“A little cloud as big as a man’s hand.”
It is not half a bad thing to “be laid up,” as it is called, for a reasonable and moderate fraction of one’s life—more especially if a “bright particular star” is impelled to beam softly and brilliantly upon one in consequence. Jack, after the inflammation, which gave him “fits” the first day or two, had subsided, began to enjoy himself after a subdued fashion. Though food was restricted by the despotic doctor, and liquor, other than tea, altogether interdicted, there was no embargo laid upon tobacco. Mr. Redgrave, therefore, used to get over the window which “gave” into the garden, and have many a soothing and delightful pipe in the afternoons and the long, clear, bright nights.
He was, I firmly believe, perfectly well able to read; but he pretended that it made his head ache, so Maud fell into the trap and volunteered to read Macaulay’s Essays, the Saturday Review, Macmillan’s Magazine, Market Harborough, and even some choice bits from Tennyson and Browning. What pleasant mornings these were! Stangrove was out; Mrs. Jane deep in housekeeping and nursery details; so these two people were able for a brief season to taste uninterruptedly the charm of pure intellectual enjoyment, unalloyed by the jar of small duties or the regretful sense of unperformed work. Convalescence, that regal state and condition, evades all ordinary responsibilities. It is above duty, blame, arithmetic and grammar—the scourges and penances of this toiling pilgrimage we call life. It was joy unspeakable to lie back with half-closed eyes and hear Maud’s fresh, clear young voice ringing out in accents of love, or laughter, or denunciation, or sounding strangely unnatural in the bitterness of the Saturday’s sarcasms.
There was much reviewing of reviewers too, poetizing upon poets; philosophizing upon philosophers. Arguments and comments were plentifully superinduced by the variety of texts. A week on board ship is equal to a year on land—a day’s tending of an invalid involves a feeling of dominancy and ownership, which renders the experience equal in completeness to a week on shipboard. According to this scale of reckoning, Maud Stangrove and John Redgrave had protracted opportunities of knowing each other’s characters, amounting in all to such duration of time as fully justified them in contracting that morally indissoluble betrothal called an “engagement.” This unlimited liability they actually had the temerity to enter into, and in the usual solemn manner sign, seal, and ratify, before John Redgrave left Juandah, perfectly recovered and unutterably happy.
He, of course, immediately acquainted Stangrove with the stupendous and miraculous fact, which that unimaginative personage received with his usual coolness.
“Maud is of age,” he remarked, “and is fully entitled to choose for herself. She could not have chosen a better fellow; but I wish that confounded mortgage of yours was sold for sewing guards, or whatever the women buy obsolete deeds for. I was quite startled by seeing ‘Know all men by these presents’ glaring at me on Jane’s work-table the other day. I hate the look even of one; it’s like the skin of a dead serpent.”
“Pooh! pooh!” said Jack, “you don’t think the trifle of debt I owe upon 60,000 sheep—which they will be and more by lambing time—worth thinking seriously about. Why, Mildmay Shrood told me when I was down——”
“Just what he wished you to believe, I dare say. He’s a good fellow, as men of money go, I grant you; but he would put his thumb or his foot on you if the money market fell with as little compunction as I feel for this fellow here.” And Mark trod savagely upon a large brown flat insect, which was making its way in a blundering, purblind fashion from a decayed log to the wood-pile.
“I’m sorry that I can’t show as clear a sheet as I could have done once upon a time, old fellow,” said Jack. “But, on the other hand, nothing venture nothing have. If things turn out as I expect, please God, Maud shall have everything in the wide world that she can frame a wish for.”
“And if not—you must pardon me for looking on the dark side of things—I have so much more often seen that colour come up——”