Edgar was vexed almost beyond his patience when he found his wife really ill the next morning. He tried at first to persuade her that air would do her good, and that the amusement of shopping was far better than moping at home. When this would not do, the next thing was to desire her to have the attendance of a physician immediately, as expense was no object, and her health was of inexpressible importance to him. Hester begged to decline the physician, not choosing to fee him with bad notes, and loathing the idea of following up her occupation within her own doors, during her escape from its exercise without. She trembled too at the idea of admitting any stranger into the house. Her husband thought it would be an advantage, provided every thing suspicious was kept out of sight. The matter was compromised by the apothecary being sent for,—a simple young man who was much affected by Mr. Morrison’s extreme anxiety for his wife’s recovery, and thereby induced to order her out of doors full three days sooner than he would have done in an ordinary case.
“A lovely day, as you say,” observed Edgar. “Mild and sunny, and just fit for an invalid. Would not you recommend Mrs. Morrison to recreate a little in the open air? Consider how long it is she saw any faces but ours.”
“I do not want to see any new faces,” said Hester. “I cannot bear them yet. All I want is to be alone.”[alone.”]
“Aye, aye; a little of the ennui and melancholy of illness, you see, Mr. Cotton.”
Mr. Cotton agreed that a little gentle change would be salutary to the nerves, though, as a distressing languor of the frame, and slight frequency of the pulse remained, it would be well not to urge exertion too far.
“I am sure,” said Hester, “that if I went out to-day, I should fall before I could get back from the end of the street.”
“But you could not fall if you had a strong arm to hold you up; and I do not mean that you should go alone; of course I would go with you, or Philip.”
Hester gave him a look which reminded him of her determination not to implicate her brother in any of her shopping expeditions.
“I am going to have a friend to dine with me,” observed Edgar, to Mr. Cotton; “and it would be just the thing for her to saunter to the fruiterer’s in the next street, and send in a little dessert, refreshing herself with a bunch of grapes there, you know. I should see a little bloom on her cheeks again when she came home, and then I should begin to think she was going to be herself again. Upon my soul, I don’t know how to bear my life while she is shut up in this way.”
“I am glad of it,” thought Hester; “for now you know something of what my life is when I am not shut up. I suppose you have had enough of shopping.”