"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly, "I won't answer for
her life if she remains locked up in that dark room. She is so nervous
that we may lose her any day; and if you wish Captain Crawley to be her
heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are doing your very best to
serve him."
"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute cried. "Why, why,
Mr. Clump, did you not inform me sooner?"
The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a consultation
(over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin Warren, whose lady was
about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss
Crawley and her case.
"What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," Squills
remarked, "that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley. Devilish good
Madeira."
"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied, "to go and marry
a governess! There was something about the girl, too."
"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development,"
Squills remarked. "There is something about her; and Crawley was a
fool, Squills."
"A d---- fool--always was," the apothecary replied.
"Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the physician, and
after a pause added, "She'll cut up well, I suppose."
"Cut up," says Clump with a grin; "I wouldn't have her cut up for two
hundred a year."
"That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months, Clump, my boy, if
she stops about her," Dr. Squills said. "Old woman; full feeder;
nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure on the brain;
apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up, Clump; get her out: or I wouldn't
give many weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." And it was
acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke with so much
candour to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody near, Mrs. Bute
had made more than one assault upon her, to induce her to alter her
will. But Miss Crawley's usual terrors regarding death increased
greatly when such dismal propositions were made to her, and Mrs. Bute
saw that she must get her patient into cheerful spirits and health
before she could hope to attain the pious object which she had in view.
Whither to take her was the next puzzle. The only place where she is
not likely to meet those odious Rawdons is at church, and that won't
amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly felt. "We must go and visit our beautiful
suburbs of London," she then thought. "I hear they are the most
picturesque in the world"; and so she had a sudden interest for
Hampstead, and Hornsey, and found that Dulwich had great charms for
her, and getting her victim into her carriage, drove her to those
rustic spots, beguiling the little journeys with conversations about
Rawdon and his wife, and telling every story to the old lady which
could add to her indignation against this pair of reprobates.