Somehow Good by William Frend De Morgan (best short novels TXT) 📕

but I think reviving. I can't
write about it. I'll tell you when I come back.

"They won't tell me how long I was coming to, but it must have
been much longer than I thought, when one comes to think of
it. Only I can't tell, because when poor dear Prosy had got me
to[A]--down at Lloyd's Coffeehouse, where old Simon sits all
day--and I had been wrapped up in what I heard a Scotchman
call 'weel-warmed blawnkets,' and brought home in a closed fly
from Padlock's livery stables, I went off sound asleep with my
fingers and toes tingling, and never knew the time nor
anything. (Continuation bit.) This is being written, to tell
you the truth, in the small hours of the morning, in secrecy
with a guttering candle. It seems to have been really quite
a terrible alarm to poor darling mother and Jeremiah, and much
about the same to my medical adviser, who resuscitated me on
Marshall Hall's system, followed by Silvester's, and finally
opened a vein. And there was I alive all the time, and not
grateful to Prosy at all, I can tell you, for bringing me to.
I have requested not to be brought to next time. The oddity
of it all was indescribable. And there, now I come to think
of it, I've never so much as seen the Octopus since Prosy and
I got engaged. I shall have to go round as soon as I'm up.
(Later continuation bit--after breakfast.) Do you know, it
makes me quite miserable to think what an anxiety I've been to
all of them! Mother and J. can't take their eyes off me, and
look quite wasted and resigned. And poor dear Prosy! How ever
shall I make it up to him? Do you know, as soon as it was
known I was to,[B] the dear fellow actually tumbled down
insensible! I had no idea of the turn-out there's been until
just now, when mother and Jeremiah confessed up. Just fancy
it! Now I must shut up to catch the post.

"Your ever affect. friend,

"SALLY."

[Footnote A: Part of a verb to _get to_, or _bring to_. Not
very intelligible!]

[Footnote B: See note, p. 563.][Transcriber's Note: This
footnote refers to Footnote A]

"MY DEAR BRADSHAW,

"I am so very much afraid you and your wife may be alarmed
by hearing of the events of this morning--possibly by a
press-paragraph, for these things get about--that I think it
best to send you a line to say that, though we have all had
a terrible time of anxiety, no further disastrous consequences
need be anticipated. Briefly, the affair may be stated thus:

"Fenwick and Miss Nightingale were on the pier early this
morning, and from some unexplained false step F. fell from the
lower stage into the water. Miss N. immediately plunged in to
his rescue, and brought him in safety to a life-buoy that was
thrown from the pier. It seemed that she then started to swim
back, being satisfied of his safety till other help came, but
got entangled with her clothes and went under. She was brought
ashore insensible, and remained so nearly four hours. For a
long time I was almost without hope, but we persevered against
every discouragement, with complete final success. I am a good
deal more afraid now of the effect of the shock on Mrs.
Fenwick and her husband than for anything that may happen to
Miss N., whose buoyancy of constitution is most remarkable.
You will guess that I had rather a rough time (the news came
rather suddenly to me), and all the more (but I know you will
be glad to hear this) that Miss N. and your humble servant had
only just entered on an engagement to be married at some date
hereafter not specified. I am ashamed to say I showed weakness
(but not till I was sure the lungs were acting naturally), and
had to be revived with stimulants! I am all right now, and, do
you know, I really believe my mother will be all the better
for it; for when she heard what had happened, she actually got
up and _ran_--yes, ran--to Lloyd's Coffeehouse (you remember
it?), where I was just coming round, and had the satisfaction
of telling her the news. I cannot help suspecting that her
case may have been wrongly diagnosed, and that the splanchnic
ganglion and solar plexus are really the seat of the evil. If
so, the treatment has been entirely at fault.

"I shall most likely be back to-morrow, so keep your congrats.
for me, old chap. No time for a letter. Love from us all to
yourself and Mrs. J. B.

"Yours ever,

"CONRAD VEREKER.

"P.S.--I reopen this (which I wrote late last night) to say
that Miss N., so far from having acquired a horror of the
water (as is usual in such cases), talks of 'swimming over the
ground' if the weather clears. I fear she is incorrigible."

THE END

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Publication Date: 07-13-2010

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