As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea-table byAgnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to his thoughts.
"There is a post come in from India, I observe," he said, after a short silence.
"By-the-by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!" said the Doctor.
"Indeed?"
"Poor dear Jack!" said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. "That trying climate!—like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn't. My dear Doctor, it was his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie, my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never was strong—not what can be called robust, you know," said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally"—from the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking about, arm in arm, the livelong day."
Annie, thus addressed, made no reply.
"Do I gather from what you say, ma'am, that Mr. Maldon is ill?" asked Mr. Wickfield.
"Ill!" replied the Old Soldier. "My dear sir, he is all sorts of things."
"Except well?" said Mr. Wickfield.
"Except well, indeed!" said the Old Soldier. "He has had dreadful strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver," said the Old Soldier resignedly, "that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went out!"
"Does he say all this? " asked Mr. Wickfield.
"Say? My dear sir," returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and her fan, "you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that question. Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first."
"Mama!" said Mrs. Strong.
"Annie, my dear," returned her mother, "once for all, I must really beg that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what I say. You know as well as I do, that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at the heels of any number of wild horses—why should I confine myself to four! I won't confine myself to four—eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather than say anything calculated to overturn the Doctor's plans."
"Wickfield's plans," said the Doctor, stroking his face, and looking penitently at his adviser. "That is to say, our joint plans for him. I said myself, abroad or at home."
"And I said," added Mr. Wickfield gravely, "abroad. I was the means of sending him abroad. It's my responsibility."
"Oh! Responsibility!" said the Old Soldier. "Every thing was done for the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; every thing was done for the kindest and best, we know. But if the dear fellow can't live there, he can't live there. And if he can't live there, he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the Doctor's plans. I know him," said the Old Soldier, fanning herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony, "and I know he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the Doctor's plans."
