‘I shall have nothing to think of then,’ said the Doctor, with a smile, ‘but my Dictionary; and this other contract-bargain—Annie.’
As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea table by Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to his thoughts.
‘There is a post come in from India, I observe,’ he said, after a short silence.
‘By the by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!’ said the Doctor.
‘Indeed!’ ‘Poor dear Jack!’ said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. ‘That trying climate!—like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn’t. My dear Doctor, it was his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie, my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never was strong—not what can be called ROBUST, you know,’ said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally, ‘—from the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking about, arm-in-arm, the livelong day.’
Annie, thus addressed, made no reply.
‘Do I gather from what you say, ma’am, that Mr. Maldon is ill?’ asked Mr. Wickfield.
‘Ill!’ replied the Old Soldier. ‘My dear sir, he’s all sorts of things.’
‘Except well?’ said Mr. Wickfield.
‘Except well, indeed!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘He has had dreadful strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver,’ said the Old Soldier resignedly, ‘that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went out!’