The afternoons get
dark so soon and the road is lonely.'
'She doesn't like visitors in the morning,' Henrietta said. 'I love
this necklace. Could I wear it to the dance?'
'It depends on the dress. If you are really to look like a marigold
you must wear no ornaments. If you had yellow tulle--' And Rose took
pencil and paper and made a rough design, talking with enthusiasm
meanwhile, for like all the Malletts, she loved clothes.
The next day Caroline had to stay in bed. She had been feverish all
night and Sophia appeared in Rose's bedroom early in the morning, her
great plait of hair swinging free, her face yellow with anxiety and
sleeplessness and lack of powder, to inform her stepsister that dear
Caroline was very ill: they must have the doctor directly after
breakfast. Sophia was afraid Caroline was going to die. She had
groaned in the night when she thought Sophia was asleep. 'I deceived
her,' Sophia said. 'I hope it wasn't wrong, but I knew she would be
easier if she thought I slept. Now she says there is nothing the
matter with her and she wants to get up, but that's her courage.'
Caroline was not allowed to rise and after breakfast and an hour with
Sophia behind the locked door she announced her readiness to see the
doctor, who diagnosed nothing more serious than a chill. She was very
much disgusted with his order to stay in bed. She had not had a day in
bed for years; she believed people were only ill when they wanted to
be and, as she did not wish to be, she was not ill.
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