Was all this finished now? Was it possible? The old pleasant, natural order of things--the only order to which she had ever been accustomed. Finished now?
Furniture sale. Dust of strange feet in the familiar rooms. People she would never have dreamed of admitting there pulling about her carpets, poking her feather-beds, turning up their noses at the breakfast-room chair-covers which were shabby, there was no good in denying it; and with her not by to explain they preferred them so. No more expensive paint-boxes and toys for Franky; Bessie and darling Deleah in shabby hats; Bernard without pocket-money, made a banker's clerk, perhaps--she had heard her husband say bank-clerks had no prospects, poor beggars! Bernard--her handsome Bernard to be a "poor beggar"--!
A sudden vertigo seized her: the hall was whirling round; she stretched a hand blindly for support, and pulled over an umbrella-stand which fell with a crash and clatter.
The girls and Bernard came running out. "What on earth are you doing, mama? Have you hurt yourself? What is it?"
She had subsided upon a hall-chair, her face was ghastly, all her strength seemed gone. "I felt faint. I am better," she got out, and looked strangely round upon them all. Her gaze wandered lingeringly from object to object in the hall as if she had never seen it before. She shivered violently with deadly cold. "I will go to bed," she said.
The children helped her upstairs. She leant on Bessie's arm, the arm of Deleah was round her waist. The stairway was broad, there was room for all three. Bernard stood on the mat below and watched with an anxious face.
"Sure I can't do anything, mother?" he kept saying.
They were all so fond of her, so frightened if for a moment she seemed to fail them. She could not get rid of them till they had undressed her and put her to bed. Until they themselves went to bed they kept coming back and peeping in at her. "Papa will be back soon; mind you send him for us if you feel at all ill," they adjured her.
"Mama, you are sure it is not because I worried you about Reggie Forcus?" a contrite Bessie asked. "Because he is sure to come to-morrow--you think so, don't you?--and we shall make it all right, in spite of Sir Francis. Promise not to worry, mama."