He suffered Lettice to help him off with his coat, and to undo the bandage, which she accomplished very handily; and then observed that Mrs. Randall, in her haste to depart upon her visit, had bound up the wound in a most careless manner; and the irritation had already produced so serious an inflammation that she was quite alarmed, and suggested that the doctor should be sent for.
The general swore at the idea of the doctor, and yet more violently at that old hag Randall's confounded carelessness. Mrs. Melwyn looked miserable; she saw the case was bad, and yet she knew that to send for the doctor, and take it out of Randall's hands, would be an insult never to be forgiven.
But Lettice was steady. She was not quite ignorant in these matters, and she felt it her duty to be firm. She expostulated and remonstrated, and was just carrying her point when Mrs. Randall came home; and, having heard below how things were going on, hurried, uncalled for, into the dining-room.
She came in in a mighty pucker, as she would herself have called it, and began asking who had dared to open the wound and expose it to the air: and, seeing Miss Arnold preparing to apply a bread-and-water poultice, which she had made, fell into such a passion of rage and jealousy that she forgot herself so far as to snatch it from Lettice's hand, vowing, if any body was to be allowed to meddle with her arm, she would never touch it again so long as she lived.
Mrs. Melwyn turned pale, and began in her softest way,
"Now, really, Randall. Don't be angry, Randall—do listen, Randall. The bandage was too tight; I assure you, it was. We should not have thought of touching it else."
"What the devil, Randall, are you about to do now?" cried the general, as she took possession of the arm, in no gentle fashion.
"Bind it up again, to be sure, and keep that air out of it."
"But you hurt me confoundedly. Ah! it's more than I can bear. Don't touch it—it's as if it were on fire!"
"But it must be bound up, I say," going on without the least regard to the torture she was evidently putting him to.