‘No, no,’ I said, and my voice sounded unnatural and shaky and I could not control it. ‘I know all that; I know it would be wrong. Please don’t let us talk about it any more.’
Walter looked hurt and puzzled with me, and I could not explain.
That night I could not go to sleep for a long time, and when I did, I dreamt of Hugo being blinded.
Mrs. Sebright was very kind to me. She seemed to like me much better when I was ill and silly; some people are like that; they do like anyone better who is ill; and the Doctor was kind, the Doctor Chilcote whom I had had before. She said I must go away for change when I got up, and I said I couldn’t, I could not leave Walter and the house, I said; but she arranged it all.
I was to go with the children to Cousin Delia, to Yearsly, where I had not been for over a year; and Mrs. Sebright would stay with Walter, and the nurse would go with me for a week.
I was glad to have it arranged; I tried to look forward to it, but it did not seem real to me somehow; and when the nurse went away after that first week?
What would I do then, I wondered.
XX
Yearsly was now a hospital. Less serious cases were sent on from the big General Hospital, or convalescents. The garden was full of bright blue suits, as the streets in London had been. There were ten wounded soldiers there at this time. One of the Lacey girls was there with Cousin Delia to nurse them. How she made room for us I do not know, but there was room, and I had my own bedroom, and my old bed that I had had always when I was a girl.
It was quiet at Yearsly, and the War seemed further off; even the soldiers did not bring it close, for they were getting better, and they were happy to be there.