"Oh, you needn't think you can put me off like that," Jasmine went on apace. "I've left Silchester, and I'm going to stay here until Uncle Matthew is better, and I'll answer no questions until he is better."
"Indeed? That will be for your uncle and me to decide."
"Oh no, it won't. You're not my guardians. You weren't appointed my guardians, and you've got no say in the matter at all. If Uncle Matthew doesn't want to be taken out of his own room, why should he be, when he's ill?"
Another person now appeared, a sleek, pale, old young man, whom Jasmine recognized from Selina's allusion as the 'smarmy' doctor. She took advantage of his presence to run past her aunt and speak to the old gentleman, who was so much occupied in holding on to the frame of the door that he was apparently unconscious of his niece's arrival.
"If you please, miss," said one of the nurses, "you'd better not excite the patient just now."
Jasmine paid no attention to this advice, but knelt down and with all the force she could achieve kept on calling out to know what Uncle Matthew wanted, until at last the old gentleman was induced to recognize her. He was evidently pleased at her arrival, so much pleased that he offered her his hand in greeting, a gesture which cost him his hold on the frame of the door. The male nurses were quick to take advantage of this, and while Jasmine was still on her knees, they hurried him along the passage and vanished through the door from which Lady Grant had just emerged. Jasmine realized that her interference had only succeeded in helping the other side, and in a mist of mortification and self-reproach she followed the bed into the room prepared to receive the sick man. She was bound to admit to herself that the room was well chosen and admirably prepared. Yet she knew that the more careful the preparations, the more acutely would they aggravate her uncle's discomfort. The fire burning lavishly in the grate, the flowers blooming wastefully on the table, the sick room's glittering equipment, they would seem to him detestable extravagances which in his feeble condition he was powerless to prevent. As soon as Uncle Matthew was safely out of his little bath-bedroom, Lady Grant locked the door and put the key in her bag; but Selina arrived on the scene in time for this action by her ladyship, to whom she proceeded to give, or rather at whom she proceeded to throw a piece of her mind. When the housekeeper paused for breath, her ladyship merely said coldly that if she did not behave herself, she would find herself and her boxes in the street.
"This kind of thing has been going on long enough," Lady Grant proclaimed to the world. "It was time for his relations to interfere."
Jasmine, when she made an effort to consider the situation calmly, could not help acknowledging that by that world to which she had appealed all the right and all the reason would be awarded to her aunt. An abusive housekeeper trying to interfere between doctor and patient would stand little chance of obtaining even a hearing for her point of view, especially when that doctor was Sir Hector Grant. Moreover, she began to ask herself, might not Selina have merely got a bee buzzing in her bonnet about interference for the sake of interference? Had not her own judgment been wrought up by Selina's mysterious way of summoning her to Rouncivell Lodge and by the stifling atmosphere that enwrapped it to imagining what was, after all, looked at sanely, a melodramatic and improbable situation? One thing she was determined to do, however, and that was to stay in the house herself, not for any purpose connected with wills concealed in coffins under beds, but simply in order to be able to devote herself to Uncle Matthew's comfort. If her aunt really was trying to manipulate the old gentleman's end—and of course the idea was absurd—but if she were, she would find her niece's presence an obstacle to the success of her schemes, and if her wicked intentions were nothing more than the creation of Selina's highflown fancy.... Jasmine broke off her thoughts and went back to her uncle's new room, where, pulling up a chair beside his bed, she took his hand and asked if he did not feel a little better. The effort he had made to resist removal had exhausted him, and he was lying on the box-mattress breathing so faintly and looking so pale that she rose again in alarm to call the doctor, who was talking to Lady Grant outside. She had not moved a step from the bed before Uncle Matthew called to her in a weak voice, a voice, however, that still retained the accent of command, and bade her sit down again. It was at least a satisfaction to feel that he had grasped the fact of her presence and that he was evidently anxious to keep her by his side. Presently, when the respectful and sober male nurses had respectfully and soberly left the house, like two plumbers who had accomplished their job, the doctor came back to ask softly if Mr. Rouncivell could not bring himself to change his bed as well as his room. The old gentleman made no further opposition, but allowed himself to be lifted down from the box-mattress and tucked up in the big four-poster, after which the box-mattress, upon which he had slept for so many years in his bath, was carried away. Jasmine was now alone with him, and he beckoned her to lean over to catch what she feared might be his last whisper.
She was unnecessarily nervous.
"They think I'm going to die," he chuckled. "But I'm not. Ha! Ha!"