With strange suddenness, after several weeks of steady application to her work, in a cheerful spirit which at times rose to gaiety, Monica became dull, remiss, unhappy; then violent headaches attacked her, and one morning she declared herself unable to rise. Mildred Vesper went to Great Portland Street at the usual hour, and informed Miss Barfoot of her companion’s illness. A doctor was summoned; to him it seemed probable that the girl was suffering from consequences of overstrain at her old employment; there was nervous collapse, hysteria, general disorder of the system. Had the patient any mental disquietude? Was trouble of any kind (the doctor smiled) weighing upon her? Miss Barfoot, unable to answer these questions, held private colloquy with Mildred; but the latter, though she pondered a good deal with corrugated brows, could furnish no information.
In a day or two Monica was removed to her sister’s lodgings at Lavender Hill. Mrs. Conisbee managed to put a room at her disposal, and Virginia tended her. Thither Miss Barfoot went on the evening when Everard found her away; she and Virginia, talking together after being with the invalid for a quarter of an hour, agreed that there was considerable improvement, but felt a like uneasiness regarding Monica’s state of mind.
‘Do you think,’ asked the visitor, ‘that she regrets the step I persuaded her to take?’
‘Oh, I can’t think that! She has been so delighted with her progress each time I have seen her. No, I feel sure it’s only the results of what she suffered at Walworth Road. In a very short time we shall have her at work again, and brighter than ever.’
Miss Barfoot was not convinced. After Everard’s departure that evening she talked of the matter with Rhoda.
‘I’m afraid,’ said Miss Nunn, ‘that Monica is rather a silly girl. She doesn’t know her own mind. If this kind of thing is repeated, we had better send her back to the country.’
‘To shop work again?’
‘It might be better.’
‘Oh, I don’t like the thought of that.’
Rhoda had one of her fits of wrathful eloquence.
‘Now could one have a better instance than this Madden family of the crime that middle-class parents commit when they allow their girls to go without rational training? Of course I know that Monica was only a little child when they were left orphans; but her sisters had already grown up into uselessness, and their example has been harmful to her all along. Her guardians dealt with her absurdly; they made her half a lady and half a shop-girl. I don’t think she’ll ever be good for much. And the elder ones will go on just keeping themselves alive; you can see that. They’ll never start the school that there’s so much talk of. That poor, helpless, foolish Virginia, alone there in her miserable lodging! How can we hope that any one will take her as a companion? And yet they are capitalists; eight hundred pounds between them. Think what capable women might do with eight hundred pounds.’
‘I am really afraid to urge them to meddle with the investments.’
‘Of course; so am I. One is afraid to do or propose anything. Virginia is starving, must be starving. Poor creature! I can never forget how her eyes shone when I put that joint of meat before her.’
‘I do, do wish,’ sighed Miss Barfoot, with a pained smile, ‘that I knew some honest man who would be likely to fall in love with little Monica! In spite of you, my dear, I would devote myself to making the match. But there’s no one.’
‘Oh, I would help,’ laughed Rhoda, not unkindly. ‘She’s fit for nothing else, I’m afraid. We mustn’t look for any kind of heroism in Monica.’
Less than half an hour after Miss Barfoot had left the house at Lavender Hill, Mildred Vesper made a call there. It was about half-past nine; the invalid, after sitting up since midday, had gone to bed, but could not sleep. Summoned to the house-door, Virginia acquainted Miss Vesper with the state of affairs.
‘I think you might see her for a few minutes.’
‘I should like to, if you please, Miss Madden,’ replied Mildred, who had a rather uneasy look.
She went upstairs and entered the bedroom, where a lamp was burning. At the sight of her friend Monica showed much satisfaction; they kissed each other affectionately.
‘Good old girl! I had made up my mind to come back tomorrow, or at all events the day after. It’s so frightfully dull here. Oh, and I wanted to know if anything — any letter — had come for me.’
‘That’s just why I came to see you to-night.’
Mildred took a letter from her pocket, and half averted her face as she handed it.
‘It’s nothing particular,’ said Monica, putting it away under her pillow. ‘Thank you, dear.’
But her cheeks had become hot, and she trembled.
‘Monica —’
‘Well?’
‘You wouldn’t care to tell me about — anything? You don’t think it would make your mind easier?’
For a minute Monica lay back, gazing at the wall, then she looked round quickly, with a shamefaced laugh.
‘It’s very silly of me not to have told you long before this. But you’re so sensible; I was afraid. I’ll tell you everything. Not now, but as soon as I get to Rutland Street. I shall come tomorrow.’
‘Do you think you can? You look dreadfully bad still.’
‘I shan’t get any better here,’ replied the invalid in a whisper. ‘Poor Virgie does depress me so. She doesn’t understand that I can’t bear to hear her repeating the kind of things she has heard from Miss Barfoot and Miss Nunn. She tries so hard to look forward hopefully — but I know she is miserable, and it makes me more miserable still. I oughtn’t to have left you; I should have been all right in a day or two, with you to help me. You don’t make-believe, Milly; it’s all real and natural good spirits. It has done me good only to see your dear old face.’
‘Oh, you’re a flatterer. And do you really feel better?’
‘Very much better. I shall go to sleep very soon.’
The visitor took her leave. When, a few minutes after, Monica had bidden good-night to her sister (requesting that the lamp might be left), she read what Mildred had brought.
‘MY DEAREST MONICA,’— the missive began —‘Why have you not written before this? I have been dreadfully uneasy ever since receiving your last letter. Your headache soon went away, I hope? Why haven’t you made another appointment? It is all I can do to keep from breaking my promise and coming to ask about you. Write at once, I implore you, my dearest. It’s no use telling me that I must not use these words of affection; they come to my lips and to my pen irresistibly. You know so well that I love you with all my heart and soul; I can’t address you like I did when we first corresponded. My darling! My dear, sweet, beautiful little girl —’
Four close pages of this, with scarce room at the end for ‘E.W.’ When she had gone through it, Monica turned her face upon the pillow and lay so for a long time. A clock in the house struck eleven; this roused her, and she slipped out of the bed to hide the letter in her dress-pocket. Not long after she was asleep.
The next day, on returning from her work and opening the sitting-room door, Mildred Vesper was greeted with a merry laugh. Monica had been here since three o’clock, and had made tea in readiness for her friend’s arrival. She looked very white, but her eyes gleamed with pleasure, and she moved about the room as actively as before.
‘Virgie came with me, but she wouldn’t stay. She says she has a most important letter to write to Alice — about the school, of course. Oh, that school! I do wish they could make up their minds. I’ve told them they may have all my money, if they like.’
‘Have you? I should like the sensation of offering hundreds of pounds to some one. It must give a strange feeling of dignity and importance.’
‘Oh, only two hundred! A wretched little sum.’
‘You are a person of large ideas, as I have often told you. Where did you get them, I wonder?’
‘Don’t put on that face! It’s the one I like least of all your many faces. It’s suspicious.’
Mildred went to take off her things, and was quickly at the tea-table. She had a somewhat graver look than usual, and chose rather to listen than talk.
Not long after tea, when there had been a long and unnatural silence, Mildred making pretence of absorption in a ‘Treasury’ and her companion standing at the window, whence she threw back furtive glances, the thunder of a postman’s knock downstairs caused both of them to start, and look at each other in a conscience-stricken way.
‘That may be for me,’ said Monica, stepping to the door. ‘I’ll go and look.’
Her conjecture was right. Another letter from Widdowson, still more alarmed and vehement than the last. She read it rapidly on the staircase, and entered the room with sheet and envelope squeezed together in her hand.
‘I’m going to tell you all about this, Milly.’
The other nodded and assumed an attitude of sober attention. In relating her story, Monica moved hither and thither; now playing with objects on the mantlepiece, now standing in the middle of the floor, hands locked nervously behind her. Throughout, her manner was that of defence; she seemed doubtful of herself, and anxious to represent the case as favourably as possible; not for a moment had her voice the ring of courageous passion, nor the softness of tender feeling. The narrative hung together but awkwardly, and in truth gave a very indistinct notion of how she had comported herself at the various stages of the irregular courtship. Her behaviour had been marked by far more delicacy and scruple than she succeeded in representing. Painfully conscious of this, she exclaimed at length —
‘I see your opinion of me has suffered. You don’t like this story. You wonder how I could do such things.’
‘Well, dear, I certainly wonder how you could begin,’ Mildred made answer, with her natural directness, but gently. ‘Afterwards, of course, it was different. When you had once got to be sure that he was a gentleman —’
‘I was sure of that so soon,’ exclaimed Monica, her cheeks still red. ‘You will understand it much better when you have seen him.’
‘You wish me to?’
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