The Dull Miss Archinard Part 31

Odd could trust his voice now; her courage, strung as he felt it to be over depths of dreadful suffering, nerved him to a greater self-control.

"If I had known I would have come sooner," he said; "you would have let me help you, wouldn't you?"

"I am afraid you couldn't have _helped_ me. That is the worst of illness, one can only wait; but you would have cheered me up."

"My poor child!" Odd inwardly cursed himself. "If I had known! What have you been doing to yourself, Hilda? You look--"

"f.a.gged, don't I? It is the anxiety; I have given up half my work since you left; my pictures are accepted at the Champs de Mars. We'll all go to the _vernissage_ together. And, as they were done, I let Miss Latimer have the studio for the whole day. That left me my mornings free for mamma."

"Taylor helped you, I suppose?"

"Taylor is with Katherine. She went before mamma was at all ill, and indeed mamma insisted that Katherine must have her maid. I was glad that she should go, for she has worked hard without a rest for so long, and, of course, travelling about as she has been doing, Katherine needed her." There was an explanatory note in Hilda's voice; indeed Odd's silence, big with comment, gave it a touch of defiance. "It made double duty for Rosalie, but she is a good, willing creature, and has not minded."

"And Wilson?"

"He went with papa. I don't think papa could live without Wilson."

"Oh, indeed. I begin to solve the problem of your ghastly little face.

You have been housemaid, _garde-malade_, and bread-winner. Had you no money at all?" Hilda flushed--the quick flush of physical weakness.

"Yes, at first," she replied; "papa gave me quite a lot before going, and that has paid part of the doctor's bills, and my lessons brought in the usual amount."

"Could you not have given up the lessons for the time being?"

"I know you think it dreadful in me to have left mamma for all those afternoons." Her acceptation of a blame infinitely removed from his thoughts stupefied Odd. "And mamma has thought it heartless, most naturally. But Rosalie is trustworthy and kind. The doctor came three times a day and I can explain to _you_"--Hilda hesitated--"the money papa gave me went almost immediately--some unpaid bills."

"What bills?" Odd spoke sternly.

"Why, we owe bills right and left!" said Hilda.

"But what bills were these?"

"There was the rent of the apartment for one thing; we should have had to go had that not been paid; and then, some tailors, a dressmaker; they threatened to seize the furniture."

"Katherine's dressmaker?"

"Yes; Katherine, I know, never dreamed that she would be so impatient; but I suppose, on hearing that Katherine had gone to England, the woman became frightened." Peter controlled himself to silence. The very fulness of Hilda's confidence showed the strain that had been put upon her. "And then," she went on, as he did not speak, "some of the money had to go to Katherine in England. Poor Kathy! To be pinched like that!

She wrote, that at one place it took her last s.h.i.+lling to tip the servants and get her railway ticket to Surrey."

"Why did she not write to me? Considering all things--"

"Oh!" said Hilda--her tone needed no comment--"we have not quite come to that." She added presently and gently, "I had money for her."

Odd took her hand and kissed it; the glove was loose upon it.

"And now," said Hilda, leaning forward and smiling at him, "you have heard me _filer mon chapelet_. Tell me what you have been doing."

"My lazy wanderings in the sun would sound too grossly egotistic after your story."

"Has my story sounded so dismal? _I_ have been egotistic, then. I had hoped that perhaps you would write to me," she added, and a delicately malicious little smile lit her face. Odd looked hard at her, with a half-dreamy stare.

"I thought of you," he said; "I should have liked to write."

"Well, in the future do, please, when you feel like it."

Mrs. Archinard was extended on the sofa in the drawing-room when they reached the Rue Pierre Charron. The crisp daintiness of pseudo-invalidism had withered to a look of sickly convalescence. She was much faded, and her little air of melancholy affectation pitifully fretful.

"You come before my own daughter, Peter," she said; "I don't _blame_ Katherine, since Hilda tells me that she did not let her know of my dangerous condition."

"Not _dangerous_, mamma," Hilda said, with a patient firmness not untouched by resentment, a touch to Odd most new and pleasing. "The doctor had perfect confidence in me, and would have told me. I should have sent for papa and Katherine the moment he thought it advisable.

Under the circ.u.mstances they could have done nothing for you that I did not do." Hilda had, indeed, rather distorted facts to s.h.i.+eld Katherine.

What would Mrs. Archinard have said had she known that Katherine, in answer to a letter begging her to return, had replied that she _could_ not? Even in Hilda's charitable heart that "_could_ not" had rankled.

Odd's despairing gloom discerned something of this truth, as he realized that the uncharacteristic self-justification was prompted by a rebellion against misinterpretation before _him_. Mrs. Archinard showed some nervous surprise.

"Very well, very well, Hilda," she said, "I am sure I ask no sacrifices on _my_ account. One may die alone as one has lived--alone. My life has trained me in stoicism. You had better wash your face, Hilda. There is a great smudge of charcoal on your cheek," and, as Hilda turned and walked out, "I have looked on the face of the King of Terrors, Peter. Peter!

dear old homely name! the faithful ring in it! It is easy for Hilda to talk! I make no complaint. She has nursed me excellently well--as far as her nursing went. But she has a _hard_ soul! no tenderness! no sympathy!

To leave her dying mother every afternoon! To sacrifice me to her _painting_! At such a time! Ah me!" Large tears rolled down Mrs.

Archinard's cheeks, and her voice trembled with weakness and self-pity.

Odd, in his raging resentment, could have exploded the truth upon her; the tears arrested his impulse, and he sat moodily gazing at the floor.

Mrs. Archinard raised her lace-edged handkerchief and delicately touched away the tears.

"I have given my whole life, my whole life, Peter, for my girls! I have borne this long exile from my home for their sakes!" At Allersley Mrs.

Archinard had never ceased complaining of her restricted lot, and had characterized her neighbors as "yokels and Philistines." Speaking with her handkerchief pressed by her finger-tips upon her eyelids, she continued, "I have asked nothing of them but sympathy; _that_ I have craved! And in my hour of need--" Mrs. Archinard's _point de Venise_ bosom heaved once more. Odd took her hand with the unwilling yet pitying kindness one would show towards a silly and unpleasant child.

"I don't think you are quite fair," he said; "Hilda looks as badly as you do. She has had a heavy load to carry."

"I told her again and again to get a _garde-malade_, two if necessary."

Mrs. Archinard's voice rose to a higher key. "She has chosen to ruin her appearance by sitting up to all hours of the night, and by working all day in that futile studio."

"_Garde-malades_ are expensive." Odd could not restrain his voice's edge.

"Expensive! For a dying mother! And with all that is lavished on her studio--canvases, paints, models!"

The depths of misconception were too hopelessly great, and, as Mrs.

Archinard's voice had now become shrilly emphatic, he kept silence, his heart shaken with misery and with pity, despairing pity for Hilda. She re-entered presently, wearing on her face too evident signs of contrition. She spoke to her mother in tones of gentle entreaty, humored her sweetly, gayly even, while she made tea.

"You know I cannot touch cake, Hilda."

"There are b.u.t.tered _brioches_, mamma, piping hot."

"Properly b.u.t.tered, I hope. Rosalie usually places a great clot in the centre, leaving the edges uneatable."

"Mamma is like the princess who felt the pea through all the dozens of mattresses, isn't she?" said Hilda, smiling at Odd. "But _I_ b.u.t.tered these with scientific exact.i.tude."

"Exact.i.tude! Ah! the mirage of science! More milk, more milk!" Mrs.

Archinard raised herself on one elbow to watch with expectant disapproval the concoction of her tea, and, relapsing on her cus.h.i.+ons as the tea was brought to her, "I suppose it _is_ milk, though I prefer cream."

"No, it's cream." Hilda should know, as she had herself just darted round the corner to the _cremerie_. Odd sprang up to take his cup from her. He thought she looked in danger of falling to the ground.