e caught pneumonia just
through getting wet that time--she had got wet a dunnamany times and not
been tuppence the worse ... his lungs were not weak in that way--it was
the London fogs that had disagreed with them, the doctor had said so,
and had sent him away from town, to the Marsh and the rain.... He had
been in London for the last two days, and the fog had got into his poor
chest again,--that was all, and now that he was home on the Marsh he
would soon be well--of course he would soon be well--she was a fool to
fret. And now she would go upstairs and sit with him till the nurse
came; it was her last chance of doing those little tender, rough,
intimate things for him ... till they were married--oh, she wouldn't let
him fling his clothes about like that when they were married! Meantime
she would go up, and see that he swallowed every drop of the herb
tea--that was the stuff to give anyone who was ill on the Marsh, no
matter what the doctor said ... rheumatism, bronchitis, colic, it cured
them all.

Sec.22

Martin was very ill. The herb tea did not cure him, nor did the stuff
the doctor gave him. Nor did the starched crackling nurse, who turned
Joanna out of the room and exasperatingly spoke of Martin as "my
patient."

Joanna had lunch with Sir Harry, who in the stress of anxiety was
turning into something very like a father, and afterwards drove off in
her trap to Rye, having forgotten all about the Honeychild errand. She
went to the fruiterers, and ordered grapes and peaches.

"But you won't get them anywhere now, Miss Godden. It's just between
seasons--in another month ..."

"I must have 'em now," said Joanna truculently, "I don't care what I
pay."

It ended in the telephone at the Post Office being put into hysteric
action, and a London shop admonished to send down peaches and grapes to
Rye station by passenger train that afternoon.

The knowledge of Martin's illness was all over Walland Marsh by the
evening. All the Marsh knew about the doctor and the nurse and the
peaches and grapes from London. The next morning they knew that he was
worse, and that his brother had been sent for--Father Lawrence arrived
on Saturday night, driving in the carrier's cart from Rye station. On
Sunday morning people met on their way to church, and shook their heads
as they told each other the latest news from North Farthing--double
pneumonia, an abscess on the lung.... Nell Raddish said his face was
blue ... the Old Squ