My chief Cross was my resolve of absolute evenness of temper. Evenness rather than serenity was the word: I could never take my Grandmother's quiet delight in sitting down under insult and injustice, as though they were flattering temptations sent me by the Lord, tokens of heavenly privilege. I could always turn the other cheek, but never as though I enjoyed it. Once when I had waited on Aunt Jael hand and foot all day; taking up her breakfast (after three or four attempts and plenty of frolic with the door), dressing her ("no one else would do"), making her bed and tidying her room (while she sat in a chair carping), cooking her a special dinner and arranging it on a little table by the armchair (she felt too ill to sit up to table), doing her sewing ("Clumsy little slut with the needle!"), and reading to her aloud from the Word (her eyes were too tired to read herself); when after tea I had begun and finished the last chapter of Proverbs—"Many daughters have done virtuously but Thou excellest them all"—and she had no further behest; I thought that at last I was free for a few moments. I sat down at the piano and began playing my new piece: Polish Dance in A Minor. I had not played more than a few bars when I heard her get up from her chair. Without warning I received a violent box on the ears, with "That for idling away without my permission on this ungodly trash" as she snatched the music and crumpled it up into a paper ball. The blow was dealt with such force that I fell off the stool on to the floor, where she began belabouring me with her stick.
Struggling to my feet, I began in my intensest manner, bitterer than any rage: "Oh may the Lord punish you, may He visit you with pain and illness and agony in this world—" I do not know how far I had got but the door opened and my Grandmother came in.
"My dear, you are beside yourself."
"Grandmother, hear me. I have toiled for her all day long, and now when I've sat down for a minute to practise she came behind me unawares and gave me a blow that knocked me on to the floor and then began flogging me with her stick."
"Sister—" began my Grandmother.
"None of your 'sister,' if you please!" She went up to Grandmother, who was near the bookcase, and pushed her roughly against it. "No interfering, d'yer see? When the child does what I don't like, I do what I like to her. See?" She clutched Grandmother by the shoulders, and began banging her viciously against the bookcase.
"You brute!" I cried, and with a strength I should not have found in self-defence tore her away from Grandmother. Loosing hold, she turned on me; I ran for safety to the other side of my guardian-angel table. She hesitated for a moment, remembering perhaps her ancient dignity, and then stalked out of the room. Which was after all the most dignified thing to do.
The fact was, her health and self-control were failing together; but if more of a shrew, she was less shrewd than of old. She never noticed, for instance, how the brandy was disappearing. The odd thing about this brandy was that after Maud's departure it had been disappearing more quickly and mysteriously than ever. A new suspicion entered my mind. Sister Briggs never went upstairs. It could not be Grandmother. It was not magic. It was not me....
One day just before dinner, Aunt Jael had not yet appeared in the dining room. This was surprising; on her latest and worst days she usually descended by eleven o'clock.