'I must get leave,' Bryda said, with trembling lips, 'I must get leave. And oh,' she exclaimed, clasping her hands, 'I do dread it--I do dread it.'
'Well, there's nothing to fear. The poor fellow can scarcely lift a finger. Not only his head but his back has had a sharp concussion. He can never be the same man again, unless by a miracle, and we doctors can't work miracles.'
Mrs Lambert gave a very reluctant permission to Bryda, and began to wonder what she should do about the 'chayney' the next day. It was the day for washing and dusting the best 'chayney' in the glass cupboard, but she supposed she must suffer inconvenience--it always was her fate.
'Pray when will you return, miss?' she asked.
'I should like to stay at home for Sunday, madam.'
'Sunday! And who is to walk with me to church? Dear me! how inconsiderate you are! I suppose you think a gentlewoman like me can take Mrs Symes' arm?'
Bryda thought nothing about it, but left the room to tell Mr Barrett she would be ready at the hour he was pleased to name.
'It must be early--say eight o'clock, Miss Palmer;' and he added, looking anxiously into her face, 'don't fret, or we shall have you ill next,' and taking Bryda's little thin hand in his the doctor felt her pulse. 'You are weak as a fly,' he said. 'Give up here and go home. We will talk more of it to-morrow. Good-day.'
During the drive to Rock House the kind-hearted surgeon did his best to divert Bryda from dwelling upon the past or the dreaded interview with Mr Bayfield. He did not know how sharp was the pang his companion felt as the old thorn tree came in sight, nor how she bit her lips and clenched the rail of the high gig with a grasp that gave her physical pain to deaden the terrible ache at her heart.
Mr Barrett talked of many things in all ignorance of the intensity of her feelings, roused by the sight of the very spot where she had last seen Jack and that rigid upturned face.
'You take an interest in the poor boy Chatterton, Miss Palmer, I know. I am afraid the sunshine of his first weeks in London is a little clouded.'
'I have seen his mother once or twice,' Bryda said. 'She showed me his first letter, written in high spirits.'
'Ah, yes! and there have been others since, but they don't deceive George Catcott, who is always thinking of him, having the notion that there never was a poet like him since Shakespeare. He is making a mistake now in rushing into politics in the _Middlesex Journal_. He sends Catcott the papers. What will Lord Hillsborough or the Lord Mayor care for all his violent reproaches anent this affair at Boston? Not a brass farthing--not they! That's a fine letter to the freeholders of Bristol, I own, in which he chronicles the speech of his glorious Canynge, when he said, "dear as his family were, his country was dearer," or something like that. It is all very fine, but Chatterton has to earn his bread, and I don't think he is going the right way to do it. He seems proud of his intimacy with the editor of the _Political Register_, but I fear it won't do him much good.'