I take up my writing again, or rather my book is propped up in front of me, and I wonder how long ago was that. It tires my head to think. My dates are more confused than ever. I know it is May, but what part of May? I look out of my window—the bed has been wheeled into the window—and I see the chestnut is crowned with its white lights, and the broom bush near the gate is a mass of golden blossom. It is the end of May; it must be nearly June, for they tell me the season is late, that there has been much cold and rain. I am almost glad to have missed that. I like my May to be smiling and gladsome, not frowning and petulant. But to-day she has put on her best bib and tucker, and with the conceit of a frail human being I weave the pleasant fancy that it is done in my honour. "They are giving me a welcome, nurse," I say. "The apple tree is rosy pink with pleasure at my greeting blown to it through the window."
And nurse, putting on her bonnet and cloak to go out, tells me to hush and not talk so much.
They have been telling me to hush for so long it seems; but now I am tired of hushing, tired of being good.
I told Dr. Renton this yesterday, and he smiled and said it showed I was getting better. "Not getting, got," I returned. "When may I get up?" And he said he would come and tell me on Wednesday; and this is Monday, three o'clock in the afternoon, and I have forty-eight long hours to get through before I know.
Nurse is just a trifle cross with my impatience. She becomes irritable when I talk about getting up. She says how would I like to lie for some months; and I reply not at all—that it would be quite impossible for Dimbie to get along without my being ever at his elbow, and that it would be still more impossible for me to remain in a recumbent position when an upright one is possible.
I was glad of this "lying down" when I was in pain. Pain! There was a time when I had not known the meaning of the word. It had passed me by, left me alone. I had seen it on a few people's faces; then I thought it was discontent, now I know it was pain.
How do people bear it—always? keep their reason? Does God try them till they are just at breaking-point, and then gently remove them? or send them the blessing of unconsciousness?
They say I lay for hours away in a world of my own. I did not flinch when they touched me, moved me, laid me on my bed, left me in the hands of the doctors.
And yet I would have stayed if I could—kept my brain unclouded to help Dimbie when he picked me up, disentangled me (he always seems to be disentangling me from something) from the wrecked bicycle, and laid me away from that terrible wall. I did so want to help him. His white, set face recalled me a moment from the haze of unconsciousness which was settling upon me, and I whispered, "Dimbie, dear!" but I never heard his answer. The mist became an impenetrable fog, and I left him alone with his difficulties.
I don't know now what I wanted to say.