The eyes of both of them was
dimmed with tears, hers the most, and again they clasped my hands.
"Poor father," said Angelica, "I hope he didn't go all the way to the
Cat and Fiddle, and that the night air didn't strike into his joints;
but he cannot separate us now." And she looked confiding at the other
bath-chair.
"What are you going to do?" said I, and they said they had just been
making plans. I saw, though, that their minds was in too exalted a
state to do this properly for themselves, and so I reflected a minute.
"How long have you been in Buxton?"
"I have been there two weeks and two days," said she, "and my
husband" - oh, the effulgence that filled her countenance as she said
this - "has been there one day longer."
"Then," said I, "my advice to you is to go back to Buxton and stay
there five days, until you both have taken the waters and the baths for
the full three weeks. It won't be much to bear the old gentleman's
upbraiding for five days, and then, blessed with health and love, you
can depart. No matter what you do afterward, I'd stick it out at Buxton
for five days."
"We'll do it," said they; and then, after more gratitude and
congratulations, we parted.
And now I must tell you about ourselves. When Jone had been three weeks
at Buxton, and done all the things he ought to do, and hadn't done
anything he oughtn't to do, he hadn't any more rheumatism in him than a
squirrel that jumps from bough to bough. But will you believe it,
madam, I had such a rheumatism in one side and one arm that it made me
give little squeaks when I did up my back hair, and it all came from my
taking the baths when there wasn't anything the matter with me; for I
found out, but all too late, that while the waters of Buxton will cure
rheumatism in people that's got it, they will bring it out in people
who never had it at all. We was told that we ought not to do anything
in the bathing line without the advice of a doctor; but those little
tanks in the floors of the bathrooms, all lined with tiles and filled
with warm, transparent water, that you went down into by marble steps,
did seem so innocent, that I didn't believe there was no need in asking
questions about them. Jone wanted me to stay three weeks longer until I
was cured, but I wouldn't listen to that. I was wild to get to
Scotland, and as my rheumatism did not hinder me from walking, I didn't
mind what else it did.
And there is another thing I must tell you. One day when I was sitting
by myself on The Slopes waiting for Jone, about lunch time, and with a
reminiscence floating through my mind of the Devonshire clotted cream
of the past, never perhaps to return, I saw an elderly woman coming
along, and when she got near she stopped and spoke.
