Mr. Sandford, angry and amazed, went to her room—to find Jean on a sofa, talking loud and fast, incoherently, and Mrs. Dorriman pale and composed, attending to her. She met him with reproach.
"How could you? How could you?" she began. "She was ill, poor thing! and you told her to go. But she shall not go! I will nurse her. My poor, poor Jean!"
Mr. Sandford himself was startled. To do him justice, he had not seen that the poor woman was so ill. In the height of her illness, upheld by a strong resentment against him, she had come to his house, and there she must remain.
No persuasion would induce Mrs. Dorriman to consent to her removal to the hospital or to allow any one to take her place by Jean's bedside.
The doctor came and went constantly, Mrs. Dorriman, submissive and timid when she herself was in question, was neither of these things as regarded Jean.
That bow-windowed room coveted by Grace was made into a bedroom for her, but she would not sleep out of Jean's room; she allowed no other hand to tend her. Mr. Sandford was astonished and touched. This was the weak woman he had scouted, and whom he had thought so incapable. He watched her come and go with a perpetual amazement, and learned by that poor woman's bedside something of the service love can give and does give, and which no money can buy.
It was a sad household because Mrs. Dorriman was missed by all, but as there is generally a bright spot somewhere, so in this instance Grace thought she had found it, and that now she had her opportunity.
She rearranged the drawing-room, making the very moving of the furniture a protest against Mrs. Dorriman's position as head—she interviewed the cook, throwing so much command into her manner that she was met with direct antagonism. All the servants were in arms against her, the dinners were bad, the servants discontented, and the household bills heavy. Grace knew nothing of expense, nothing of the commonest rules as a guidance, and she allowed no one to suggest or of course tell her anything. Mr. Sandford recognised the loss of his sister's services the moment he was deprived of them; and Grace had the mortification of hearing him say to her,
"It is to be hoped you will be soon able to take your own place again. The discomfort is terrible, and we never get anything fit to eat, and everything is at sixes and sevens."
Watching his sister's ways with the servant she so regarded, he could not help asking himself whether supposing he was ill, as ill as this, he could command the same devotion. He expressed this to Mrs. Dorriman one day; she looked at him gravely and said without any emotion: