This wrung Margaret’s heart with an exquisite pity for her poor young tender self, cut down like a flower. And as the fever recurred, she would lose herself in wonderings where they would bury her; if they would take her down to the Kirkton, and lay her with her father in the breezy mound where she would be able to see her own hills, and hear, on stormy nights, the moaning of the sea? And then it would seem to Margaret that she was being rolled and jolted through a vast darkness going toward that last home of the Leslies—dead at eighteen, but yet feeling and seeing everything, and half pleased with the universal pity. Over all these wanderings of sick and feverish fancy Jean presided in her big cap, the shadow of which against the wall—sometimes rigidly steady, with a steadiness that only Jean could possess, sometimes nodding so that Margaret trembled, feeling that nothing could survive so great a downfall—ran through them all. Jean, in her big cap, was very tender to the girl. She was very quiet in her movements, and, notwithstanding the nodding of the cap, very vigilant, never forgetting an hour or dose.
The strangest week it was!—the time sometimes looking not an hour, since she had begun to doze in the corner of the sofa, sometimes looking like a year, during which she had been wandering through dreariest wilds of confusion and pain. When she came to herself at last, without any choking, without any suffering, but utterly weak and passive, Margaret did not quite know whether she was glad that she was better, or disappointed to feel that everything outside her was just of as much consequence as ever; that she would have to marry Rob Glen, and submit to Jean’s scolding, and wonder if it was true about Randal and Effie—just the same.
But she did not recover in the speedy and satisfactory way which was desired. When she got what her anxious attendants called almost well, and got up and with an effort got herself dressed, it was astonishing to find how few wishes she had. She did not want anything. She did not care about going down-stairs, did not want to get out, and was quite content to be let alone in her corner of the sofa, reading sometimes, still oftener doing nothing at all. At this point of her convalescence it was that Jean had retired, leaving the remainder of the nursing to Grace, who, with a great grievance at her heart on the score of being shut out of the sick-room, took the place now offered her with enthusiasm, and did her best to administer the wines and jellies, the beef-tea, the concentrated nourishment of all kinds which were wanted to make her charge strong again. One day, however, Jean, returning from some outside occupation, found the sick-room in a grievous state of agitation. Margaret had fainted, for no particular cause that any one knew; and Grace and Miss Parker stood weeping over her, scarcely capable of doing anything but weep.
“Her mother, bless her, was just like that,” Miss Parker was saying. “I often thought afterward if we had taken her abroad for the winter it might have been the saving of her. The doctor said so, but no one would believe it. Oh, if we had only taken her abroad!”
This was said in the intervals of fanning Margaret, who lay extended on the sofa as pale as marble, while Grace held salts to her nose. Margaret came to herself as her sister came into the room, with a shiver and long sigh, and Jean, rushing in, cleared away the two incapable persons and resumed the charge of affairs. But, like a wise woman, she took a hint even from her inferiors. When she had restored poor Margaret and made all quiet and comfortable round her, and ordained that she was not to talk or be talked to, Jean’s heart throbbed with terror. Not only did Margaret herself seem in renewed danger, but there was the estate to be considered, which would go away to a distant cousin, and do no one (as Mrs. Bellingham said) any good. When the doctor came, she consulted him with great anxiety on the subject. “Yes,” the doctor said; “no doubt it would be very good for her to go to Mentone for the winter.” He would not say she was in any particular danger now, but delicate, very delicate; all the Sedleys had been delicate, and it must not be forgotten that her mother died young. All this made Jean tremble. The girl herself, though she had been almost a stranger to her a little while ago, had got hold of her fussy but kind nature. She had nursed Margaret successfully through a serious illness; was she to submit to have her snatched out of her hands now for no reason at all, with no disease to justify the catastrophe? Jean said No stoutly. She would not submit.
“My dear, I am going to take you to Mentone,” she said. “I hope you will like it. It is very pretty, you know, and all that. There are a great many invalids; but, poor things, they can’t help being invalids. I am very sorry we sha’n’t enjoy Christmas at the Court; that is a thing that would have done you good. But, to be sure, as we are still wearing deep mourning, we could only have gone to the family parties, which are not very amusing. Grace, you may as well begin your packing; you always take such a time. I am going to take Margaret to Mentone.”
“Oh!” cried Grace, ready to cry, “dearest Jean! then the doctor thought that dear Margaret—”
“The doctor thought nothing about Margaret,” cried Mrs. Bellingham. “The doctor thought what I told him. I said Mentone would do the child good after her illness, and all that has happened, and he agreed, of course. That is all they can do. They tell you to go if they think you will like it. If they think you will not like it, they recommend you to stay at home. I’ll take Aubrey with me: he will always amuse Margaret.”
“And, dearest Margaret, how good it is of dear Jean to settle it all! Do you think you will like—”
“Like! of course she will like it,” said Jean. “We shall start in a week; so you had better speak to Steward about your packing. A day will do for Margaret and me.”