Part 22 (1/2)

He looked at her in his usual sightless manner, and asked her what she intended to do.

”I shall dust the books,” she said.

”Ah, I dare say they want it,” he remarked.

”I shall get a little teaching to do,” she continued. ”And I shall take care of you.”

”Ah,” he said vaguely. He did not understand what she meant. She had never been very near to him, and he had never been very near to her.

He had taken but little notice of her comings and goings; she had either never tried to win his interest or had failed: probably the latter. Now she was going to take care of him.

This was the home to which Bernardine had returned. She came back with many resolutions to help to make his old age bright. She looked back now, and saw how little she had given of herself to her aunt and her uncle. Aunt Malvina was dead, and Bernardine did not regret her. Uncle Zerviah was here still; she would be tender with him, and win his affection. She thought she could not begin better than by looking after his books. Each one was dusted carefully. The dingy old shop was restored to cleanliness. Bernardine became interested in her task.

”I will work up the business,” she thought. She did not care in the least about the books; she never looked into them except to clean them; but she was thankful to have the occupation at hand: something to help her over a difficult time. For the most trying part of an illness is when we are ill no longer; when there is no excuse for being idle and listless; when, in fact, we could work if we would: then is the moment for us to begin on anything which presents itself, until we have the courage and the inclination to go back to our own particular work: that which we have longed to do, and about which we now care nothing.

So Bernardine dusted books and sometimes sold them. All the time she thought of the Disagreeable Man. She missed him in her life. She had never loved before, and she loved him. The forlorn figure rose before her, and her eyes filled with tears. Sometimes the tears fell on the books, and spotted them.

Still, on the whole she was bright; but she found things difficult. She had lost her old enthusiasms, and nothing yet had taken their place.

She went back to the circle of her acquaintances, and found that she had slipped away from touch with them. Whilst she had been ill, they had been busily at work on matters social and educational and political.

She thought them hard, the women especially: they thought her weak.

They were disappointed in her; she was now looking for the more human qualities in them, and she, too, was disappointed.

”You have changed,” they said to her: ”but then of course you have been ill, haven't you?”

With these strong, active people, to be ill and useless is a reproach.

And Bernardine felt it as such. But she had changed, and she herself perceived it in many ways. It was not that she was necessarily better, but that she was different; probably more human, and probably less self- confident. She had lived in a world of books, and she had burst through that bondage and come out into a wider and a freer land.

New sorts of interests came into her life. What she had lost in strength, she had gained in tenderness. Her very manner was gentler, her mode of speech less a.s.sertive. At least, this was the criticism of those who had liked her but little before her illness.

”She has learnt,” they said amongst themselves. And they were not scholars. They _knew_.

These, two or three of them, drew her nearer to them. She was alone there with the old man, and, though better, needed care. They mothered her as well as they could, at first timidly, and then with that sweet despotism which is for us all an easy yoke to bear. They were drawn to her as they had never been drawn before. They felt that she was no longer a.n.a.lysing them, weighing them in her intellectual balance, and finding them wanting; so they were free with her now, and revealed to her qualities at which she had never guessed before.

As the days went on, Zerviah began to notice that things were somehow different. He found some flowers near his table. He was reading about Nero at the time; but he put aside his Gibbon, and fondled the flowers instead. Bernardine did not know that.

One morning when she was out, he went into the shop and saw a great change there. Some one had been busy at work. The old man was pleased: he loved his books, though of late he had neglected them.

”She never used to take any interest in them,” he said to himself.

”I wonder why she does now?”

He began to count upon seeing her. When she came back from her outings, he was glad. But she did not know. If he had given any sign of welcome to her during those first difficult days, it would have been a great encouragement to her.

He watched her feeding the sparrows. One day when she was not there, he went and did the same. Another day when she had forgotten, he surprised her by reminding her.

”You have forgotten to feed the sparrows,” he said. ”They must be quite hungry.”

That seemed to break the ice a little. The next morning when she was arranging some books in the old shop, he came in and watched her.