Mrs. Beaumont anxiously looked out of the window to see if her carriage was come to the door.
“Hypochondriac! not in the least, my dear sir,” said Mr. Palmer. “If you were to hear what Dr. —— and Dr. —— say of my case, and your own Dr. Wheeler here, who has a great reputation too—shall I tell you what he says?”
In a low voice, Mr. Palmer, holding Mr. Walsingham by the button, proceeded to recapitulate some of Dr. Wheeler’s prognostics; and at every pause, Mr. Walsingham turned impatiently, so as almost to twist off the detaining button, repeating, in the words of the king of Prussia to his physician, “C’est un âne! C’est un âne! C’est un âne!”—“Pshaw! I don’t understand French,” cried Mr. Palmer, angrily. His warmth obliged him to think of unbuttoning his coat, which operation (after stretching his neckcloth to remove an uneasy feeling in his throat) he was commencing, when Mrs. Beaumont graciously stopped his hand.
“The carriage is at the door, my dear sir:—instead of unbuttoning your coat, had not you better put this cambric handkerchief round your throat before we go into the cold air?”
Mr. Palmer put it on, as if in defiance of Mr. Walsingham, and followed Mrs. Beaumont, who led him off in triumph. Before he reached the carriage-door, however, his anger had spent its harmless force; and stopping to shake hands with him, Mr. Palmer said, “My good Mr. Walsingham, I am obliged to you. I am sure you wish me well, and I thank you for speaking so freely; I love honest friends—but as to my being a hypochondriac, believe me, you are mistaken!”
“And as to Dr. Wheeler,” said Mrs. Beaumont, as she drew up the glass of the carriage, and as they drove from the door, “Dr. Wheeler certainly does not deserve to be called un âne, for he is a man of whose medical judgment I have the highest opinion. Though I am sure I am very candid to acknowledge it in the present case, when his opinion is so much against my wishes, and all our wishes, and must, I fear, deprive us so soon of the company of our dear Mr. Palmer.”
“Why, yes, I must go, I must go to Jamaica,” said Mr. Palmer in a more determined tone than he had yet spoken on the subject.
Mrs. Beaumont silently rejoiced; and as her son imprudently went on arguing in favour of his own wishes, she leaned back in the carriage, and gave herself up to a pleasing reverie, in which she anticipated the successful completion of all her schemes. Relieved from the apprehension that Captain Walsingham’s arrival might disconcert her projects, she was now still further re-assured by Mr. Palmer’s resolution to sail immediately. One day more, and she was safe. Let Mr. Palmer but sail without seeing Captain Walsingham, and this was all Mrs. Beaumont asked of fortune; the rest her own genius would obtain. She was so absorbed in thought, that she did not know she was come home, till the carriage stopped at her door. Sometimes, indeed, her reverie had been interrupted by Mr. Palmer’s praises of the Walsinghams, and by a conversation which she heard going on about Captain Walsingham’s life and adventures: but Captain Walsingham was safe in London; and whilst he was at that distance, she could bear to hear his eulogium. Having lamented that she had been deprived of her dear Amelia all this day, and having arranged her plan of operations for the morrow, Mrs. Beaumont retired to rest. And even in dreams her genius invented fresh expedients, wrote notes of apology, or made speeches of circumvention.