“Oh yes!” said Janet. “It’s astonishing, isn’t it, how children shoot up in a few weeks!”
They might have been parents exchanging notes, instead of celibates playing at parenthood for a hobby.
“Mamma says I’ve grown an inch.” George opened his eyes. “She says it’s about time I had! I dare say I shall be very tall. Are we nearly there?” His high, curt, febrile tones were really somewhat alarming.
When the train threw them out into the sodden waste that surrounds Bleakridge Station, George could scarcely stand. At any rate he showed no wish to stand. His protectors took him strongly by either arm, and thus bore him to Lane End House, with irregular unwilling assistance from his own feet. A porter followed with the luggage. It was an extremely distressing passage. Each protector in secret was imagining for George some terrible fever, of swift onslaught and fatal effect. At length they entered the garden, thanking their gods.
“He’s not well,” said Janet to her mother, who was fussily awaiting them in the hall. Her voice showed apprehension, and she was not at all convincing when she added: “But it’s nothing serious. I shall put him straight to bed and let him eat there.”
Instantly George became the centre of the house. The women disappeared with him, and Edwin had to recount the whole history of the arrival to Osmond Orgreave in the drawing-room. This recital was interrupted by Mrs Orgreave.
“Mr Edwin, Janet thinks if we sent for the doctor, just to be sure. As Johnnie isn’t in, would you mind—”
“Stirling, I suppose?” said Edwin.
Stirling was the young Scottish doctor who had recently come into the town and taken it by storm.
When Edwin at last went home to a much-delayed meal, he was in a position to tell Maggie that young George Cannon had thought fit to catch influenza a second time in a couple of months. And Maggie, without a clear word, contrived to indicate that it was what she would have expected from a boy of George’s violent temperament.