Kitabı oku: «A Bevy of Girls», sayfa 6

“Dear me, cook, I think you are remarkably impertinent. I shall ask mother not to keep you. Mother never would allow servants to speak to us in that tone. You forget yourself, Susan.”

“It’s you that forgets yourself, Miss Nesta,” said Susan. “There; where’s the use of stirring up ill will? Ain’t there sorrow enough in this house this blessed night?”

“Sorrow,” said Nesta, now really alarmed. “What is it?”

“It’s your mother, poor soul,” said Susan. She looked into Nesta’s face and there and then determined not to spare her.

“Mother? Mother?”

For the first time the girl forgot herself. There fell away from her that terrible cloak of selfishness in which she had wrapped herself.

“Mother? Is anything wrong with her?”

“Dr Anstruther is upstairs, and he is going to spend the night here, and Miss Marcia is with her, and not a living soul of you is to go near her; you wouldn’t when you might, and now you long to, you won’t be let; so that’s about the truth, and if the poor darling holds out till the morning it’ll be something to be thankful for. Why, she nearly died, and for all that I can tell you, she may be dying now.”

“Nonsense!” said Nesta. “What lies you tell!”

She stalked out of the kitchen. For the life of her she could not have gone out in any other fashion. Had she attempted any other than the utmost bravado, she must have fallen. In the hall she met Molly and Ethel coming in; their faces were bright, their eyes were shining. What a good time they had had. That supper! That little impromptu dance afterwards! The tennis before supper! The walk home with Jim and Harry. Jim escorted Molly home; he had quite forgiven her, and Harry was untiring in his attentions to Ethel. Oh, what a glorious, glorified world they had been living in. But, now, what was the matter! They saw Nesta and looked into her face. Full of wrath they pounced upon her.

“Don’t,” said Nesta. “Don’t speak. Come in here.”

She took both their hands, dragged them into her father’s study, and shut the door.

“Look here, both of you,” she said, “I’ve been beast; I’ve been the lowest down sort of a girl that ever lived, but you have been a degree worse, and we have killed mother. Yes, we have killed her.”

Ethel dropped into a chair and clasped her side with one hand.

“You needn’t believe me, but it’s true. She was alone all the afternoon, and Marcia came home, and she saw mother, who was nearly gone, and the doctor is here and he is going to stay all night, and perhaps she’ll be dead in the morning, and we have done it – we are her own children and we have done it. You and Molly and I; we have all done it; we are monsters; we are worse than beasts. We are horrors. I hate us! I hate us! I hate us!”

Each hate as it was hurled from her young lips was uttered with more emphasis than the last, and now she flung herself full length on the carpet – the dirty, faded carpet, and sobbed as though her heart would break.

“We’re not to go to her – she won’t have any of us near her. She won’t have us now – we gave her up – she was alone all the afternoon, and now we are not to go to her, we are to stay away; that’s what we are to do.”

Molly was the first to recover her voice.

“It can’t be as bad as that,” she said.

Ethel looked up with a scared face. Molly’s face was just as scared as her sisters’. As she uttered the words she sank, too, in a limp fashion, on the nearest chair. Then she unpinned her hat and flung it from her to the farthest end of the room.

“You may stay there, you horrid thing,” she said. Her gloves were treated in the same manner. She looked down at the bows on her dress and began unfastening them.

“I hate them,” she said. “Mother called them pretty. I hate them!”

“What’s the good of undressing yourself in that fashion?” said Ethel.

“She had the beginning of the attack when I was with her,” said Molly. “I am worse than you, Nesta, worse than you, Ethel, for you did not see her. I gave her some sal volatile, and she got sleepy, and I put a shawl over her and left her. I am worse than either of you.”

“Well,” said Ethel, rousing herself, “I don’t believe it is as bad as this. I don’t think it can be. I’ll go up and find out.”

She went out of the room, but she tottered very badly as she went up the stairs, glancing behind her as though fearful of her own shadow. There was a light in the spare room; the door was partly open. She peeped in. Dr Anstruther was there. He was pacing up and down.

“Ah!” he said, when he saw Ethel’s face. “Come in.”

He looked at her again, and then said quietly – “Sit down.”

He went to the table, poured something into a glass, mixed it with water, and brought it to the girl.

“Drink this,” he said.

“I don’t want to,” replied Ethel.

“Drink it at once,” said the doctor.

She obeyed; it was strong sal volatile and water.

“Now,” he said, “you clearly understand that the duty you have to perform to-night in this house, is absolutely to forget yourself – obliterate yourself if necessary. Don’t do one single thing that you are told not to do, and if you can, keep your sisters in the background. You may all be wanted at any moment, or you may not. You are not, any of you, to go to your mother’s room without my permission. Don’t think of yourselves at all. If there is any way in which you can help the servants, do it, but do it quietly, and don’t become hysterical; don’t add to the trouble in the house to-night.”

“But we have all neglected her – ”

“You can tell your clergyman that in the morning – you can tell your God to-night – it is not my affair. I have to do with the present. Act now with obedience, with utter quiet, with calm, with self-restraint. Go down now and tell your sisters what I have said.”

“I will,” said Ethel. She went out of the room.

“Poor child!” thought Dr Anstruther. “I had to be hard on her to keep her up; she’d have broken down otherwise. God grant that those girls have not a rude awakening – they very nearly did have it – God help them, poor things.”

When Mr Aldworth and Horace returned late that evening, it was the doctor who drew the poor husband into his own study and told him the truth. He concealed as much as possible of the girls’ conduct; he admitted that Mrs Aldworth had been neglected during the day, but he made the best of it.

“In any case,” he said, “this attack was quite likely to come. Had there been any one near her it might not have been so prolonged, and the consequences would not have been so serious; but it was bound to come.”

“And Marcia?” said the father then.

“Oh, she is all right, she is a brick – she is one in a thousand.”

Chapter Eleven
Repentance and Afterwards

The three girls found themselves in their own bedroom.

“Don’t turn up the light,” said Ethel. “Let’s sit in the dark.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Molly, “we’d best have the light, we may be wanted.”

“Yes, I forgot that,” replied Ethel.

She turned on the gas, which roared a little and then subsided into a sullen yellow flame. The shade belonging to the gas jet had been broken that morning by Nesta in a game of romps with her two sisters.

“How hot it is,” said Nesta presently.

No one took any notice of her remark, and after a time Ethel spoke.

“I ought to tell you,” she said.

Molly turned her haggard face.

“What?” she asked. “If it is anything awful, I shall scream.”

“You won’t – so there!”

“What do you mean? How can you prevent me?”

“I saw,” said Ethel, and she gulped down a sob in her throat – “I saw Dr Anstruther, and he said we were to forget ourselves – to obliterate ourselves – that was the word he used – to keep ourselves out of sight. We might be wanted, or we might not. We’re of no account – no account at all – that was the kind of thing he said, and I’m not a bit surprised.”

“Nor am I,” said Nesta; “we’re beasts. I wish we could be killed. I wish we could be buried alive. I wish – I wish – anything but what has happened.”

Molly went and stood by the window.

“I’m the worst of you,” she said after a pause.

“No, you’re not,” said Nesta – “I’m the worst. Nothing would have happened at all if I hadn’t run away in that mean, horrid, detestable fashion. I thought it was such a joke. You both really did think you had a day off, and it was my turn to be with her – with her. Why, I’d give my two hands to be with her now.” Nesta held out her two plump little hands as she spoke. “The doctor may cut them off; he may chop me in bits – he may do anything if only I might be with her.”

“Well, you cannot,” said Ethel; “you’re no more to her now than the rest of us. What you say is quite right; you did do worse.”

“No, don’t say that,” interrupted Molly, “I was the worst. I saw the attack begin, and I knew it, for I have seen it before. But I shut it out of my mind; there was a door in my mind, and I shut it firm and locked it, and forced myself to forget, and when she was lying there so white and panting for breath, I just put a shawl over her, and said, you will have such a nice sleep, and I went away back to my fun – my fun! Fancy my eating strawberries and cream, and mother – mother so ill. Fancy it! Think of it?”

“I don’t want to think of it,” said Ethel. “I wish we could have something to make us go into a dead sleep. I want this night to go by. I don’t think that Marcia should have all her own way.”

Then she remembered the doctor’s words.

“I wish I might dare to open the door very softly,” said Nesta, “and just creep, creep upstairs and watch outside. I wish I might. Do you think I might?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” said Ethel, with a momentary gleam of hope. “You can walk just like a cat when you please. No one ever was as good going down creaking stairs as you when you want to steal things from the pantry. You may as well make yourself useful as not. Go along and report; tell us if all is quiet.”

Nesta, with a momentary sense of relief at having something to do, slipped off her shoes and left the room. She came back at the end of five minutes.

“There isn’t a sound – I don’t think things can be so bad,” she said, and she closed the door behind her.

She had scarcely uttered the words before there came a tap, sharp and decisive, and Horace came in. The girls had never loved Horace; it must be owned that he had never done anything to make his young sisters care for him. He had kept them at a distance, and they had been somewhat afraid of him. They saw him now standing on the threshold with a tray in his hand, a tray which contained three cups of hot cocoa and three thick slices of bread and butter, and when they read, not disapproval, but sorrow in his face, it seemed to the three that their hearts threw wide their doors and let him in. Nesta gave a gasp; Molly choked down something. Ethel jumped up and sat down again and clasped her hands.

“I knew you’d be all feeling pretty bad,” said Horace, “so I came to sit with you for a minute or two, and here’s some cocoa. I made it myself. I’m not much of a cook, but drink it up, you three, and then let us talk.”

“Horace – oh, Horace – may we?”

“Drink it up first. Nesta, you begin. Why, whatever have you done to your face?”

“It got torn with some briars, but it doesn’t matter,” said Nesta. She rubbed her face roughly; she would have liked to make it smart. Any outward torture would be better than the fierce pain that was tugging at her heart. But the cocoa was hot and good, and warm as the summer night was, the three girls were chilly from shock and grief. Horace insisted on their eating and drinking, and then he sat down on a little sofa which was placed at the foot of the two small beds. He coaxed Nesta to sit next to him.

“Ethel, you come and sit on the other side,” he said, “and, Molly, here’s a chair for you just in front.”

He managed to take the three pairs of hands and to warm them all between his own. Then he said cheerily:

“Well, now, the very best thing we can do, is to make ourselves as useful as possible. We won’t think of the past.”

“But we must – we must, Horace,” said Molly. “And I’m the worst. I’d like to confess to you – I wish I might.”

“My dear, I’m not a bit of a father confessor, and we have quite trouble enough in the house at present without raking up what you have done. There, if you like, I’ll tell you. You have, all three of you, been abominably careless and selfish. We won’t add any more to that; it is quite bad enough. There is such a thing as turning over a new leaf, and whether you have the strength to turn over that leaf God only knows – I don’t. The thing at present is to face what is before us.”

“You will tell us, Horry, won’t you?” said Nesta, in a coaxing tone. She could not for the life of her help coaxing any one she came across.

“I will tell you. I haven’t come into this room to be mealy-mouthed or to hide anything from you. Our mother is very ill; the doctor thinks it quite possible that she may not live until the morning.”

“Then I’ll die, too,” said Nesta.

“Nonsense, Nesta. Don’t give way to selfishness just now. You are in no possible danger.”

“I’ll die; I know I’ll die.”

“Hush!” said her brother sternly; “let me go on with what I’ve got to say. Our mother is in danger; you cannot be with her, for, alas, when you were given the chance you would not take it. You never really nursed her; you never – not for a single moment – saw to her real comforts. Therefore, now in her hour of peril, you three – her own children – are useless. Nevertheless, the doctor thinks it best that you should not undress. You must stay in your room, ready to be called if it is necessary.”

“If?” said Molly. “Why, what is going to happen? Why must we be called?”

“Poor children! she may want to speak to you.”

“I won’t go,” said Molly.

She covered her face with her hands and began to shake from head to foot.

“It may not be necessary, child; but do learn to have more self-control. How will you bear all the sorrows of a lifetime if you break down now?”

“I have never been taught to bear anything – I have never been taught,” said Molly.

Horace looked at her in absolute perplexity. Molly rose tremblingly; she flung herself across the bed. She was shivering so violently that her whole body shook.

It was at that instant that Marcia softly opened the door and came in.

“Why, what is it? What is it, Horace? How good of you.”

“Now, you have come, Marcia, I’ll go,” said Horace, and he slipped out of the room.

“Marcia, can you speak to us? Can you? Aren’t you too angry?”

“Poor children – no, not now. Molly, sit up.”

Marcia laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder. She raised her up forcibly.

“My darling,” she said, “kiss me.”

“Will you kiss me after what has happened?”

“I pity you so much. I have come to – to kneel with you – to pray. It would be a very terrible thing for you if our mother were to die to-night. We will ask God to keep her alive.”

“Oh, do, Marcia,” said Nesta, in a tone of the greatest anguish and the greatest belief. “You are so good. He will be certain to hear you. Kneel down at once, Marcia – say the words, oh, say them, say them!” Marcia did pray, while the three girls clustered round her and joined their sobs to her earnest petitions.

In the morning Mrs Aldworth was still alive. There had been no repetition of the dangerous attack. The great specialist from Newcastle was summoned, and he gave certain directions. A trained nurse was brought into the house, and Nesta, Molly, and Ethel were sent to stay with the Carters.

It was the Carters themselves who had suggested this, and the girls went away, feeling thoroughly brokenhearted. They were really so shocked, so distressed, that they did not know themselves; but as day after day went by, and as Mrs Aldworth by slow degrees got better, and yet better, so much better that the doctor only came to see her once a day, then every second day, then twice a week, and then finally said to Marcia, “You can summon me when you want me – ” so did the remorse and the agony of that terrible night pass from the minds of the young Aldworths. They could not help having a good time at the Carters’. The Carters were the essence of good nature. They had been dreadfully sorry for them during their time of anguish; they had done their utmost for the girls, and now they were willing to keep them as their guests.

On a certain day, a month after Mrs Aldworth’s serious illness, when she had come back again to that standpoint from which she had so nearly slipped away into the ocean of Eternity, Marcia made up her mind that it was time to put the repentance of her three young sisters to the test. They must return home and renew their duties to their mother. Marcia had given up all idea now of returning to Frankfort. She had written once or twice to Angela, and Angela had replied. She had also written to Mrs Silchester.

“There is little hope of my being able to return this summer. My stepmother has been most alarmingly ill,” she wrote.

Angela had come to see her, but Marcia could not give her much of her time. Angela had kissed her, and had looked into her eyes, and Marcia had said:

“I think I understand a little better your remarks about the path of duty, and the grandeur of duty, and I am quite content, and I do not repent at all.”

Angela thought a good deal of her friend, and wondered what she could do for her. But she scarcely approved of Marcia’s still firmly adhered-to resolution, that the young Aldworths were to resume the care of their mother.

“It will be so trying to you, and do you dare for a single moment to risk leaving her with them?”

“Yes; the doctor has great hopes of her. He says that the new treatment has produced an almost radical change in the condition of her heart, and that with care she will do well, and may even become fairly strong once more. But all this is a question of time, and the girls have been quite long enough away from home, and I am going to fetch them to-morrow.”

On a certain day, therefore, when Nurse Davenant had done everything to make the invalid thoroughly comfortable, Marcia put on her hat and walked along the shady road towards the St. Justs’ old house.

She had known it fairly well when she was quite a child, but had never cared to go there since the Carters had purchased it. The Carters were absolute strangers to Marcia. She had never once met them. She walked now under the avenue of splendid old beech trees, and thought of her past and future. Things were not going quite so well with herself as she could have hoped. Her life seemed to have narrowed itself into the care of one querulous invalid. It is true that the doctor had declared that but for Marcia Mrs Aldworth would not now be in the world; but there were Mrs Aldworth’s own daughters; Marcia’s own step-sisters. She must do something for them. What could she do?

She had just turned a certain bend in the avenue, when she heard a mocking voice say in laughing tones:

“I tell you what it is, I don’t ever want to go back to stupid old Marcia, nor – nor to the old house. I’m as happy here as the day is long, and now that Mothery is getting well, and you let me have as much of Flossie’s society as I want, I don’t ever want to go home.”

“Hush!” said another voice.

Nesta raised her head and saw Marcia.

“Oh, did you hear me?” she said. “I know I was saying something very naughty; but I almost forget what it was.”

“I did hear you, Nesta,” said Marcia. “How are you, dear? Of course, I’m not angry with you. You wouldn’t have said it to my face, would you?”

“Well, I suppose not,” said Nesta.

“Are you Miss Aldworth, really?” said Penelope, the youngest of the Carter girls.

She was a black-eyed girl, with a great lot of fussy curly hair. She had rosy cheeks and white teeth. She looked up merrily at Marcia with a quizzical expression in her dancing eyes.

“Yes, I am Miss Aldworth, and I have come to see my sisters, and to thank you for being so good to them.”

“How is mother to-day, Marcia?” said Nesta.

“Much, much better.”

Nesta slipped her hand inside Marcia’s arm. She wanted, as she expressed it afterwards to Penelope, to make up to Marcia. She wanted to coax her to do something, which she did not think Marcia was likely to do.

“I generally have my own way,” she said, “except with that stupid old Marcia. She never yields to any one, although she has such a kind look. Oh, I know she was good to mother that dreadful, dreadful, dreadful night; but I want to shut that tight from my memory.”

“Yes, do, for Heaven’s sake,” said Penelope. “You always give me the jumps when you speak of it.”

Now, Nesta was intensely anxious that Marcia should not go up to the house; there was great fun going on on the front lawn. A number of guests had been invited, and Molly and Ethel were having a right good time. Penelope and Nesta were to join them presently, but that was when Flossie arrived. They did not want Marcia – old Mule Selfish, as Nesta still loved to call her, to intrude her stupid presence into the midst of the mirth.

“I am so glad mother is better; I can tell the others all about her. What message have you got for them?”

“I have no message for them,” said Marcia somewhat coldly. “I am going up to the house – that is, if I may, Miss Carter?”

Marcia spoke with that sort of air which had such an effect on people slightly beneath herself. The Carters were beneath Marcia in every sense of the word, and they felt it down to their shoes, and rather disliked her in consequence.

“Of course, you must come up to the house,” said Penelope, although Nesta gave her such a fierce dig in the ribs for making the remark that she nearly cried out.

“I have come, Nesta,” said Marcia, in her kind voice, “to say that you and Molly and Ethel are expected home to-morrow. We have trespassed quite long enough on your kindness, Miss Carter,” she continued.

“Oh, indeed, you haven’t,” cried Penelope. “We like having them – they’re a right good sort, all of them. Not that I care so much for your precious Flossie Griffiths,” she added, giving Nesta a dig in the ribs in her turn.

“Oh, don’t you? That’s because you are madly jealous,” said Nesta.

The girls wrangled, and fell a little behind. Marcia continued her walk.

Molly had sworn to herself on that dreadful night, when her mother lay apparently dying, that she would never wear the pale blue muslin dress with its forget-me-not bows again. But circumstances alter one’s feelings, and she was in that identical dress, freshly washed, and with new forget-me-not bows, on this occasion. And she had a forget-me-not muslin hat to match on her pretty head. Ethel was all in white and looked charming. The girls were standing in a circle of other young people when Marcia appeared. Marcia went gravely up to them; spoke to the Carters, thanked them for their kindness, and then said quietly:

“I have come here to say that father and mother expect you all to return home to-morrow. If you can make it convenient to be back after early dinner, it will suit us best. No, I will not stay now; thank you very much, Miss Carter. It is necessary that the girls should return then, for their duties await them. Mother is so much better, and she will be delighted to see them. I am afraid I must go now. At what hour shall we expect you to-morrow?”

“You needn’t expect us all,” was on Molly’s lips. Ethel frowned and bit hers. Molly raised her eyes and saw Jim looking at her.

“I suppose,” she stammered, turning crimson – “I suppose about – about three o’clock.”

“Yes, three o’clock will do nicely. I will send a cab up to fetch your luggage.”

“You needn’t do that,” said Jim; “I’ll drive the girls down on the dogcart and all their belongings with them,” he added.

He walked a little way back with Marcia.

“I am so very glad Mrs Aldworth is better. You know, somehow or other, Miss Aldworth, we felt that we were to blame for that attack. We ought not to have coaxed your sisters to come back with us that night.”

“We needn’t talk of it now,” said Marcia. “Something very dreadful might have happened. God in his goodness prevented it, and I greatly trust, Mr Carter, that Mrs Aldworth will get much better in health now than she has ever been before.”

“Well, that is excellent news,” he said.

He opened the gate for Marcia.

“I am sorry you won’t stay to tea,” he said.

“Thank you, very much, but I must hurry back to my invalid.”

“What a right good sort she is,” thought the lad. “And what a splendid face she has got.”

Then he returned to the merry party on the lawn. He went straight up to Molly.

“You must be happy now,” he said. “You’ll see her to-morrow. You have been telling me all this time how you have been pining for her.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” said Molly. “I know.”

Her voice was subdued.

“You are not vexed – not put out about anything, are you?” said the boy.

“No; oh, no.”

“And with such a splendid sister.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t begin to praise her,” said Ethel, who came up at that moment. “When we think of all that she has made us endure – and now the last thing she has done is this – she has stolen our mother’s love. It’s a whole month since we saw our dear mother, and she thinks of no one but Marcia; but when Marcia gives the word, forsooth, then we are brought back – not by your leave, or anything else, but just when Marcia wishes it.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Jim. “You are in a bit of a temper, I think. But, come; let’s have some fun while we may.”

The news that they were all to go back was broken to the different members of the Carter family, who expressed their regret in different ways and different degrees. Not one of them, however, suggested, as both Molly and Ethel hoped, that it was absolutely and completely impossible for them to spare their beloved Aldworths. On the contrary, Clara said that sorry as they were to part, it was in some ways a little convenient, as their friends the Tollemaches were coming to spend a fortnight or three weeks with them, and the Mortimers were also to be guests at Court Prospect.

“We shouldn’t have room for you all with so many other people, so it is just as well that you are going, for it is never agreeable to have to ask one’s friends to leave,” said Clara in her blunt fashion.

“But all the same, we’ll miss you very much,” said Mabel.

“For my part,” cried Annie, “I’m sorry enough to lose you two girls, but I’m rather glad as far as Penelope is concerned. She has run perfectly wild since that Nesta of yours is here. They’re always squabbling and fighting over that wretched, commonplace girl, Flossie Griffiths. I asked father about her, and he said that her people were quite common and not worth cultivating.”

“Then you only care for people worth cultivating. I wonder you like us,” said Ethel, with much sarcasm in her tone.

“Oh, you’re the daughters of a professional man,” said Mabel.

“And if we were not?”

Mabel laughed.

“I don’t expect we’d see much of your society. Our object now is to better ourselves. You see, father is enormously rich, and he wants us to do great things. He wants us to be raised in the social scale. He told me only this morning that he was most anxious to cultivate your step-sister, Miss Aldworth, and I’ll tell you why, Miss Aldworth is such a very great friend of Miss Angela St. Just.”

“Now,” said Ethel, “I’d like to ask you a question. What do you see in that girl?”

“What do we see in her?” exclaimed Clara, who thought it time to take her turn in the conversation, “why, just everything.”

“Well, I’d like you to explain.”

“Hasn’t she got the most beautiful face, the most wonderful manners? She is so graceful, so gracious, and then she has such good style. There is nothing in all the world that we wouldn’t any of us do for Miss St. Just.”

“And yet you have never spoken to her?”

“Father means that we shall, and he wants you to help us.”

Molly was silent. She felt intensely cross and discontented.

“I don’t know her myself,” said Molly.

“But your precious Marcia does, and we are greatly hoping to get an introduction through her.”

That night as the three girls retired to bed, in the large and luxurious room set aside for their use at Court Prospect, they could not help expressing some very bitter remarks.

“We’ll never have a chance against Marcia,” said Molly. “She just gets everything. She has got our mother’s love – Horace thinks the world of her; father is devoted to her, and now even our own darling friend, our dear Carters, say plainly that they want to know her because she can get them an introduction to that tiresome Angela St. Just. I haven’t patience with them.”

“It strikes me,” said Ethel, “that they’re not specially sorry to see the last of us. How do you feel about it, Molly?”

“I’m not going to say,” said Molly.

She went to the window and flung it open. The prospect was delightful. Overhead the stars were shining with unwonted brilliancy; there was no touch or smell of town in this rural retreat. Oh, how sweet it was – how delightful to have such a home! But to-morrow they must give it up; the picnics, the laughter, the fun, the gay friends always coming in and going out. They must go back to the little grubby house, to the tiresome monotony of everyday life – to Susan, impertinent Susan; to Fanny, who had dared to speak to Nesta as she had done on that awful night; to the room where they had lived through such tortures and – to their mother.

To tell the truth, they were afraid to see their mother. They had shut away the idea of clasping her hand, of looking into her face. On that night when she lay close to death they would have given themselves gladly to save her, but that night and this were as the poles asunder. All the old selfish ideas, all the old devotion to Number One, that utter disregard for Number Two, were as strong as ever within them. They disliked Marcia more than they had ever disliked her. Their month at the Carters’ had effectually spoiled them.

But time and circumstances are relentless. The Aldworths were to return to their home the next day, and although Molly dreamed that something came to prevent it, and although Ethel vowed that she would implore Clara to keep her on as a sort of all-round useful sort of lady companion, and although Nesta threatened – her favourite threat – by the way – to run away, nothing did happen. Nesta did not run away; Ethel was not adopted as Mabel’s slave; Molly was forced to go with just a nod and a good-natured regret from Jim.