At last he did go to sleep, not in pursuance of any plan formed for doing so; for had he been asked he would have said that sleep was impossible for him. But he did go to sleep, and when he awoke it was dark. He had intended to have got up and dressed on that afternoon, or to have gone through such ceremony of dressing as was possible for him—in preparation of his next day’s exercise; and now he rose up in his bed with a start, angry with himself in having allowed the time to pass by him.
“Lord love you, Mr. Graham, why how you have slept!” said Mrs. Baker. “If I haven’t just sent your dinner down again to keep hot. Such a beautiful pheasant, and the bread sauce’ll be lumpy now, for all the world like pap.”
“Never mind the bread sauce, Mrs. Baker;—the pheasant’s the thing.”
“And her ladyship’s been here, Mr. Graham, only she wouldn’t have you woke. She won’t hear of your being moved tomorrow, nor yet won’t the judge. There was a rumpus downstairs when Mr. Augustus as much as mentioned it. I know one who—”
“You know one who—you were saying?”
“Never mind.—It ain’t one more than another, but it’s all. You ain’t to leave this tomorrow, so you may just give it over. And indeed your things is all at the wash, so you can’t;—and now I’ll go down for the pheasant.”
Felix still declared very positively that he should go, but his doing so did not shake Mrs. Baker. The letter-bag he knew did not leave till eight, and as yet it was not much past five. He would see Staveley again after his dinner, and then he would write.
When Augustus left the room in the middle of the day he encountered Madeline wandering about the house. In these days she did wander about the house, as though there were something always to be done in some place apart from that in which she then was. And yet the things which she did were but few. She neither worked nor read, and as for household duties, her share in them was confined almost entirely to the morning and evening teapot.
“It isn’t true that he’s to go tomorrow morning, Augustus, is it?” said she.
“Who, Graham? Well; he says that he will. He is very anxious to get to London; and no doubt he finds it stupid enough lying there and doing nothing.”
“But he can do as much there as he can lying by himself in his own chambers, where I don’t suppose he would have anybody to look after him. He thinks he’s a trouble and all that, and therefore he wants to go. But you know mamma doesn’t mind about trouble of that kind; and what should we think of it afterwards if anything bad was to happen to your friend because we allowed him to leave the house before he was in a fit state to be moved? Of course Mr. Pottinger says so—” Mr. Pottinger was the doctor. “Of course Mr. Pottinger says so, because he thinks he has been so long here, and he doesn’t understand.”
“But Mr. Pottinger would like to keep a patient.”
“Oh no; he’s not at all that sort of man. He’d think of mamma—the trouble I mean of having a stranger in the house. But you know mamma would think nothing of that, especially for such an intimate friend of yours.”
Augustus turned slightly round so as to look more fully into his sister’s face, and he saw that a tear was gathered in the corner of her eye. She perceived his glance and partly shrank under it, but she soon recovered herself and answered it. “I know what you mean,” she said, “and if you choose to think so, I can’t help it. But it is horrible—horrible—” and then she stopped herself, finding that a little sob would become audible if she trusted herself to further words.
“You know what I mean, Mad?” he said, putting his arm affectionately round her waist. “And what is it that I mean? Come; you and I never have any secrets;—you always say so when you want to get at mine. Tell me what it is that I mean.”
“I haven’t got any secret.”
“But what did I mean?”
“You looked at me, because I don’t want you to let them send Mr. Graham away. If it was old Mr. Furnival I shouldn’t like them to turn him out of this house when he was in such a state as that.”
“Poor Mr. Furnival; no; I think he would bear it worse than Felix.”
“Then why should he go? And why—should you look at me in that way?”
“Did I look at you, Mad? Well, I believe I did. We are to have no secrets; are we?”
“No,” said she. But she did not say it in the same eager voice with which hitherto she had declared that they would always tell each other everything.
“Felix Graham is my friend,” said he, “my special friend; and I hope you will always like my friends. But—”
“Well?” she said.
“You know what I mean, Mad.”
“Yes,” she said.
“That is all, dearest.” And then she knew that he also had cautioned her not to fall in love with Felix Graham, and she felt angry with him for the caution. “Why—why—why—?” But she hardly knew as yet how to frame the question which she desired to ask herself.
XL
I Call It Awful
“Oh indeed!” Those had been the words
