Gwen immediately felt it her duty to point out the improbability of anyone dying, but was a little handicapped by the circumstances attendant on Typhus Fever. She had to be concise in unreason. "Don't talk nonsense, Clo dear." The patient ignored the interruption. "Oh dear!—give me another grape to suck without having to open my eyes.... Ta!—now I can talk a little more." The obliging nurse headed Gwen off to a proper distance, and herself supplied the grape. In doing this she smiled so hard that the tooth got a good long look at Gwen, who looked another way. The patient resumed, speaking very much from her lofty position of lecturer by her own bedside.
"You see, a percentage of cases recovers, but this one may not be in it. However, the constitution is good.... No, Gwen dear, you know perfectly well I may die, so where is the use of pretending?" Whereupon Gwen conceded the possibility of Death, and the patient seemed to be easier in her mind; saying, as one who leaves trivialities, to settle down to matters of business:—"I want to talk to you about my small boy, Dave Wardle."
"Shall I go and see him at Sapps Court?"
"Yes—that's what I want. And then come back here and tell me ... promise!" She was getting very indeterminate in speech, and the nurse was signalling for the interview to close. So Gwen cut it short. But she felt she had made a binding promise. She must go to Sapps Court.
Said Gwen to Dr. Dalrymple, a few minutes later, in the sitting-room:—"I hope she hasn't talked too much." The doctor appeared to have taken temporary possession, and to have several letters to write.
"It makes very little difference," he said. "At present the decks are only being cleared for action. In a few days we shall be in the thick of it—pulse over a hundred—temperature a hundred and four—then a crisis. When it's all over, we shall be able to see how many ships are sunk."
Sapps Court had resumed its tranquil routine of everyday life, and the accident had nearly become a thing of the past. Not entirely, for Mrs. Prichard's portion of No. 7 still remained unoccupied, even Susan Burr remaining absent at her married niece's at Clapham. Aunt M'riar had charge, and kept a bit of fire going in the front-room, so the plaster should get a chance to dry out. Also she stood the front and back windows wide to let through a good draught of air, except, of course, it was pouring rain, and then it was no good. The front-room was a great convenience to Aunt M'riar, who now and then was embarrassed with linen to dry, relieving her from the necessity of rendering the kitchen impassable with it in the morning till she came down and took it off of the lines ready for ironing, and removed the cords on which she had hung it overnight.
Dave and Dolly were allowed upstairs during operations, on stringent conditions; or, rather, it should be said, on a stringent condition. They were to leave things be. This was honourably observed, especially by Dave, who was the soul of honour when once he gave his word. As for Dolly, she was still young, and if she did claw hold of a chemise and bring down the whole line, why, it was only that once, and we was children once ourselves. This was Uncle Mo, of course; he was that easy-going.
But whenever Aunt M'riar was not handicapping the desiccation of the walls by overcharging the atmosphere with moisture of the very wettest possible sort, Dolly and Dave could have the room to themselves, so long as they kep' their hands off the clean wallpaper; which was included in leaving be, obviously—not an intrusion of a new stipulation. They would then, being alone, go great lengths in picturing to themselves and each other the pending reappearance of Mrs. Picture and Mrs. Burr, and the delights of resuming halcyon days of old. For this strangely compounded clay, Man, scarcely waits to be quite sure he is landed in existence, before he inaugurates a glorious fiction, the golden Past, which never has been; between which and its resurrection into an equally golden Future—which never will be—he sandwiches the pewter Present, which always is, and which it is idle to pretend is worth twopence, by comparison.