Sunshine Jane Part 15

"I'm glad I'm one of the heathen to whom you were sent," said Madeleine affectionately.

Jane put her arm around her. "So am I, dear, very glad."

Madeleine laid her face against the other girl's. "Some day I want to tell you a secret," she said; "a secret that Lorenzo told me yesterday."

Jane felt her heart sort of skip a beat. "Do tell me," she said in a whisper.

"I can't now," said Madeleine. "I want to be all alone with you. It's too--too big a secret to bear to be broken in upon."

"Can you come to-morrow afternoon? Auntie's going to Mrs. Mead's to the Sewing Society, and I'll be here alone."

"That will be nice," said Madeleine; "yes, I'll come."

CHAPTER VIII

SOUL-UPLIFTING

IT was the next morning about eleven o'clock.

"You see," said Jane, sitting in the Crofts' sitting-room opposite Katie Croft who, whatever else she might or might not be, was certainly not pleasant of expression, "you see, my aunt has been an invalid so much that she appreciates what a change means to both the sick one and the one who cares for her, and so we thought that it would be so nice if you'd let me wheel your mother--"

"She ain't my mother--she's my mother-in-law," broke in Mrs. Katie Croft, instantly indignant over so false an imputation. "Good lands, the very idea! My mother! And never one single stroke of paralysis nor nothing in my family, and all reading the Bible without gla.s.ses right up till they died."

"You see, it would give you a little rest, too," Jane continued, "and it would do Aunt Susan good to feel that she was helping a weaker--"

"She ain't weak," broke in Katie Croft, again; "my lands, she's strong as a lady-ox. Anything she makes up her mind to keep she lays hold of with a grip as makes you fairly sick all up and down your back. You don't know perhaps, Miss Grey, as my husband died in our youth, and I come to live with his mother as a sacred duty, and I tell you frankly that I wish I'd never been born or that he'd never been born, forty times an hour--I do."

"You'll like a week alone, I'm sure," said Jane serenely, "and we'll like to have your mother-in-law. Perhaps she'll get a few new ideas--"

"She's stubborn as a mule," interrupted the daughter-in-law.

"But may I see her and ask her? I do so want to help you a little. Life must have been so hard for you these last years."

"Hard!" said Katie Croft, with emphasis. "Hard! Well, I'll tell you what it is, Miss Grey,--to marry a young man as was meek as Moses and then have him just fade right straight out and get a mother-in-law like that old--that old--that old--well, I'll tell you frankly she's a siren and nothing else." (Young Mrs. Croft probably meant "vixen," but Jane did not notice.) "My life ain't really worth a shake-up of mustard and vinegar some days. What I have suffered!"

"I know more than you think," said Jane sympathetically; "nurses take care of so many kinds of people. But do let me ask her. If she likes to come to us, it'll be a great rest to you, and perhaps it'll do her a little good, too."

"I can't understand you're wanting her," said Katie. "It's all over town how queer you are, but I never thought that anybody could be as queer as that!"

"Do let us go to her," Jane urged.

Katie rose and forthwith conducted the caller to old Mrs. Croft's room, a large, square place adorned with no end of black daguerreotypes and faded photographs.

"Mother, it's Miss Grey. You know?--she's Mrs. Ralston's niece."

Old Mrs. Croft received her visitor with acutely suspicious eyes.

"Well?" she said tartly.

Jane took her hand, but she jerked it smartly away.

"Sit down anywhere," said Katie; "she hears well."

"Hear!" said old Mrs. Croft. "I should say I did hear. There ain't a pan fell in the neighborhood for the last ten years as hasn't woke me out of a sound sleep, dreaming of my husband--"

"Miss Grey's come to see you about something," interrupted Katie; "she--"

"I had a husband," continued old Mrs. Croft, raising her voice from Do to Re, "and such a one! Wednesday he'd go to sleep and Thursdays he'd wake, so regular you could tell the days of the week just from his habits. He--"

"Miss Grey wants--" interrupted Katie.

"I came to--" said Jane.

"I had a husband," continued old Mrs. Croft, going from Re to Mi now; "oh, my, but I did have a husband. In May I had him and in December I had him, but he was always the same to me. You can see his picture there, Miss Grey; it's all faded out, just from being looked at; but I'll tell you where it never fades, Miss Grey--it never so much as turns a hair in my heart. My heart is engraved--"

"You'd better go on and say what you've got to say," said Katie to Jane.

"I often put her to bed talking, and she talks all the night through."

"I want to ask you--" Jane began.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," sang Mrs. Croft. "Oh, I had--"

"--I want you to come and stay with us," Jane said, with forceful accents.

There was a sudden tense hush.

"My aunt and I want you to come and make us a little visit," the caller added.

The hush grew awful.

"A little change would be so good for you--you've been shut up so long."

Old Mrs. Croft lifted her two hands towards the ceiling.

"What do you want to take me out of my own house for? Going to do something to it that I wouldn't approve, I expect. Oh, I see it all.

There was Macbeth and there was Oth.e.l.lo, and now there's my house--What are you going to do to it, anyhow?" The question was pitched so high and sharp that Jane jumped.

"We just want to give you a little change."

"Change! I had a change once. Went to Cuba with my husband and nearly died. I don't want no change of _house_," with deep meaning in the emphasis; "the change that I want is another change. Change is a great thing to have. My husband never changed. Only his collars. Never no other way."

"You and Aunt Susan are old friends--" suggested Jane.

"Never nothing special," broke in old Mrs. Croft. "My goodness, I do hope your aunt ain't calling me her friend, because if she is, it's a thing I can't allow."

Jane thanked her stars that her powers of mental concentration forbade her mind to wander. "I'm sure if you came to us, you'd enjoy it," she said persuasively; "we've such a pretty bedroom down-stairs, and I'll sleep on the dining-room sofa, so you won't feel lonely."