[CHAPTER XLI.]
CHESTS AND HEARTS.
'Waketh a vision, and a voice within her
Sweeter than dreams and dearer than complaint—
Is it a man thou lovest, and a sinner?
No; but a soul, O woman! and a saint.'
Frederick W.H. Myers.
One snowy November night Lancelot caught cold, and aggravated the ailment during his organist's duties on Sunday so much, that though he resigned himself to Mrs. Froggatt's attentions on Monday, she soon found herself obliged to supplement them by Mr. Rugg's; and her letter on the Wednesday caused Felix to bring Angela to nurse him through a sharp attack of pleurisy, complicated with bronchitis.
All went well, and by the week before Christmas he was fit to be taken home, uniting in persuading Mrs. Froggatt that her care was necessary to him en route, chiefly because he and his brother could not bear to leave her to her widowed Christmas. She came, but nothing would induce her to stay beyond Christmas Day; nor would she even wait till Felix returned with the New Year to Bexley, to busy himself with the accounts, about which Lance was concerning himself too much for his good, writing such characteristic notes that when, half way through January, Felix came home, he was disappointed to find so little progress made towards recovery. The great musical brow, big blue eyes, straight nose, and brown hairiness, seemed to have lost the cheeks from among them: there was a weary yearning look in the eyes, and the whole demeanour was languid and dejected. Lance just crept into the painting-room at noon, and spent the afternoon by the drawing-room fire, talking a little at times, or amused by Wilmet's baby; but her boys were too much for him; and though he liked Stella's music, he was fretted by Angela's careless notes, and had not energy to play for himself. His voice indeed was scarcely serviceable even for speaking, and its absence always made him unhappy. A reader only in the way of business, books and newspapers were distasteful; and though he could not be ill-humoured, he was evidently a heavy burden to himself; sad and listless; he neither ate nor slept, and yet the actual symptoms were not unfavourable.
'He does not get on,' said Felix, as he and Clement stood consulting in the library.
'He sleeps so badly, and has two hours or so of bad cough in the early morning, and that seems to exhaust him for the day.'