"My dear, of course I think of you. I am thinking of nothing else. I should say it would be Friday. Sarah,—you don't mean to say that Brotherton is—dead?" Lady Sarah merely pressed her mother's hand and looked into the old lady's face. "Why did not they let me go to him? And is Popenjoy dead also?"
"Dear mamma, don't you remember?" said Lady Susanna.
"Yes; I remember. George was determined it should be so. Ah me!—ah me! Why should I have lived to hear this!" After that it was in vain that they told her of Mary and of the baby that was about to be born. She wept herself into hysterics,—was taken away and put to bed; and then soon wept herself asleep.
Mary during all this had said not a word. She had felt that the moment of her exaltation,—the moment in which she had become the mistress of the house and of everything around it,—was not a time in which she could dare even to speak to the bereaved mother. But when the two younger sisters had gone away with the Marchioness, she asked after her husband. Then Lady Sarah showed her the telegram in which Lord George, after communicating the death of his brother, had simply said that he should himself return home as quickly as possible. "It has come very quick," said Lady Sarah.
"What has come!"
"Your position, Mary. I hope,—I hope you will bear it well."
"I hope so," said Mary, almost sullenly. But she was awestruck, and not sullen.
"It will all be yours now,—the rank, the wealth, the position, the power of spending money, and tribes of friends anxious to share your prosperity. Hitherto you have only seen the gloom of this place, which to you has of course been dull. Now it will be lighted up, and you can make it gay enough."
"This is not a time to think of gaiety," said Mary.
"Poor Brotherton was nothing to you. I do not think you ever saw him."