“There’s nothing to be said against the room,” said Alice, in a Scotch accent, and with a solemnity of tone that spoke more than words.
“And then we shall all be together. It will be very handy for everything,” said Nelly, with a sickly smile, trying to bear up; “all the ladies of the family——”
“I would like to speak a word to your mamma about that,” said Alice. She pronounced the word “Mammaw,” and somehow those broad vowels added ten-fold weight—or so, at least, Ellinor thought—to the speech.
“Mamma has gone into the little room,” said Nelly, with an effort. Mrs. Eastwood was a very persuadable woman, and she looked still more persuadable than she was. Most people thought they themselves could influence her to anything, unless, indeed, some one else had forestalled them; and, to tell the truth, even her own family attributed to Mrs. Everard, or failing her to Alice, everything in their mother’s conduct which was not attributable to their own sage advices. It required a more subtle observer than Nelly to make out that her mother had in reality a great deal of her own way; therefore she was deeply alarmed by Alice’s unfriendly looks, and followed her into the little room with but slightly disguised terror.
“Alice is in a bad humour,” she whispered to her mother; “You won’t mind what she says? She thinks the new paper and the chintz are extravagant. Don’t listen to her, mamma.”
“So they are,” said Mrs. Eastwood, shaking her head. She was fond of pretty paper and pretty chintz, and of change and novelty. She liked furnishing a room almost as well as her daughter did, and she thought she had “taste.” Therefore she had defences against any attack on that side of the question, which Ellinor had not dreamt of. However, even Nelly was startled and taken aback by the unexpected line taken by Alice, who looked as if she might have something very important to say.
“You remember Miss Isabel, mem?” was what she said, looking her mistress full in the face.
“Dear me, Alice, what a question! Remember my sister?” cried Mrs. Eastwood, turning abruptly away from the paper and chintz.
“It’s a queer question to ask,” said Alice, with a grim smile; “but dinna go too fast. You mind your sister, and yet you are going to put her child—her only child—here in a room next to your own, next to Miss Ellinor’s? Between mother and daughter? That’s where you place Miss Isabel’s bairn?”
“Alice!” cried Mrs. Eastwood, almost angrily. She looked at Nelly’s wondering face and then at her maid with a half-frightened, half-threatening gesture. She was annoyed, but she was startled too.