Free The Two Mrs. Abbotts by D. E. Stevenson Page A

passed and with them Sophonisba’s youth. She was thirty-four when Mr. Marks became ill. She nursed him for months. They were nearer, then, than they had ever been, for they appreciated each other. He bore his pain with fortitude, with a steady courage that won him her admiration. She won his respect for her devotion to his service. When her father died Sophonisba found herself penniless (the sale of the furniture covered a few small debts and paid for the funeral). She was not surprised, of course, for she knew her father pretty well by this time; he was not the sort of man who could save; he thought it a sin to worry about the future. If anyone had suggested to him that it was his duty to provide for his daughter, who had given up her career on his account, he would have replied: “Consider the lilies of the field,” or perhaps, more sternly, “The Lord will provide,” but Sophonisba was not a lily, she required clothes and food, so it was necessary to toil and spin. She managed to get a post in a girls’ school near Bournemouth and was there for years, teaching history and literature and other things no less important that were not set out upon the prospectus of “Wheatfield House.” She had become “Markie” now.
    Nobody called her by her Christian name—indeed nobody knew what it was. The girls, who found time to be interested in the matter, looked at her neat signature on their papers and decided that it was probably Susan, or Sarah—the idea that it might be Sylvia made them giggle. During those years at Wheatfield House hundreds of girls passed through Markie’s life, they respected her and loved her and occasionally laughed at her, and then they left and forgot all about her. But sometimes when two or three of them were gathered together they would discuss old times and one of them would say, “D’you remember Markie? Wasn’t she a dear?”
    Markie stayed at Wheatfield House until the head mistress retired and a new broom was appointed in her place, and then, because she did not approve of the changes being made, she left the place and took up private teaching. Her first post was with the Cobbes at Ganthorne Lodge; she was there until Jerry grew up, and then she left and went to the Glovers at Sunbury. She went from post to post, but each time she left one post it was a little more difficult to find another. Her references were excellent and she was a highly qualified teacher but she was getting on in years and she was slightly deaf. Markie began to get a little frightened. The money she had managed to save would not last very long—it was melting away rapidly. What was to become of her? Who wanted an old deaf governess?
    She was nearing the end of her tether and envisaging the future with dismay when she received a letter from Jerry Cobbe. The letter was not as cheerful as usual and was even more badly phrased and spelt—for Jerry had not profited as much as she might have done from Markie’s painstaking instruction.
    â€œ I’m in dispair ,” wrote Jerry. “ It’s really desperite. I can’t get servants anyhow or if I manige to get them to come they won’t stay. Of course I love Ganthorne but you know what it is with lamps and everything. I don’t know what I’m going to do .”
    Markie shook her head over this letter. Two spelling mistakes and a total disregard for punctuation. Jerry was incorrigible…but she was quite the dearest pupil Markie had ever had. “I wonder…” said Markie to herself in a thoughtful manner. She looked around the horrible little bedroom with its sloping roof and sliding window and decided that there was no time to wonder—she must act—and taking up her pen she wrote off at once saying that she was out of a job at the moment and, if Jerry liked, she would come to Ganthorne and help to run the house. She would come for a week or two and see how it