He had enjoined her to patience and patient she was — though week ran into week and month to month, in all of which time she knew nothing of what was happening behind the scenes, or what strings Ocock was pulling to upset the cumbrous machinery of medical law. She just dragged on from day to day, in ignorance and suspense. But her nerves often got the better of her, and then the children felt her heavy, hasty hand. While, in her official capacity, so set did she become on her “rights,” so unblushing in making her voice heard, that her name grew to be a by-word in the service. “That tartar at G.G.?” (which was the morse call for Gymgurra) was how she was familiarly spoken of.
In this dreary time, when her narrow walls oppressed her to breathlessness, but from which there was no possible escape for her, one piece of good fortune came her way. The house at Shortlands found a tenant; and so the money which she had laboriously scraped together for the following quarter’s rent would not be needed. Hence when at last the tide began to turn, with the substitution of “highly dangerous,” and “a most risky experiment,” for the maddening “impossible,” she actually had a small sum in hand with which to make her preparations. And she set about these forthwith; building on her recently acquired knowledge of men and their ways. She could look for no complete VOLTE FACE on their part. Only in this grudging, half-hearted fashion would their consent be given.
Help in the house she must have, was she to be free to devote what time she could spare from her office-work to Richard. Her first thought was naturally of her poor old ageing sister, and she wrote to Zara, offering her house-room in exchange for her services. But though in her last situation little more than a nursemaid, Zara declined the proposal as stiffly and uncompromisingly as if she were rolling in money: dubbing Mary mad as a March hare to think of removing “our poor dear Richard” from safe control; madder still to imagine that she, Zara, with her delicate nerves, would be able to live for a single day under the same roof as a lunatic. Emmy, unasked, wrote begging to be allowed to help care for “poor darling Uncle.” But quite apart from the mixed motives that underlay the offer, this was out of the question. You could not so take the bloom off a young girl’s life. There would be things to do for Richard — unfit things . . . And it was here that Mary bethought herself of the woman she had befriended on her journey to town, whose son had died soon after. So, in the same terms as to Zara, she wrote to “Mrs. Bowman at Sayer’s Thack”— though it did seem rather like posting a letter into the void. Almost by return, however, came an ill-spelt scrawl, joyfully accepting the job; and a little later Mrs. Bowman herself got out of the coach, with all her worldly goods tied up in one small cardboard-box, but carrying with her, as a gift, a stringy old hen (fit only for the soup-pot) and half a pound of dairy butter. And in this poor, lone soul, Mary found yet another of those devoted, leech-like friends, who had starred her path through life.
The final surrender came in the form of a lengthy screed from Mr. Henry, in which he informed her that, after surmounting difficulties and obstacles greater even than he had anticipated, he had at last succeeded in bringing the various authorities involved — medical, legal, postal — to agree to the plan of Dr. Mahony’s removal from control being given a provisional trial. That was to say, the patient would be accompanied to Gymgurra by two warders, who would remain while the experiment was made. In the event of it failing, they would immediately escort the patient back to the asylum. Followed, this, by four pages in which Mr. Henry begged her once more seriously to consider what she was doing. It was still not too late to draw back. Should she, however, decide to go forward, he trusted she would further show her friendship for him by regarding him as her banker, if the expenses of the undertaking proved too heavy for her purse. He would be only too happy to assist her. — Well, thank goodness, owing to her little windfall, she need be beholden to nobody; although, at this pass, she would not have hesitated to borrow freely. But, Bowey’s expenses settled, she had still enough in hand to cover the three fares up from town, and those of the warders back; as well as their board and lodging while in Gymgurra.
Only the day of arrival now remained to be fixed. But now, too, in the small hours when she lay waiting for the night mail, Mary was assailed by her first fears and apprehensions. It was not her ability to cope with, and control, and nurse Richard that she doubted. No, her fears concerned herself. Her own strength was already sorely taxed, she on the brink of those years when a woman most needed rest and care and a quiet life. Suppose SHE should fall ill? . . . need nursing herself? Or that she should die before him . . . be forced to leave him? . . . him and the children. This was the thought that haunted her nights; and though she drove it from her, fought it valiantly, it was often not to be got under till she had risen and paced the house.
When Cuffy heard that Papa was coming home, his black eyes opened till they seemed to fill his face.
“Do you mean he . . . he’s coming back here? NOW?”
“Yes. And you chicks must try your best to help me. I shall have more than ever to do.”
“But is he . . . isn’t he still . . .” It was no use; his mouth was full of tongue; the “mad” simply wouldn’t come out. To which half-asked question Mamma said firmly: “Run away and play.”
But they were moving his bed, and he saw them: saw, too, a new bed being carried into Mamma’s room. “What’s that for? And where’s my bed going?” And at the news that from now on he was to sleep in Bowey’s room, the dismay he had so far bitten back broke through. “Oh no, I CAN’T, Mamma! I won’t! . . . sleep in the same room as her.”
“And why not, indeed?”
“She’s . . . she’s a LADY.”
“Really, Cuffy! I do wonder where you get your ideas from. Pray, haven’t you been sleeping all this time with Lucie and me? Are we not ladies, too?”
No, of course not — they were only just their two selves. But as usual he didn’t try to explain. It was never a bit of good.
With Lucie, whose chubby face wore a harassed look, beside him, he sat on the back steps with his elbows on his knees, his chin hunched in his hands. The yard was mostly potatoes now — the floury sort that were so good to have for dinner, but left hardly any room to play. For you hadn’t got to tread on them. — Oh, WHY did Papa need to come back? They had been so happy without him . . . even though they had to keep a post office, and weren’t REAL ladies and gentlemen any more. But nobody had once laughed at them — at him and Luce — since they came here, and they had had nothing to be ashamed of. Now it was all going to begin over again. Oh, if only there had been anywhere to run to, he would have run away. But there wasn’t, only just long, straight roads.
Here Lucie put her mouth inside his ear and whispered guiltily “I don’t b’lieve you’re a bit glad!”
“Are YOU?”
Luce nodded hard. Mamma was glad, so she was too; or she’d thought she was till now. But Cuffy looked so funny that her little soul began to be torn afresh, between these two arbiters of her fate.
Cuffy wrinkled his lips up and his nose down. “You’re not TRUE! I don’t believe it.”
“I am!” But her face puckered.
“Well, I’m NOT . . . not a scrap! So there! And if you want to, you can go and tell.”
But she didn’t; she only cried. Cuffy was always making her cry. He couldn’t ever be nice and think the same as Mamma and her. He always had to be diffrunt.
It certainly WAS hard though, to keep on being sorry, when you saw how glad Mamma was. She smiled much more now, and sewed shirts, and got them ready for Papa; and she bought a new rocking-chair, specially for him to sit and rock in. And every day was most dreadfully anxious to know if there wasn’t a letter in the mail-bag, to say when he was coming. And then she told them about how unhappy Papa had been since he went away, and how he had to eat his dinner off tin plates; and how they must try with all their mights to make up to him for it. And then she went back and told them all over again about when they were quite little, ............