delight. There were hot cakes which Marcia had made in the kitchen; fragrant tea, real cream, thin bread and butter. Mrs Aldworth admitted that it was a treat.
“You’re a wonderful girl, Marcia,” she said, “and notwithstanding the fact that you have behaved in a very cruel and unnatural way, I forgive you. Yes, I forgive you, and I shall thoroughly forgive you and let bygones be bygones if you will give Molly her freedom for the rest of this afternoon, and sit with me yourself. I can explain a few little things to you then, which will cause the hearts of my three dear girls to leap for joy.”
“Oh, mother, can you?”
Molly’s blue eyes danced. She looked with a sense of triumph, half amusement and half daring, from her mother to Marcia. But, alas, Marcia’s face showed not the slightest sign of yielding.
“I think, mother,” she said, “that you and I must wait for our conversation until to-morrow afternoon. I am exceedingly busy just now, and Molly knows our compact. Have you finished your tea, Molly? If so, I will take away the tray. Good-bye, mother, for the present. Good-bye, Molly.”
As quickly as she had come so did the angel of order and comfort retire. Mrs Aldworth was now in a fury.
“Really, Molly,” she said, “this is insufferable. I would much rather she went altogether. To think of her daring to go against my wishes in my own house.” But bad as things were at present, Molly knew that if Marcia went they would be worse. A certain amount of freedom could now be safely claimed, but if Marcia went things would go on in their slovenly, slipshod, good-for-nothing style; the invalid’s bell always ringing, the girls never at liberty, the house always in disorder.
“Oh, mother,” said Molly, “don’t rouse her; she is capable of anything, I assure you. She has given us just a month to be on our trial, and she says that if we don’t do our part in that time she will return to Frankfort. That horrid Miss Silchester has turned her head, and that’s a fact. She has praised her and petted her and made much of her, and would you believe it, mother, she has absolutely offered to keep the post open for Marcia for a whole month. Mother, dear, do be careful what you say to her, for, I assure you, she has no heart. She would actually allow us three girls – ” Molly stopped to gulp down a sob – “to wear ourselves to death, rather than to do one little thing to help us. It’s awfully cruel, I call it. Oh, mother, it is cruel.”
Now all this was from Molly’s point of view, and so it happened that Mrs Aldworth, for the time being, took her child’s part; she did not think of herself. Besides, Marcia had dared to defy her authority, and a sensation of fury visited her.
“You had better call the others,” she said. “We must have a conclave over this. We really must. I will not submit to insurrection in my house. We must arrange with the girls what we shall do, and then call your father in. His must be the casting vote.”
Molly flew out of the room. She found Nesta presently, enjoying herself in the swing. She jumped lightly from it when she saw Molly.
“Well,” she said, “what has happened! Whatever did mother say?”
“Mother is in the most awful rage. Marcia has openly defied her. I wouldn’t be in Marcia’s shoes for a good deal. Mother thoroughly sympathises with us; she feels that we are most badly used, and she wants you, Nesta, you and Ethel. Wherever is Ethel?”
“Ethel has gone over to the Carters’ to explain about to-night. Poor Ethel, her head was banging; I expect the heat of the sun will give her sunstroke. But Marcia wouldn’t care. Not she.”
“Well, you had better come along, Nesta,” said Molly. “Mother will be awfully annoyed at Ethel being out. What a pity she went. It’s very important for our future.”
The two sisters went up together to their mother’s room, arm in arm. As a rule they often quarrelled, but on this occasion they were unanimous against their common fate. Mrs Aldworth, however, had changed her mood during Molly’s absence. She had begun to think what all this was about, and what all the agony of Molly’s tears really represented. The great trial in the minds of her daughters, was having to nurse her. She was their mother.
“Am I such a nuisance, so terribly in every one’s way?” she thought, and she began to sob feebly. She wished herself, as she was fond of saying, out of the way. “If only I might die!” she moaned. “They would be very sorry then. They would think a great deal of what their poor mother was to them in life. But they’re all selfish, every one of them.”
It was in this changed mood that the two girls, Molly and Nesta, entered Mrs Aldworth’s room. She greeted them when they appeared in the doorway.
“Don’t walk arm in arm in that ridiculous fashion. You know you are always quarrelling, you two. You are just in league against poor Marcia.”
“Poor Marcia!” cried Molly.
“Yes, poor Marcia. But where’s Ethel; why doesn’t she come when her mother sends for her? Am I indeed openly defied in my own house?”
“Oh, mother,” said Molly, in some trepidation, “it isn’t us, it is Marcia.”
“It’s much more you, you are my children – Marcia isn’t. I am your mother. Live as long as you may you will never be able to get a second mother.”
Here Mrs Aldworth burst into sobs herself. But Nesta was an adept at knowing how to manage the invalid when such scenes came on.
“As though we wanted to,” she said. “Darling little mother; sweet, pretty little mother.”
She knelt by the sofa, she put her soft arms round her mother’s poor tired neck, she laid her soft, cool cheek against the hot one, she looked with her blue eyes into the eyes from which tears were streaming.
“You know, mother, that we just worship you.”
“But, of course, mother, it’s only natural,” said Molly, “that we should sometimes want to have a little fresh air.”
“It is just as true,” continued Nesta, “that one cannot be young twice, as that one cannot have a real ownest mother over again.”
“Of course it is,” said Mrs Aldworth, whose emotions were like the weathercock, and changed instant by instant. “I quite sympathise with you, my darlings. You adore me, don’t you?”
“We live for you,” said Molly. “You are our first thought morning, noon, and night.”
“Then where is Ethel? Why doesn’t she come?”
“She has gone to the Carters to explain that we cannot possibly be present at the dance this evening.”
“Poor darling,” said Nesta, “she’ll have sunstroke on the way, her head was so bad.”
“Sunstroke?” said Mrs Aldworth, who was now seriously alarmed, “and the afternoon is so very hot. Why did you let her go out with a bad headache?”
“She had to go, mother,” said Nesta. “The Carters would be so offended.”
“Of course they would,” said Molly. “She simply had to go. But for Marcia it would have been all right.”
“Certainly that girl does bring discord and misery into the house,” said Mrs Aldworth.
“But she won’t long, mother; not when you manage her.”
