Janet looked at her searchingly. She heard the meek, resigned tone, she saw the white, wan face, the attenuate hands, the chest rising with every passing emotion, the mournful look in the sweet eyes; and for the first time a suspicion that another life would shortly have to go, took possession of Miss Godolphin.
“What is George at, that he is not here to see after you?” she asked in a strangely severe accent.
“He cannot bear Prior’s Ash, Janet,” whispered Maria. “But for me and Thomas, he never would have come back to it. And I suppose he is busy in London: there must be many arrangements to make.”
Janet stooped and gravely kissed her; kissed her twice. “Take care of yourself, my dear, and do all you can to keep your mind tranquil and to get up your strength. You shall hear from me before your departure.”
Margery stood in the little hall. Miss Bessy Godolphin was in the garden, in full chase after that rebellious damsel, Meta, who had made a second escape through the opened door, passing angry Margery and the outstretched hand that would have made a prisoner of her, with a laugh of defiance. Miss Godolphin stopped to address Margery.
“Shall you go to India or not, Margery?”
“I’m just almost torn in two about it, ma’am,” was the answer, delivered confidentially. “Without me, that child would never reach the other side alive: she’d be clambering up the sides o’ the ship and get drownded ten times over before they got there. Look at her now! And who’d take care of her over there, among those native beasts—those elephants and black people? If I thought she’d ever come to be waited on by a black woman with woolly hair, I should be fit to smother her before she went out. I shall see, Miss Janet.”
“Margery, your mistress appears to want the greatest care.”
“She has wanted that a long while,” was Margery’s composed answer.
“She ought to have everything strengthening. Wine and other necessaries required by the sick.”