CHAPTER VI

MARK TAPLEY'S KIND OF DAYS

Phyllis was finding her occupation trying. The children had not been accustomed to obedience, and Muriel proved intractable; Phyllis could neither win her affection nor subdue her by sternness. Lionel minded her because he loved her; in a week's time the boy had become her doglike adorer, and Phyllis loved him with pitying tenderness. The baby was like a little garden patch with the sun shining upon it through the tree branches, in alternate sunshine and shadow, and her obedience was patchy, too; no child more properly deserved the insignia of "a little curl right in the middle of her forehead." But she was only the baby; no one could take very seriously the misdemeanors of a mite of three, and Gladys was a dear mite when she was not the other sort.

It was hard to assume the charge of three children for six hours a day; hard to bring them, and herself as well, into the discipline of stated hours and tasks; not easy to take them out to walk, and feel perfectly independent and indifferent to the possibility of meeting old acquaintances when thus employed.

But the hardest thing about her new life to Phyllis was the insight it gave her into a manner of living which shocked and tortured her, for Phyllis was a conscientious girl, and the first actual contact with the worldly side of the world is bitter to such as she. Mrs. Haines did not love her children. Sometimes, when they were beautifully dressed, she flattered them and devoured them with kisses; but more frequently she repulsed them, scolded them petulantly and unjustly, and answered their questions with a fretful "Don't bother me! I don't know; ask Miss Wyndham." Sometimes she would say in their hearing that she detested children; that they all ought to be fastened up in the barrel Holmes suggested and fed through the bunghole; and that she would give anything if she were free to have a good time like other young women. And Phyllis could see Lionel's lips quiver and then set hard at these speeches, and she knew the little lad understood that though he had a mother, he had not her love, but was a burden to her.

It made her sick at heart; less experienced than her tiny charges, she had never for a moment dreamed that a woman who had children could do less than love them beyond all the world, holding no pleasure, no admiration, worth a thought while her babies' little arms clung to her. But Mrs. Haines boasted the flattery she received. Evidently husband, as well as children, was nothing to her beside her idea of pleasure; and honest Phyllis went home daily, heavy in mind and foot, weary with loathing more than with work.

Tom saw that she was looking blue and ill, and he made it his business to come home her way and meet her, and try to cheer her into forgetfulness of the annoyances of which he was ignorant; for Phyllis could not reconcile it with her standard of honor to talk to any one of what she saw in the home to which she had been admitted. Yet she longed to ask some one if all the world, but her own narrow one, was like this new one; Jessamy and Bab knew no better than she, and her aunt was too ill to be troubled.

Mrs. Haines soon discovered the handsome young fellow who came to meet her governess, and rallied Phyllis on what she called "her conquest." "I hear you have an admirer, my dear," she said.

Phyllis flushed scarlet with indignation. "Tom is a dear boy, like a brother to all of us," she said. "There isn't the least silly thing about him; we are only girls, and we don't want nor think of flirtations."

Mrs. Haines laughed with contemptuous good nature. "Would it be silly in him to admire you?" she asked. "As to the rest of it, girls you may be, but children you are not; I was no older than you when I married, and am only seven years older than you are now."

"My aunt has taught us that love and marriage are so sacred and solemn that we must never think nor speak of them lightly, and, above all things, never spoil our lives and hearts by flirting," said Phyllis, trying to speak without excitement.

"Very good teaching; very poor practice, my dear," laughed Mrs. Haines. "Do you want to be three little gray nuns? But I hoped this 'Tom' of yours might prove something more serious than a flirtation--that is, if he has any money; your business is to marry well, under your present circumstances; don't go in for romance."

"I never think of marrying, Mrs. Haines; I am much too young and girlish. But I would rather die than marry just for money," said Phyllis.

"See here, Miss Wyndham; I was a poor girl too," said Mrs. Haines. "I had just about enough money for gloves and hats, but not for gowns and shoes. My husband is fourteen years older than I; do you think I cared for him? Not a bit, but I married him at nineteen, and now I have a fine house, carriage, everything I want, and more beaux to say I'm pretty than most girls of my age. Don't you think I was sensible?"

In spite of herself, Phyllis shuddered; she thought of Mr. Haines's solitary breakfasts, frequent dinners at the club, the unloved children, and realized how blessed she had been in her bringing up.

"There are better things than money, Mrs. Haines," she said, almost pitying the little creature before her, hardly, as she said, older than herself, yet so frankly pagan and sordid. "I would rather work till I died working than--"

She stopped, frightened at her own boldness. Mrs. Haines looked at her, understanding what she did not say. "There will always be these two kinds of people," she said, and Phyllis wondered, not quite comprehending.

Phyllis met Tom with a sensation of relief, as well as pleasure; he looked so manly, so reliable. "It's no use, Tom," she said. "I've been trying not to tell you, but I must. Is it I or the world that's out of joint?"

"On general principles, I can assure you that it's not you, Phyllis; you're all right. But, if I might, I should like to have something more explicit," said Tom, looking very kindly down on the flushed, earnest face.

Phyllis began at the beginning, and poured forth to Tom all the matters that had distressed her in the Haines household, ending with the conversation of the afternoon, suppressing his part in the theme.

"Well, what do you want me to tell you, Phyllis?" asked Tom. "Surely you don't have to question whether you or a heartless, flirting, worldly woman is right? Or whether any woman worth the name will sell herself for an establishment and clothes?"

"No, not that; right is right, and wrong is wrong--" began Phyllis.

"Always," broke in Tom.

"Yes, I know; but what makes me downright sick is the fear that dear auntie has kept us shut away from a world that is full of this sort of thing--that all the world is like this," cried Phyllis. "Are we different from the rest of the world? These last months have frightened me."

"Not much wonder," said Tom, heartily. "Poor little soul! Now, look here, Phyllis; you're not different from all the world, but you're different from lots of it. The best never gets run out, but it runs low often. You've been given the highest standards in all things, and they can never be common. It is much easier to be bad than good for people who start crooked; you started straight, you and Jessamy and Bab. All you've got to do is to be yourself and not worry. Keep your own ideas, and steer by them, and let the rest go. Do you suppose I don't see heaps and piles of things I hate? More than you ever will, because a fellow runs up against the world as no girl does. I'd like to be able to tell you I see none but sweet, modest, true girls; but, honest, I see fewer of them than the other kind. Girls make me sick, though I feel mean to say it; they wouldn't if I didn't think they are so much better than we are when they are nice. You see, Phyllis, girls don't understand that the whole world is in their hands; we're all what women, young and old, make us. Now, you and I had good mothers and sisters. When I went away my oldest sister--she's past thirty--talked to me. 'Shut your eyes to the bold girls, Tom,' she said, 'and make no woman friend you would not introduce to your sisters. Keep your ideals, and be sure there will always be sweet, wholesome girls to save the world.' So I have been shutting my eyes to the strong-minded sisterhood, and the giddy ones too; and just when I needed you, because I was getting too lonely, the Wyndhams turned up, thank heaven! So you'll find it, Phyl; it's a queer, crooked old world, but there are straight folk in it. Keep your ideals, miss, as my sister told me, and 'gang your ways,' And don't take it so hard that there is wrong and injustice in the world. That's being morbid. You'll get used to it; it's only your first plunge that costs; the world's like the ocean in that. And there's heaps of good lying around, mixed up with bad too, sometimes, and that's what no young person sees at first. You know I am ever so much older than you because I've had my eyes opened longer. Don't you get to thinking it's a bad world; it's a good one. The Lord saw that, and said so, when it was first made. Thus endeth my first lesson. I never talked so much in my life at a stretch. Come into this drug-store for hot coffee; you look fagged."

"You're such a comfort, Tom," said Phyllis. "I feel much better. There was no use in talking to Jessamy or Bab, because we all know no more nor less than one another, but I wanted straightening out. And auntie looks so ill of late, don't you think so?"

Tom looked very serious. "I think she is ill, Phyllis," he said. "There is nothing the matter with her, except one of the worst things: she is exhausted, worn out with fret and trouble. She doesn't get enough nourishment; she needs nursing."

"Oh, I see it, Tom," cried Phyllis, as they left the soda-fountain. "What can I do?"

"Take care of yourself, for one thing; you don't look right, either," said Tom.

"I feel dragging--that's the only word I know for it," said Phyllis. "And Lionel is pale and languid. I wonder if the child and I are both getting ready to be ill."

"Poor little beggar, I hope he isn't," said Tom; "but that would be nothing to your coming down. I'm going to fix you up some quinine and calisaya; I am not pleased with you of late, Miss Phyllis."

Four days later Phyllis trailed her weary way homeward. The end of her first month of servitude had come; the twenty-five dollars she had thus earned lay in her pocket-book in four new bills. Her head ached, her knees felt strangely unreliable, her spine seemed to be some one else's, so burning and painful it felt in its present place, and her eyes played her tricks by showing her objects in false positions and sizes and occasionally flaring up and darkening completely for a dreadful few seconds.

Jessamy met her at the door with an anxious face. "Mama has given out wholly, Phyl," she said. "She is in bed and frightens me, she looks so weak, and her heart beats unevenly and feebly."

"That's bad," said Phyllis, so indifferently that Jessamy stared in amazement, then saw with utter sinking of her heart that Phyllis looked desperately ill herself; if Phyllis, the rock they all leaned on, gave out now, what should she do?

"What is the matter, Phyl?" she cried, putting her arm around her cousin.

"I have no idea. My head aches unbearably, and it seems to be a headache that reaches to the soles of my feet," answered Phyllis, miserably. "What does Tom say about auntie?"

"He thinks it is just complete giving out, as though that weren't bad enough! And he made me send for Doctor Jerome; he says he wouldn't dare take the responsibility of our resting on his opinion, so the doctor is to come soon, I hope." said Jessamy.

"Yes, that's right. I have twenty-five dollars in my purse; that will pay for several visits, won't it?" asked Phyllis, uncertainly; she dropped her hat on the floor beside her and pushed the hair back from her temples as she spoke, resting both elbows on her knees. "I shall have only the little girls, I am afraid, for a time; Lionel is ill."

"What ails him?" demanded Jessamy, her breath shortening; suppose it were something dreadful, and Phyllis had caught the infection!

"The doctor thought it might be typhoid; it was too soon to tell, he said," replied Phyllis.

"Typhoid! Is that contagious?" demanded Jessamy.

"I don't know. Don't be afraid, Jessamy; I am too full of pain for anything else to get in; I couldn't catch it," said Phyllis, with no intention to be humorous.

Jessamy waited to hear no more. Running across to Tom's room, she knocked impatiently. "Oh, Tom, dear Tom, do come into my room," she cried. "Phyllis has come home so ill I am more frightened about her than about mama now."

They found Phyllis exactly as Jessamy had left her. Tom felt her pulse; her hands were burning, the pulses galloping. "She must lie down and wait till the doctor comes," said Tom, looking grave. "I'll give her something sedative that can't do any harm, but I'd rather not do anything more. Doctor Jerome ought to prescribe. Help her into bed, Jessamy, and don't look so hopeless, dear girl; all's not lost save honor, even though that's a good deal to have left. Phyllis is very likely going to have grip--the real thing, not a cold under that name--and though that is bad to go through, it does not need such a tragic face to meet it."

But Jessamy would not smile. "The Haines boy has a fever; the doctor thinks it may be typhoid; is that contagious?"

For the life of him, Tom could not repress a slight start; then he bethought himself, and answered cheerfully: "Not a bit--only infectious. Get Phyllis quiet in bed, and try not to borrow trouble."

But as he crossed the hall he shook his head like an old practitioner. "Not contagious--only infectious, is true; but Phyl has been in the same atmosphere as the boy, and may have contracted it under the same conditions," he said, rubbing Nixie's head absent-mindedly, as the little dog poked it into his hand. "I don't like it, Nixie, old man; I confess I don't like it."

Doctor Jerome came to find two patients instead of one. His verdict as to Mrs. Wyndham corroborated Tom's; she needed nursing, constant nourishing, utter rest, and cheer. And, to make sure of the latter prescription, there was Phyllis! On her case the doctor said it was much too early to pronounce; typhoid was misleading in its first symptoms, sometimes; but--yes, it might be typhoid. He would do all he could to break it up, but Phyllis was decidedly ill. Jessamy must have a nurse, even though Barbara gave up her employment to help her; they were both too inexperienced, not strong enough to undertake cases in which everything depended on the nursing.

Phyllis did not resist the doctor's verdict that she should give herself up to being ill, though Jessamy fully expected to have hard work persuading her. She lay quite passive, her dark lashes sweeping her crimsoned cheeks, and only lifted her eyes to say, "Tell Mrs. Haines," and then sank into unnatural slumber again.

Barbara came home into the trouble very tired and discouraged over her own uselessness; she who had felt so confident that she could do anything had thus far been able to earn but three dollars and a half for many hours' labor; in the old days she had spent that in a week at Huyler's.

Jessamy and she had a consultation, at which Tom assisted, as to their possibilities. By their prudence in living within their income the Wyndhams had nearly four hundred dollars a year more than their actual living expenses cost them. But this income came in quarterly; a trained nurse would cost them twenty-five dollars a week, besides her board, yet Tom and Doctor Jerome said it was of the utmost importance to have the best of nurses. "I have an inspiration!" cried Tom. "There's a fine woman I know of, disengaged now; she has nursed in our family, and she's all right. If Doctor Jerome approves, I'll see if I can get her, and I am nearly certain she would come for me for fifteen dollars a week."

"Then I must see Mrs. Black as to her terms; and how about the arrangement of the rooms?" asked Jessamy.

"The two patients must be separate; that goes without saying," said Tom. "You and Bab will use my room, and the nurse will take her share of rest where it suits her."

"And where will you sleep, you dear, generous boy?" cried Jessamy.

"I have a friend I can bunk with till you are through with the room," said Tom. "It won't trouble me a bit, so don't call me names, princess."

Jessamy interviewed their landlady, and had a tempestuous time. Mrs. Black refused at first to allow her house to be turned into a hospital; then she demanded an exorbitant sum for the nurse's board, although the room was not to be included. At last, when Jessamy, calling up the spirit which usually lay dormant under her quiet manner, threatened removing both her charges to a hospital and leaving the house at once, Mrs. Black compromised, with a mental reservation to get even in the end, as the girls suspected from her subsequent behavior.

It would have been wiser to have taken Mrs. Wyndham and Phyllis to a good hospital, where a private room would have been no heavier drain on their purse than the present arrangement, and the accommodations better; but Jessamy was so shocked at the proposition that Doctor Jerome waived the point, and the nursing began at home. Tom's good woman came; she was the kindest soul in the world, and no less competent than kind. Barbara gave up her envelops to help Jessamy. With two patients she was needed, and even then there were hardly hands enough to render the service required. Tom ran in and out at all hours of the day and night; Jessamy felt that if she lived ninety-nine years she never could repay him for his help and cheer, though she devoted her life to trying to do so.

Mrs. Wyndham lay in that wearying state of feebleness peculiar to exhausted nerves; there was no actual danger, unless it were the danger of continued prostration. But Phyllis grew more ill; twice a day the old doctor came to watch her progress. The typhoid symptoms did not develop positively, but she burned with a low fever, and no one could foretell the end.

Out of the five hundred dollars coming to the Wyndhams quarterly from their total income, there was an excess over necessary expenditures amounting to something like ninety dollars. This was all the capital Jessamy had in hand to meet the present emergency; and underlying all her other anxieties was the dreadful fear that she should be obliged to borrow of Aunt Henrietta to tide herself through the double illness which had come upon them. For her mother required all sorts of expensive food preparations, and Jessamy realized that her little fund would not take them further on the hard road than three weeks' distance, when out of it she had to pay a nurse, and that nurse's board.

Christmas was coming--the Christmas they had dreaded, at best, to meet in a boarding-house, the first since they had become homeless; but now what a Christmas it was! Barbara, sitting, as she did every moment that the nurse would intrust Phyllis to her, close by her cousin's bed, thought, with quietly falling tears, of what Phyllis had always said, that nothing mattered while they had one another. What if they were not always to have one another? What if Phyllis herself--dear, unselfish, sweet Phyllis--was to be the one to go away, leaving forever a void which no one could fill?

For Phyllis had become delirious, and raved ceaselessly of the horrible faces grinning and mowing around her bed; of the recent troubles, begging pitifully to be taken home and laid in her own big, pretty room where her head would not ache so. And she did not know Barbara nor Jessamy, but confounded them with Mrs. Haines, and implored them by turns to love the children, for Lionel was ill, and his head was aching inside of hers, which made him and "poor Phyllis" both worse, and they might die, and then his mother would never forgive herself. She always spoke of herself as "poor Phyllis," apparently with some dim idea that she was unlike herself--another personality--and invariably ended every burst of delirium with the same appeal for mercy, and to be taken home again. Barbara had never seen delirium; these ravings nearly broke her heart, and took every particle of hope out of her. In vain Doctor Jerome and Tom, whom she trusted even more, told her it was nothing unusual. Bab, the light-hearted, refused to fulfil her title, but sat stonily, looking forward to Phyllis's death.

Jessamy, more equable, kept up a little courage; but she too was utterly inexperienced, and it was very hard for her to hope for Phyllis's recovery.

And so Christmas eve dawned grimly enough upon the two poor girls, and on them alone, for Mrs. Wyndham was too weak to give more than a sick woman's passing thought to the day, and to Phyllis there was neither day nor night.

Doctor Jerome came that morning, and looked more anxious than ever. "Your mother is doing fairly," he said; "but this little girl does not mend. Nurse, if you will get your scissors, I think this heavy hair must come off."

"Oh, don't--please don't cut off Phyllis's beautiful hair," cried Bab, while Jessamy clasped her hands, mutely making the same appeal.

"Nonsense, Bab; it will relieve her more than you can imagine," said Tom, sharply, who had followed the doctor into the room. "It would all fall, anyway, after such an illness. It is better for the hair; but if it weren't, it would still require doing. Pray, be sensible."

The nurse brought the scissors, and with a few strokes the long, warm, dark masses of hair lay on the quilt. "That's better," said the doctor, as Phyllis moved her head as though at once conscious of relief. He left a few additional directions for the nurse, and went away. Phyllis's hair lay on a paper on the table; the sunlight, resting on it, brought out its rich reddish tint. Tom lifted a tress tenderly. "Poor, sweet Phyllis," he said. Jessamy turned away to the window, without a word. What a Christmas eve, indeed!