He passed through the shop and ascended the stairs, with every step of which he was familiar, as he had already visited Mrs. Meldreth during one or two previous attacks of illness, and was heard to knock at the sick woman's bed-room door.
"Oh, my," exclaimed Polly, as soon as he was out of reach, "and if I didn't go for to forget to tell him as 'ow Miss Enid was up there! Oh, my! But I don't suppose he'll mind! He's only the parson, after all."
CHAPTER XVI.
When Mr. Evandale knocked at Mrs. Meldreth's door, he was aware of a slight bustle within, followed by the sound of voices in low-toned conference; then came a rather sharply-toned "Come in!". As, however, the Rector still hesitated, the door was flung open by a young woman, whose very gestures seemed to show that she acted under protest, and would not have admitted him at all if she had had her own way. She was a fair-complexioned woman of perhaps thirty years of age, tall, well made, robust, and generally considered handsome; she had prominent light-blue eyes, and features which, without being badly cut, were indefinably common and even coarse-looking. In her cheeks a patch of exceptionally vivid red had so artificial an appearance, that the Rector could not believe it to be genuine; but later he gained an impression that it proceeded from excitement, and not from any adventitious source. The eyes of this woman were sparkling with anger; there was defiance in her every movement, even in the way in which her fingers were clenched at her sides or clutched the iron rail of the bed on which her mother lay. The Rector wondered at her evident disturbance; it must have proceeded from something, that had occurred before his entrance, he concluded, and he looked towards the bed as if to discover whether the cause of Sabina Meldreth's anger could be found there.
But no—surely not there! The Rector thought that he had seldom seen a fairer picture than the one which met his eyes. Goodness, gentleness, youth supporting age, beauty unabashed by feebleness and ugliness—these were the characteristics of the scene on which he looked. Poor Mrs. Meldreth lay back upon her pillows, her face wan and worn, her eyes wandering, her gray hair escaping from her close cap and straying over her forehead. But beside her knelt Enid Vane. The girl's arm was beneath the old woman's bowed shoulders; it was evident that in this position the invalid could breathe better and was more at ease. The sweet fair face, with its slight indefinable shadow deepened at this moment into a look of perfect pity, was bent over the wrinkled, withered countenance of the sick woman. Never, the Rector thought, had he seen a lovelier picture of youth ministering to the wants of age.
But a sense of incongruity also struck him, and he turned rather quickly to Miss Meldreth, whose defiant eyes had been fixed upon him from the first moment of his entrance into the room.
"You are Mrs. Meldreth's daughter?" he said, in a quick but not unkindly undertone. "Why do you let the young lady there wait upon your mother? Can you not nurse her yourself, my good girl?"
Sabina Meldreth curtseyed, but in evident mockery, for the color in her cheeks grew higher, and her tone was anything but respectful when she spoke.