“Mrs Meredith! I really beg your pardon,” I first stammered out as a very necessary apology, for I had nearly stumbled over her—“May I say how very glad I am you are returned, on Miss Russell’s account—I am sure”——
“Really, Mr Hawthorne, it is very natural I suppose, but you gentlemen seem to expend your whole sympathy upon the young lady, and forget the brother altogether! Mr Ormiston actually took the trouble to write to me about her”——
“My dear!” interposed the Principal.
“Nay, Dr Meredith, see how guilty Mr Hawthorne looks! and as to Mr Ormiston”—— “Well, never mind” (the Doctor was visibly checking his lady’s volubility), “I love the poor dear girl so much myself, that I am really grieved to the heart for her. I shall go down and see her directly, and make her keep up her spirits. Dr Wilson is apt to make out all the bad symptoms he can—I shall try if I can cure Mr Russell myself, after all; a little proper nursing in those cases is worth a whole staff of doctors—and, as to this poor girl, what can she know about it? I dare say she sits crying her eyes out, poor thing, and doing nothing—I’ll see about it. Why, I wouldn’t lose Mr Russell from the college for half the young men in it—would I, Dr Meredith?”
I bowed, and they passed on. Mrs Principal, if somewhat pompous occasionally, was a kind-hearted woman. I believe an hour scarcely elapsed after her return to Oxford, before she was in Russell’s lodgings, ordering everything about as coolly as if it were in her own house, and all but insisting on seeing the patient and prescribing herself for him, in spite of all professional injunctions to the contrary. The delirium passed off again, and though it left Russell sensibly weaker, so weak, that when I next was admitted to see him with Smith, he could do little more than feebly grasp our hands, yet the fever was evidently abated; and in the course of the next day, whether it was to be attributed to the remedies originally used, or to his own youth and good constitution, or to Mrs Meredith’s experienced directions in the way of nursing, and the cheerful spirit which that good lady, in spite of a little fussiness, succeeded generally in producing around her, there was a decided promise of amendment, which happily each succeeding hour tended gradually to fulfil. Ormiston had been unremitting in his inquiries; but I believe had never since sought an interview either with the brother or sister. I took advantage of the first conversation Russell was able to hold with me, to mention how very sincerely I believed him to have felt the interest he expressed. A moment afterwards I felt almost sorry I had mentioned the name—it was the first time I had done so during Russell’s illness. He almost started up in bed, and his face glowed again with more than the flush of fever, as he caught up my words.
“Sincere, did you say? Ormiston sincere! You don’t know the man as I do. Inquired here, did he? What right has he to intrude his”——
“Hush, my dear Russell,” I interposed, really almost alarmed at his violence. “Pray, don’t excite yourself—I think you do him great injustice; but we will drop the subject, if you please.”
“I tell you, Hawthorne, if you knew all, you would despise him as much as I do.”
It is foolish to argue with an invalid—but really even my friendship for Russell would not allow me to bear in silence an attack so unjustifiable, as it seemed to me, on the character of a man who had every claim to my gratitude and respect. I replied therefore somewhat incautiously, that perhaps I did know a little more than Russell suspected.
He stared at me with a look of bewilderment. “What do you know?” he asked quickly.