pg5247 [29]
"Sophia, you'll take your death of cold standing there like that!"
She jumped. The voice was her mother's. That vigorous woman, after a calm night by the side of the paralytic, was already up and neatly dressed. She carried a bottle and an egg-cup, and a small quantity of jam in a table-spoon.
"Get into bed again, do! There's a dear! You're shivering."
White Sophia obeyed. It was true; she was shivering. Constance awoke. Mrs. Baines went to the dressing-table and filled the egg-cup out of the bottle.
"Who's that for, mother?" Constance asked sleepily.
"It's for Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with good cheer. "Now, Sophia!" and she advanced with the egg-cup in one hand and the table-spoon in the other.
"What is it, mother?" asked Sophia, who well knew what it was.
"Castor-oil, my dear," said Mrs. Baines, winningly.
The ludicrousness of attempting to cure obstinacy and yearnings for a freer life by means of castor-oil is perhaps less real than apparent. The strange interdependence of spirit and body, though only understood intelligently in these intelligent days, was guessed at by sensible mediaeval mothers. And certainly, at the period when Mrs. Baines represented modernity, castor-oil was still the remedy of remedies. It had supplanted cupping. And, if part of its vogue was due to its extreme unpleasantness, it had at least proved its qualities in many a contest with disease. Less than two years previously old Dr. Harrop (father of him who told Mrs. Baines about Mrs. Povey), being then aged eighty-six, had fallen from top to bottom of his staircase. He had scrambled up, taken a dose of castor-oil at once, and on the morrow was as well as if he had never seen a staircase. This episode was town property and had sunk deep into all hearts.
"I don't want any, mother," said Sophia, in dejection. "I'm quite well."
"You simply ate nothing all day yesterday," said Mrs. Baines. And she added, "Come!" As if to say, "There's always this silly fuss with castor-oil. Don't keep me waiting."
"I don't WANT any," said Sophia, irritated and captious.
The two girls lay side by side, on their backs. They seemed very thin and fragile in comparison with the solidity of their mother. Constance wisely held her peace.
Mrs. Baines put her lips together, meaning: "This is becoming tedious.
I shall have to be angry in another moment!"
"Come!" said she again.
The girls could hear her foot tapping on the floor.
"I really don't want it, mamma," Sophia fought. "I suppose I ought to know whether I need it or not!" This was insolence.
"Sophia, will you take this medicine, or won't you?"
In conflicts with her children, the mother's ultimatum always took the formula in which this phrase was cast. The girls knew, when things had arrived at the pitch of 'or won't you' spoken in Mrs. Baines's firmest tone, that the end was upon them. Never had the ultimatum failed.
There was a silence.
"And I'll thank you to mind your manners," Mrs. Baines added.
"I won't take it," said Sophia, sullenly and flatly; and she hid her face in the pillow.
It was a historic moment in the family life. Mrs. Baines thought the last day had come. But still she held herself in dignity while the apocalypse roared in her ears.
"OF COURSE I CAN'T FORCE YOU TO TAKE IT," she said with superb evenness, masking anger by compassionate grief. "You're a big girl and a naughty girl. And if you will be ill you must."
Upon this immense admission, Mrs. Baines departed.
Constance trembled.
Nor was that all. In the middle of