"Juliana, if you're worrying about that money"--the Old Lady was thinking
of nothing else--"don't. I've plenty for us both. As long as we can keep
together I don't care what I eat, nor what I drink, nor what I put on my
poor back. And if the worst comes to the worst I'll sell the furniture."
It seemed to Miss Quincey that she had never known her aunt in all those
five-and-twenty years; never known her until this minute. For perhaps,
after all, being angry with Juliana was only Mrs. Moon's way of being
sorry for her. But how was Juliana to know that?
"Only," continued the Old Lady, "I won't part with your uncle's picture.
Don't ask me to part with your uncle's picture."
"You won't have to part with anything. I'll--I'll get something to do.
I'm not worrying. There's nothing to worry about."
She stooped down and tenderly kissed the wrinkled forehead.
A vague fear clutched at the Old Lady's heart.
"Then, Juliana, you are not well. Hadn't you better see"--she
hesitated--pausing with unwonted delicacy for her words--"a doctor?"
"I don't want to see a doctor. There is nothing the matter with me." And
still insisting that there was nothing the matter with her, she went to
bed.
And old Martha had come with her early morning croak to call Miss
Juliana; she had dumped down the hot-water can in the basin with a clash,
pulled up the blind with a jerk, and drawn back the curtains with a
clatter, before she noticed that Miss Juliana was up all the time. Up and
dressed, and sitting in her chair by the hearth, warming her feet at
an imaginary fire.
She had been sitting up all night, for her bed was as Martha had left it
the night before. Martha approached cautiously, still feeling her way,
though there was no need for it, the room being full of light.
She groped like a blind woman for Miss Juliana's forehead, laying her
hand there before she looked into her face.
After some fumbling futile experiments with brandy, a looking-glass and a
feather, old Martha hid these things carefully out of sight; she
disarranged the bed, turning back the clothes as they might have been
left by one newly wakened and risen out of it; drew a shawl over the head
and shoulders of the figure in the chair; pulled down the blind and
closed the curtains till the room was dark again. Then she groped her way
out and down the stairs to her mistress's door. There she stayed a
moment, gathering her feeble wits together for the part she meant to
play. She had made up her mind what she would do.
So she called the Old Lady as usual; said she was afraid there was
something the matter with Miss Juliana; thought she might have got up a
bit too early and turned faint like.
The Old Lady answered that she would come and see; and the two crept up
the stairs, and went groping their way in the dark of the curtained room.
Old Martha fumbled a long time with the blind; she drew back the curtains
little by little, with infinite precaution letting in the light upon the
fearful thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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