The next morning passed somehow. The girls had decided that they would send Marcia to Coventry. They had made up their minds in a solemn conclave late the night before.
“We daren’t oppose her for the present,” said Ethel, who had thought of this daring plan, “but we’ll make her life so miserable that she just won’t be able to bear it.”
“She used to be so affectionate; I remember that,” said Molly. “She was very good to me when I had the measles. She used to sit in the room and never think of herself at all.”
“She caught them afterwards, don’t you remember, horrid things?” said Nesta.
“And I don’t think I went to sit with her at all,” said Molly.
“It was rather piggish of you, wasn’t it?” said Ethel.
“Well, well; don’t rake up my old faults now. Am I not sad enough? Do you really think, Nesta and Ethel, that we had best send her to Coventry? Do you mean really to Coventry?”
“Yes; don’t let’s speak to her. We’ll try the effect for a week. We’ll do our duty, of course. We’ll go into mother’s room in turn, and we’ll give up everything for our mother’s sake, and we’ll deny ourselves, and we’ll never speak to Marcia at all. When we are at meals, if she forces us to speak, we’ll say yes and no, but that’s all, unless Horace or father is present. We’ll leave her quite to herself; she shall have her free hours, and her time for writing, and we wish her joy of it.”
This plan of action being determined on, the girls went to bed with a certain sense of consolation.
It was Ethel’s turn to spend the morning with the invalid on the following day, and she determinedly went there without a word. The effect of the Coventry system seemed at first to be but small. During breakfast that morning Marcia was absorbed in some letters she had received. She asked her father the best way to get to Hurst Castle.