If he were not bandaged in bed, and an Englishman, Binning would shrug his shoulders. There is a touch of impatience in his—
“Does it matter much which? We said it to each other.” Then, stirred by an immense gratitude for her downcast look, he adds gently, “How can I not be in a hurry to go back? Isn’t my regiment out there still, and my chief, and all my pals?”
At the sound of his voice, with the fighting ring in it vanquishing the feebleness of sickness, she lifts her head proudly—
“Of course you want to go back,” she says, with an unaccountable sense of partnership in his courage and comradeship; “and I hope you will get well quickly, and be able to do it soon!”
CHAPTER XI
“There was never anything happened so unluckily!”
This is the ejaculation with which Mrs. Prince opens one of those forenoon visits to Campion Place, discouraged by the recipients, but at least not so common in her case as in that of her unsnubable daughter. The scene of it has, as often, to be transferred to the Rectory, and in this case the object of the visit must be tracked, by a visitor too eager to await her correctly in the drawing-room, to the linen-room, where, in company with all the Darcy family except its head, she has been witnessing a presentation to the cow-man, on his approaching marriage with the schoolroom maid. The function is happily just concluded before the interruption takes place; but the wedding gifts lie displayed upon the linen-room table, and are being examined for the twentieth time with critical interest by the young Darcys, of whom both bride and bridegroom are intimate friends, and who have followed the course of their true love with breathless sympathy since Martinmas. They view the arrival of Mrs. Prince with more pleasure than usual, as giving them a fresh gallery to whom to display and enumerate the nuptial gifts; and, in any case, are far too courteous and kind-hearted not to be willing to share the elation caused by so joyful an occasion with any chance comer.
“What has happened unluckily?” asks Lavinia, starting up from her knees, on which she has been requested to descend to examine the quality of a Japanese rug displaying itself gaudily on the floor. To her own heart the question phrases itself differently, “Is he worse?”
“There is something so perverse in its occurring now of all times!” pursues Mrs. Prince, with that provoking keeping of his or her audience on tenterhooks and in the dark, by a person whose own curiosity is at rest, which one often observes.
“But what is it? What has happened?” asks Mrs. Darcy, coming to the rescue, and holding in her hand the rolling-pin, which has just been submitted to her for special admiration by her second daughter.