'Buy a hat, I should think, dearie, and then go to the Bank.'
She is a comfort!
She sat on the edge of my bed while the Poppet and I had breakfast. I believe her private opinion is that Michael has kept us short of food, as we ate everything but the crockery, but when a person has lived on a dry biscuit for weeks, a person is apt to feel a bit peckish at the end of such a fast.
Dear old Nannie hasn't altered much, she carries her years lightly, it's just the same kind face, with the hair a little grayer. She says she would have come out to India to me ages ago if it hadn't been for the war. We had so much to say to one another that I got rid of quite a respectable amount of the conversation which had accumulated during the voyage, for I was too sick even to talk!
It is good to be in London. I went to my old shop. 'Estelle' remembered me and said, 'Madame is of a youthfulness inconceivable to have such a big little daughter,' which is most satisfactory. The 'big little daughter' looks enchanting in a white fur cap to match her coat, and I got a small soft brown thing 'of a price preposterous.' Captain Everard called to inquire after me, so I asked him to lunch and thanked him for all he had done for me. He said he hardly recognised me in a vertical position, having seen me prostrate so long. After lunch I spent the afternoon with Ross. He said he was 'quite well.'
'Then why are you in bed?' I inquired politely.
'Matron's orders,' snapped the soldier bit of him. 'Drat the woman,' said my brother.
He hasn't altered much, though the war has painted shadows and grim lines about his mouth; his eyes, too, are sterner than they used to be, otherwise he is the same good-looking, big, teasing, maddening brother. He thought I hadn't changed, and seemed the 'same rum kid.' I saw matron afterwards. She told me that his arm is very badly injured, and she feared at first that he would lose it, but it is on the mend at last, though it will be months before he can go out again, 'for which,' she said, 'you won't be sorry.' Then she added, 'I don't know if you've any plans, but he would be much better if he could be somewhere where it's quiet. When the pain comes on we simply cannot keep the place quiet enough. The slamming of a door, the noise of footsteps in the room make his pain almost unendurable. It's the shot nerve, you know. You can't, in a house like this, keep every door from banging, though we do our best. He would be much better with you in the country, though you would need a nurse. A right arm makes a man so helpless; he can't cut his food up, or dress himself. Of course, there's Sam,' and then she laughed. 'He'll probably be leaving his hospital soon; he's close by, you know.'
'But could he manage? How could he wait on Ross if he can't walk?'
'Oh, he can walk enough for that,' she said. 'He's already interviewed me on the subject more than once. He says the captain only wants an arm which he has got. If you could let him rest his knee all day and just help your brother night and morning it might do, though you'd have the pair of them really on your hands.'