Darcy and Anne Read Online Free

a few days—no! of course they would not.
    She sat down at the desk, and after a struggle with the bad pen, and the black mud that the hotel called ink, she found the actual composition of the letter very easy; she had something to tell, she had something to ask. She folded the letter and directed it, then looked into her mother's room. No attendant had yet arrived, and Mullins was fully occupied; her mother could not be left alone. The chambermaid had disappeared, and there seemed to be nobody about the hotel who was not frantically busy. In the end, she timidly asked directions of a hurried waiter, and set out, a little nervously, to find the post office.

T HE POST OFFICE WAS LOCATED NOT FAR AWAY, OUTSIDE THE fashionable quarter, but only a couple of streets distant, beside the church, in the old part of the town. It was toward the end of a warm afternoon, the promenade was not busy, and the few strollers took no notice of Anne.
    She had never in her life gone beyond the palings of Rosings Park on foot. She had never gone anywhere unaccompanied. She had always been told that her health did not permit her to learn to ride. Her exercise was always limited to a walk in the formal garden, or the grounds, and if she left them, it was for a carriage drive. Usually she drove with her mother, sometimes alone; but “alone,” of course, always meant in the company of Mrs Jenkinson. It was quite easy to find her way, but even so, she found the walk to the post office very tiring and trying; she felt that everyone must be staring at her; she wondered what she would do if she were to get lost; and the heat, radiating back from the fronts of the houses, distressed her greatly. The walk, of less than half a mile, seemed dreadfully long. However, she arrived at last; the place was not busy; in fact there were no customers; the civil postmistress took her letter; the letter was sent! it must arrive tomorrow, and her cousins would come and rescue her, or send someone, or write, at least.
    The walk back was successfully navigated; but by the time she arrived at the hotel, heat, nervousness, and exhaustion had brought on a bilious head-ache. Her legs were shaking so much that she could scarcely walk up the stairs. She opened the door of her sitting room, to find Dr Lawson seated at the table, writing.
    “Ah, my dear young lady,” he said. “They told me you were gone out, and I was leaving a note for you. Your mother is no worse, and we certainly need not fear for her life. Her arm has been strapped up, and Mrs Williams is there and knows just what to do for her. But let me look at you! What have you been doing? You are quite white; you are perspiring. The post office? You are knocked up after a walk to the post office? Dear me. Have I one patient, or two? You feel queasy? Yes, I thought so.” He strode to the door, and she heard him shouting at the head of the stairs, to someone, to bring a pot of mint tea—"Hot, mind!"—right away. Anne leaned back in a chair, and closed her eyes.
    The mint tea made her feel much more comfortable; and she was very soon able to accede to Dr Lawson's request to see any medications that she was in the habit of taking. When he saw the half-dozen bottles, his face changed; he looked very grave, and took them up, one by one, muttering “Yes, very well; but this—no! together with this, my G—, what are they trying to do to the girl? And this—absolutely noxious—absolute poison!” He asked if she had any list of the ingredients used to make them up. “Yes, sir, for the doctor thought, if we were away for a considerable time, I would need more. I think I can find it… yes, here it is.”
    He looked at it, and said “Miss de Bourgh, may I ask you to do something for me? Will you refrain from taking these medications, for a few days? I think you will find that you do better without them, especially if you will try to spend some time every day in the fresh air. I promise you, that if you feel at all