Especially when the critical stage was passed, and he began to feel confident of Fred’s recovery. In the more doubtful time, he had advised calling in Dr. Sprague (who, if he could, would rather have remained neutral on Wrench’s account); but after two consultations, the conduct of the case was left to Lydgate, and there was every reason to make him assiduous. Morning and evening he was at Mr. Vincy’s, and gradually the visits became cheerful as Fred became simply feeble, and lay not only in need of the utmost petting but conscious of it, so that Mrs. Vincy felt as if, after all, the illness had made a festival for her tenderness.
Both father and mother held it an added reason for good spirits, when old Mr. Featherstone sent messages by Lydgate, saying that Fred must make haste and get well, as he, Peter Featherstone, could not do without him, and missed his visits sadly. The old man himself was getting bedridden.
Mrs. Vincy told these messages to Fred when he could listen, and he turned towards her his delicate, pinched face, from which all the thick blond hair had been cut away, and in which the eyes seemed to have got larger, yearning for some word about Mary—wondering what she felt about his illness.
No word passed his lips; but “to hear with eyes belongs to love’s rare wit,” and the mother in the fullness of her heart not only divined Fred’s longing, but felt ready for any sacrifice in order to satisfy him.
“If I can only see my boy strong again,” she said, in her loving folly; “and who knows?—perhaps master of Stone Court! and he can marry anybody he likes then.”
“Not if they won’t have me, mother,” said Fred. The illness had made him childish, and tears came as he spoke.