The next morning Mrs. Hawkins, dropping in to hear the result of the trip, found Ann Eliza sitting behind the counter wrapped in an old shawl.
“Why, Miss Bunner, you’re sick! You must have fever–your face is just as red!”
“It’s nothing. I guess I caught cold yesterday on the ferry- boat,” Ann Eliza acknowledged.
“And it’s jest like a vault in here!” Mrs. Hawkins rebuked her. “Let me feel your hand–it’s burning. Now, Miss Bunner, you’ve got to go right to bed this very minute.”
“Oh, but I can’t, Mrs. Hawkins.” Ann Eliza attempted a wan smile. “You forget there ain’t nobody but me to tend the store.”
“I guess you won’t tend it long neither, if you ain’t careful,” Mrs. Hawkins grimly rejoined. Beneath her placid exterior she cherished a morbid passion for disease and death, and the sight of Ann Eliza’s suffering had roused her from her habitual indifference. “There ain’t so many folks comes to the store anyhow,” she went on with unconscious cruelty, “and I’ll go right up and see if Miss Mellins can’t spare one of her girls.”
Ann Eliza, too weary to resist, allowed Mrs. Hawkins to put her to bed and make a cup of tea over the stove, while Miss Mellins, always good-naturedly responsive to any appeal for help, sent down the weak-eyed little girl to deal with hypothetical customers.
Ann Eliza, having so far abdicated her independence, sank into sudden apathy. As far as she could remember, it was the first time in her life that she had been taken care of instead of taking care, and there was a momentary relief in the surrender. She swallowed the tea like an obedient child, allowed a poultice to be applied to her aching chest and uttered no protest when a fire was kindled in the rarely used grate; but as Mrs. Hawkins bent over to “settle” her pillows she raised herself on her elbow to whisper: “Oh, Mrs. Hawkins, Mrs. Hochmuller warn’t there.” The tears rolled down her cheeks.
“She warn’t there? Has she moved?”
“Over two months ago–and they don’t know where she’s gone. Oh what’ll I do, Mrs. Hawkins?”
“There, there, Miss Bunner. You lay still and don’t fret. I’ll ask Mr. Hawkins soon as ever he comes home.”
Ann Eliza murmured her gratitude, and Mrs. Hawkins, bending down, kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t you fret,” she repeated, in the voice with which she soothed her children.
For over a week Ann Eliza lay in bed, faithfully nursed by her two neighbours, while the weak-eyed child, and the pale sewing girl who had helped to finish Evelina’s wedding dress, took turns in minding the shop. Every morning, when her friends appeared, Ann Eliza lifted her head to ask: “Is there a letter?” and at their gentle negative sank back in silence. Mrs. Hawkins, for several days, spoke no more of her promise to consult her husband as to the best way of tracing Mrs. Hochmuller; and dread of fresh disappointment kept Ann Eliza from bringing up the subject.
But the following Sunday evening, as she sat for the first time bolstered up in her rocking-chair near the stove, while Miss Mellins studied the Police Gazette beneath the lamp, there came a knock on the shop-door and Mr. Hawkins entered.
Ann Eliza’s first glance at his plain friendly face showed her he had news to give, but though she no longer attempted to hide her anxiety from Miss Mellins, her lips trembled too much to let her speak.
“Good evening, Miss Bunner,” said Mr. Hawkins in his dragging voice. “I’ve been over to Hoboken all day looking round for Mrs. Hochmuller.”
“Oh, Mr. Hawkins–you HAVE?”
“I made a thorough search, but I’m sorry to say it was no use. She’s left Hoboken–moved clear away, and nobody seems to know where.”
“It was real good of you, Mr. Hawkins.” Ann Eliza’s voice struggled up in a faint whisper through the submerging tide of her disappointment.
Mr. Hawkins, in his embarrassed sense of being the bringer of bad news, stood before her uncertainly; then he turned to go. “No trouble at all,” he paused to assure her from the doorway.
She wanted to speak again, to detain him, to ask him to advise her; but the words caught in her throat and she lay back silent.