"Yes," Mrs. Dew said; "but you must remember that you belong to the
kitchen part and there must be no trespassin’. It would never do for
you to be playin’ with the young gentlemen like you was one of
theirselves. You must understand that from the very first. Not but
what they’re very kind young gentlemen, and have ast after you over and
over again, an’ Mr. Wycherly likewise. Master Edmund, he wants to come
and see you before he goes back to school."
"Oh, Aunt Martha, do let him. I should love it so. I promise I won’t
go up, I’ll stay normal, I truly will."
"That I don’t believe for one minute, Jane-Anne; why, if I was to take
your temperature now—only I’m not going to—I know it’d be over a
hundred, with you so pink and all. No, I don’t hold with Master Edmund
coming to see you here. I’ve never been really wrop up in this
place—too many threads and snippets about for my fancy an’ a smell like
a draper’s shop all day long. I’ve no wish as Master Edmund should see
you here—. Now don’t you go cryin’ out before you’re hurt. Wait till I
can tell you——"
"Oh, aunt, what—do be quick."
"The doctor says that seein’ the weather’s so good, you can be moved any
time now provided you go straight to bed when you get there——"
"And you’re going to move me—oh, Aunt Martha, how lovelly—to-day?"
"No, not to-day, but to-morrow, nurse’ll bring you in a fly. And you
must promise to keep calm and not go bouncin’ and exclaimin’ and runnin’
up to a hundred over nothing at all."
"Aunt Martha, I’ll behave like a stucky-image," Jane-Anne protested.
"You’re more like a Jack-in-the-box than any image I’ve ever come
across, but I do think it’ll be better for me to have you where I can
see to your food my own self. I don’t seem to have no faith in that
nurse’s beef-tea nor ’er arraroot—lumpy stuff what I saw. An’ if you’re
to be got strong enough to go back to the Bainbridge in the next three
weeks (I don’t know how they ’ll take this fresh worriment) you must be
fed up. So now you know. You’re to get up for your tea and go back to
bed directly after, and you’re to keep quiet and not get into a fantique
nor go makin’ a palladum all about nothin’. Do you hear me, Jane-Anne?"
"Yes, Aunt Martha, but I think fantiques and palladums must be lovelly
things; they sound so, and I long to make them, only I don’t know how."
"It strikes me it’s little else you’ll ever make. Now lie down in bed
for I must run. Most considerate the master’s been, letting me come off
at all times to see you, and I hope you’ll remember it and try and make
yourself useful when you get about again. Good-bye, child, and we
shan’t be separated much longer for which I thank the Lord as made us
both."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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