The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon

Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford but I never actually saw her turn a page. Instead she stared at each of us in turn and sighed, as if drawing attention to the fact that she too would be usefully occupied, if only she had the strength. This particular evening, presumably in honor of our visitor, she was wearing a flirtatious lace stole and an ostentatious sapphire ring.
    Father read The Times under a lamp. At one point he muttered: “Still at sea, many of the troops . . . Appalling journey for horses ... Carried under sail rather than steam ... Don’t understand it . . .”
    Mother was writing a letter arguing the case for the installation of a lift in the governesses’ home so that hot food might be conveyed swiftly from the kitchen to the dining room, and Rosa was making a sketch of me.
    Despite what she’d told Barbara, Rosa’s education in art, as in so many other subjects, was vastly superior to my own, because she had sat in on the tutorials arranged for Max during the many spells he was in between schools. Her folder contained sheaves of half-finished work and when she first arrived she had leafed hastily through, pulled out the occasional sheet, and flashed it in front of me: “What do you think? Perspective’s all wrong, wouldn’t you say ... ?” She thrust it out of sight before I had the chance to form an opinion. I glimpsed Max standing up on the swing with his long frame idling against the ropes, a cluster of cottages in the village, Isabella reclining on a couch set in the drawing room window, and me, little Mariella, in the Italian Garden. I looked very glum and Rosa had caught my childish timidity with what I suspected was unnerving accuracy, the slightly concave posture as I put my hands behind my back and leant on the wall, head to one side.
    She said she wanted a new picture of me in which she hoped to invest a little of what she called Barbara Leigh Smith’s energy , and had therefore begun a series of studies. She was perched on a low footstool, back very straight, skirts pooled around her feet. Her charcoal squeaked, her hair slipped forward and had to be pushed behind her ears with a careless movement of her left hand, and either her head was gracefully poised over her work or she was tilting it back as she glanced at me. Her gaze was unfocused, so that she seemed to be looking into rather than at me, which made me feel transparent. That night in particular I did not want her to find out what I was thinking, because of course my whole being was concentrated on Henry.
    Aunt Isabella watched Rosa with a proud glare like a mother cat’s. She said: “A Dr. Thewell is calling this evening, you say.”
    There was a pause as Mother’s attention shifted from the composition of her letter. “Henry is a surgeon, Sister, not a physician. I’m afraid it’s no use discussing your symptoms with him, I doubt he knows a great deal about conditions of the heart.”
    “Rosa tells me he is very highly thought of in medical circles.”
    “He certainly sits on a number of government boards and committees to do with health. He was especially selected to go to Turkey before the war and oversee arrangements for any wounded soldiers.”
    “He must be quite old then, to have achieved so much.”
    “Not so old. Thirty.”
    Aunt was silent for a moment but her gaze swiveled from Rosa to me. “I forget the exact family relationship between Mariella and this Dr. Thewell.”
    Mother’s tone was a little exasperated. “They are second cousins, as I’ve told you.”
    Another silence while Mother’s pen dashed across the page. We were braced for the next question. “What was it she died of?”
    “Consumption, I believe. We were never sure.”
    “Ah.” A long silence. Glancing up I saw that a faint smile had quirked the corner of her mouth. “We see such little company here, Sister, I can’t help taking an interest in the few visitors we do have. At Stukeley we were scarcely alone for a day at a time. Sometimes