the open window, andwhen the doctor arrived he was not pleased with the appearance of theroom, and told Ethel so sharply.
"You are a very bad nurse," he said, "for all the training you've had.Now don't allow that blind to be in such a condition a moment longer.Get one of the servants to come and mend it. I am exceedingly annoyedto see your mother in such an uncomfortable condition."
Ethel was forced to go off in search of a servant. The blind was mendedafter a fashion; the invalid was pitied by the doctor, who ordered afresh tonic for her. So the weary hours flew by, and at last Ethel'stask was over. She rushed downstairs. The load was lifted from hermind; she was free for a bit. She immediately asked Molly how theymight spend the afternoon.
Lunch was on the table and Marcia appeared. Marcia spoke to the younglady.
"How is mother?"
"I don't know," said Ethel.
"You don't know? But you have been with her all the morning."
"The doctor called; you had better ask him."
"She will turn at that. I would like to catch her in a rage," thoughtEthel.
Marcia did not turn. She guessed what was passing through her youngsister's mind. It would pass presently. They would take the disciplineshe was bringing them through presently. She was sorry for them; sheloved them very dearly; but give them an indulgent life to the detrimentof their characters, and to her own misery, she would not.
By-and-by lunch came to an end, and then Marcia rose.
"Now, you go to your imprisonment," thought Molly.
Marcia went into the garden. She gathered some flowers, then went intothe fruit garden and picked some very fine gooseberries. She laid themin a little basket with some leaves over them, and with the fruit andflowers in her hand, and a pretty basket containing all kinds of fancywork, she went up to the sick-room.
Mrs Aldworth could not but smile when she saw the calm face, the prettywhite dress, the elegant young figure. Of course, she must scold thisrecalcitrant step-daughter, but it was nice to see her, and the flowerssmelt so sweet, and she had just been pining for some gooseberries. Whyhadn't one of her own girls thought of it?
Marcia spent nearly an hour putting the room in order. The Venetianblind did not work; the servant had mended it badly. She soon put thatstraight. She then sat down opposite to Mrs Aldworth.
"Our afternoons will be our pleasantest times," she said. "There is somuch to be done in the mornings, but in the afternoons we can have longtalks, and I can amuse you with some of the school-life stories. I havesomething quite interesting to tell you to-day, and I have brought up abook which I should like to read to you, that is, if you are inclined tolisten. And, oh, mother, I think you would like this new sort of fancywork. I have got all the materials for it. It would make some charmingornamental work for the drawing room. We ought to make the drawing roompretty by the time you come back to it."
"Oh, but I shall never come back to it," said Mrs Aldworth.
"Indeed you will, and very soon too. I'm not going to allow you to belong in this bedroom. You will be downstairs again in a few days."
"Never," said Mrs Aldworth.
"Indeed you will. And anyhow we ought to have the drawing room prettynow that Molly and Ethel are out--or consider themselves so. And,mother, dear,"--Marcia's voice assumed a new and serious tone--"I haveso much to talk to you about the dear girls."
Mrs Aldworth trembled. Now, indeed, was the moment when she ought tobegin, but somehow, try as she would, she found it impossible to becross with Marcia. Still, the memory of Molly and her wrongs, of Nesta,and the burden she was unexpectedly forced to carry, of Ethel, and hertendency to sunstroke, came over her.
"Before you say anything, I must be frank," she said.
"Oh, yes, mother; that's what I should like, and expect," said Marcia,not losing any of her cheerfulness, but laying down her work andpreparing herself to listen.
She did not stare as her young sisters would have done, for she knewthat Mrs Aldworth hated being stared at. She only glanced now andthen, and her look was full of sympathy, and there was not a trace ofanger on her face.
"You really are very nice, Marcia; there's no denying it. I do wishthat in some ways--not perhaps in looks, but in some ways, that my girlswere more like you. But, dear, this is it--are you not a little hard onthem? They're so young."
"So young?" said Marcia. "Molly is eighteen. She is only two yearsyounger than I am."
"But you will be twenty-one in three months' time."
"I think, mother, if you compare birthdays, you will find that Mollywill be nineteen in four months' time. There is little more than twoyears between us."
Mrs Aldworth was always irritated when opposed.
"That's true," she said. "But don't quibble, Marcia; that is a verydisagreeable trait in any girl, particularly when she is addressing awoman so much older than herself. The girls are younger than you, notonly in years but in character."
"That I quite corroborate," said Marcia firmly.
"Why do you speak in that tone, as though you were finding fault withthem, poor darlings, for being young and sweet and childish, andinnocent?"
"Mother," said Marcia, and now she rose from her seat and dropped on herknees by the invalid's couch, "do you think that I really blame them forbeing young and innocent? But I do blame them for something else."
"And what is that?"
"For being selfish: for thinking of themselves more than for others."
"I don't understand you."
"If you will consider for a moment I think you will quite understandwhat I mean."
"Marcia, my head aches; I cannot stand a long argument."
"Nor will I give it to you. I have come back here to help you--"
"Why, of course, you were sent for for that purpose."
Marcia felt a very fierce wave of passion rising for a moment in herheart. After all, she had her passions, her strong feelings, heridiosyncrasies. She was not tame; she was not submissive; hers was afirm, steadfast, reliable nature. Hers also was a proud and rebelliousone. Nevertheless, she soon conquered the rising irritation. She knewthat this bad hour would have to be lived through.
"I am glad you are talking to me quite plainly," she said, "and I on mypart will answer you in the same spirit. I have come back here notbecause I must, for as a matter of fact, I am my own mistress. You see,by my own dear mother's will I have sufficient money of my own--not agreat deal, but enough to support me. I can, therefore, be quiteindependent; and the fact that by my mother's will I was made of age attwenty, puts all possibility of misconstruction of my meaning out of thequestion."
"Marcia, you are so terribly learned; you use such long words; you talkas though you were forty. Now, my poor children--"
"Mother, you are quite a clever woman yourself, and of course you knowwhat I mean. I have come back to help you, because I wished to--notbecause I was forced to do so."
"Molly says you are terribly conceited; I am afraid she is right."
Marcia took no notice of this.
"Although I have come back to help you, I have not come back to ruin myyoung sisters."
"Now, Marcia, you really are talking the wildest nonsense."
"Not at all. Don't you want them to love you?"
Mrs Aldworth burst into tears.
"What a dreadful creature you are," she said. "As though my own sweetchildren did not love me. Why, they're madly devoted to me. If mylittle finger aches they're in such a state--you never knew anythinglike it. I have seen my poor Molly obliged to rush from the room when Ihave been having a bad attack of my neuralgia, just because her ownprecious nerves could not stand the agony. Not love me? How dare youinsinuate such a thing?"
"Mother, we evidently have different ideas with regard to love. My ideais this--that you ought to sacrifice yourself for the one you love.Now, if I came here and took the complete charge of you away from yourown daughters; if I gave them nothing whatever to do for you, and ifthey were t
o spend their entire time amusing themselves, and not onceconsidering you, I should do them a cruel wrong; I should injure theircharacters, and I should make them, what they are already inclined tobe--most terribly selfish. That, God helping me, I will not do. I willshare the charge of you with them, or I will return to Frankfort to MrsSilchester, whom I love; to the life that I delight in; to the friends Ihave made. I will not budge an inch; I will nurse you with the girls,or not at all."
Mrs Aldworth looked up. After all, with a captious, fretful, irritableinvalid, a woman with so vacillating a nature as Mrs Aldworth's, therewas nothing so effective as firmness. She succumbed. In a minute shehad