Mrs. Baxter was exceedingly absorbed just now in a new pious book of
meditations written by a clergyman. A nicely bound copy of it, which
she had ordered specially, had arrived by the parcels post that
morning; and she had been sitting in the drawing-room ever since
looking through it, and marking it with a small silver pencil.
Religion was to this lady what horticulture was to Maggie, except of
course that it was really important, while horticulture was not. She
often wondered that Maggie did not seem to understand: of course she
went to mass every morning, dear girl; but religion surely was much
more than that; one should be able to sit for two or three hours over
a book in the drawing-room, before the fire, with a silver pencil.
So at lunch she prattled of the book almost continuously, and at the
end of it thought Maggie more unsubtle than ever: she looked rather
tired and strained, thought the old lady, and she hardly said a word
from beginning to end.
The drive in the afternoon was equally unsatisfactory. Mrs. Baxter
took the book with her, and the pencil, in order to read aloud a few
extracts here and there; and she again seemed to find Maggie rather
vacuous and silent.
"Dearest child, you are not very well, I think," she said at last.
Maggie roused herself suddenly.
"What, Auntie?"
"You are not very well, I think. Did you sleep well?"
"Oh! I slept all right," said Maggie vaguely.
* * * * *
But after tea Mrs. Baxter did not feel very well herself. She said she
thought she must have taken a little chill. Maggie looked at her with
unperceptive eyes.
"I am sorry," she said mechanically.
"Dearest, you don't seem very overwhelmed. I think perhaps I shall
have dinner in bed. Give me my book, child.... Yes, and the
pencil-case."
Mrs. Baxter's room was so comfortable, and the book so fascinatingly
spiritual, that she determined to keep her resolution and go to bed.
She felt feverish, just to the extent of being very sleepy and at her
ease. She rang her bell and issued her commands.
"A little of the _volaille_," she said, "with a spoonful of soup
before it.... No, no meat; but a custard or so, and a little fruit.
Oh! yes, Charlotte, and tell Miss Maggie not to come and see me after
dinner."
It seemed that the message had roused the dear girl at last, for
Maggie appeared ten minutes later in quite a different mood. There was
really some animation in her face.
"Dear Auntie, I am so very sorry.... Yes; do go to bed, and breakfast
there in the morning too. I'm just writing to Laurie, by the way."
Mrs. Baxter nodded sleepily from her deep chair.
"He's coming down in Easter week, isn't he?"
"So he says, my dear."
"Why shouldn't he come next week instead, Auntie, and be with us for
Easter? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Very nice indeed, dear child; but don't bother the boy."
"And you don't think it's influenza?" put in Maggie swiftly, laying a
cool hand on the old lady's.
She maintained it was not. It was just a little chill, such as she had
had this time last year: and it became necessary to rouse herself a
little to enumerate the symptoms. By the time she had done, Maggie's
attention had begun to wander again: the old lady had never known her
so unsympathetic before, and said so with gentle peevishness.
Maggie kissed her quickly.
"I'm sorry, Auntie," she said. "I was just thinking of
something. Sleep well; and don't get up in the morning."
Then she left her to a spoonful of soup, a little _volaille_, a
custard, some fruit, her spiritual book and contentment.
Downstairs she dined alone in the green-hung dining-room; and she
revolved for the twentieth time the thoughts that had been
continuously with her since midday, moving before her like a
kaleidoscope, incessantly changing their relations, their shapes, and
their suggestions. These tended to form themselves into two main
alternative classes. Either Mr. Cathcart was a harmless fanatic, or he
was unusually sharp. But these again had almost endless subdivisions,
for at present she had no idea of what was really in his mind--as to
what his hints meant. Either this curious old gentleman with shrewd,
humorous eyes was entirely wrong, and Laurie was just suffering from a
nervous strain, not severe enough to hinder him from reading law in
Mr. Morton's chambers; and this was all the substratum of Mr.
Cathcart's mysteries: or else Mr. Cathcart was right, and Laurie was
in the presence of some danger called insanity which Mr. Cathcart
interpreted in some strange fashion she could not understand. And
beneath all this again moved the further questions as to what
spiritualism really was--what it professed to be, or mere
superstitious nonsense, or something else.
She was amazed that she had not demanded greater explicitness this
morning; but the thing had been so startling, so suggestive at first,
so insignificant in its substance, that her ordinary common sense had
deserted her. The old gentleman had come and gone like a wraith, had
uttered a few inconclusive sentences, and promised to write, had been
disappointed with her at one moment and enthusiastic the next.
Obviously their planes ran neither parallel nor opposing; they cut at
unexpected points; and Maggie had no notion as to the direction in
which his lay. All she saw plainly was that there was some point of
view other than hers.
So, then, she revolved theories, questioned, argued, doubted with
herself. One thing only emerged--the old lady's feverish cold afforded
her exactly the opportunity she wished; she could write to Laurie with
perfect truthfulness that his mother had taken to her bed, and that
she hoped he would come down next week instead of the week after.
After dinner she sat down and wrote it, pausing many times to consider
a phrase.
Then she read a little, and soon after ten went upstairs to bed.