He stood regarding with an air of relief the strange outline of Mrs.
Bindle"s head enveloped in the towel. Someone had at last done something.
"She ain"t a-goin" to die, Martha, is she?" he enquired of Mrs. Hearty, his brow lined with anxiety.
"Not "er," breathed Mrs. Hearty rea.s.suringly. "It"s bronchitis. You just light a fire, Joe."
Almost before the words were out of her mouth, Bindle had tip-toed to the door and was taking the stairs three at a time. Action was the one thing he desired. He determined that, the fire once laid, he would set to work to clean out the saucepan he had burned. Somehow that saucepan seemed to bite deep into his conscience.
The doctor came, saw, and confirmed Mrs. Hearty"s diagnosis. Having prescribed a steam-kettle, inhalations of eucalyptus, slop food, warmth and air, he left, promising to look in again on the morrow.
At the bottom of the stairs, he was waylaid by Bindle.
"It ain"t----" he began eagerly, then paused.
The doctor, a young, fair man, looked down from his six feet one, at Bindle"s anxious enquiring face.
"Nothing to be alarmed about," he said cheerfully. "I"ll run in again to-morrow, and we"ll soon have her about again."
"Thank you, sir," said Bindle, drawing a sigh of obvious relief. "Funny thing," he muttered as he closed the door on the doctor, "that you never seems to think o" dyin" till somebody gets ill. I"m glad "e"s a big "un," he added inconsequently. "Mrs. B. likes "em big," and he returned to the kitchen, where he proceeded to sc.r.a.pe the stove and scour the saucepan, whilst Mrs. Hearty continued to minister to her afflicted sister.
Mrs. Bindle"s thoughts seemed to be preoccupied with her domestic responsibilities. From time to time she issued her instructions.
"Make Joe up a bed on the couch in the parlour," she murmured hoa.r.s.ely.
"I"d keep him awake if he slept here."
"Try an" get Mrs. Coppen to come in to get Joe"s dinner," she said, a few minutes later.
And yet again she requested her sister to watch the bread-pan to see that the supply was kept up. "Joe eats a lot of bread," she added.
To all these remarks, Mrs. Hearty returned the same reply. "Don"t you worry, Lizzie. You just get to sleep."
That night Bindle worked long and earnestly that things might be as Mrs.
Bindle had left them; but fate was against him. Nothing he was able to do could remove from the inside of the saucepan the d.a.m.ning evidences of his guilt. The stove, however, was an easier matter; but even that presented difficulties; for, as soon as he applied the moist blacklead, it dried with a hiss and the polishing brush, with the semi-circle of bristles at the end that reminded him of ""Earty"s whiskers," instead of producing a polish, merely succeeded in getting burned. Furthermore, he had the misfortune to break a plate and a pie-dish.
At the second smash, there was a tapping from the room above, and, on going to the door, he heard Mrs. Hearty wheezing an enquiry as to what it was that was broken.
"Only an old galley-pot, Martha," he lied, and returned to gather up the pieces. These he wrapped in a newspaper and placed in the dresser-drawer, determined to carry them off next day. He was convinced that if Mrs. Bindle were about again before the merciful arrival of the dustman, she would inevitably subject the dust-bin to a rigorous examination.
At ten o"clock, Mrs. Hearty heavily descended the stairs and, as well as her breath would permit, she instructed him what to do during the watches of the night. Bindle listened earnestly. Never in his life had he made a linseed poultice, and the management of a steam-kettle was to him a new activity.
When he heard about the bed on the couch, he looked the surprise he felt. Mrs. Bindle never allowed him even to sit on it. He resolutely vetoed the bed, however. He was going to sit up and "try an" bring "er round," as he expressed it.
"Is she goin" to die, Martha?" he interrogated anxiously. That question seemed to obsess his thoughts.
Mrs. Hearty shook her head and beat her breast. She lacked the necessary oxygen to reply more explicitly.
Having conducted Mrs. Hearty to the garden gate, he returned, closed and bolted the door, and proceeded upstairs. As he entered the bedroom, he was greeted by a harsh, bronchial cough that terrified him.
"Feelin" better, Lizzie?" he enquired, with all the forced optimism of a man obviously anxious.
Mrs. Bindle opened her eyes, looked at him for a moment, then, closing them again, shook her head.
""As "e sent you any physic?" he enquired.
Again Mrs. Bindle shook her head, this time without opening her eyes.
Bindle"s heart sank. If the doctor didn"t see the necessity for medicine, the case must indeed be desperate.
"What did he say, Joe?" she enquired in a hoa.r.s.e voice.
In spite of himself Bindle started slightly at the name. He had not heard it for many years.
""E said you"re a-gettin" on fine," he lied.
"Am I very ill? Is it----"
"You ain"t got nothink much the matter with you, Lizzie," he replied lightly, in his anxiety to comfort, conveying the impression that she was in extreme danger. "Jest a bit of a chill."
"Am I dying, Joe?"
In spite of its repet.i.tion, the name still seemed unfamiliar to him.
"I shall be dead-meat long before you, Lizzie," he said, and his failure to answer her question directly, confirmed Mrs. Bindle in her view that the end was very near.
"I"m goin" to make you some arrowroot, now," he said, with an a.s.surance in his voice that he was far from feeling. Ever since Mrs. Hearty had explained to him the mysteries of arrowroot-making, he had felt how absolutely unequal he was to the task.
Through Mrs. Bindle"s mind flashed a vision of milk allowed to boil over; but she felt herself too near the End to put her thoughts into words.
With uncertainty in his heart and anxiety in his eyes, Bindle descended to the kitchen. Selecting a small saucepan, which Mrs. Bindle kept for onions, he poured into it, as instructed by Mrs. Hearty, a breakfast-cupful of milk. This he placed upon the stove, which in one spot was manifesting a dull red tint. Bindle was thorough in all things, especially in the matter of stoking.
He then opened the packet of arrowroot and poured it into a white pudding-basin. At the point where Mrs. Hearty was to have indicated the quant.i.ty of arrowroot to be used, she had been more than usually short of breath, with the result that Bindle did not catch the "two-tablespoonfuls" she had mentioned.
He then turned to the stove to watch the milk, forgetting that Mrs.
Hearty had warned him to mix the arrowroot into a thin paste with cold milk before pouring on to it the hot.
As the milk manifested no particular excitement, Bindle drew from his pocket the evening paper which, up to now, he had forgotten. He promptly became absorbed in a story of the finding at Enfield of a girl"s body bearing evidences of foul play.
He was roused from his absorption by a violent hiss from the stove and, a moment later, he was holding aloft the saucepan, from which a Niagara of white foam streamed over the sides on to the angry stove beneath.
"Wot a stink," he muttered, as he stepped back and turned towards the kitchen table. "Only jest in time, though," he added as, with spoon in one hand, he proceeded to pour the boiling milk on to the arrowroot, a.s.siduously stirring the while.
"Well, I"m blowed," he muttered as, at the end of some five minutes, he stood regarding a peculiarly stodgy ma.s.s composed of a glutinous substance in which were white bubbles containing a fine powder.
For several minutes he stood regarding it doubtfully, and then, with the air of a man who desires to make a.s.surance doubly sure, he spooned the ma.s.s out on to a plate and once more stood regarding it.
"Looks as if it wants a few currants," he murmured dubiously, as he lifted the plate from the table, preparatory to taking it up to Mrs.
Bindle.
"I brought you somethink to eat, Lizzie," he announced, as he closed the door behind him.