In the middle of the day she rose and dressed, because George was unhappy at having to sit without her, though only in the next room. She sat in the large arm-chair, turned away from the blinded windows, never speaking nor moving, save when he came to her, to make her look at his letters and notes, when she would, with the greatest patience and sweetness, revise them, suggest word or sentence, rouse herself to consider each petty detail, and then sink back into her attitude of listless dejection. To all besides, she appeared totally indifferent; gently courteous to Meta and to her father, when they addressed her, but otherwise showing little consciousness whether they were in the room; and yet, when something was passing about her father’s staying or returning, she rose from her seat, came up to him before he was aware, and said, “Papa! papa! you will not leave me!” in such an imploring tone, that if he had ever thought of quitting her, he could not have done so.
He longed to see her left to perfect tranquillity, but such could not be in London. Though theirs was called a quiet house, the rushing stream of traffic wearied his country ears, the door bell seemed ceaselessly ringing, and though Meta bore the brunt of the notes and messages, great numbers necessarily came up to Mr. Rivers, and of these Flora was not spared one. Dr. May had his share too of messages and business, and friends and relations, the Rivers’ kindred, always ready to take offence with their rich connections, and who would not be satisfied with inquiries, at the door, but must see Meta, and would have George fetched down to them—old aunts, who wanted the whole story of the child’s illness, and came imagining there was something to be hushed up; Lady Leonora extremely polite, but extremely disgusted at the encounter with them; George ready to be persuaded to take every one up to see his wife, and the prohibition to be made by Dr. May over and over again—it was a most tedious, wearing afternoon, and at last, when the visitors had gone, and George had hurried back to his wife, Dr. May threw himself into an arm-chair and said, “Oh, Meta, sorrow weighs more heavily in town than in the country!”
“Yes!” said Meta. “If one only could go out and look at the flowers, and take poor Flora up a nosegay!”
“I don’t think it would make much difference to her,” sighed the doctor.
“Yes, I think it would,” said Meta; “it did to me. The sights there speak of the better sights.”
“The power to look must come from within,” said Dr. May, thinking of his poor daughter.
“Ay,” said Meta, “as Mr. Ernescliffe said, ‘heaven is as near—!’ But the skirts of heaven are more easily traced in our mountain view than here, where, if I looked out of window, I should only see that giddy string of carriages and people pursuing each other!”
“Well, we shall get her home as soon as she is able to move, and I hope it may soothe her. What a turmoil it is! There has not been one moment without noise in the twenty-two hours I have been here!”
“What would you say if you were in the city?”
“Ah! there’s no talking of it; but if I had been a fashionable London physician, as my father-in-law wanted to make me, I should have been dead long ago!”