It didn’t seem quite reasonable to want to go to sleep like that. Still, as I showed signs of doing it once more, after they had propped me upright again, they decided to put me to bed.
When I woke up, they told me I was ill. That seemed ridiculous, too, and I said so; and added that now I had had a little rest I intended to get up and go to town—important appointment; couldn’t possibly be spared, etc.
And they all said lots of things—you know the kind of arguments your friends always bring to bear on you if you chance to be just a little out of sorts. I tried to make them understand that I was indispensable to the well-being of London; that, though they might be in the habit of shirking work under the slightest pretext of a headache, I wasn’t that sort of a person. I owed it to my conscience, as well as to the world at large, to be at work in my office within half an hour, penning words of wisdom that should keep the universe on its proper balance.
Ursula merely asked if I liked the milk with the beaten egg quite cold or a trifle warm?
In the end I had to give in. They insisted I was ill; and I admit I was feeling unusually tired.
But as the weeks went by I did not get as strong as I had hoped to do. I seldom got farther than an easy-chair, and not always as far as that. So at last I determined to try the cure that hitherto had never failed me. Trunks were packed, and they got me down by easy stages to the cottage among the hills. I felt that if only I could see the flowers and breathe the air that blows way over from where the lighthouse blinks in the channel, I should certainly pick up both my strength and my courage.
When I reached the cottage the autumn sun was setting on hills that were a gorgeous blaze of brilliant crimson, yellow, bright rust, gold, pale lemon, chestnut brown, with the dark green of yew-trees at intervals. I have never seen colours like our autumn hillsides anywhere in the world, though, of course, they can be matched in places where the woods are made up of a wide variety of different trees. After the murk of London in October the glory of it all fairly dazzled me.
The garden was lovely too, but in a wistful sort of way. Snapdragons and zinnias and eschscholtzias were blooming lustily; there were still blossoms on the monthly rose bushes; nasturtiums flaunted in odd corners, and made splashes of brightness; the purple clematis over the porch was in full flower; fuchsias, geraniums, belated larkspurs, hollyhocks, and sweet alyssum talked of summer not yet over; while peeping out from crevices among the stones and nestling at the roots of trees were primroses already in flower; violets were blooming in the big bed by the kitchen door, and the yellow jasmine was smothered in bloom—such a curious mixture of summer and spring overlapping, with no hint of autumn and winter in between.
The fruit had not all been gathered in, and the trees in the orchard were bowed down with masses of crimson and pale green and golden yellow and russet brown, with spots of colour dotted about among the lush grass. It seemed impossible that one could remain ill in such an earthly paradise!