“Do you live here?” cried Rosie. “Fancy living in the middle of this place! How jolly! And what a jolly house! Oh! what a delicious notion—living in the show!”
And they disappeared into the bungalow.
The historic family coolness looked as if it was going to warm itself into a sort of pleasant acquaintanceship.
CHAPTER XV—Proposal of Josephus
Yes, Ilam was saying when they came downstairs, “she has been like that since last night, and the doctors—I have had two—assure me that at her age no recovery is possible. She can take liquid food, and she can move her eyes slightly—you noticed how her eyes turn?—but otherwise she is incapable of movement, and, of course, she can’t articulate.”
He had taken his young relatives upstairs to see his mother, and the picture of her, lying almost in the attitude of a corpse on the bed, with a uniformed nurse sitting motionless beside her, had made a deep impression on Pauline and Rosie. In fact, the whole house saddened them. It was spacious and luxurious, but it was far from reaching that standard of splendour which one might reasonably expect from the Ilam wealth. Ilam did not look like a wealthy man. He did not talk like a wealthy man, and both girls began to perceive, dimly, that wealth is useless to those who have not sufficient imagination to employ it. Certainly the City of Pleasure was an expression of the Ilam riches, but they knew, as all the world knew, that the imagination which had brought into being the City of Pleasure was Carpentaria’s. Hence, they felt sorry for Josephus Ilam, partly because of the calamity to his mother, and partly because of his forlorn and anxious air; they thought he wanted looking after, and that this heavy pompous man was greatly to be pitied, despite his opulence.
“You haven’t told us how it happened, what caused it?” said Pauline sympathetically.
“Oh!” said Ilam, “as to that, who can tell? Probably some fright, some shock. But we can’t say. She was alone when it happened. And as she can’t speak—can’t write—can’t—— Well, you see how it is.”