And soon afterwards I heard the cart lumbering out of the yard to the usual accompaniment of the dog’s excited barking and ’Siah’s apostrophes to Old Bess.
Then my mother and Mary took possession of me, and I am persuaded that never did my mother enjoy herself so thoroughly as during the three weeks or more that I kept my bed. Her own room adjourned the one in which I lay, and as she was supposed to be herself bedridden she had all the advantage of being at close quarters. She would come to my bedside a hundred times a day in her linsey petticoat and a red flannel jacket with big bone buttone that gave her quite a martial air, and at every knock at the house door she would skip back to her own room, tumble into bed, draw the clothes over her, and set to groaning as tho’ in mortal agony. Then, when retreating footsteps assured her the coast was clear, she would steal back with a shame–faced look and busy herself about the room. How many times a day she dusted the furniture of my room and arranged and rearranged the odds and ends on the little dressing table, I cannot hazard a guess at. She spent hours each day listening at the top of the staircase to what was going on below, for she was tortured by the conviction that things were going to rack and ruin in her absence and that Martha and Mary were in a conspiracy to do all things they ought not to do and leave undone the things they ought to do. Nothing would persuade her that any cleaning was being done in the parlour, and she knew that when she was able to get about again she would be able to write her name in dust on the looking–glass and the chiffonier, that is if she should haply be able to get into the room at all, of which she was somewhat sceptical. When Mary brought my chicken broth and rice pudding, my prescribed diet, on which by the bye I soon began to lose flesh at an alarming rate, my mother would meet her at the stair head and herself bring it to the bedside, very jealous, as was easy enough to see, that he could not cook it herself. Such tasting of broth and puddings sure never was before nor since, nor such fault–finding. Some days the rice hadn’t been soaked long enough, other days too long. Some days the broth was too strong, others too weak, or the salt was in excess, or the pepper, or a pinch of this or that would have improved the flavour. Poor Mary, did it ever set you thinking, I wonder, what an ideal mother–in–law your aunt would make?
Then, when the ball had been extracted from my arm and my shoulder began to look less like a lump of liver, it became clear to my mother that I was in need of spiritual comfort. The big Family Bible was brought from the parlour and placed on a little table by my bedside. I was perfectly capable of reading it for myself, but that would not have suited my nurse. She read with difficulty and had many a stubborn tussle with the hard words. At first I helped her with them but soon perceived she took a delight in the struggle and so left her to grapple with them. As she opined my illness would be a long one and she did not mean to be gravelled for lack of matter, she began at the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and advanced by slow stages to the tenth, when she floundered in a genealogical bog from which she brought forth, I fear, only one piece of abiding information, to wit, that the eldest son of Eber bore the same name as the crippled son of the village postmaster—Peg–leg.
Dr. Dean was her great comfort during this enforced confinement. Twice daily did that cheery visitor drive up to Holme, and from the long stay that his champing, stamping mare made by our door, the neighbours drew gloomy auguries as to my mother’s desperate state. If they could have seen him sat in an easy chair, profaning the chaste sanctity of the bedroom with tobacco smoke, and relishing our best Hollands while he detailed the village gossip to my mother’s delighted ears, they would have had less concern for the good soul’s health. My mother declared the doctor’s visits were worth a guinea apiece.
“Mrs. Garside’s been enquiring after yo’ Mrs. Bamforth.” Now this was that Hannah Garside who had pulled up my mother’s half–cousin, Sam o’ Sall’s, because of the eggs.
“She met save her breath to cool her porridge,” was my mother’s ungrateful comment.
“She says she freely forgives yo’, ma’m.”
“The imperence on her. Ah! wait till I get better, an’ I’ll gi’e her forgive me!”
“She promises to pray for you, Mrs. Bamforth.”
“To pray for me! Hannah Garside, pray for me! Oh! this must be stopped, doctor. It’s too bad ’at she’s none content wi’ makin’ th’ village unbearable an’ nah mun’ be bringing me into bad odour wi’ th’ saints above.”