“Go and rest,” said Marcus, and she went; perhaps the calm grey eyes of Elsie gave her a sense of security. At all events, she did not question the right of the new-comer to wait and watch. Marcus sat down at one side of the bed, Elsie at the other. They seemed so near to one another, divided only by the ridge of bedclothes so slightly raised.
“Concussion,” he whispered.
Elsie nodded; she never spoke. He wished she would say something, possibly: How terrible it must have been for him! Then he might have said: What a journey it must have been for her! But she said nothing. Her eyes never left Shan’t’s face. Sometimes Marcus looked from Shan’t to Elsie. In the daylight darkness—the blinds were drawn—he could see, he thought, why it was the children were so fond of her, and why, if her brother in any way resembled her, Sibyl was so devoted to him. He liked her quietness—although she might, perhaps, have said a few words: but that was a thing no woman could do. If she had spoken at all she must have spoken too much.
And so Marcus and Elsie, when they were not eating or sleeping, and they ate very little and slept hardly at all, sat and watched. And while they watched, Elsie had time to discover that Marcus had nice hands and he to find that he rather liked the way her hair grew; and that was all. He was the uncle on the one side—she the aunt on the other—of Shan’t’s bed—so small a thing dividing them.
XXI
To the young woman God gives rich gifts: from the
middle-aged woman He asks them back: to the
old woman He gives them all again—for good.
Mrs. Sloane was distressed about Diana, and her old eyes were quick to see a change in the girl whose reticence about her visit to Scotland was unusual in one who was accustomed to confide.
When the news of Shan’t’s accident came her grief was unnatural in its overwhelming force. Diana looked reluctantly upon the black side of things: and was always eager to believe that things must come right. A happy Diana would have refused to believe that anything could happen to Shan’t for the very good reason that she loved her. Here, then, thought Mrs. Sloane, was an accumulation of sorrow, sorrow, that had been held back by force, let go. The telegram had said nothing of danger, so Mrs. Sloane knew Diana was glad of the excuse to cry, and she, of course, was right, as understanding old women usually are.