Part 129 (2/2)
”I do not know what she means to do,” answered Maria, shaking her head.
”She protests ten times a day that she will not go; but I see she is carefully mending up all her cotton gowns, and one day I heard her say to Meta that she supposed nothing but cotton was bearable out there.
What I should do without Margery on the voyage I don't like to think about. George told her to consider of it, and give us her decision when he next came down. And you, Janet? When shall you be back again at Prior's Ash?”
”I do not suppose I shall ever come back to it,” was Janet's answer.
”Its reminiscences will not be so pleasing to me that I should seek to renew my acquaintance with it.”
”Bexley attends you, I hear.”
”Yes. My aunt's old servant has got beyond his work--he has been forty-two years in the family, Maria--and Bexley will replace him.”
When Janet rose to leave, she bent over Maria and slipped four sovereigns into her hand. ”It is for yourself, my dear,” she whispered.
”Oh, thank you! But indeed I have enough, Janet. George left me five pounds when he was at home, and it is not half gone. You don't know what a little keeps us. I eat next to nothing, and Margery, I think, lives chiefly upon porridge: there's only Meta.”
”But you ought to eat, child!”
”I can't eat,” said Maria. ”I have never lost that pain in my throat.”
”What pain?” asked Janet.
”I do not know. It came on with the trouble. I feel--I feel always ill within myself, Janet. I seem to be always s.h.i.+vering inwardly; and the pain in the throat is sometimes better, sometimes worse, but it never quite goes away.”
Janet looked at her searchingly. She heard the meek, resigned tone, she saw the white, wan face, the attenuate hands, the chest rising with every pa.s.sing emotion, the mournful look in the sweet eyes; and for the first time a suspicion that another life would shortly have to go, took possession of Miss G.o.dolphin.
”What is George at, that he is not here to see after you?” she asked in a strangely severe accent.
”He cannot bear Prior's Ash, Janet,” whispered Maria. ”But for me and Thomas, he never would have come back to it. And I suppose he is busy in London: there must be many arrangements to make.”
Janet stooped and gravely kissed her; kissed her twice. ”Take care of yourself, my dear, and do all you can to keep your mind tranquil and to get up your strength. You shall hear from me before your departure.”
Margery stood in the little hall. Miss Bessy G.o.dolphin was in the garden, in full chase after that rebellious damsel, Meta, who had made a second escape through the opened door, pa.s.sing angry Margery and the outstretched hand that would have made a prisoner of her, with a laugh of defiance. Miss G.o.dolphin stopped to address Margery.
”Shall you go to India or not, Margery?”
”I'm just almost torn in two about it, ma'am,” was the answer, delivered confidentially. ”Without me, that child would never reach the other side alive: she'd be clambering up the sides o' the s.h.i.+p and get drownded ten times over before they got there. Look at her now! And who'd take care of her over there, among those native beasts--those elephants and black people? If I thought she'd ever come to be waited on by a black woman with woolly hair, I should be fit to smother her before she went out. I shall see, Miss Janet.”
”Margery, your mistress appears to want the greatest care.”
”She has wanted that a long while,” was Margery's composed answer.
”She ought to have everything strengthening. Wine and other necessaries required by the sick.”
”I suppose she ought,” said Margery. ”But she won't take them, Miss Janet; she says she can't eat and drink. And for the matter of that, we have nothing of that sort for her to take. There were more good things consumed in the Bank in a day than we should see in a month now.”
”Where's your master?” repeated Janet in an accent not less sharp than the one she had used for the same question to Maria.
”He?” cried wrathful Margery, for the subject was sure to put her out uncommonly, in the strong opinion she was pleased to hold touching her master's short-comings. ”I suppose he's riding about with his choice friend, Madam Pain. Folks talk of their horses being seen abreast pretty often.”
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