"But you know how fond I am of Jemmie."
"Fond, fond," the old lady murmured. "Looking back, I wonder if that means anything. Mary, you must be prepared for your children to bring you unhappiness. I do not say that they will. I hope that they will not. But you must be ready for that trial." She suddenly sat forward in the bed. "Hark! Do you hear a sound?"
"No, I hear nothing, Grandmamma."
"I hear a sound like the sea. Plainly! Yes, yes, quite plainly, the noise of the sea. Edward, forgive me if I was wrong," she cried. "I have tried to watch over your little girl. Pray do not light the gas, Mary. Give me your hand instead. Put me back among my pillows. And do not light the gas. I cannot bear the idea of your seeing me die. And this is death. I know...."
Mary laid her grandmother gently back on the pillows, felt a swift trembling through the frail body, and speaking to her received no answer.
It was the first time in her life that Mary had come into the presence of death, and she sat for some time near that silence on the bed, wondering at her own calm. Were people always as calm as this when they beheld death? But even as she was congratulating herself she was seized with a panic and ran madly from the room out on the landing, the rosy gaslight of which in response to her cries was soon populated by maids in their black dresses and white caps.
Mary supposed that the correct thing would be to send a message for her husband to come immediately to King's Gate and take charge of the house, the servants, and herself. In fact, when Adèle with tear-swollen eyes came to tell her that the carriage was at the door, she asked if Madame would not like the coachman to drive back to Madame's house and fetch Monsieur. By Adèle's manner Mary realized that since her grandmother's death she was being accorded a respect almost as great as that which had formerly been accorded to the dead woman.
But what could Jemmie do? He would be extremely bored by being dragged out before dinner. He would not know what he ought to do, and irritated by not knowing he would certainly do the wrong thing. Moreover, she did not feel that she wanted Jemmie. She was anxious to be quiet and avoid any discussion of her inheritance, any speculation upon its exact amount, any plans of Jemmie to build this house or buy that property. In fact, she should like to stay at King's Gate to-night by herself and sleep in her old room upstairs. She desired to make amends to her grandmother's memory for that unwonted display of terror in which she had indulged herself. She sent a note by Burton to say that she should not be back at Woodworth Lodge until the next morning.
Mr. Alison was displeased by his wife's message. If it would not have involved him in what might have been the unpleasantness of a houseful of hysterical servants, he would have driven back to King's Gate to protest against her action. It would have been sufficiently annoying to receive word that she might be late for dinner, or even that she might not be back at all for dinner; but to stay the night for no purpose except to gratify a whim of piety, that did strike Mr. Alison as unreasonable. He hoped that Mary was not going to turn religious, to start getting up early in the morning for Communion and all that kind of thing. One never knew what a woman might do after thirty. Or take up with spiritualism. He would soon put a stop to that. Table-turning and tambourine playing ... long-haired mediums and goggle-eyed women with skinny necks and Oriental beads ... she had the children, and they ought to be enough.