Генри Райдер Хаггард – Mary of Marion Isle (страница 15)
In another minute they had parted, since after a few rather awkward words Arabella announced that she must hurry or she would be late for dinner. When she was gone Rose asked her father why she had come. He told her and she listened astonished.
«Do you believe all that, Father?» she said.
«Why not, Rose?»
«Do you think it likely that a lady who has thousands and thousands would want to come to work in that dreadful hospital among those horrid old women?»
«It seems that she does,» answered her father in his musing voice. «After all, why not? Is it impossible that a woman, however rich, should be touched by a sense of the higher things? If so, what do you suggest is her reason?»
«Oh!» exclaimed Rose with unusual irritation, for hers was a placid nature, «to please Andrew – I mean Doctor West, probably, or —» and she paused.
«Or what, Rose?»
«To spy upon me,» she answered and, turning, left the room.
Now what on earth did she mean by that? reflected her father. What conceivable reason could Miss Black have that would induce her to spy upon Rose? Then this good, easy man, whose mind was lost in those higher things of which he had never spoken to a daughter who understood nothing about them, shrugged his shoulders and gave up the problem, wondering as he did so what she would say when she learned that Miss Black was to live in the house. It occurred to him that she might object, also that, speaking generally, his home was uncomfortable. Whenever he mentioned it, always he was informed that this was because of his Socialistic cranks which led him to prefer teacups without saucers, and so forth, an argument that hitherto had reduced him to silence. Now, however, he began to doubt its force, remembering that saucers and tablecloths are not the whole of domestic life.
«Oh!» he muttered to himself as he felt his way towards the surgery down the dark passage where it had not occurred to anyone to light the gas, «the truth is that Rose and I cannot understand each other and don’t get on. I wish she would marry, though if she did I am not sure that her husband would praise her in the end. Beauty isn’t everything, especially when the heart inside of it is small,» he added with as much bitterness as his gentle nature could conceive.
Chapter VII
Andrew’s Farewell
Arabella went to the hospital, and, like Bottom, was translated. For the first time in her idle, aimless and luxurious life, she found herself with work to do and faced by real responsibility which called out innate qualities inherited from her vigorous and active-brained father. Soon she forget her own petty ailments in attending to the real illnesses of others, some of which, as it happened, were serious at the time. Also her natural talent for housewifery was given full scope and she used it to great advantage. Soon, like herself, that hospital was also transformed, so much so that it would have been difficult to recognise it as the same place. The meals were punctual and sufficient; the old women looked tidier and more cheerful, while the house by degrees attained to a perfect cleanliness. The only people who seemed dissatisfied with the change were the servants, two rather rough women who had acted as under-nurses. In course of time, however, even these became reconciled, since when once its back was broken, they found the work lighter than it had been before.
It must be admitted that there was another cause for this transformation, although of it Dr. Watson never knew. When Arabella took charge of the place she found the accounts in a sad state, also that expenditure had outrun income. Now Arabella was blessed with this world’s goods and had a large balance at her bankers. So in some mysterious way that the doctor never quite mastered, very shortly income overtook expenditure and one of his great anxieties was removed.
Moreover, this paying guest made her influence felt in his own home. She became great friends with the amiable but vacuous Angelica, and in her spare time would assist her in the kitchen, for Arabella loved a kitchen. No longer did the gas stove prove a mystery measureless to woman; no longer was the tea an undrinkable essence or dinner a feast more movable than that of Easter. Only Rose, who viewed these changes with a kind of indolent disapproval, remained precisely the same, since she was one of those women who do not vary. She never had taken and never meant to take any trouble about anything, except her own comfort and personal appearance. To these she had always attended and to these she continued to attend. Between her and Arabella there was established a state of armed neutrality, superimposed upon a basis of cordial dislike. Each of them despised the other, but neither being warlike by nature, matters never proceeded to a state of open quarrel.
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