"Lawks, mum!" Her corsets cracked.
"Lawks! doesn't express it, Amelia. Go now and put on the kettle with the clean copper handle. No dripping toast, thank you. I am sure nurse would disapprove. She has a tiresome habit of disapproving of most things. Besides, I don't feel like common fare. I want something to take me out of myself and to uplift me. Something delicate, subtle, ambrosial. Do you know what ambrosial means? No? Ambrosia means food for the gods. I want food for the gods—iced rose leaves, a decoction of potpourri to assuage my thirst. Go, Amelia, and make speed to do my bidding."
And Amelia, with bulging eyes, has gone. I could hear her muttering to the landing furniture, "Just a bit dotty in the head like Ned Wemp, the village softy. Poor thing, no wonder she's queer at times. She did bump her head."
And I am laughing weakly. I feel, after all, unequal to tackling the encyclopædia. I feel faint with waiting and watching for Dr. Renton. It is half-past three. I heard nurse come in a few minutes ago. I hear Amelia rattling the tea-cups. But the sound doesn't cheer me. Somehow, why I cannot say, fear has gripped me at the heart. And I cannot laugh it away. Why is Dr. Renton so long in coming?
"'He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'"
*****
Dr. Renton has been here. And I have sent nurse away so that I may fight it out alone before Dimbie comes home. I broke down a little before Dr. Renton, but I mustn't cry before Dimbie. I must always try to remember that. He has quite enough worries of his own. I must never cry before Dimbie.
Dr. Renton's words keep slowly repeating themselves in my brain: "To lie for twelve months is hard, but—supposing it had been life-long crippledom, that would be harder."
"Supposing it had been life-long crippledom!"
I must go on saying it over and over again till I feel patient, till I feel grateful for only being asked to bear the lighter burden. But, oh, how long it seems! How very long! To think that I must lie quite still. And this was to have been my first year of happiness, the first year in which I was free to roam at my will, free to stretch my wings away from Peter's cramping influence.