Chapter Three.
Family Portraits.
Bright and sunny days are not common in November, but the invalid managed to go out driving in such fine blinks as came along, and in each instance “Angelina” was seated by her side. The friendship was progressing with giant strides, and doctor and nurse looked upon Bridgie O’Shaughnessy as their greatest assistant in a period of great anxiety.
Sylvia was now able to sit up and work and read; head and eyes had come back to their normal condition, but the treacherous disease had left its poison in foot and ankle, and the pain on movement became more and more acute. It required all the cheer that the new friend could give to hearten the invalid when once more she was sent back to counterpane land, with a big cage over the affected part to protect it from the bedclothes, and all manner of painful and exhausting dressings to be undergone.
Sylvia fumed, and grumbled, and whined; she grew sulky and refused to speak; she waxed angry and snapped at the nurse. Worst of all, she lost hope, and shed slow, bitter tears, which scalded the thin cheeks.
“I shall never get better, Whitey,” she sobbed miserably. “I shan’t try; it’s too much trouble. You might as well leave me alone to die in peace.”
“It’s not a question of dying, my dear. It’s a question of healing your foot. If I leave you in peace, you may be lame for life. How would you like that?” said Whitey bluntly. She knew her patient by this time, and understood that while the idea of fading away in her youth might appear sufficiently romantic, Miss Sylvia would find nothing attractive in the prospect of limping ungracefully through life. The dressings and bandagings were endured meekly enough after that, but the girl’s heart was full of dread, and the long dark days were hard to bear.
It became a rule that, instead of taking the meal alone, Bridgie O’Shaughnessy should come across the road to tea, and sit an hour in the sick-room while Whitey wrote letters or went out for a constitutional. She came with hands full of photographs and letters and family trophies, to give point to her conversation, and make her dear ones live in Sylvia’s imagination.
One day there was a picture of the old home—such a venerable and imposing building that Aunt Margaret, beholding it, felt her last suspicions of counterfeit coining die a natural death, and gave instructions to Mary that the second-best tea-things were to be taken upstairs whenever Miss O’Shaughnessy was present. Sylvia was impressed too, but thought it very sad that anyone who had lived in a castle should come down to Number Three, Rutland Road. She delicately hinted as much, and Bridgie said—