When Amy got to the station she found she was in time for the first train of the day. There was no third class on it, but she found she had enough money for a second-class ticket, and without a moment’s hesitation, though it left her almost penniless, she took one.

44. The Sick Room

—Forty-Four —

The Sick Room

At Yrndale things went on in the same dull way, anger burrowing like a devil-mole in the bosom of the father, a dreary spiritual fog hanging over all the souls, and the mother wearying for some glimmer of a heavenly dawn. Hester felt as if she could not endure it much longer.

But there was one bright spot in the house yet—Mark’s room, where the major sat by the bedside of the boy, reading, telling him stories, or now and then listening to him as he spoke childlike wisdom in childish words. Saffy came and went, by no means so merry now. In Mark’s room she would at times be her old self again, but nowhere else. Infected by Corney, she had begun to be afraid of her father, and like him watched to keep out of his way. What seemed to add to the misery, though in reality it operated the other way, was that the weather had again put on a wintry temper. Sleet and hail, and even snow fell, alternated with rain and wind, day after day for a week.

One afternoon the wind rose almost to a tempest. The rain drove in sheets, beating unmercifully against the windows of Mark’s room. His was a cheerful room, though low-pitched and very old, with a great beam across the middle of it. There were coloured prints, mostly of Scripture subjects, on the walls; and the beautiful fire burning in the grate shone on them and reflected from the polished floor. The major sat by it in his easy chair. A bedroom had been prepared for him next to the boy’s, and Mark had a string close to his hand whose slightest pull rang a little bell that woke the major like a cannon on the field of battle.

This afternoon, with the rain-charged wind rushing in fierce gusts against the windows, and twilight coming on all the sooner because the world was wrapped in blankets of wet clouds, the major was reading, but soon grew sleepy. A moment more and he was far away, following an imaginary tiger, when Mark woke him with the question:

“Are you ever afraid, Majie? Does the thunder and rain frighten you?”

The major sat bolt upright, rubbed his eyes, stretched himself, but quietly enough that Mark might not know he had waked him, and gave a hem as if pondering deeply instead of trying hard to gather wits enough to understand the question. When he trusted his voice not to betray him, he answered:

“Well, Mark, I can’t say I would like to be out in it.”