“‘Oh, indeed!’ reply I, speaking rather shortly, and feeling a little offended, ‘I daresay not.’
“Our talk is taking a somewhat hostile tone; to what further amenities we might have proceeded is unknown; for at this point father and mother reappear through the window, and the necessity of conversing with each other at all ceases.
“Father staid till evening, and we all supped together, and I was called upon to sit by Bobby, and cut up his food for him, as he was disabled from doing it for himself. Then, later still, when the sun had set, and all his evening reds and purples had followed him, when the night flowers were scenting all the garden, and the shadows lay about, enormously long in the summer moonlight, father got into the post-chaise again, and drove away through the black shadows and the faint clear shine, and Bobby stood at the hall-door watching him, with his arm in a sling and a wistful smile on lips and eyes.
“‘Well, we are not left quite desolate this time,’ says mother, turning with rather tearful laughter to the young man. ‘You wish that we were, do not you, Bobby?’
“‘You would not believe me, if I answered “No,” would you?’ he asks, with the same still smile.
“‘He is not very polite to us, is he, Phœbe?’
“‘You would not wish me to be polite in such a case,’ he replies, flushing. ‘You would not wish me to be glad at missing the chance of seeing any of the fun?’
“But Mr. Gerard’s eagerness to be back at his post delays the probability of his being able to return thither. The next day he has a feverish attack, the day after he is worse; the day after that worse still, and in fine, it is between a fortnight and three weeks before he also is able to get into a post-chaise and drive away to Plymouth. And meanwhile mother and I nurse him and cosset him, and make him odd and cool drinks out of herbs and field-flowers, whose uses are now disdained or forgotten. I do not mean any offence to you, my dear, but I think that young girls in those days were less squeamish and more truly delicate than they are nowadays. I remember once I read ‘Humphrey Clinker’ aloud to my father, and we both highly relished and laughed over its jokes; but I should not have understood one of the darkly unclean allusions in that French book your brother left here one day. You would think it very unseemly to enter the bedroom of a strange young man, sick or well; but as for me, I spent whole nights in Bobby’s, watching him and tending him with as little false shame as if he had been my brother. I can hear now, more plainly than the song you sang me an hour ago, the slumberous buzzing of the great brown-coated summer bees in his still room, as I sat by his bedside watching his sleeping face, as he dreamt unquietly, and clenched, and again unclenched, his nervous hands. I think he was back in the Thunderer. I can see now the little close curls of his sunshiny hair straggling over the white pillow. And then there came a good and blessed day, when he was out of danger, and then another, a little further on, when he was up and dressed, and he and I walked forth into the hayfield beyond the garden—reversing the order of things—he, leaning on my arm; and a good plump solid arm it was. We walked out under the heavy-leaved horse-chestnut trees, and the old and rough-barked elms. The sun was shining all this time, as it seems to me. I do not believe that in those old days there were the same cold unseasonable rains as now; there were soft showers enough to keep the grass green and the flowers undrooped; but I have no association of overcast skies and untimely deluges with those long and azure days. We sat under a haycock, on the shady side, and indolently watched the hot haymakers—the shirt-sleeved men, and burnt and bare-armed women, tossing and raking; while we breathed the blessed country air, full of adorable scents, and crowded with little happy and pretty-winged insects.
“‘In three days,’ says Bobby, leaning his elbow in the hay, and speaking with an eager smile, ‘three days at the furthest, I may go back again; may not I, Phœbe?’
“‘Without doubt,’ reply I, stiffly, pulling a dry and faded ox-eye flower out of the odorous mound beside me; ‘for my part, I do not see why you should not go to-morrow, or indeed—if we could send into Plymouth for a chaise—this afternoon; you are so thin that you look all mouth and eyes, and you can hardly stand, without assistance, but these, of course, are trifling drawbacks, and I daresay would be rather an advantage on board ship than otherwise.’