‘And the boy that was expelled for bullying Tom is in the business.’
‘I hate the thought of that,’ said the Doctor. ‘If he had stayed on, who knows but he might have turned out as well as Ned Anderson.’
‘Has not he?’
‘I’m sure I have no right to say he has not, but he is a flashy slang style of youth, and I hope the young Wards will keep out of his way.’
‘What will become of them? Is there likely to be any provision for them?’
‘Not much, I should guess. Poor Ward did as we are all tempted to do when money goes through our hands, and spent more freely than I was ever allowed to do. Costly house, garden, greenhouses—he’d better have stuck to old Axworthy’s place in Minster Street—daughter at that grand school, where she cost more than the whole half- dozen of you put together.’
‘She was more worth it,’ said Ethel; ‘her music and drawing are first-rate. Harry was frantic about her singing last time he was at home—one evening when Mrs. Anderson abused his good-nature and got him to a tea-party—I began to be afraid of the consequences.’
‘Pish!’ said the Doctor.
‘And really they kept her there to enable her to educate her sisters,’ said Ethel. ‘The last time I called on poor Mrs. Ward, she told me all about it, apologizing in the pretty way mothers do, saying she was looking forward to Averil’s coming home, but that while she profited so much, they felt it due to her to give her every advantage; and did not I think—with my experience—that it was all so much for the little ones’ benefit? I assured her, from my personal experience, that ignorance is a terrible thing in governessing one’s sisters. Poor thing! And Averil had only come home this very Easter.’
‘And with everything to learn, in such a scene as that! The first day, when only the boys were ill, there sat the girl, dabbling with her water-colours, and her petticoats reaching half across the room, looking like a milliner’s doll, and neither she nor her poor mother dreaming of her doing a useful matter.’
‘Who is spiteful now, papa? That’s all envy at not having such an accomplished daughter. When she came out in time of need so grandly, and showed all a woman’s instinct—’
‘Woman’s nonsense! Instinct is for irrational brutes, and the more you cultivate a woman, the less she has of it, unless you work up her practical common sense too.’
‘Some one said she made a wonderful nurse.’
‘Wonderful? Perhaps so, considering her opportunities, and she does better with Spencer than with me; I may have called her to order impatiently, for she is nervous with me, loses her head, and knocks everything down with her petticoats. Then—not a word to any one, Ethel—but imagine her perfect blindness to her poor mother’s state all yesterday, and last night, not even calling Burdon to look at her; why, those ten hours may have made all the difference!’
‘Poor thing, how is she getting on now?’
‘Concentrated upon Leonard, too much stunned to admit another idea—no tears—hardly full comprehension. One can’t take her away, and she can’t bear not to do everything, and yet one can’t trust her any more than a child.’
‘As she is,’ said Ethel, ‘but as she won’t be any longer. And the two little ones?’
‘It breaks one’s heart to see them, just able to sit by their nursery fire, murmuring in that weary, resigned, sick child’s voice, ‘I wish nurse would come.’ ‘I wish sister would come.’ ‘I wish mamma would come.’ I went up to them the last thing, and told them how it was, and let them cry themselves to sleep. That was the worst business of all. Ethel, are they too big for Mary to dress some dolls for them?’
‘I will try to find out their tastes the first thing tomorrow,’ said Ethel; ‘at any rate we can help them, if not poor Averil.’
Ethel, however, was detained at home to await Dr. Spencer’s visit, and Mary, whose dreams had all night been haunted by the thought of the two little nursery prisoners, entreated to go with her father, and see what could be done for them.
Off they set together, Mary with a basket in her hand, which was replenished at the toy-shop in Minster Street with two china-faced dolls, and, a little farther on, parted with a couple of rolls, interspersed with strata of cold beef and butter, to a household of convalescents in the stage for kitchen physic.
Passing the school, still taking its enforced holiday, the father and daughter traversed the bridge and entered the growing suburb known as Bankside, where wretched cottages belonging to needy, grasping proprietors, formed an uncomfortable contrast to the villa residences interspersed among them.
One of these, with a well-kept lawn, daintily adorned with the newest pines and ornamental shrubs, and with sheets of glass glaring in the sun from the gardens at the back, was the house that poor Mr. and Mrs. Ward had bought and beautified; ‘because it was so much better for the children to be out of the town.’ The tears sprang into Mary’s eyes at the veiled windows, and the unfeeling contrast of the spring glow of flowering thorn, lilac, laburnum, and, above all, the hard, flashing brightness of the glass; but tears were so unlike Ethel that Mary always was ashamed of them, and disposed of them quietly.
They rang, but in vain. Two of the servants were ill, and all in confusion; and after waiting a few moments among the azaleas in the glass porch, Dr. May admitted himself, and led the way up-stairs with silent footfalls, Mary following with breath held back. A voice from an open door called, ‘Is that Dr. May?’ and he paused to look in and say, ‘I’ll be with you in one minute, Henry; how is Leonard?’
‘No worse, they tell me; I say, Dr. May—’
‘One moment;’ and turning back to Mary, he pointed along a dark passage. ‘Up there, first door to the right. You can’t mistake;’ then disappeared, drawing the door after him.
Much discomfited, Mary nevertheless plunged bravely on, concluding ‘there’ to be up a narrow, uncarpeted stair, with a nursery wicket at the top, in undoing which, she was relieved of all doubts and scruples by a melancholy little duet from within. ‘Mary, Mary, we want our breakfast! We want to get up! Mary, Mary, do come! please come!’
She was instantly in what might ordinarily have been a light, cheerful room, but which was in all the dreariness
