‘And have you thought what is best to be done?’ asked Clarence, raising himself on his cushions.
‘Have you?’ asked the Vicar.
‘Oh yes; I have had my dreams.’
They put their castles together, and they turned out to be for an orphanage, or rather asylum, not too much hampered with strict rules, combined with a convalescent home. The battle of sisterhoods was not yet fought out, and we were not quite prepared for them; but Frank Fordyce had, as he said, ‘the two best women in the world in his eye’ to make a beginning.
There was full time to think and discuss the scheme, for our patient was in no condition to move for many weeks, lying day after day on a couch just within the window of our sitting-room, which was as nearly as possible in the sea, so that he constantly had the freshness of its breezes, the music of its ripple, and the sight of its waves, and seemed to find endless pleasure in watching the red sails, the puffs of steam, and the frolics of the children, simple or gentle, on the beach.
Something else was sometimes to be watched. Martyn, all this time, was doing the work of two curates, and was to be seen walking home with Anne from church or school, carrying her baskets and bags, and, as we were given to understand, discussing by turns ecclesiastical questions, visionary sisterhoods, and naughty children. At first I wished it were possible to remove Clarence from the perpetual spectacle, but we had one last talk over the matter, and this was quite satisfactory.
‘It does me no harm,’ he said; ‘I like to see it. Yes, it is quite true that I do. What was personal and selfish in my fancies seems to have been worn out in the great lull of my senses under the shadow of death; and now I can revert with real joy and thankfulness to the old delight of looking on our dear Ellen as our sister, and watch those two children as we used when they talked of dolls’ fenders instead of the surplice war. I have got you, Edward; and you know there is a love “passing the love of women.”’
A lively young couple passed by the window just then, and with untamed voices observed—
‘There are those two poor miserable objects! It is enough to make one melancholy only to look at them.’
Whereat we simultaneously burst out laughing; perhaps because a choking, very far from misery, was in our throats.