Suddenly Lady Tasker interrupted her.
“Had Jack to borrow money to send them up there?”
“To Murree? I really don’t know. Perhaps he had. But as adjutant of the Railway Volunteers he’d have his saloon.”
“H’m!... Anyway, the child oughtn’t to be there at all. India’s no place for children.”
“I know, auntie; but what can one do? They do come.”
“H’m!... They didn’t to me. Thank goodness I’ve done with love and babies.” (Dorothy laughed, perhaps at a mental vision of the houses in Ludlow and Cromwell Gardens.) “Anyway, now they are here somebody’s got to look after them. They may as well be healthy....”
She mused, and Dorothy reached for other letters.
Lady Tasker’s additions to her responsibilities usually began in this way. Dorothy had very little doubt that presently little Dot also would be handed like a parcel to some man or other coming home on leave, and Lady Tasker would send to the makers for yet another cot.... Therefore, pushing aside her last letter, she exclaimed almost crossly, “I do think it’s selfish of Aunt Eliza! There she is, with Spurrs all to herself, and she never once thinks that Jack might like to send Dot to England!”
“Neither would I if I had my time over again,” said Lady Tasker resolutely. “You needn’t look like that—I wouldn’t. Cromwell Gardens is past praying for, and in another year there won’t be a stick at the Brear that’s fit to be seen. The next batch I certainly intend to charge for. I’m on the brink of the poor-house as it is.”