Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Mary demurred at the shawl, but Edith insisted, and remembered the
oranges and wine, which so refreshed the child that she slept soundly
that night with Edith’s shawl for a pillow, and a dream of Edith in her
heart.
The next day she was better, and Mary took the shawl back to Edith, who
was again on deck, with her husband standing beside her.
“Poor thing,” Edith said, kindly; “I am glad she is better. Tell her
I’ll come and see her when I can, and as soon as she is able to be moved
I’ll have her brought up to my stateroom for a while; it must be
dreadful there with the windows shut and the air so close and confined.”
She glanced at her husband, whose face was overcast.
“Who is this woman and who is the child you propose moving into our
stateroom?” he asked, stiffly, when Mary was gone; and Edith replied by
telling him what she knew of Gertie Westbrooke and her mother.
Colonel Schuyler could reproach Edith for seeming cold and proud toward
the Lyles, to whom he felt that he owed something, but he was far from
wishing her to treat people like Mary Rogers with any show of
familiarity. There his pride came in strongly, and he said to her at
once:
“You can send the child any delicacy you choose, and I will see that her
window is opened so she can have air, but she must not be brought to our
stateroom; and if she slept on your shawl, as it seems she did, I desire
you to give it to her altogether. You surely will never wear it again.
Norah?” And he turned to their maid, who stood near:
“Take this shawl to your cousin’s child and tell her Mrs. Schuyler sent
it, and wishes her to keep it.”
Norah looked wonderingly at him, while Edith blushed painfully, but
neither said a word, and after Norah was gone with the shawl Colonel
Schuyler continued: “I do not wish to distress you, my dear, or to
interfere with your actions unnecessarily, but I think it just as well
not to have too much to do with the lower class unless, as in the case
of the Lyles, we are under obligations to them. And as this Rogers child
is nothing to us, you are not called upon to visit her. She will soon
recover. Such people always do. I’ll go now and speak about the window.”
He felt uncomfortable and wished to get away, for he did not quite like
the grieved look in Edith’s eyes, or the pained expression of her face.
Edith herself could not tell why his words hurt her as they did, or why
she felt so interested in the sick girl whom she had as yet never seen
distinctly. But she was interested in her, and though she did not visit
her as she had intended doing, she sent her many delicacies and a pillow
from her stateroom, and felt almost as much pleased as Mary Rogers
herself when she heard at last that she was better.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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