Tilly felt all the old wicked feelings rising in her breast when her stepmother began to harangue her. She immediately said that she was only wasting time at Desmondstown and wanted to work very hard indeed, so as to get to Arles one week before term began.
The stepmother went on scolding. Tilly hardly listened. She was feeling wicked again, but she was thankful to be on dry land. They reached the big, luxuriously furnished, vulgar-looking house on Clapham Common.
Tilly suddenly felt herself very sick; her stepmother was fairly kind to her when she was really sick. She allowed her to go to bed and sent Mary Ann, the house-parlourmaid, upstairs to look after her.
Mary Ann was a favourite with Tilly and listened with mouth wide open, ears extended to their utmost, and eyes that looked as though they were going to spring out of her head, to Tilly's account of the awful storm at sea. She got the girl swiftly and quickly into bed and gave her a very little hot tea and dry toast, and then Tilly forgot all her miseries in sleep.
It may have been her fall off the back of Starlight, or it may have been her fearful crossing, but, whatever the reason, for a few days Matilda Raynes was really ill. She was feverish and the doctor was sent for. During the whole of this time she was attended by Mary Ann and very occasionally saw her stepmother, but never once her father.
The doctor said she must have got a very severe shock of some sort. He told this to her father and also to her stepmother.
When Raynes, the coal-merchant, discovered that his daughter had received a shock and had come back home much sooner than she had expected to do so, he sat down and wrote a firm, cold letter to Mr. Desmond of Desmondstown. He said his child had been brought back to him at death's door and he wanted to know the reason of it. Had those wild Irish folk been playing pranks with his only child? He had no idea of addressing The Desmond as The. He had never heard of such a title, and if he had would not have used it.
At last he received a reply in the neat, firm handwriting of Fergus Desmond. Fergus told him of the letter not being addressed right which naturally came into his possession. His father's title was The Desmond. He said he did not wish to complain of Matilda Raynes, but as her father wished to know the truth, he would tell him the truth. He then proceeded to give a graphic description of the thoroughbred Starlight and of Tilly's conduct with regard to the ten pins. He wasted no words, but told the story just as it stood.