Taken by the Hand. O. Douglas
in winter. We have so few relatives; no one who could come and live with you. . . . What do you think of going to London with Samuel? I know . . . I know . . . we’ve got out of touch with Betha—I blame myself for that. I was too taken up with the work I was trying to do; I neglected your interests. Forgive me, darling.”
“Forgive!” said Beatrice, staring at her mother with misery in her eyes. How small and grey her face had grown even in the last few days. Other people’s mothers, she thought resentfully, went on living to any old age. And her mother had been like a girl, almost; a big happy girl, with her rosy face unlined, her brown hair with hardly a grey thread, her erect carriage. It had been so delightful to have a mother who did the work and the talking, leaving her to dream. Beatrice quite realised that she was an anomaly in this age of competent young women. She liked to look on at life, and the very thought of driving a car, or gliding, or indeed doing anything on her own, terrified her. But what was to happen to her if she lost her bulwark? If this mother so big and strong and dear was going to leave her she was lost indeed—But this was not a time to think of her own plight; she must try to calm her mother’s fears.
Janie Dobie had drifted away for a minute in a half doze, and when she opened her eyes Beatrice was smiling at her.
“You’re not to worry about me, Motherkin. What you’ve got to do is to set your mind on getting well. Here comes Nurse to get you ready for the night. While she’s removing the flowers—how many offerings to-day, Nurse? Oh, film stars haven’t a look in with you, my dear—let me smooth your forehead and perhaps it will make you more inclined to sleep. When I used to get hot and nervous and off my sleep, you would come up after dinner to the night nursery and stroke my hair, and sing Rothesay Bay until I forgot all my troubles. Do you remember?”
The girl lay on the bed with her left arm under her mother’s head while with her right hand she softly stroked her brow, and the nurse walked backwards and forwards, carrying out the flowers to a table on the landing.
When she had tidied the room and put on a “standing” fire, she came to the bed with a basin of water and a sponge to freshen her patient before she began another night. Beatrice slipped carefully from the bed and bent and kissed her mother. “Good-night, precious. If you’re not sleeping let me come and have a cup of tea with you. May I, Nurse? I often wake about two and lie for an hour or so.”
“You’re too young to lie awake,” her mother told her. “Shut your door to-night and never give a thought to me till morning. We have very comfortable nights, haven’t we, Nurse? Run away now, dear, and listen to the wireless. Have you an interesting book? Good-night, good-night.”
The nurse looked after the girl.
“It’s lonely for Miss Dobie,” she said. “I was one of six myself.”
“Have you sisters? Three. How rich you are. If only my girl had a sister!”
“Yes,” said the nurse, “it would make a difference. Not,” she added, “that my sisters have ever done anything for me. We had all to go out and fend for ourselves, earn a living the best way we could. But we like well enough to meet at a time; blood does count for something. Is that comfortable? There’s quite a touch of frost in the air to-night: I hope it doesn’t bring the fog.”
She turned off the lights and went in to the dressing-room to arrange things as she wanted them for the night. The servants had brought her up sandwiches and cake, and she had a kettle and teapot and little pan, so could make tea or heat soup when she pleased. She was sorry for the handsome, kindly woman who lay dying next door; sorry, too, for the girl who would soon be left alone, but she had a comfortable chair, a good fire, an exciting book, and some of her favourite chocolates, so life at the moment, she told herself, wasn’t too bad.
* * * * *
Mrs. Dobie lay still, watching the firelight, till a sound made her raise her head.
Fog on the river!
How often she had lain in bed and heard through the misty night the hoarse hooting of some ship. It had always given her a vaguely excited feeling . . . ships bound for far-away ports going down the Clyde; stars hanging like lamps in tropical skies; life; adventure; wonderful things she was missing.
Again from the river came the distant sound.
The sick woman heard it, but the drug she had been given was taking effect, and she only thought drowsily that everything was going on—ships sailing, men working, boys and girls rejoicing in their youth. . . . What was it she had to think of? Beatrice—she must plan for Beatrice. But she was so tired, too tired to plan, too tired to pray, almost too tired to care. . . . “Surely” she thought, as she turned her head on the pillow, “surely some one will take her by the hand. . . .” Then she slept.
CHAPTER II
“ . . . We shall be rich ere we depart If fairings come thus plentifully on.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
All through the five-and-twenty years of her daughter’s life Janie Dobie had striven to make plain paths for her feet, and Beatrice found that her mother, in dying, had not failed her. Plans had been carefully made so that everything would be as easy as possible.
It was to be a private funeral, with no flowers. “For,” as Mrs. Dobie had told her lawyer, “it’s no use bothering busy people to come to a funeral; ask the few that it would hurt not to be asked. As for flowers it would simply mean that numbers of people who couldn’t afford it would order wreaths; I hate a mass of decaying vegetation anyway. I know I have my friends’ good wishes on my journey and that’s all I want.”
On the evening of the funeral day Beatrice was ashamed to find herself conscious of a distinct feeling of relief. These dreadful days were past, days of drawn blinds and hushed voices, dressmaker’s boxes and masses of crinkling paper; herself standing before a mirror which reflected an unfamiliar black-clad figure with a blanched scared face; the arrival of her step-brother Samuel, the difficult conversation, the length of the meals; the terror of the nights when sleep kept far off and she lay and listened for she knew not what, thinking all the time of the voice that all her life had fallen so comfortably on her ears: “Are you all right, darling? Mother’s here.”
Surely, thought Beatrice, the worst was over. Samuel was going away in the morning, the blinds would be pulled up, life would begin again. There was even a vague feeling of anticipation, for now that she was on her own she would be able to do exactly what she pleased. Clothes, for instance. Her mother had always chosen things for her, or, at least, had advised, and sometimes Beatrice had not had the things she liked best. And her hair. Mrs. Dobie had thought it a pity to cut the wavy golden fleece. She had said, “It’s too soft, my dear; not thick enough to shingle, you’d look like a canary!” Beatrice had not believed it, and now she could make sure.
But even as she made up her mind to change things, desolation flooded over her at the thought of what she had lost. How could she find her way in a cold world, deprived of the personality that was like the sun in its warmth and cheer?
They sat together, Sir Samuel Dobie and his step-sister, at dinner. It was a good dinner, for the cook had been many years in the house, and knew exactly what her mistress would have ordered, the waiting was perfect, and Sir Samuel was feeling mellow. He looked at Beatrice in her black lace dress, with her shining hair smoothly combed into a loose knot, with approval. He told himself that she looked lady-like. Of course it was an absurd thing to look in these days—he had a highly-coloured wife and daughter at home, so he knew—but still, it was rather nice. Poor little thing! She must be feeling lonely. He had told Betha when the telegram came summoning him to Glasgow that he would have to ask his step-sister to come to them at Portland Place. Betha had replied, “Must you?” in no very cordial tone, and had rushed off to her next pressing engagement. But Betha must understand that in this matter he was master in his own house. After all,