“Is it my master?—Is it the child?” cried Margery, bending over her. “They won’t be long, ma’am.”
It was Margery’s habit to soothe the dying, even if she had to do it at some little expense of veracity. She knew that her master could not go to Ashlydyat and be home just yet: she did not know of his visits to the houses of the doctors: but if she had known it she would equally have said, “They won’t be long.”
But the eager look continued on Maria’s face, and it became evident to experienced Margery that her master and Meta were not the anxious point. Maria’s lips moved, and Margery bent her ear.
“Papa! Is it time?”
“It’s the Sacrament she’s thinking of,” whispered Margery to Mrs. Akeman: “or else that she wants to take leave of him. The Rector was to come at eight o’clock; he told me so when he called in again this afternoon. What is to be done, ma’am?”
“And it is only half-past six! We must send to him at once.”
Margery seemed in some uncertainty. “Shall you be afraid to stay here alone, ma’am, if I go?”
“Why! where is Jean?”
Jean, one of the old servants of Ashlydyat, discharged with the rest when the bankruptcy had come, but now in service there again under Lord and Lady Averil, had been with Margery all day. She had now been sent out by the latter for certain errands wanted in the town.
A tremor came over Mrs. Akeman at Margery’s question, as to whether she would be afraid to stay there alone. To one not accustomed to it, it does require peculiar courage to remain with the dying. But Grace could call up a brave spirit at will, and she no longer hesitated, when she saw the continued eager look on her sister’s face.