"I am not angry with him; but while you are ill, I will have quiet—at any price."
"Then I'm sure you should not have brought Charlotte home," exclaimed Georgy, in tones of wailing and lamentation; "for of all the miseries in life, there is nothing worse than coming home in the very midst of a general cleaning. It was agreed between Ann Woolper and me that there should be a general cleaning while we were away at the seaside. We were to be away a fortnight, and everything was to be as neat as a new pin when we came home. But here we are back in less than a week, and everything at sixes-and-sevens. Where we are to dine I know not; and as for the carpets, they are all away at the beating-place, and Ann tells me they won't be home till Friday."
"We can exist without carpets," answered Mr. Sheldon, in a hard dry voice. "I suppose they are seeing to Miss Halliday's room?" he added, addressing himself to Mrs. Woolper. "Why don't you go and look after them, Nancy?"
"Sarah knows what she has to do. The bed-rooms was done first; and there's not much amiss in Miss Charlotte's room."
Mr. Sheldon dropped wearily into a chair. He looked pale and haggard. Throughout the journey he had been unfailing in his attention to the invalid; but the journey had been fatiguing; for Charlotte Halliday was very ill—so ill as to be unable to avoid inflicting trouble upon others. The weariness—the dizziness—the dull intervals of semi-consciousness—the helpless tottering walk, which was like the walk of intoxication rather than ordinary weakness—the clouded sight—all the worst symptoms of this nameless disease, had every hour grown more alarming.
Against this journey to London Mrs. Sheldon and Diana had pleaded—Georgy with as much earnestness as she could command; Diana as forcibly as she dared argue a question in which her voice had so little weight.
But upon this point Mr. Sheldon was adamant.
"She will be better off in London," he said resolutely. "This trip to the seaside was a whim of my wife's; and, like most other whims of my wife's, it has entailed trouble and expense upon me. Of course I know that Georgy did it for the best," he added, in reply to a reproachful "O Philip!" from Mrs. Sheldon. "But the whole business has been a mistake. No sooner are we comfortably settled down here, than Hawkehurst takes it into his head to be outrageously alarmed about Charlotte, and wants to bring half-a-dozen doctors round the poor girl's bed, to her inevitable peril; for in an illness which begins and ends in mental depression, all appearance of alarm is calculated to do mischief."
Having said this, Mr. Sheldon lost no time in making arrangements for the journey. A carriage was ordered; all possible preparations were made for the comfort of the invalid—everything that care or kindness could do was done; but the cruelty of the removal was not the less obvious. Georgy wailed piteously about the sixes-and-sevens to which they were being taken. Diana cared nothing about sixes-and-sevens; but she felt supreme indignation against Charlotte's stepfather, and she did not attempt to conceal her feelings.
Nor was it without an effort to oppose Mr. Sheldon's authority that Miss
Paget succumbed to the force of circumstances. She appealed to his wife.