“Yes, I’ve been awake some time….”
“Oh, I didn’t know. I’d have—”
Mrs. Welman broke in:
“No, that’s all right. I was thinking—thinking of many things.”
“Yes, Mrs. Welman?”
The sympathetic look, the interested voice, made a tender look come into the older woman’s face. She said gently:
“I’m very fond of you, my dear. You’re very good to me.”
“Oh, Mrs. Welman, it’s you who have been good to me. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know what I should have done! You’ve done everything for me.”
“I don’t know… I don’t know, I’m sure…” The sick woman moved restlessly, her right arm twitched—the left remaining inert and lifeless. “One means to do the best one can; but it’s so difficult to know what is best—what is right. I’ve been too sure of myself always….”
Mary Gerrard said:
“Oh, no, I’m sure you always know what is best and right to do.”
But Laura Welman shook her head.
“No—no. It worries me. I’ve had one besetting sin always, Mary: I’m proud. Pride can be
the devil. It runs in our family. Elinor has it, too.”
Mary said quickly:
“It will be nice for you to have Miss Elinor and Mr. Roderick down. It will cheer you up a lot. It’s quite a time since they were here.”
Mrs. Welman said softly:
“They’re good children—very good children. And fond of me, both of them. I always know I’ve only got to send and they’ll come at any time. But I don’t want to do that too often. They’re young and happy—the world in front of them. No need to bring them near decay and suffering before their time.”
Mary said, “I’m sure they’d never feel like that, Mrs. Welman.”
Mrs. Welman went on, talking perhaps more to herself than to the girl:
“I always hoped they might marry. But I tried never to suggest anything of the kind. Young people are so contradictory. It would have put them off! I had an idea, long ago when they were children, that Elinor had set her heart on Roddy. But I wasn’t at all sure about him. He’s a funny creature. Henry was like that—very reserved and fastidious… Yes, Henry…”
She was silent for a little, thinking of her dead husband.
She murmured:
“So long ago…so very long ago… We had only been married five years when he died. Double pneumonia… We were happy—yes, very happy; but somehow it all seems very unreal, that happiness. I was an odd, solemn, undeveloped girl—my head full of ideas and hero worship. No reality…”
Mary murmured:
“You must have been very lonely—afterwards.”
“After? Oh, yes—terribly lonely. I was twenty-six…and now I’m over sixty. A long time, my dear…a long, long time…” She said with sudden brisk acerbity, “And now this!”
“Your illness?”
“Yes. A stroke is the thing I’ve always dreaded. The indignity of it all! Washed and tended like a baby! Helpless to do anything for yourself. It maddens me. The O’Brien creature is good-natured—I will say that for her. She doesn’t mind my snapping at her and she’s not more idiotic than most of them. But it makes a lot of difference to me to have you about, Mary.”
“Does it?” The girl flushed. “I—I’m so glad, Mrs. Welman.”