strange House, a telegraph boy was at
the door, and handed in an envelope as the maid opened to her.
"It is for my sister," she said, and ran up-stairs with it.
"Fritz wants one of us to meet him at Euston," said Rose, when she had
read it. "I cannot leave Lester. Will you go, Gertrude? Do you think
Mrs. Shaddock would spare you?"
"But he will be here half an hour after," objected Gertrude; "is it not
almost a pity—"
"Perhaps he wishes to hear all particulars before he gets here," said
Rose. "At any rate, he says, 'Will Gertrude meet me, or you?' It is
evident he wants one of us."
So Mrs. Shaddock was again consulted. And soon Gertrude set off,
Conway, who had just returned from school, volunteering to escort her
if she wished.
But she rightly guessed that her brother-in-law would prefer to hear
all the sad story without a stranger being there, so she went alone.
As she stood on the arrival platform of the great terminus, with the
screaming whistles round her, the buzz of the coming and going trains,
the roar of London outside, she felt as if the world of Hampstead and
that quiet bedside were far-away and indistinct; as if she could hardly
belong to both.
She wondered vaguely what the next few hours would bring to her and her
sister; what Fritz would decide about his invalid child; how he would
bear the shock of her intelligence; and while she was thinking all
this, she was conscious that the porters, who had been waiting about,
suddenly seemed to be alert, the cabs made a move to draw up at the
other side of the platform, and when she looked down the dim lines, two
great eyes seemed to come creeping towards her, and in a moment the
long train from the north was in the station.
She stood back, almost bewildered, for in her quiet life at home she
had never seen such confusion or bustle before.
Where was her brother-in-law? Had he not come after all? She looked
hopelessly up and down the emptying carriages, but no Fritz was
emerging from them, that she could see.
Then a hand was laid upon hers, and a voice said so like Fritz's that
she thought it was his, and yet—no, it was not Fritz who said in that
tone—
"Gertrude! At last! Did you think we had not come?"
"Otto!" she said.
And then Fritz came hurrying up, too, followed by a porter with two
portmanteaus.
"I hoped you would come," said Fritz at once, "because Otto would have
been so disappointed not to see you, and we must drop him at the Great
Northern Hotel as we pass. I could not bring him on to Mrs. Shaddock's,
could I?"
"You 'could,'" said Gertrude, watching the portmanteaus being thrown on
to the cab, and wondering what she ought to say. "But if you have made
arrangements otherwise, perhaps it would be better. But they are the
kindest people I ever saw."
Otto was holding the cab door open; she got in, and in a moment they
were off.
"Tell me all!" said Fritz. "I felt as if I must bear it before I saw
him. What is it?—What has happened to him?"
Before Gertrude had said more than a few words, the cab drew up at the
Great Northern, and Otto had come to his destination.
"I cannot say good-bye yet," he exclaimed. "Have my luggage put in
here, Fritz, and order our rooms. I will go on to Hampstead and come
back again by and by."
Fritz got out to give the desired order, and Gertrude and Otto looked
after him.
How well afterwards Gertrude remembered that ceaseless roar of
omnibuses and cabs passing and repassing along the crowded street.
"Gertrude," said Otto's voice, "can we not manage to go somewhere
together to-morrow? I have one day in Town, and I feel as if I could
not go home again without seeing you?"
"I do not know, Otto. I cannot plan my own days now; already I feel I
have run away from my pupils dreadfully."
"Bring them with you," he said hastily; "we will go to the Kensington
Museum, or somewhere, to-morrow afternoon. There will be the doctor in
the morning. Oh, Gertrude! If you only knew—"