CHAPTER X

To Fill the Breach

THE leaves had all fallen, and been hidden inches deep under the first snow of the season; but Nell was still at Lorimer’s Clearing, working at all sorts of tasks, and striving with all her might to lighten the heavy burdens resting on the household.

Patsey was well again, and getting into mischief as often as possible. But as he went to school every day, his opportunities for mischief at home were rather limited.

Mrs. Lorimer was also well—at least she said so, but there was a broken, crushed look about her, as if life had lost its zest and charm. Very hard to please Nell found her, a grudging nature which would accept service, but give no love in return; so silent, too, that whole days would pass in which she spoke—only to complain.

The coming of the first snow found Abe Lorimer only able to leave his bed and creep out to sit in the big chair by the stove, while Gertrude was not even able to do that.

The doctor did not come very often. Mrs. Lorimer told him not to, declaring that it was as much as they could do to buy food for such a big household, without piling up a long doctor’s bill as well.

“But I should come all the same, if I thought there was any chance of their pulling up any the quicker,” Dr. Shaw said confidentially to Nell. “There are some cures that only Nature can work, and she is a very slow physician. However, time does wonders, and Gertrude will be sound enough again some day, but I have my doubts about the father.”

So Nell stayed on doing the work of the house while Mrs. Lorimer looked after the invalids. Patsey slept with George Miller in the loft, so that Nell could share the children’s room, but Gertrude still lay in the smart best parlour.

Washing, baking, sweeping, scrubbing, the days passed like a dream to Nell, and she was happier than she had been in all the years since her father died. At last she had love enough to satisfy her, for the children were devoted to her, and the big fat baby, who was so slow in learning to walk, always preferring other people’s feet to his own, had struck up a violent friendship with Nell, and thought there was no pleasure in life equal to riding round on her back, while she swept, dusted, and did many other similar household tasks with the child clinging to her shoulders.

She would have been happy enough to stay on indefinitely, working for her board, her only wages being love. But she was quick to see that Mrs. Lorimer would be glad to get her out of the house, and as soon as Gertrude could get up there would no longer be any excuse for her remaining at Lorimer’s Clearing.

The thought of the future worried her a great deal in the quiet nights, when the children were all sleeping round her, and she had nothing to do save lie still puzzling out the problem which loomed every day so much nearer to her.

It was dead of winter; the sickness which had been so prevalent in the neighbourhood had entirely disappeared, with the exception of the two cases at Lorimer’s Clearing. Nell had ventured to ask Dr. Shaw one day if he knew of work which she could go to next, but he only shook his head, and told her to be content where she was, for no one needed her so badly as the Lorimers.

But she was very sensitive, and very proud too, and the thought of being where she was not wanted made a misery for her which tormented all day long.

At last Gertrude was able to leave her room, and to creep feebly about the house. Then Mrs. Lorimer spoke plainly to Nell, not with the thankful gratitude which she ought to have shown, but with the brutal directness of one who has no consideration for anything outside her own narrow circle of interest.

Nell had been out-of-doors, hanging the week’s wash up to dry, in a cutting wind which rushed down from snow-covered mountain tops and howled through the valleys. Coming in, numbed and trembling from exposure to the bitter cold, she said, with a brave attempt at cheerfulness—

“There! the hanging-out is done for this week, and I hope by the time next Monday comes the weather will be warmer.”

“Perhaps you won’t be here then, so it won’t matter to you whether it is cold or not,” Mrs. Lorimer said, going on with her sewing, and never glancing at Nell, who turned very pale, and winced as if some one had struck her a blow.

She was only pale for a moment, though; then her colour came back with a rush, and she asked, in a tone which she vainly tried to keep steady—

“How soon do you wish me to go?”

Mrs. Lorimer looked up then, scanning the girl’s face with a cold gaze.

“You can suit yourself about that; I don’t mind whether it is this week or next. I’m not denying that you’ve worked hard, and done your best for us all round. But we have had heavy expenses since harvest, so even an extra mouth to feed is a consideration, and I’m bound to cut down expenses where I can.”

Nell drew a long breath and set her teeth hard, then turned away without a word. But there was hot revolt in her heart all the same, and a wild protest against the bitter injustice of Mrs. Lorimer’s treatment.

“Why won’t people be kind to me?” she moaned under her breath, as she scrubbed out the children’s bedroom with the hot soapsuds left over from washing, and a few salt tears blinded her eyes, then dropped on to the wet floor.

Her grandfather had gone away, leaving her to face the world as best she might. Mrs. Munson had been glad to get rid of her because of the expense of her board, and now Mrs. Lorimer, for whom she had toiled so hard, was simply telling her to go.

Nell caught her breath in a sudden sob, and then a pair of arms came stealing round her neck, gripping her in such a loving hug that she was nearly choked.

“Nell, dear Nell, I heard all that mother said just now, and it has made me feel so bad that I don’t know what to do. But don’t judge her too hardly, for the deaths of Percy and Arthur seem to have changed her entirely. I have to keep telling myself that all the time, for very often I am tempted to wonder if she has left off loving me,” said Gertrude, whose face was pale and drawn, her eyes red with weeping.

Nell choked back another sob. “I wouldn’t mind so much if I had anywhere else to go. But, being winter, it is hard to find work. There isn’t much out-of-doors just now that a girl can do, and there are women enough about here for all the indoor work, now that the sickness has all gone,” she said, in a worried tone.

“You must not go—you must stay here with us,” answered Gertrude, impulsively.

“I can’t—not a day longer than I can help, that is—for your mother says my keep is a consideration; and oh, Gertrude, it is just awful to be beholden to charity for your food!” Nell said vehemently; and then she scrubbed a section of the floor with tremendous vigour.

Gertrude laughed in a weak, mirthless fashion. “Charity, did you say? Why, Nell, has it never occurred to you how tremendously indebted we are to you? Apart from the loving-kindness you have shown to us all, and which no money could ever pay for, the actual work you have done should have earned you a considerable salary anywhere else. Why, at Bratley, where I am telegraph clerk, a woman would charge half a dollar a day, and then not do half the work that you do. Oh, I know; and I will tell mother just what I think about it all. I should have gone to her then, and said just everything that was in my mind, only father came in, looking so worn and sad that I had no heart nor courage left to make a scene.”

“Gertrude, don’t say anything to her at all about it,” implored Nell, whose misery had been effectually routed by this sweet sympathy and championship. “I don’t mind half so much now I know that you feel sorry I’ve got to go. Only, just at first, it seemed as if nobody cared what became of me, and I felt so dreadfully lonely and outside of everything.”

“Poor Nell! and yet you are not outside at all, if only you knew it,” murmured Gertrude. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she went on, “I’m going to tell you something now that seems too sacred to put into speech, only perhaps you will feel better if you know. Always, when I was lying in bed in the parlour, I could hear what any one was saying in father’s room, and every night when he was keeping his bed too, I could hear him saying his prayers. You know what a quiet, slow-of-speech man he is—but when he is praying it is so different—and it became a positive comfort to me to hear him. He used to pray for us all by name, and every night he thanked God for having sent you to help us, and he used to pray so earnestly for you that you might be repaid for your goodness, and that your future might be taken care of, that I am quite sure you won’t be left unprovided for; and if you do go away, it will be to take higher and better work.”

A glow of happiness came into Nell’s face, the trouble of Mrs. Lorimer’s unkindness faded into an unimportant detail, and she said cheerfully—

“Well, I shan’t trouble anymore about it to-day, and by to-morrow, perhaps, things will look different, or I shall see better about what I’ve got to do next.”

But, as it happened, before to-morrow came, she found what it was she could do next, and it came about in this wise. When Patsey came home from school that afternoon he brought with him a letter for Gertrude, which filled her with consternation.

It was from her deputy at the Bratley depot, who wrote that she could hold the post for only two weeks longer, as she had been offered a clerkship in Nelson, a permanent post with a good salary.

“Oh, mother, do you think I could get strong enough in a fortnight to go back to work?” cried Gertrude, dismayed at the thought of losing her position at Bratley.

“I don’t think anything about it, for I know you can’t,” Mrs. Lorimer replied gloomily.

“Oh dear, what shall I do? Every one says the Bratley clerks are sure of promotion, and I had such a clean record, too; now I shall have to resign, and all my previous work and waiting will go for nothing.”

Nell, who was busy at the stove with preparations for supper, turned quickly with an eager question—

“Could I fill the place for you, do you think?”

“But you don’t know anything about telegraphy,” interposed Mrs. Lorimer.

“I do, a little. For four months before father died, after he was too ill to preach, we boarded with Mrs. Chapman, at Poll’s End. Their daughter Sally was the depot operator, and she taught me a lot; I could send and receive messages for her, and I often used to be in her office for hours alone, while she went walking with her friends,” Nell said, a little breathlessly, while she looked from Mrs. Lorimer to Gertrude, and then back again.

“Oh, mother, if only it could be done, how happy I should be!” exclaimed Gertrude, with clasped hands, and an eager look in her eyes.

“I should think it might; there is a fortnight yet, you see, and you could spend that time in coaching Nell up. If she is as quick at telegraphy as she is at other things, she is bound to do.” And as she spoke, Mrs. Lorimer turned to Nell with a strangely softened glance.

“Then I’ll write to-day to say that I will send another deputy in two weeks’ time, and Nell can stay at Bratley until the doctor says that I may go back to my work again,” Gertrude said gleefully.

That night, when Nell was in the dairy doing the last of her work for the evening, Mrs. Lorimer came softly in and stood beside her as she wiped down the shelves, and cleared away the empty pans.

“Nell, will you forgive me for telling you to go this morning?” she said slowly, her voice quivering in spite of her efforts to keep it steady.

“Why, yes, of course,” said Nell, quickly, adding, with a nervous laugh, “I had been so happy here, with such a lot of folks to love, that it was hard work even to think of tearing myself away, though I would have gone sooner if I could have found anywhere to go, or if I had known that I was not needed here.”

Mrs. Lorimer put a shaking hand on her arm. “I’ve had a black, bitter mood on me for a long while past, and I’ve said and done things that a happier person might well be ashamed of. But it took your generous offer to fill Gertrude’s place at Bratley to make me see how really mean I was.”

“Don’t talk about it any more, please; it hurts me,” whispered Nell, turning rather pale, for there was a look in Mrs. Lorimer’s face which frightened her.

“It had better be said out now and done with, then there will be no need to put it into words again. I haven’t been fair to you in my mind ever since you came, and yet at every turn you have given me good for evil. That is what has made me come to you now to say straight out that I’ve been wrong, and to ask forgiveness.”

Nell dropped her dish-cloth, and, with a sudden impulse, put her arms round the cold, unresponsive woman in an affectionate hug.

“You are not to say another word, do you hear? Or, if you do, I’ll—I’ll—let me see, what will I do? Oh, I’ll go to bed before my work is done, and I won’t learn to be a telegraph operator, so there!”

The effect of these threats was rather diminished by the merry laugh that accompanied them.

There was an unwonted moisture in Mrs. Lorimer’s eyes as she turned away. She was not a woman given to tears, or to laughter, or to any other sort of emotion, but there were strange depths in her character that few people even guessed at, and Nell’s forbearance and generosity had moved her mightily.

They were busy days which followed. Nell rose early, and worked at household tasks until Gertrude was able to leave her room. Then the two spent a couple of hours busy with rule books and a dummy sounder. It might have been as puzzling as Greek to Nell but for her remembrance of the instruction given her by Sally Chapman. Young as she was, she had been quite a skilful operator then, and it took only a little effort to bring it all back.

One day, before the fortnight was up, Abe Lorimer took her over to Nine Springs in the morning, and left her there until the evening, in the telegraph office at the depot, where the operator, a merry-faced girl of twenty, let her send and receive the messages as they came in, telling her that, with practice, she would make a very good operator indeed.

It was raining fast when Abe Lorimer drove to Nine Springs to fetch her home that night, while the melting snow gave a raw coldness to the atmosphere that was dismal and depressing.

But Nell was too happy for the weather to have any effect upon her, and it seemed to her, as the horses splashed along through the mud and the slush, that she had nothing in the world left to wish for, unless, indeed, it was, that she might be able to restore to Mr. Bronson the thirty dollars which lay such a heavy burden upon her heart.

Her own two dollars, which Mrs. Munson had given her, had gone to buy her a pair of boots. But Abe Lorimer had given her five dollars that morning, so she had money of her own again.

There had been additions to her wardrobe, too, which filled her with profound satisfaction. A long brown coat of Gertrude’s had been bestowed upon her, and Mrs. Lorimer, who was clever with her needle, had made a little brown cloth cap to match it; while Patsey had shot a pheasant in the top pasture, bringing home the wings as a special adornment for the brown hat.

The black silk cape had been made into a blouse for best occasions, the blue merino had been altered into a more youthful shape, and Nell surveyed her improved appearance in the looking-glass with an amazement which was comical in the extreme.

“Oh, what a difference clothes do make!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t only the outside look of them, it is the inside feel. I’m not Nell any more when I’ve these things on; I’m Eleanor Hamblyn, or perhaps Miss Hamblyn, which is grander still.”

“What nonsense! You will always be Nell to us, even if you are dressed up in silk velvet and diamonds, with lace frills,” laughed Gertrude, who had been assisting at the transformation scene. Then she asked gently, “Haven’t you ever had pretty, or even suitable, clothes before?”

“I don’t know; I suppose not, or at least, I never looked pretty in them. You see, my mother died when I was so very small, and my father did not know much about clothes, though everyone said he preached beautiful sermons.”

“But afterwards—for you say your father died ever so long ago—wasn’t there anyone to see that you had a nice frock once in a while?” Gertrude persisted, with natural girlish curiosity about Nell’s past.

“It was worse and worse afterwards; for granfer not merely didn’t know about what sort of clothes a girl ought to wear, he didn’t care,” she answered bitterly. Then she abruptly changed the conversation, for, mindful of her grandfather’s caution, she never talked of her life at the Lone House, and was extremely reticent upon the subject of her immediate past.

She often thought of Joe Gunnage’s errand to fetch the Canadian police to inspect the find at the Lone House. But she had not dared to ask any questions, or set on foot inquiries concerning it, through fear lest it should in any way harm her grandfather.

So she hid the past as carefully as she could, comforting herself that now she was on Canadian soil she was safe from any reminders of that old bad time. But it was only hidden, not forgotten, after all.