CHAPTER 25

Habits, good and bad, are formed quickly. Routines and regimes are decided upon and enforced with startling rapidity.Wednesday, habit now had it, was to be Maisie’s day for visiting Lady Denham. Thursdays would see her attending Mrs. Griffiths who, despite never having suffered a day’s serious illness in her life, found that her spirits were somewhat depleted by Miss Lambe’s absence.The Miss Beauforts provided little comfort there; each was so wrapped up in the other that they paid scant attention to their guardian.And so, for the most part, Mrs. Griffiths contented herself with the letters she received from Miss Lambe.

For two days in a row Maisie was to be read to; Wednesdays were devoted to the poetic; the odes of Collins, tales from Crabbe, and Cowper’s “The Castaway” were all read with feeling and listened to with fervor, but on Thursdays, how different a style of story she would hear. Miss Lambe’s letters intrigued her and she felt, by way of Mrs. Griffiths’s tireless description of their writer, that she knew young Miss Lambe as well as any person she had actually met. Eastbourne! What a haven it sounded. Miss Lambe was having treatment there but it was mentioned by Mrs. Griffiths that a lot of inconvenience might have been avoided had Dr.Wellscott been brought to Sanditon sooner.“Then my dear Miss Lambe would have been able to stay here, but,” said she with a smile both knowing and secretive, “if she had, then a certain event, a certain rather pleasing development might never have taken place.” Imprudent though it might have been for Mrs. Griffiths to speak so of her charge’s personal life, Maisie relished every detail.

“It is a funny thing, is it not, Miss Maisie, that they were both here in Sanditon without so much of a hint of regard apparent, yet removed to Eastbourne a romance begins to flourish between them! He has family in Sanditon so I expect, should the attachment continue to a desirous end, that the wedding would take place here.”

What joy Thursdays were! They could not be hurried to come soon enough and Maisie was grateful that one of the Parker boys had fallen from a gatepost and quite badly hurt an elbow, a knee, and a forehead. In attending the poor child, she found her mind was quite occupied and for as many days as could be managed in the week, she was called upon to attend him. He was an innately good child, better now for the restraint that his injuries put upon him. Each day she visited had the same pattern; he would chatter (his mind was lively), ask her to sing songs, play games, and do tricks, until exactly one hour later when he had quite worn himself out he would sleep, his little golden head angelically poised on his pillow for two hours at least. But Maisie was not to move, not to leave him, she must sit by him even when he slumbered with as much vigilance as was expected from her when he was awake.

Now, could she have picked up a book to amuse herself then an hour or two of sitting might have been made more acceptable.To have some amusement, some occupation, would at least have made two long hours seem like one short one.As she could not turn to a book for comfort, she greatly appreciated Charlotte’s visiting her and the friendship, which the latter had thought the former so in need of, thus developed. Charlotte was at odds, Abigail was no companion, she had lately taken to visiting Diana, Susan, and Arthur and was rarely to be found at Trafalgar House and so talking with Maisie fast became a pastime that Charlotte looked forward to. Gossiping is, for the most part, viewed as an undignified mode of entertainment; nevertheless, it is also one of the most enjoyable. Maisie, no talebearer by nature, soon found herself animated in Charlotte’s company; she was encouraged by her companion’s enthusiasm to talk and talk and talk. But with what could she regale her friend other than news handed down? Their minds were soon in Eastbourne and all the details of Mrs. Griffiths’s letters from Miss Lambe were recounted.

“It is thought that Miss Lambe,” said Maisie quietly,“will marry soon, you must know the gentleman, Charlotte, he went to Eastbourne from here, Mrs. Griffiths says he has family here in Sanditon.” Charlotte, now paralyzed with horror, wished tears could flow but knew they must not. Sidney! It was as she had feared and suspected. Sidney, his affections rebounding, had fallen in love with Miss Lambe. Oh to bear it was impossible, to think of him now more painful than ever it had been. She had hoped at least that his misery might have continued for a while longer.Was not so rapid a recovery to be felt as an insult? So, he had forgotten her, abandoned all feelings for her, he was cured and with a heart freshly healed was obviously more than inclined to love another.“I am all misery,” thought she. “All hope is gone. I cannot hear this. I cannot think of him.”

Maisie, not entirely insensible to Charlotte’s sudden pallor, was querulous but her charge’s golden head stirred on the pillow, and on waking he demanded drinks, games, and attention and so the two suddenly-hushed gossipers were then engaged in his entertainment and his entertainment alone. Charlotte, powerfully aware of the perils of idle talk, pleaded a headache and sought respite in her room. With a heart restless and broken she cried herself to sleep, even then, she could not escape her sorrows, she dreamed of weddings, of happy scenes and in all of these she was but a spectator. She was nothing more than a passerby witnessing the euphoria of others with a spirit fragmented and shattered.