The eyes remained open, fixed. Lady Louisa tried to shut them, but she could not.
"Now I am going to hold up these large letters one after another. If there is something you wish me to do, spell it to me. Make a sound when I reach the right letter. I begin with A. Now we come to B. Here is C."
But after many fruitless attempts Janey gave up the letters. Her mother groaned at intervals, but when the letters were written down they did not make sense. No bridge could span the gulf. At last the doctor advised Janey to give up trying to span it.
"Leave her in peace," he said in Lady Louisa's hearing, that acute hearing which was as intact as her eyesight.
So Lady Louisa was left in peace.
She saw the reins and whip which she had held so tightly slip out of her hands. She who had imposed her will on others all her life could impose it no longer. She was tended by a traitor whom she hated, yet she was unable to denounce her, to rid herself of her daily, hourly presence.
A wood pigeon cooed tranquilly in the cedar, and Lady Louisa groaned.
The nurse put down her book, and came and stood beside the bed. The two enemies looked at each other, the younger woman boldly meeting the impotent hatred of her patient's eyes.
"It's no use, milady," she said, replacing a little cushion under her elbow. "You're down, and I'm up, and you've got to make up your mind to it. Harry told me you'd got it out of him. Are you any the happier for knowing I'm your daughter-in-law? I'd meant to spare you that. It was that as brought on the stroke. Very clever you were to wheedle it out of Harry, but it didn't do you much good. You'd turn me out without a character if you could, wouldn't you? But you can't. And listen to me. You won't ever be any better, or I shouldn't talk like this. I dare say I'm pretty bad, but I'd never say there wasn't a chance while there was the least little scrap of one left. But there isn't, not one scrap. It's all over with your high and mighty ways, and riding rough-shod over everybody, and poor Miss Manvers. It's no use crying. You've made others cry often enough. Now it's your turn. And don't go and think I'm going to be cruel to you because you've been cruel to others. I'm not. I'm sorry enough for you, lying there like a log, eating your heart out. I'm going to make you as comfortable as ever I can, and to do my duty by you. And when you're gone I'm going to make Harry happier than he's ever been under your thumb. So now you understand."