“A surgeon!” said Anne. He caught the word; it seemed to rouse him at once, and saying only, “True, true, a surgeon this instant,” was darting away, when Anne eagerly suggested—
“Captain Benwick! would it not be better for Captain Benwick? He knows where a surgeon is to be found.”
“Every one capable of thinking felt the advantage of the idea, and in a moment (it was all done in rapid moments) Captain Benwick had resigned the poor corpse-like figure entirely to the brother’s care, and was off for the town with the utmost rapidity.
“As to the wretched party left behind, it could scarcely be said which of the three, who were completely rational, was suffering most; Captain Wentworth, Anne, and Charles who, really a very affectionate brother, hung over Louisa with sobs of grief, and could only turn his eyes from one sister to see the other in a state as insensible, or to witness the hysterical agitation of his wife, calling on him for help which he could not give.
“Anne, attending with all the strength and zeal and thought which instinct supplied, to Henrietta, still tried at intervals to suggest comfort to the others, tried to quiet Mary, to animate Charles, to assuage the feelings of Captain Wentworth. Both seemed to look to her for directions.[75]
“‘Anne, Anne!’ cried Charles, ‘what is to be done next? What, in Heaven’s name, is to be done next?’
“Captain Wentworth’s eyes were also turned towards her.
“‘Had she not better be carried to the inn? Yes, I am sure; carry her gently to the inn.’
“‘Yes, yes, to the inn,’ repeated Captain Wentworth, comparatively collected and eager to be doing something. ‘I will carry her myself.’”
The Harvilles meet the melancholy cavalcade, and Louisa is carried to their house instead of to the inn. A surgeon pronounces that her limbs have escaped, and though there is concussion of the brain, the case is not by any means hopeless.