Part 8 (2/2)

Still, one must be always upon one's guard! From this harrowing delusion the doctor had done much to deliver her, indeed she had become more normal in every way under his care. It was only now, a year after his death, that Esther imagined sometimes that there was a slipping back--

The ill effects of sitting at a round table, for instance? It was a long time since this particular fancy had been spoken of and Esther had considered it gone altogether. Yet here it was, cropping out again and just at a time when other problems threatened. Things seemed determined to be difficult to-day.

The fact was that Esther was suffering from the need of a confidant.

Really worried as she felt about her step-mother's health, the burden of taking any determined action against the wishes of the patient herself was a serious one for a young girl. Yet in whom could she confide? Girl friends she had in plenty but not one whose judgment she could trust before her own. Had the minister been an older man or a man of different calibre she might have gone to him, but the idea of appealing to Mr.

Macnair was distasteful. Neither among her father's friends was there one to whom she cared to go for advice concerning her father's widow.

They had one and all disapproved, she knew, of the sudden second marriage and Dr. Coombe had never quite forgiven their disapproval.

Often she felt like refusing the responsibility altogether. After all, her step-mother was a woman quite old enough to manage her own affairs.

If she wished to foolishly imperil her health why need Esther care? Why indeed? But this train of reasoning never lasted long. Always there came a counter-question, ”If you do not care, who will?” And the dearth of any answer settled the burden more firmly upon her rebellious shoulders.

For one thing there was always the inner knowledge that Mary Coombe was weak and that she, Esther, was strong. She had always known this. Even when her father had brought home his pretty bride and Esther, a shy, silent child of eleven, had welcomed her, she had known that the newcomer was the weaker spirit. The bride had known it too. She had never attempted to control Esther, leaving the child entirely to her father--a bit of unwitting wisdom which did much to smooth daily life at the Elms. If the doctor saw his wife's weakness of character it is probable that it did not interfere with his love for her. Why need she be strong while he was strong enough for two? But he had forgotten one thing--the day when she would have to be strong alone!

The realisation came to him upon his death-bed. Esther was sure of this.

He could not speak, but she had read the message of his eyes, the appeal to the strength in her to help the other's weakness. No getting away from the solemn charge of that entreating look!

Esther was thinking of that look now, as she sat alone in the dusk of the veranda. Tea was over and Aunt Amy was putting Jane to bed. From her mother she had had no word. Blank silence had met her when she had taken the tea tray upstairs and called softly through the closed door. Mrs.

Coombe was probably asleep. She would be better to-morrow; but before long she would be ill again, and the interval between the attacks was becoming shorter.

There was anger as well as anxiety in the girl's mind. Her healthy and straightforward youth had little patience with her step-mother's unreasonable caprices. For her illness she had every sympathy, but for the morbid nervousness which seemed to accompany it, none at all. These constant headaches, the increasing nervous irritability from which Mrs.

Coombe suffered lay like a shadow over the house. Yet the sufferer refused to take the obvious way of relief and persisted in her refusal with a stubbornness of which no one would have dreamed her light nature capable. Still, willing or unwilling, something must be done. Aunt Amy, too, was becoming more of an anxiety. Once or twice lately she had spoken of ”Them,” a sign of mental distress which Dr. Coombe had always treated with the utmost seriousness. Perhaps if a doctor were called in for Aunt Amy, Mrs. Coombe would lose her foolish dread of doctors and allow him to prescribe for her also. And if the new doctor were half as clever as Mrs. Sykes said he was--Esther's heart began to warm a little as her fancy pictured such a pleasant solution of all her problems. The little smile curved her lips again as she thought of the maple by the schoolhouse steps, and the lettuce sandwiches and--and everything. She closed her eyes and tried to recall his face as he had looked up at her.

Instinctively she knew it for a good face, strong, humorous, kindly, but strong above all. And it was strength that Esther needed. When she went to bed that night her burden seemed a little lighter.

I believe he can help me, she thought, and it isn't as if he were quite a stranger. After all, we had lunch together once!

CHAPTER VI

Undoubtedly Esther slept better that night for the thought of the new doctor. It cannot be said that the doctor slept better because of her.

In fact he lay awake thinking of her. He did not want to think of her; he wanted to go to sleep. Twice only had he seen her. Once upon the occasion of the red pump and once when casually pa.s.sing her on the main street. There was no reason why her white-rose face with its strange blue eyes and its smile-curved lips should float about in the darkness of Mrs. Sykes' best room. Yet there it was. It was the eyes, perhaps.

The doctor admitted that they were peculiar eyes, startlingly blue. Dark blue in the shade of the lashes, flas.h.i.+ng out light blue fire when the lashes lifted. But Mrs. Sykes' boarder did not want to think about eyes.

He wanted to go to sleep. He did not want to think about hair either.

Although Miss Coombe had very nice hair--cloudy hair, with little ways of growing about the temple and at the curve of the neck which a blind man could not help noticing. In the peaceful shadows of the room it seemed a still softer shadow framing the vivid girlish face.

Still, on the whole, sleep would have been better company and when at last he did drop off he did not relish being wakened by the voice of Ann at his door.

”Doc-ter, doc-ter! Are you awake? Can I come in?”

”I am not awake. Go away.”

Ann's giggle came clearly through the keyhole.

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