Chapter Five.
“I am very deeply grieved, Mr Manning,” said Mrs Mostyn, as she sat in her drawing-room, holding a kind of consultation with the doctor and James Ellis, her old agent, and as she spoke, the truth of her words was very evident, for she kept applying her handkerchief to her eyes. “I liked John Grange. A frank, manly fellow, whose heart was in his work, and I fully intended, Ellis, that he should succeed poor old Dunton.”
“Yes, ma’am; a most worthy young man,” said the bailiff.
“Worthy? He was more than that. He was fond of his work and proud of the garden. Go in that conservatory, doctor, and look at my orchids. His skill was beyond question.”
“Your flowers are the envy of the county, Mrs Mostyn,” said the doctor.
“Ah, well! It is not my flowers in question, but this poor fellow’s future. Do you mean to tell me that you can do nothing for him?”
“I regret to say that I must,” said the doctor gravely. “We try all we can to master Nature’s mechanism, but I frankly confess that we are often very helpless. In this case the terrible shock of the fall on the head seems to have paralysed certain optical nerves. Time may work wonders, but I fear that his sight is permanently destroyed.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear!” sighed Mrs Mostyn, down whose pleasant old face the tears now coursed unchecked; “and all to satisfy my whims—all because I objected to a ragged, broken branch. But, doctor, can nothing be done?”