CHAPTER VII
A NEW OUTLOOK ON MATILDA
THE next morning Susan looked half-sheepish and half-anxious. "I justcouldn't help it, Jane. I laid in bed so long, thinking, and then itcome over me what life was going to be when she was back and you goneand--well--I just couldn't help coming. I felt awful."
Jane was busy with breakfast. "I know, Auntie, I know. I ought to havethought of Aunt Matilda sooner. Half her stay is over."
"Oh, my, I should say it was," wailed Susan; "that's what scares me so.We're so happy, and the time is going so fast. It's about the most awfulthing I ever knew."
Jane began beating eggs for an omelette.
"We never were one bit alike," Susan intoned mournfully; "we were alwaysso different, and then when husband died, there was just nothing to dobut for us to live together. She's my only sister, and it's right that Ishould humor her, but, oh my, what a scratch-about life she has led me.I was getting to feel more like a mouse than a woman--soon as I got abite, I'd begin to tremble and to listen and then how I _did_ run!"
"But it will be all so different when she comes back," Jane saidcheerily. "She'll be very different, and so will you. It'll be just likeI told you last night."
"I know,--I know. But somehow I can't see it as you do. I'm all upset.And I'm so happy without her. We're so happy. The house looks beautiful.You've just made everything over. I declare, Jane, I never saw anythinglike you. All my old things have turned new, and so pretty. I feel likea bride. That is, I feel like a bride when I ain't thinking of Matilda."
"It looks very nice, surely," said Jane, smiling. "Your things were sopretty, anyhow. But what I was gladdest about was to really get it allopened up and fresh. I didn't want any one to come while it was sogloomy. The whole town may call now."
"They do, too," said Susan, diverted for the minute; "they certainly do.Oh, it is so nice, I so adore to hear all about things again. Matildajust shut everybody out. She didn't like company."
"She was pretty busy, you know."
"She hadn't any more to do than you have. She hadn't so much to do asyou have, because she didn't do a thing you do."
"But you were ill. She was always up and down stairs--"
"No, she wasn't, Jane. No, she wasn't."
"Well, she had your meals to carry upstairs."
"I don't call it meals to run with a teacup. Meals! _Such_ meals! It's awonder I didn't die. She'd turn anything upside down on a plate andsomething else upside down on that, and call it a meal for me. I wasabout sick, just from how she fed me. If I said something was cooked toodry, she emptied the tea-kettle into it next time; and if I saidanything was too wet, she put on fresh coal and left it in the oven overnight. If I said the room was too light, she shut it up as dark as apickpocket; and if I said it was too dark, she turned the sun into myeyes. She's my only sister and I must humor her, but I've had a veryhard time, Jane, and I don't blame myself for waking up with my teethall of a chatter over the thought of living with her again."
Jane had their breakfast ready now on the table by the window. "Come andsit down," she said; "we'll talk while we eat. It's like I told you lastnight,--there must be a hitch somewhere. Of course, God has a goodreason for you and Aunt Matilda living together. He doesn't allowaccidents in His world."
"Perhaps He wasn't thinking. I can't believe that anybody woulddeliberately put anybody in the house with Matilda--not if they knewMatilda. I didn't know what she'd grown into myself when she first cameto take care of me, because I was a little poorly. It was to savespending on a nurse, you know. They're such trying, prying things,nurses are."
"I'm a nurse, you know."
"My goodness, I didn't mean your kind; I meant the regular kind."
Jane was laughing. "But I mustn't laugh," she said, after a minute; "wemust go to work. Let's see if we can find out how it all began. Didn'tyou and Aunt Matilda get on nicely at first?"
Susan considered. "Well, I don't believe we did. She was always so verysparing. Husband was sparing, and of course I'd had a good many years ofit, but when your husband's gone and you've got the property yourselfand have left it to an only sister who takes care of you, you don't likeher being even more sparing,--putting you on skim-milk right from thefirst and chopping the potato peelings in the hash."
"But there must have been some good in the situation, or it wouldn'thave been. When there's a wrong situation, the cure lies in hunting outthe good, not in talking over the bad."
"You won't find any good in Matilda and me living together,--not if youhunt till Doomsday." Susan took a big sip of coffee and then shook herhead hard.
"There's good in everything."
"I don't know what it was here, then. I was all ready to die, and thedoctor said I couldn't live, and when I found out how Matilda wascounting on it, I just made up my mind to live just to spite her. Butit's been awful hard work."
Jane turned and seized her hand. "Well, maybe that's the reason for thesituation, then. You see if she'd been different, you'd have died, butbeing a person who made you mad, you stayed alive."
Susan laughed a little. "I've been mad enough, I know," she went on;"it's awful to be up-stairs the way I've been and have to prowldown-stairs and run off with your food like a dog in an alley. I wasalways watching till I saw Matilda over that second fence and thenracing for something to eat. I've been very hungry often and often,Jane, very hungry indeed,--and in my own house, too."
The tears came into the girl's eyes. "Poor Auntie!" she said. "Well,it's all over now and won't ever come back. You must believe me when Isay so. Old conditions never return. The wheel can't turn backward. Thatmustn't be."
"But how'll it help it when Matilda's visit gets over?"
Jane rested her chin on her hands and looked out of the window. "I'llhave to get you on to a plane where you can't live as you did everagain," she said.
"On a plane!--" Susan stared.
"A plane is a kind of grade in life. We keep going up them like stairs,and the quieter and happier people live, the higher is the plane onwhich they are. It's very simple, when you come to understand it. It'ssort of like a marble staircase built out of a marsh and on up amountain. You can stand down in the mud, or step higher in the reeds, orstep higher in the water (generally it's hot water," Jane interruptedherself to say with a little smile). "Or out on the dry earth, or higherwhere it's flowers, or higher or higher. But every time you get up astep you leave all the mess of all the lower steps behind you forever.Do you understand?"
"No, I don't."
"Why, don't you see that if you lift yourself higher than yoursurroundings, of course you'll have other conditions around you and bereally living another life? We can't possibly be bound by conditionslower than our souls. It's a law. I'll help you to understand it, andthen it will help you to not be at all troubled over Aunt Matilda.You'll be above her. Don't you see? One can always get out of adisagreeable life by lifting one's self above it."
"But I did stay up-stairs," said Susan, with beautiful literalness. "Ithink it's awful to have to keep a plane above any one, when the wholehouse is yours."
"I didn't mean that," said Jane. "I meant that mentally you must getabove her. It isn't in words or in thoughts,--you must _be_ above her.You must get free. I must help you. You can do it. Anybody can do it.And as soon as you are free in your spirit, your life will change. Ourdaily life follows our thoughts. Our thoughts make a pattern, and lifeweaves it. The world of stars that we can't hardly grasp at all is allGod's thought. The life in this house was your thought and AuntMatilda's."
"It wasn't mine," said Susan quickly; "it was hers."
"Well, it's mine now," said Jane. "That's the true business of theSunshine Nurses. They must get a new thought into a house and get it togrowing well. Then they'll leave the true sunshine there forever after."
Susan's eyes were very curious--very bright. "I declare I don't see howyou'll do it here," she said. "I can't look at Matilda any new way, as Iknow of. Whatever she does, she does just exactly
as I don't like it."
"I suppose that you try her, too."
"Well, I didn't die; of course she minded that. But I couldn't die. Youcan't die just to order."
"No, of course not; I didn't mean that." Jane was quite serious. "Idon't blame you at all for not doing that."
Susan had finished and rose from the table. "Let's leave the dishes andgo out in the yard," she said. "I'm awfully anxious to keep on at thistill we find a way out, if you think that you can; I go about wild whenI think of her. I'm ready for anything except staying in bed any more."
"Oh, that's all over," said Jane. "You're off the bed-plane now, anddon't you see how much higher you've got already? The next step is tofix yourself so securely on this happy one that you know that it's yoursand you can't leave it. You see, you feel able to go back down again,and as long as you feel that way, it's possible. One has to bar out thewrong kind of life forever, and then of course it's over."
"But she is coming back," said Susan, "and I can't live any more ongobbles of milk and cold bits swallowed while I'm getting up-stairsthree steps to the jump."
Jane looked at her. "I expect that exercise was awfully good for you,Auntie," she said seriously. "You've probably gotten a lot of health andinterest out of it. Don't forget that."
"Well, maybe; but I don't want any more." Susan's tone was terriblyearnest.
"It's all over then," said Jane, slowly and with emphasis; "if you trulyand honestly don't want any more, then it must be all over. The thing todo now is to build a firm connection between ourselves and it's beingall over."
"I don't quite understand what you mean," said Susan, "but something'sgot to be done, of course, because otherwise she'll come home, and oh,my, her face when she sees me up and around!"
Jane knit her brows. "You see, Auntie," she said slowly, "there's onlyone thing to do. We've got to change ourselves completely; we've to getwhere we want her to come home and where we look forward to it--"
Susan stopped short and lifted up both hands. "Gracious, we can't everdo that! It isn't in humanity."
"Yes, we can do it," said Jane firmly; "people can always do anythingthat they can think out, and if we can think this out straight, we cando it."
"How?"
"It isn't easy to see in just the first minute, but I understand theprinciple of it and I know that we can work it, for I've seen it done.You do it by getting an entirely new atmosphere into the house."
"But you've done that already," interrupted Susan. "It isn't mustyanywhere any more, and there's such a kind of a happy smell instead."
"I don't mean that kind of an atmosphere. I mean a change of feeling inourselves. We've got to somehow make ourselves all over; we must reallyand truly be different."
"But I am made over, and you were all right, anyhow."
"No, I'm not all right," said Jane firmly. "I'm very wrong. I'm lettingsilly thoughts with which I've no business torment me dreadfully, andI'm not driving them out with any kind of resolution. Then we're bothdoing wrong about Aunt Matilda. We're making a narrow little black boxof our opinion and crowding her into it all the time. There's nothing sodreadful as the way families just chain one another to their faults.Outsiders see all the nice things, and we have lots of courage to alwayslive up to their opinions, but families spend most of their time justnailing those they love best into pretty little limits. You and I are sohappy together, and we're changing ourselves and one another every day,but we never think that Aunt Matilda's also having experience andchanging herself, too. We kind of forbid her to grow better."
"You won't find anything that will change Matilda very quick, Jane.She's a dreadful person to stick to habits; she's drunk out of the bluecup and give me the green one for these whole five years."
"The change in the atmosphere of the house," said Jane slowly, "must becomplete. We must never say one more word about her that isn't nice, andwe mustn't even think unkind thoughts. We must talk about her lots andlook forward to her coming back--"
"Oh, heavens, I can't," gasped Susan.
"We'll begin to-day on her room--"
"Then you'll make her madder than a hatter, sure; she can't bear to haveher room touched."
"I'm going to make it the prettiest room in the house," said Janeresolutely. "I'm going to brush and clean and mend and fix all thoseclothes she's left hanging up, and I'm going to love her dearly from nowon."
Susan sat still, her lips moving slightly, but whether with repressedfeeling or trembling sentiment it would be impossible to say. "Shelooked awful cute when she was little and wore pantalettes," she saidfinally.
"Bravo!" cried Jane, running to her and kissing her. "There's a finevictory for you, and now,"--her face brightening suddenly,--"I've got anidea of what we can do to lift us right straight up into a new circle oflife. What do you say to our making the little back parlor over into abedroom, and--"
"--taking Mr. Rath to board?" cried Susan joyfully. "Oh, I am sure thathe wanted to come all along."
Jane laughed outright. "No, indeed, the very idea! No, what I thought ofwas inviting that poor old Mrs. Croft here for a week and giving her andher daughter-in-law a rest from one another."
Susan gave a sharp little yell. "Why, Jane Grey, I never heard the beat!Why, she can't even feed herself!"
"It would be a way to change the atmosphere of the house; it's just thekind of thing that would change us all--"
"I should think it would change us all," interrupted Susan; "why, shethrew a cup of tea at Katie's back last week. Katie said she couldn'tpossibly imagine what had come over her,--she was leaning out to hookthe blinds."
"It would be a Bible-lovely thing to do," Jane went on slowly. "You or Icould feed her, and I'd take care of her. I'm a nurse, you know!"
"Jane! Well, you beat all! Well, I never did! Old Mrs. Croft. Why, theysay you might as well be gentle with a hornet."
"Maybe she has her reasons; maybe it's,--Set a hornet to tend a hornet,for all we know. Anyway, it's come to me as some good to do, and when Ithink of any good that I can do, I have to do it,--else it's a sin.That's my religion."
"That religion of yours'll get you into a lot of hot water along throughlife." Susan's tone was very grave. "And you've never seen old Mrs.Croft, or you'd never speak of her and religion in the same breath.They've got a cat she caresses, and some days she caresses it for allshe's worth. I've heard the cat being caressed when it was quiet,myself, many's the time. You can't use that religion of yours on oldMrs. Croft; she isn't a subject for religion. She's one of that kindthat the man in the Bible thanked God he wasn't one of them."
"My religion is what brought me here to you," said Jane gently. "Youaren't really sorry that I learned it, are you, Auntie?"
Susan's eyes moistened quickly. She gasped, then swallowed, then made upher mind. "Well, Sunshine Jane," she said resignedly, "when shall we gether?"
"We'll put her room in order to-morrow morning, and I'll go and ask herin the afternoon."
"Oh, dear!" said Susan, with a world of meaning in the two syllables. "Ihope she'll enjoy the change."
Jane laughed. "Goodness, Auntie, I never saw any one pick up new ideasas quick as you do. I was months learning how to make myself over, andyou do it in just a few hours. You must have laid a big foundation ofself-control up there in bed."
Susan sighed, uncheered. "It kept me pretty sharp, I tell you," shesaid; "when you're always hungry and have to get your food on the slyand be positively sure of never being found out, it does keep you intrim being spry pretty steady."
"May we come in?" asked voices at the gate. It was Lorenzo Rath andMadeleine. "We wanted to see how you were getting on to-day," the lattercalled.
"We've been changing the furniture and the atmosphere," said Susan,trying bravely to smile. "Jane is turning everything around and bringingthe bright new side out."
"If you'll come and help me wash the breakfast dishes and then makebiscuits," Jane said to Madeleine, "I'll ask you both to lunch."
"I want to lear
n how to do everything, of course," said Madeleine.
"And why shouldn't we go down to the garden?" suggested Lorenzo toSusan. "You'll point out the things you want to-day, and I'll pull 'emup."
"But there are fences to climb," said Jane.
"Fiddle for fences," said her aunt; "he'll go ahead, and I'll skim over'em like a squirrel. I never made anything of fences."
So they divided the labor.
"The house looks so pretty," said Madeleine, as she and Jane wentthrough to the kitchen. "How do you ever manage it,--with just the samethings, too?"
Jane glanced about. "Why, there's a right place for everything, and ifyou just stand back a bit and let the things have time to think, they'lltell you where to put them. There was an old blue vase in thedining-room that was pretty weak-minded, but I was patient and carriedit all over the place till finally it was suited on top of the what-notin the corner of the hall. The trouble with most things is that we hurrythem too much at first, and then we don't help them out of their falseposition later."
"Oh, Jane, you are so delightfully quaint. You must tell Mr. Rath that.It's the kind of speech that will just charm the soul right out of anartist."
Jane was deep in the flour-bin. "But I don't want to charm his soul.I'll leave that to you."
"To me! Why, he doesn't care a rap about me."
"Well, then, to Emily Mead."
"Emily Mead! Oh, my dear, you have put a lot of new ideas into her head!She says that you told her that any one could get anything that he orshe wanted."
"And so they can."
"Suppose she wants Mr. Rath?"
"If she wants him in the right way, she'll have him."
"I don't like that way of speaking of men," said Madeleine, dipping herwhite fingers into the flour and beginning to chip the butter throughit. "Don't you think it's horrid how girls speak of men nowadays? I do."
"Of course I do," said Jane. "But one drops into the habit just becauseeverybody does it. I'll never be married myself, and it's partly becauseI think it's all being so dragged down. Instead of two people's knowingone another and liking one another better till finally a big, beautiful,holy secret sort of dawns on them and makes the world all over new,girls just go on and act as if men were wild animals to be hunted andcaught and talked about, or married and made fun of. I don't think allthese new ideas and new ways for women have made women a bit morewomanly. When I had to earn my living, I picked out work that a mancouldn't do, and that I wouldn't be hurting any man by doing. I'm sorryfor men nowadays. And I think women lose a lot the way some of them goon."
"After all, there can't be anything nicer than to be a woman, canthere?" said Madeleine, stirring as the other poured in ingredients."I've always been glad that I was a woman. I think that a woman's lifeis so sweet, and it's beautiful to be protected and cared for." The pinkflew over her cheeks at the words.
Jane's lashes swept downward for a minute, then rose resolutely. "Or toprotect and care for others. It always seems to me as if a woman was thesort of blessed way through which a man's love and strength and care goto his children. Men are so helpless with children, but they do such alot for wives, and then the mothers pass it on to the little ones."
"Life's lovely when you think of it rightly, isn't it?" Madeleine saidthoughtfully. "I'm so pleased over having come here. You see Father andMother wanted me to spend a few weeks quietly where I could rest andpick myself up a little, and so they sent me here. I didn't care muchabout coming, but I'm glad now. You're doing me lots of good, Jane; youseem to help me to unlock the doors to everything that's just best inme."
"It isn't that I do it," said Jane; "it's that it's been done to me, andafter it got through me, it's bound to shine on. It's like light; everywindow you clean lets it through into another place, where maybe there'ssomething else to clean and let it through again."
"I suppose we just live to keep clean and let light through," laughedMadeleine, cutting out the biscuits.
"That's all."
"I think that you'd make a good preacher, Jane; you've such nice, plain,homely, understandable ways of putting things."
Jane laughed and popped the pan into the oven. "Come and help lay thetable," she said. "Oh, you never saw anything as sweet as Aunt Susan'sjoy in her own things. She's like a little child at Christmas. It's akind of coming back to life for her."
"They say that her sister was awfully mean to her."
"But she wasn't at all. She thought that she was sicker than she was,and she kept her in bed, and the joke of it was that Aunt Susan didn'tlike to hurt her feelings by letting her see what mistaken ideas shehad, so she hopped up every time the coast was clear and kept lively andinterested trying to be about and in bed at once."
"How perfectly delightful! I never heard anything so funny. And then youcame and discovered the truth."
"Well, I didn't want her to stay in bed. I'd never encourage any one ina false belief, but she hadn't the belief,--she had only the falseappearance. She didn't enjoy being an invalid one bit."
"I think it's too droll," said Madeleine. "Didn't you laugh when itdawned on you first?"
"It dawned on me rather sadly. But we laugh together now."
"What will she do when her sister comes back?"
"Oh, that will all come out nicely. I don't know just how, but I knowthat it will come out all right."
"Do you always have faith in things coming out rightly?"
"Always. I wouldn't dare not to. I'm one of those people who kind offeel the future as it draws near, and so I wouldn't allow myself to feelany mean future drawing near, on principle. I always feel that nicethings are marching straight towards me as fast as ever the band ofmusic plays."
"Do you believe that it really makes any difference?"
"Of course it makes a difference. It makes all the difference in theworld, because hope's a rope by which any good thing can haul you rightup to it, hand over hand."
"You give me a lot to think about," said Madeleine.
Jane ran out and picked some ivy leaves to place under the vase offlowers in the middle of the table. It made a little green mat. "There;we're all ready when they come, now," she said.
Presently they did come.
"Oh, what will Mrs. Cowmull say to this!" said Lorenzo, as he pulled outMrs. Ralston's chair. "She's busy marking passages in _The Seven Lampsof Architecture_ to read aloud to me while I eat, and now I shan't showup at all."
"Have you seen her niece lately?" asked Madeleine.
"Yes, I saw her this morning. She wants to pose for me, only shestipulated that she should wear clothes. I told her that my models allwore thick wool and only showed a little of their faces. She didn't seemto like that."
"But what did you mean? Surely you don't always have them wear thickwoolen?"
"I just do. If they haven't thick wool on, I won't paint them at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, I paint sheep."
The mild little joke met with great favor.
"I think you're a very clever young man," Susan said with greatsincerity. "To think of me having a good time laughing with a sheeppainter," she added. "Who holds them for you to paint, and do you setthem afterwards?"
"I paint them right in the fields," said Lorenzo.
"I should think they'd butt you from behind."
"I paint over a fence."
"Well, that's safe," said Jane's aunt. "If you're careful not to be onthe side where there's a bull."
After supper Madeleine helped Jane wash the dishes.
"What fun you make out of everything," she said.
"It's the only way," Jane answered. "My mission is to make two sunbeamsshine where only one slanted."
"I'm glad I'm one of the heathen to whom you were sent," said Madeleineaffectionately.
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 totell 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 awhisper.
"I can't now," said Madeleine. "I want to be all alone with you. It'stoo--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 theSewing Society, and I'll be here alone."
"That will be nice," said Madeleine; "yes, I'll come."