Part 58 (1/2)
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.
MRS THORNE RECEIVES.
Hazel Thorne's illness came like a shock to Plumton All Saints, and the opposing members of the committee, who had been instrumental in gaining her dismissal, looked angrily one at the other, as if that other one was specially to blame. The Reverend Henry Lambent sent down messengers to know how Miss Thorne was progressing, and later on sent the same messengers to the Burges' for news.
”Will you not go down and see Mrs Thorne, Rebecca--Beatrice?” he said, one day, appealingly. ”This is a troublous time.”
”We had already felt it to be a duty, Henry, and we will run all risks in such a cause.”
There was not the slightest risk in going to the schoolmistress's cottage, and the sisters went down, to find Mrs Thorne weak and almost prostrate with illness and anxiety, but ready to draw herself up stiffly to receive her visitors.
”Cissy, Mabel, place chairs for these ladies,” she said. ”Miss Lambent will perhaps excuse my rising. I am an invalid.”
Rebecca bowed and glanced at her sister, who made her a sign to proceed.
”We have called, Mrs Thorne, knowing you to be in so sad a state of affliction--”
”To offer a few words of condolence,” said Mrs Thorne, interrupting her. ”It is very neighbourly and kind, I am sure I am sorry poor Hazel is too unwell to be here to receive you as well.”
”What insolence!” muttered Beatrice.
”Condolence is hardly the word,” said Rebecca stiffly. ”We are very much grieved about Miss Thorne, especially as her illness has come almost like a chastis.e.m.e.nt for her weakness in her discharge of her scholastic trust.”
”Oh! You are alluding to the school trifle she did not pay over to the collector at the time,” said Mrs Thorne haughtily. ”It is a pity that so much should have been made of so trivial a matter.”
”Trivial, Mrs Thorne! Your daughter's conduct--”
”Has always been that of a lady, Miss Lambent. Ah! you single ladies don't know, and of course never will know, the necessities of housekeeping.”
Beatrice winced.
”I used that money as I would small change, and I must say I am surprised at Mr Lambent or his sisters, or the school committee, or whoever it is, being so absurdly particular.”
”Particular, Mrs Thorne!” cried Rebecca, aghast.
”Yes; it is very absurd. By-the-way, I may as well observe that I have this morning received a letter from my late husband's solicitor, telling me that fifteen hundred pounds, the result of some business arrangement of his, are now lying at my disposal at the bank; and if you will send the properly authorised person down I will give him a cheque.”
”Mrs Thorne!” exclaimed Rebecca, whom this a.s.sumption of perfect equality--at times even of superiority--galled terribly, ”we came down here to give you a little good advice--to say a few words of sympathy, and to bring you two or three books to read, and ponder over their contents. I am surprised and grieved that you should have taken such a tone.”
”I beg your pardon, Miss Lambent,” retorted Mrs Thorne, who was very pale and much excited; ”allow me to tell you that you are making a mistake. I am not in the habit of receiving parochial visits. They may be very acceptable to the poor of your district, but, as a lady, when another lady calls upon me, I look upon it as a visit of ceremony. You will excuse me, but I am not well. My daughter's illness--my own-- rather tells upon me. You will excuse my rising. I beg your pardon, you are forgetting your little books.”
She picked them up from the table, and held them out; the top one was ”The Dairyman's Daughter,” in paper cover.
The Lambent sisters had risen, and were darting indignant looks at Hazel's mother before she drew their attention to the books they were leaving upon the table; now their anger was hot indeed.
”We brought them for you to read,” cried Rebecca indignantly. ”They were for your good. Mrs Thorne, your conduct is insolent in the extreme.”
”Insolent in the extreme,” a.s.sented Beatrice.
”I am too unwell to argue with you, ladies,” said Mrs Thorne loftily.