“But she would not let me go until I gave her my address.”
Lady Sybil sat up sharply. “And you did that?” she shrieked. “You gave it her?”
“I was obliged to give it,” Mary stammered, “or I could not have left London.”
“Obliged? Obliged?” Lady Sybil retorted, in the same passionate tone. “Why, you fool, you might have given her fifty addresses! Any address! Any address but this! There!” Lady Sybil continued sullenly, as she sank back and pressed her handkerchief to her lips. “You’ve done it now. You’ve excited me. Give me those drops! There! Are you blind? Those! Those! And—and sit farther from me! I can’t breathe with you close to me!”
After which, when Mary, almost heartbroken, had given her the medicine, and seated herself in the appointed place, she turned her face to the wall and lay silent and morose, uttering no sound but an occasional sigh of pain.
Meantime, to eyes that could read, the room told her story, and told it eloquently. The table beside the couch was strewn with rose-bound Annuals and Keepsakes, and a dozen volumes bearing the labels of more than one library; books opened only to be cast aside. Costly toys and embroidered nothings, vinaigrettes and scent-bottles, lay scattered everywhere; and on other tables, on the mantelpiece, on the floor, a litter of similar trifles elbowed and jostled the gloomy tokens of illness. Near the invalid’s hand lay a miniature in a jewelled frame, while a packet of letters tied with a fragment of gold lace, and a buhl desk half-closed upon a broken fan told the same tale of ennui, and of a vanity which survived the charms on which it had rested. The lesson was not lost on the daughter’s heart. It moved her to purest pity; and presently, wrung by a sigh more painful than usual, she crept to the couch, sank on her knees, and pressed her cool lips to the wasted hand which hung from it. Even then for a time her mother did not move or take notice. But slowly the weary sighs grew more frequent, grew to sobs—how much less poignant!—and her weak arm drew Mary’s head to her bosom.
And by-and-by the arm tightened its hold and gripped her convulsively, the sobs grew deeper and shook the worn form at each respiration; and presently, “Ah, God, what will become of me?” burst from the depths of the poor quaking heart, too proud hitherto to make its fear known. “What will become of me?”
That cry pierced Mary like a knife, but its confession of weakness made mother and daughter one. Her feeble arms could not avert the approach of the dark shadow, whose coming terrified though it could not change. But what human love could do, what patient self-forgetfulness might teach, she vowed that she would do and teach; and what clinging hands might compass to delay the end, her hands should compass. When Miss Sibson’s message, informing her that it was time to return, was brought to her, she shook her head, smiling, and locked the door. “I shall be your nurse, after all!” she said. “I shall not leave you.” And before midnight, with a brave contentment, for which Lady Sybil’s following eyes were warrant, she had taken possession of the room and all its contents; she had tidied as much as it was good to tidy, she had knelt to heat the milk or brush the hearth, she had smoothed the pillow, and sworn a score of times that nothing, no Sir Robert, no father, no force should tear her from this her duty, this her joy—until the end.
No memory of her dull childhood, or of the days of labour and servitude which she owed to the dying woman, no thought of the joys of wealth and youth which she had lost through her, rose to mar the sincerity of her love. Much less did such reflections trouble her on whose flighty mind they should have rested so heavily. So far indeed was this from being the case, that when Mary stooped to some office which the mother’s fastidiousness deemed beneath her, “How can you do that?” Lady Sybil cried peevishly. “I’ll not have you do it! Do you hear me, girl? Let some servant see to it! What else are they for!”
“But I used to do it every day at Clapham,” Mary answered cheerfully. She had not spoken before, aware of the reproach which her words conveyed, she could have bitten her tongue.