“I have none; and, unless the old hotel is ready, I shall stay on the wharf with the boys until it is.”
“Then I shall stay also. Don’t send me away, Christie: I shall not be a trouble long; surely David will let you help me die?” and poor Fletcher stretched his one hand imploringly to her in the first terror of the delirium that was coming on.
“I will not leave you: I’ll take care of you, and no one can forbid it. Drink this, Philip, and trust to Christie.”
He obeyed like a child, and soon fell again into a troubled sleep while she sat by him thinking about David.
The old hotel was ready; but by the time he got there Mr. Fletcher was past caring where he went, and for a week was too ill to know any thing, except that Christie nursed him. Then he turned the corner and began to recover. She wanted him to go into more comfortable quarters; but he would not stir as long as she remained; so she put him in a little room by himself, got a man to wait on him, and gave him as much of her care and time as she could spare from her many duties. He was not an agreeable patient, I regret to say; he tried to bear his woes heroically, but did not succeed very well, not being used to any exertion of that sort; and, though in Christie’s presence he did his best, his man confided to her that the Colonel was “as fractious as a teething baby, and the domineeringest party he ever nussed.”
Some of Mr. Fletcher’s attempts were comical, and some pathetic, for though the sacred circle of her wedding-ring was an effectual barrier against a look or word of love, Christie knew that the old affection was not dead, and it showed itself in his desire to win her respect by all sorts of small sacrifices and efforts at self-control. He would not use many of the comforts sent him, but insisted on wearing an army dressing-gown, and slippers that cost him a secret pang every time his eye was affronted by their ugliness. Always after an angry scene with his servant, he would be found going round among the men bestowing little luxuries and kind words; not condescendingly, but humbly, as if it was an atonement for his own shortcomings, and a tribute due to the brave fellows who bore their pains with a fortitude he could not imitate.
“Poor Philip, he tries so hard I must pity, not despise him; for he was never taught the manly virtues that make David what he is,” thought Christie, as she went to him one day with an unusually happy heart.
She found him sitting with a newly opened package before him, and a gloomy look upon his face.
“See what rubbish one of my men has sent me, thinking I might value it,” he said, pointing to a broken sword-hilt and offering her a badly written letter.
She read it, and was touched by its affectionate respect and manly sympathy; for the good fellow had been one of those who saved the Colonel when he fell, and had kept the broken sword as a trophy of his bravery, “thinking it might be precious in the eyes of them that loved him.”