“I’ve slaved for five years, and I’ve never broken down before.”
“Well, you have now. Go away at once. Take a holiday. You’ll work like Shakespeare and Michelangelo after it.”
“But I can’t—that’s just it. It’s those stories for the Monthly Multitude; I’m doing a series. I’m behind now: and if I don’t get it done this week, they’ll stop the series. It’s what I’ve been working for all these years. It’s the best chance I’ve ever had, and it’s come now, when I can’t do it. Your father’s a doctor: isn’t there any medicine you can take to make your head more like a head and less like a suet pudding?”
“Look here,” said Milly, “I really came in to ask you to come away with us at Whitsuntide; but you ought to go away now. Just go to our cottage at Lymchurch. There’s a dear old girl in the village—Mrs Beale—she’ll look after you. It’s a glorious place for work. Father did reams down there. You’ll do your stuff there right enough. This is only Monday. Go to-morrow.”
“Did he? I will. Oh yes, I will. I’ll go to-night, if there’s a train.”
“No, you don’t, my dear lunatic. You are now going to wash your face and do your hair, and take me out to dinner—a real eighteenpenny dinner at Roches. I’ll stand treat.”
It was after dinner, as the two girls waited for Milly’s omnibus, that the word of the evening was spoken.
“I do hope you’ll have a good quiet time,” Milly said; “and it really is a good place for work. Poor Edgar did a lot of work there last year. There’s a cabinet with a secret drawer that he said inspired him with mysterious tales, and—— There’s my ’bus.”
“Why do you say poor Edgar?” Jane asked, smiling lightly.
“Oh, hadn’t you heard? Awfully sad thing. He sailed from New York a fortnight ago. No news of the ship. His mother’s in mourning. I saw her yesterday. Quite broken down. Good-bye. Do take care of yourself, and get well and jolly.”