Nurse Hopkins said cheerfully:
“That was the wet spell last week, I expect. This hot dry weather will soon clear that away.”
Her brisk professional manner appeared to annoy the old man.
He said disagreeably:
“Nurses—nurses, you’m all the same. Full of cheerfulness over other people’s troubles. Little you care! And there’s Mary talks about being a nurse, too. Should have thought she’d want to be something better than that, with her French and her German and her piano playing and all the things she’s learned at her grand school and her travels abroad.”
Mary said sharply:
“Being a hospital nurse would be quite good enough for me!”
“Yes, and you’d sooner do nothing at all, wouldn’t you? Strutting about with your airs and your graces and your fine-lady-do-nothing ways. Laziness, that’s what you like, my girl!”
Mary protested, tears springing to her eyes:
“It isn’t true, Dad. You’ve no right to say that!”
Nurse Hopkins intervened with a heavy, determinedly humorous air.
“Just a bit under the weather, aren’t we, this morning? You don’t really mean what you say, Gerrard. Mary’s a good girl and a good daughter to you.”
Gerrard looked at his daughter with an air of almost active malevolence.
“She’s no daughter of mine—nowadays—with her French and her history and her mincing talk. Pah!”
He turned and went into the lodge again.
Mary said, the tears still standing in her eyes:
“You do see, Nurse, don’t you, how difficult it is? He’s so unreasonable. He’s never really liked me even when I was a little girl. Mum was always standing up for me.”
Nurse Hopkins said kindly:
“There, there, don’t worry. These things are sent to try us! Goodness, I must hurry. Such a round as I’ve got this morning.”
And as she stood watching the brisk retreating figure, Mary Gerrard thought forlornly that nobody was any real good or could really help you. Nurse Hopkins, for all her kindness, was quite content to bring out a little stock of platitudes and offer them with an air of novelty.
Mary thought disconsolately:
“What shall I do?”
Two
Mrs. Welman lay on her carefully built-up pillows. Her breathing was a little heavy, but she was not asleep. Her eyes—eyes still deep and blue like those of her niece Elinor, looked up at the ceiling. She was a big, heavy woman, with a handsome, hawklike profile. Pride and determination showed in her face.
The eyes dropped and came to rest on the figure sitting by the window. They rested there tenderly—almost wistfully.
She said at last:
“Mary—”
The girl turned quickly.
“Oh, you’re awake, Mrs. Welman.”
Laura Welman said: