Anne Hereford: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Perhaps not. I hope not. Yes, I do hope it, Anne, in spite of my fancied warning—which, I suppose, was only a dream after all. My mind must have dwelt on what you said about Ursula. If you ever relate to me anything of the sort again, Anne, I'll beat you."

I stood conscience-stricken. But in telling her what I did, I had only obeyed my mother. I like to repeat this over and over.

"At least, as well provided for as I have it in my power to provide," she continued, just as though there had been no interruption. "I have left you my four thousand pounds. It is out at good interest—five per cent.; and I have directed it to accumulate until you are eighteen. Then it goes to you. This will just keep you; just be enough to keep you from going out as a governess. If I live, you will have your home with me after leaving school. Of course, that governess scheme was all a farce; Ursula could only have meant it as such. The world would stare to see a governess in a granddaughter of Carew of Keppe-Carew."

The will lay on the bed. She told me to lock it up in the opposite cabinet, taking the keys from underneath the pillow, and I obeyed her. By her directions, I took the cabinet key off the bunch, locked it up alone in a drawer, and she returned the bunch underneath her pillow. By that time she could not speak at all. Charlotte Delves, happening to come in, asked what she had been doing to reduce her strength like that.

It was a miserable day after they came in from the funeral. Mr. Edwin Barley did not seem to know what to do with himself; and the other people had gone home. Mr. Martin was alone with Selina for a great portion of the afternoon. At first I did not know he was there, and looked in. The clergyman was kneeling down by the bed, praying aloud. I shut the door again, hoping they had not heard it open. In the evening Selina appeared considerably better. She sat up in bed, and ate a few spoonfuls of arrowroot. Mr. Edwin Barley, who was in the arm-chair near the fire, said it was poor stuff, and she ought to take either brandy or wine, or both.

"Let me give you some in that, Selina," he cried. And indeed he had been wanting to give it her all along.

"I should be afraid to take it; don't tease me," she feebly answered, and it was astonishing how low her voice was getting. "You know what the doctors say, Edwin. When once the inflammation (or whatever it is) in the throat has passed, then I may be fed up every hour. Perhaps they will let me begin to-morrow."

"If they don't mind, they'll keep you so low that——that we shall have to give you a bottle of brandy a day." I think the concluding words, after the pause, had been quite changed from what he had been going to say, and he spoke half-jokingly. "I know that the proper treatment for you would have been stimulants. I told Lowe so again to-day, but he would not have it. But for one thing, I'd take the case into my own hands, and give you a wine-glass of brandy now."

"And that one thing?" she asked, in her scarcely perceptible voice.

"The doubt that I might do wrong."