But there was nothing to be done. She saw that. And besides, never was a woman so obstinately determined as I was to do my duty.
'Dear Uncle Rudolph,' I said very amiably—I did suddenly feel very amiable—'I'm so sorry. This is the one day in the month when I am tethered. Any other day—'
And I withdrew with every appearance of reluctant but indomitable virtue into my little room and stayed there shut in safe till I heard them go out.
From the window I could see them presently starting off up the mountain, actively led by my uncle who hadn't succeeded in taking only one, Mrs. Barnes following with the devoutness—she who in our walks goes always first and chooses the way—of an obedient hen, and some way behind, as though she disliked having to shed her cobwebs as much as I do, straggled Dolly. Then, when they had dwindled into just black specks away up the slope, I turned with lively pleasure to paying the books.
Those blessed books! If only I could have gone on paying them over and over again, paying them all day! But when I had done them, and conversed about the hens and bees and cow with Antoine, and it was getting near lunch-time, and at any moment through the window I might see the three specks that had dwindled appearing as three specks that were swelling, I thought I noticed I had a headache.
Addings-up often give me a headache, especially when they won't, which they curiously often won't, add up the same twice running, so that it was quite likely that I had got a headache. I sat waiting to be quite sure, and presently, just as the three tiny specks appeared on the sky line, I was quite sure; and I came up here and put myself to bed. For, I argued, it isn't grape-stones this time, it's sums, and Mrs. Barnes can't dose me for what is only arithmetic; also, even if Uncle Rudolph insists on coming to my bedside he can't be so inhumane as to torment somebody who isn't very well.
So here I have been ever since snugly in bed, and I must say my guests have been most considerate. They have left me almost altogether alone. Mrs. Barnes did look in once, and when I said, closing my eyes, 'It's those tradesmens' books—' she understood immediately, and simply nodded her head and disappeared.
Dolly came and sat with me for a little, but we hadn't said much before Mrs. Antoine brought a message from my uncle asking her to go down to tea.
'What are you all doing?' I asked.
'Oh, just sitting round the fire not talking,' she said, smiling.