Thus they talked till evening. Colin said how much better he felt since she had been with him; and Fanny declared she would not leave him again for another day, until he was well; and, when he was well, then she would get him away from such unfeeling people, even though she had to go down on her knees to beg another situation for him elsewhere.
When, some little time afterwards, Fanny went down stairs, and informed the mistress of the house of her resolution to stay and attend on Colin until he was better, that amiable creature replied, “I think you won't then. We have not any room to spare. As if I was going to keep beds at liberty, to accommodate any trunnion that may think fit to cram herself into my house! We've plenty of work on our hands without having to wait on other people's servants. What do you say, Palethorpe?”
“Well, I don't know, meesis,” replied Mr. Palethorpe; “it seems as if Mr. Rowel was understood to say he was very bad, and must be waited on pretty constantly.”
“I'm sure I sha'n't wait on him neither constantly nor inconstantly!” very pertly exclaimed Miss Sowersoft; and certainly giving a very ingenious turn to her own views, as soon as she found which way her lover's needle pointed; “I'm not going to trot up and down stairs a thousand times a day for the sake of such a thing as a plough-lad. Them may wait on him that likes him, if he is to be waited on; but I'm positive I shan't, nor anybody else that belongs to me!”
This conclusion left, without another word, the field wholly open to Fanny; and as Miss Sowersoft, on concluding her speech, bounced off into the dairy, not another word was needed.
Whatever might be the views entertained by the lady of the house touching the treatment most proper for Colin, there still were individuals amongst that rude community whose feelings were of a somewhat more catholic kind than those of their mistress; so that Fanny found no difficulty in procuring a volunteer, in the person of Abel, to go over to Bramleigh for the purpose of informing Mistress Clink how affairs stood, and of bringing back such few needful articles as Fanny might require during her stay at the farm.
All that night she passed a sleepless watch by the side of Colin's bed, beguiling the hours not devoted to immediate attendance on him, partly by looking over the little books which had come from home in his box, but more by employing her mind in the creation of every possible description of fanciful supposition touching her own origin, her history, her parents, and the knowledge which the doctor appeared to have of her earliest life. What was it?—what could it be? and, what could he mean by enjoining her to mention nothing of all this to any second person? In her he had unexpectedly found one whom he had known a baby, and had believed to be dead, or lost in the vast crowds of poverty long ago. Had she been born to better things than surrounded her now? Had she been defrauded of her rights? And, did the doctor bid her be silent because he might have to employ stratagem in order to recover them again? Perhaps she was born—nay! she knew not what she was born; nor dare she trust herself to think, scarcely; though, certain it is that a visionary world of ladies and gentlemen, and fine things, and wealth to set Colin up in the world and to make his mother comfortable, and to exalt herself over all the petty enemies by whom they were now surrounded, passed in pleasant state before her prolific imagination: while, it is equally certain, that—blushing, though unseen and in secret, at the very consciousness—a prouder feeling sprung up in her bosom, and she began to feel as though she must be more genteel, and more particular, and less like a common servant, than she had hitherto been.
Such were the golden fancies, and the pretty resolves that crowded round her brain that night. Neither, as a honest chronicler of human nature, would I take upon me to assert that she did not once or twice during these reveries rise to contemplate her features in the glass, and to adjust her hair more fancifully, and wonder—if it should be so—what kind of looking lady she should make. Truly, it was a pretty face that met her eyes in the mirror. As Colin woke up from a partial slumber, and raised his head slightly from the pillow, to ascertain what had become of his guardian, the reflection of her countenance as she was “looking the lady,” chanced to catch his eye: and, though he smiled as he gently sunk down again, he thought that that face would never again pass from before him.