The discussion was short. Both these women who had charge of Mrs. Dalrymple’s attire knew readily what she would require and undertook that part of the order should be put into the “hurry” department, and be forthcoming almost immediately. That business over, they departed and the two descendants of the race of Waldron were left to themselves, the younger of them scarcely daring to look at the elder, dreading her distress. She need not have feared, in the least.
“Well, my dear, this is unexpected, indeed. But we are very comfortable here until we can get away out of town. We will go as soon as possible. As soon as we have clothes fit to go in. It’s early for Newport but I think we’d better settle there at once. I’ve been looking over an agent’s list of furnished ‘cottages’ and fancy one of them will do. I must send for my man of business first. I think it rather strange he has not already called upon me.”
Madam had taken one of the prettiest suites in the hotel, with its comfortable privacy, and already seemed so much at home and so outwardly content that Jessica wondered. Only for a moment, when a servant came to announce a caller, did a spasm of pain cross the fine old features, and give a touch of sharpness to the quiet voice, as she repeated:
“I have already given orders that I can receive no visitors at present. Kindly see that these orders are attended to.”
Then Jessica was bidden to relate again the story Madam had already learned from other lips and the girl was delighted to hear her kinswoman announce:
“I will make my first call upon that child, Sophy. We must befriend her. Mr. Hale has been here and has telegraphed your mother of—of everything. Now, my dear, hand me the morning paper; and make your own self comfortable. If you wish to write to your mother, there are the materials on that desk in the corner.”
So Jessica wrote:
“My Dearest Mother:
“I am alive. That’s about the first thing I can think to say. So is our Cousin Margaret. So is everybody else. It was all Barnes’s fault. She said so herself. She used benzine, that seems to be a catchy sort of stuff, and a match near it and first she knew the flames were so big she couldn’t stop them. She tried. Ephraim told me. She hasn’t been near since and never will, but he saw her on the street outside the hospital where they took Sophy and me, ’cause she was afraid that her carelessness had made her a murderer as well as a house-burner. She said she would have been a murderer if I had died, or Sophy, but we didn’t and she isn’t. I hope I will never see her again, now, because she would always make me feel angry for my Cousin Margaret.