“It’s all right, Auntie. She—they—it’s the bad news. It’s upset them all.”
“Bad news? Fiddlesticks! Temper, I call it. Why shouldn’t the girl get married? Not much money, but a pleasant fellow. Time for her to settle. I said to her—‘My dear, you follow your heart.’ But Nita tried to stop it. Nita couldn’t get over it. Cried. Temper. That’s it. Look at her now. ’Sh! Don’t let her see you.”
But Anita wasn’t looking at me and she wasn’t crying. I suppose Great-aunt must have known what she was talking about; but it wasn’t easy to imagine my cousin soft and red-eyed like that great, good-natured Miss Howe. Her little sharp face looked as controlled as if it were carved. Yet, as she said herself, she was shaken. That showed in the jerkiness of her movements, the sharpening of her voice, in the break-up of her accustomed flow of words into staccato, like a river that has come to some rocks: and her hands had a clock-work, incessant movement, clutch-clutch, fingers on palm, that her eyes repeated. They were everywhere at once, resting, flitting, settling again, yet seeing nothing, I think, while she listened to Mr. Flood and grew more irritated with every word.
“Why bad news?” said Great-aunt in my ear. “It’s a son, isn’t it?”
I hesitated.
“Oh, Auntie, didn’t you hear?” (She had heard, you know. I had seen her shrinking back when Anita screamed at her, with that dreadful shrinking that you see in an animal threatened by a head-blow. She had been leaning forward, and eager. She must have heard.)
“Hear? They all talk,” she quavered. “‘Be quiet,’ says Anita. Ah, I’ve spoilt her. Now Madala——What’s the time, my dear? Why don’t she come?”
“Auntie—Auntie——”
“Eh?” she said. “Why don’t Madala come?”
“Auntie—you’ve forgotten. She’s been ill.”