"What must I do?" she asked."What will she want me to do?""It's only," said Martha, "if the pains come on very bad, to give her some drops.They're in a little green bottle by her bed.Five drops...yes, miss, five drops in a little green bottle.Only if the pains is very bad.She's brave--wonderful.I'd 'ave sat up till morning willing, and so of course would Miss Elizabeth.But she seemed to want you, miss."They were like two conspirators whispering there in the dark.The room within was so still.Maggie very softly pushed back the door and entered.She walked a few steps inside the room and hesitated.
There was no sound in the room at all, utter stillness so that Maggie could hear her own breathing as though it were some one else at her side warning her.Then slowly things emerged, the long white bed first, afterwards a shaded lamp beside it, a little table with bottles, a chair--beyond the circle of lighted shadow there were shapes, near the window a high glass, a dark shade that was the dressing-table, and faint grey squares where the windows hung.
In the room was a strange scent half wine, half medicine, and beyond that the plain tang of apples partially eaten, a little smell of oil too from the lamp--very faintly the figure of the Christ above the bed was visible.Maggie moved forward to the bed, then stopped again.She did not know what to do; she could see a dark shadow on the pillow that must she knew be her aunt's hair, and yet she did not connect that with her aunt.The room was cold and, she felt, of infinite space.The smell of the wine and the medicine made her shy and awkward as though she were somewhere where she should not be.
There came a little sigh, and then a very quiet, tired voice.
"Maggie, is that you?"
"Yes, Aunt Anne."
She came very close to the bed, and suddenly, as though a curtain had been drawn back, she could see her aunt's large eyes and white sharp face.
"It was very good of you, dear, to come.I felt ashamed to wake you up at such an hour, but I wanted you.I felt that only you must be with me to-night.It was a call from God.I felt that it must be obeyed.Sit down, dear.There, on that chair.You're not cold, are you?"Maggie sat down, gathering her dressing-gown close about her.She was not even now drawn right out of her dream, and the room seemed fantastic, to rise and fall a little, and to be filled with sound, just out of hearing.For a time she was so sleepy that she nodded on her chair, and the green lamp swelled and quivered and the very bed seemed to sway in the dark, but soon the cold air cleared her head, and she was wide awake, staring before her at the grey window-panes.
Her aunt did not for a long time speak again.Maggie sat there her mind a maze of the Chapel, old Crashaw, Miss Avies, and Martin.
Slowly the cold crept into her feet and her hands, but her head now was burning hot.Then suddenly her aunt began to talk in a dreamy rather lazy voice, not her natural daily tone which was always very sharp and clear.She talked on and on; sometimes her sentences were confused and unfinished, sometimes they seemed to Maggie to have no meaning; once or twice the voice dropped so low that Maggie did not catch the words, but always there was especial urgency behind the carelessness as though every word were being spoken for a listener's benefit--a listener who sat perhaps with pencil and notebook somewhere in the dark behind them.
"So sorry...so sorry, Maggie dear...so sorry," the words ran up and down."I hadn't meant to take you away before the service was over.Elizabeth could have...sometimes my pain is very bad and Ihave to lie down, you know.But it's nothing--nothing really--only I'm glad, rather, that you should share all our little troubles, because then you'll know us better, won't you? Dear Maggie, there's been something between us all this time, hasn't there? Ever since our first meeting--and it's partly been my fault.I wasn't good at first, I wanted to be kind, but I was stiff and shy.You wouldn't think that I'm shy? I am, terribly.I always have been since I was very little, and just to enter a room when other people are there makes me so embarrassed...I remember once when mother was alive her scolding me because I wouldn't come in to a tea-party.But Icouldn't; I stood outside the door in an agony, doing everything to make myself go in--but I couldn't...But now I've come to love you, dear, although of course you have your faults.But they are faults of your age, carelessness, selfishness.They are nothing in the eyes of God, who understands all our weaknesses.And you must learn to know Him, dear.That is my only prayer now.If I am taken, if I go before the great day--if it be His will--then I pray always, now that I may leave you in my place, waiting for Him as I have waited, trusting Him as I have trusted...you saw to-night what it means to us, what it must mean to any one who has listened.There were times, years ago, when I had not turned to God, when I did not care, when I thought of earthly love...God drew me to Himself...You too must come, Maggie--you must come.You mustn't stay outside--you are asked, you are invited--perhaps you will be compelled..."The voice sank: Maggie's teeth chattered in her head from the cold, and her foot had gone to sleep.She felt obstinate and rebellious and frightened, she could not think clearly, and the words that came from her, suddenly, seemed to her not to be her own.
"Aunt Anne, I want to do everything that you and Aunt Elizabeth think I should, but I must be myself, mustn't I? I'm grown up now;I've got my three hundred pounds and I don't think I want to be religious.I'm very grateful to you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I'm not a help to you much, I'm afraid.I know I'm very careless, I do want to be better, and that's all the more reason, perhaps, why I should go out and earn my own living.I'd learn more quickly then.But I do love you and Aunt Elizabeth..."She broke off; she did not love them.She knew that she did not.The only human being in all the world whom she loved was Martin.
