The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 9

"He admires rather too many," nodded Grace.

"As long as he does not admire yours, you have no right to grumble,"

rejoined Isaac provokingly: and Grace flung a bundle of work at him, for the laugh turned against her.

"Rose, you naughty child, you have my crayons there!" exclaimed Maria, happening to cast her eyes upon the table, where Rose was seated too quietly to be at anything but mischief.

"Only one or two of your sketching pencils, Maria," said Miss Rose. "I shan't hurt them. I am making a villa with two turrets and some cows."

"I say, Maria, is Charlotte Pain going to take that thoroughbred hunter of hers?" interposed Reginald.

"Of course," scoffed Isaac: "saddled and bridled. She'll have him with her in the railway carriage; put him in the corner seat opposite Sir George. Regy's brains may do for sea--if he ever gets there; but they are not sharp enough for land."

"They are as sharp as yours, at any rate," flashed Reginald. "Why should she not take him?"

"Be quiet, you boys!" said Grace.

She was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hastings. He did not open the door at the most opportune moment. Maria, Isaac, and Harry were executing a dance that probably had no name in the dancing calendar; Reginald was standing on his head; Rose had just upset the contents of the table, by inadvertently drawing off its old cloth cover, and Grace was scolding her in a loud tone.

"What do you call this?" demanded Mr. Hastings, when he had leisurely surveyed the scene. "Studying?"

They subsided into quietness and their places; Reginald with his face red and his hair wild, Maria with a pretty blush, Isaac with a smothered laugh. Mr. Hastings addressed his second daughter.

"Have you heard anything about this fresh outbreak of fever?"

"No, papa," was Maria's reply. "Has it broken out again?"

"I hear that it has attacked Sarah Anne Grame."

"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Grace, clasping her hands in sorrowful consternation. "Will she ever live through it?"

Just the same doubt, you see, that had occurred to the Rector.

CHAPTER V.

THOMAS G.o.dOLPHIN'S LOVE.

For nearly a mile beyond All Souls' Rectory, as you went out of Prior's Ash, there were scattered houses and cottages. In one of them lived Lady Sarah Grame. We receive our ideas from a.s.sociation; and, in speaking of the residence of Lady Sarah Grame, or Lady Sarah Anyone, imagination might conjure up some fine old mansion with all its appurtenances, grounds, servants, carriages and grandeur: or, at the very least, a "villa with two turrets and some cows," as Rose Hastings expressed it.

Far more like a humble cottage than a mansion was the abode of Lady Sarah Grame. It was a small, pretty, detached white house, containing eight or nine rooms in all; and, they, not very large ones. A plot of ground before it was crowded with flowers: far too crowded for good taste, as David Jekyl would point out to Lady Sarah. But Lady Sarah loved flowers, and would not part with one of them.

The daughter of one soldier, and the wife of another, Lady Sarah had scrambled through life amidst bustle, perplexity, and poverty. Sometimes quartered in barracks, sometimes following the army abroad; out of one place into another; never settled anywhere for long together. It was an existence not to be envied; although it is the lot of many. She was Mrs.

Grame then, and her husband, the captain, was not a very good husband to her. He was rather too fond of amusing himself, and threw all care upon her shoulders. She pa.s.sed her days nursing her sickly children, and endeavouring to make one sovereign go as far as two. One morning, to her unspeakable embarra.s.sment, she found herself converted from plain, private Mrs. Grame into the Lady Sarah. Her father boasted a peer in a very remote relative, and came unexpectedly into the t.i.tle.

Had he come into money with it, it would have been more welcome; but, of that, there was only a small supply. It was a very poor Scotch peerage, with limited estates; and, they, enc.u.mbered. Lady Sarah wished she could drop the honour which had fallen to her share, unless she could live a little more in accordance with it. She had much sorrow. She had lost one child after another, until she had only two left, Sarah Anne and Ethel.

Then she lost her husband; and, next, her father. Chance drove her to Prior's Ash, which was near her husband's native place; and she settled there, upon her limited income. All she possessed was her pension as a captain's widow, and the interest of the sum her father had been enabled to leave her; the whole not exceeding five hundred a year. She took the white cottage, then just built, and dignified it with the name of "Grame House:" and the mansions in the neighbourhood of Prior's Ash were content not to laugh, but to pay respect to her as an earl's daughter.

Lady Sarah was a partial woman. She had only these two daughters, and her love for them was as different as light is from darkness. Sarah Anne she loved with an inordinate affection, almost amounting to pa.s.sion; for Ethel, she did not care. What could be the reason of this? What is the reason why parents (many of them may be found) will love some of their children, and dislike others? They cannot tell you, any more than Lady Sarah could have told. Ask them, and they will be unable to give you an answer. It does not lie in the children: it often happens that those obtaining the least love will be the most worthy of it. Such was the case here. Sarah Anne Grame was a pale, sickly, fretful girl; full of whims, full of complaints, giving trouble to every one about her. Ethel, with her sweet countenance and her merry heart, made the suns.h.i.+ne of the home. She bore with her sister's exacting moods, bore with her mother's want of love. _She_ loved them both, and waited on them, and carolled forth her s.n.a.t.c.hes of song as she moved about the house, and was as happy as the day was long. The servants--they kept only two--would tell you that Miss Grame was cross and selfish; but that Miss Ethel was worth her weight in gold. The gold was soon to be appropriated; transplanted to a home where it would be appreciated and cherished: for Ethel was the affianced wife of Thomas G.o.dolphin.

On the morning already mentioned, when you heard it said that fever had broken out again, Sarah Anne Grame awoke, ill. In her fretful, impatient way, she called to Ethel, who slept in an adjoining room. Ethel was asleep: but she was accustomed to be roused at unseasonable hours by Sarah Anne, and she threw on her dressing-gown and hastened to her.

"I want some tea," began Sarah Anne. "I am as ill and thirsty as I can be."

Sarah Anne was really of a sickly const.i.tution, and to hear her complain of being ill and thirsty was nothing unusual. Ethel, in her loving nature, her sweet patience, received the information with as much concern as though she had never heard it before. She bent over Sarah Anne, inquiring tenderly where she felt pain.

"I tell you that I am ill and thirsty, and that's enough," peevishly answered Sarah Anne. "Go and get me some tea."

"As soon as I possibly can," said Ethel soothingly. "There is no fire at present. The maids are not up. I do not think it can be later than six, by the look of the morning."

"Very well!" sobbed Sarah Anne--sobs of temper, not of pain. "You can't call the maids, I suppose! and you can't put yourself the least out of the way to alleviate my suffering! You want to go to bed again and sleep till eight o'clock. When I am dead, you'll wish you had been more like a sister to me. You possess rude health yourself, and you can feel no compa.s.sion for any one who does not."

An a.s.sertion unjust and untrue: as was many another, made by Sarah Anne Grame. Ethel did not possess "rude health," though she was not, like her sister, always ailing; and she felt far more compa.s.sion than Sarah Anne deserved.

"I will see what I can do," she gently said. "You shall soon have some tea."

Pa.s.sing into her own room, Ethel hastily dressed herself. When Sarah Anne was in one of her exacting moods, there could be no more sleep or rest for Ethel. "I wonder," she thought to herself, "whether I could not light a fire, without calling the servants? They had so hard a day's work yesterday, for mamma kept them both cleaning from morning till night. Yes: if I can only find some wood, I'll try to light one."

She went down to the kitchen, hunted up what was required, laid the fire, and lighted it. It did not burn up well. She thought the wood must be damp, and found the bellows. She was on her knees, blowing away at the wood, and sending the blaze up into the coal, when some one came into the kitchen.

"Miss Ethel!"

It was one of the servants: Elizabeth. She had heard movement in the house, and had risen. Ethel explained that her sister felt ill, and tea was wanted.

"Why did you not call us, Miss Ethel?"

"You went to rest late, Elizabeth. See how I have made the fire burn!"

"It is not ladies' work, miss."

"I certainly think ladies should put on gloves when they attempt it,"

merrily laughed Ethel. "Look at my black hands."

The tea ready, Ethel carried a cup of it to her sister, with some dry toast that they had made. Sarah Anne drank the tea, but turned with a s.h.i.+ver from the toast. She seemed to be s.h.i.+vering much.

"Who was so stupid as to make that? You might know I should not eat it.

I am too ill."

Ethel began to think that she did look unusually ill. Her face was flushed, s.h.i.+vering though she was, her lips were dry, her heavy eyes were unnaturally bright. She gently laid her hands, washed now, upon her sister's brow. It felt burning, and Sarah Anne screamed.

"Do keep your hands away! My head is splitting with pain."

Involuntarily Ethel thought of the fever; the danger from which they had been reckoning had pa.s.sed away. It was a low sort of typhus which had prevailed; not very extensively, and chiefly amidst the poor: the great fear had been, lest it should turn to a more malignant type. About half a dozen deaths had taken place altogether.

"Would you like me to bathe your forehead with water, Sarah Anne?" asked Ethel kindly. "Or to get you some eau-de-Cologne?"