Читать книгу: «That Stick», страница 12

All this tallied with what had been gathered from the child, and this last had probably been a bold attempt to procure the passage-money for his sweetheart.

He never did call again, having probably been convinced of the failure of his scheme, and scenting danger, so that every day for a fortnight Bertha met her cousin with a disappointed ‘No Rattler!’

CHAPTER XXX
SCARLET FEVER

There was a meeting of one of the many charitable societies to which Bertha had made Lord Northmoor give his name, and she persuaded him to stay on another day for it, though he came down in the morning with a sore throat and heavy eyes, and, contrary to his usual habits, lay about in an easy-chair, and dozed over the newspaper all the morning.

When he found himself unable to eat at luncheon, she allowed that he was not fit for the meeting, but demurred when he declared that he should go home at once that afternoon to let Mary nurse his cold.  The instinct of getting back to wife and home were too strong for Bertha to contend with, and he started, telegraphing to Northmoor to be met at the station.

Perhaps there were delays, as in his oppressed and dazed state he had mistaken the trains, for he did not arrive at home till nine o’clock instead of seven, and then he looked so ill as he stumbled into the hall, dazzled by the lights, that Mary looked at him in much alarm.

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I have a bad cold and sore throat, and I thought I had better come home at once.’

‘Indeed you had!  If only you have not made it worse by the journey!’

Which apparently he had done, for he could scarcely swallow the warm drinks brought to him, and had such a night, that when steps were heard in the house, he said—

‘Mary, dear, don’t let Mite come in.  I am afraid it is too late to keep you away, but if I had felt like this yesterday, I would have gone straight to the fever hospital.’

‘Oh no, no, what should you do but come home to me?  Was it that horrible place at Rotherhithe?’

‘Perhaps.  It is just a fortnight since, and I felt a strange shudder and chill as I was talking.  But it may be nothing; only keep Mite away till I have seen Trotman.  My Mary, don’t look like that!  It may be nothing, and we have been very happy—thank God.’

Poor Mary, in a choking state, hurried away to send for the doctor, and to despatch orders to Nurse Eden to confine Master Michael to the nursery and garden for the present, her sinking and foreboding heart forbidding her to approach the child herself.

The verdict of the doctor confirmed these alarms, for all the symptoms of scarlet fever had by that time manifested themselves.  Mary had gone through the disease long before, and had nursed through more than one outbreak at Miss Lang’s, so her husband might take the comfort of knowing that there was little anxiety on her account, though the doctor, evidently expecting a severe attack, insisted on sending in a trained nurse to assist her.

As the little boy had fortunately been in bed and asleep long before his father came home, there was as yet no danger of infection for him, though he must be sent out of the house at once.

Lady Adela was not at home, and Mary would have doubted about sending him to the Cottage, even if she had been there; so she quickly made up her mind that Eden and the young nursery-maid should take him at once to Westhaven, to be either in the hotel or at Northmoor Cottage, according as his aunt should decide.

How little she had thought, when she heard him say his prayers, and exchanged kisses with him at the side of his little bed, that it was the last time for many a long day; and that her hungry spirit would have to feed itself on that last smile and kiss of the fat hand, as she looked out of her husband’s window as the carriage drove away.

Lady Adela knew too well what it was to be desolate not to come home so as to be at hand, though she left her little daughter at her uncle’s.  Bertha came on the following day.

‘I feel as if it were all my doing,’ she said.  ‘I could not bear it, if it does not go well with him, after being the saving of poor little Cea.’

‘There is nothing to reproach yourself with,’ said sober-minded Lady Adela.  ‘Neither you nor he could guess that he was running into infection.’

‘No,’ said Bertha; ‘of course, one never thinks of such things with grown-up people, especially one whom one has always thought of as a stick, and to whom perhaps ascribed some of its toughness,’ she added, smiling; ‘but he did come home looking very white and worn-out, and complained of horrible smells.  No, dear man, he was far too punctilious to use the word, he only said that he should like to send the Sanitary Commission down the alley.  I ought to have dosed him with brandy on the spot, for of course he was too polite to ask for it, so I only gave him a cup of tea,’ said Bertha, with an infinite tone of scorn in the name of the beverage.

‘Will it be any comfort to tell you that most likely it would have been too late even if he would have accepted it?  Come, Bertha, how often are we told that we are not to think so much of consequences as of actions, and there was nothing blameworthy in the whole business.’

‘Except that I was such a donkey as not to have begun by asking for the man’s proofs, but I was so much afraid that he would pounce on the child that I only thought of buying him off from time to time.  I did not know I was so weak.  Well, at any rate, with little Mite to the fore, the place will be left in good hands.  I like Herbert on the whole, but to have that woman reigning as Madame Mère would be awful.’

‘Nay, I trust we are not coming to that!  Trotman says it is a thoroughly severe attack, but not abnormally malignant, as he calls it.  It is a matter of nursing, he tells me, and that he has of the best—a matter of nursing and of prayer, and that,’ added Adela, her eyes filling with tears, ‘I am sure he has.’

‘And yet—and yet,’ Bertha broke off.

‘Ah, you are thinking how we prayed before!  And yet, Birdie, after these six years of seeing his rule and recognising what mine would have been, I see it was for the best that my own little Michael was taken to his happy home.’

‘You’ll call it for the best now,’ said Bertha grimly.

‘If it be so, it will prove itself; but I really do not see any special cause for extra fear.’

Lady Adela and Bertha both thought themselves as far safe as any one can be with scarlet fever, and would gladly have taken a share in the nursing.  Bertha, however, had far too much of the whirlwind in her to be desirable in a sick house, and on the principle that needless risk was wrong, was never admitted within the house doors, but Lady Adela insisted on seeing Mary every day, and was assured that she should be a welcome assistant in case of need; but at present there was no necessity of calling in other help, the form of fever being lethargic with much torpidity, but no violence of delirium, and requiring no more watching than the wife and nurse could give.

Frank never failed to know his Mary, and to respond when she addressed him; but she was told never to attempt more than rousing him when it was needful to make him take food.  He had long ago, with the precaution of his legal training, made every needful arrangement for her and for his son; and even on the first day, he had not seemed to trouble himself on these points, being too heavy and oppressed for the power of looking forward.  So the days rolled on in one continual watch on Mary’s part, during which she seemed only to live in the present, and, secure that her boy was safe, would not risk direct communication with him or with his nurse.

Lady Adela had undertaken to keep Constance, the person who really loved her uncle best, daily informed, and she also wrote at intervals to Mrs. Morton, by special desire of Lady Northmoor, and likewise to her own old servant, Eden, the nurse.  She wrote cheerfully, but Eden had other correspondents in the servants’ hall, who dwelt sensationally on the danger, as towards Whitsun week the fever began to run higher towards the crisis, the strength was reduced, the torpor became heavier; and anxiety increased as to whether there would be power of rally in a man who, though healthy, had never been strong.

The anxiety manifested by the entire neighbourhood was a notable proof of the estimation in which the patient was held, and was very far from springing only from pity or humanity.  Half the people who came to Lady Adela for further information had some cause going on in which ‘That Stick’ was one of the most efficient of props.

CHAPTER XXXI
MITE

Little Michael Morton was in the meantime installed in his aunt’s house.  For him to be anywhere else was not to be thought of, and Mrs. Morton was soft-hearted enough to be very fond of such a bright little boy, so much in her own hands, and very amusing with the old-fashioned formal ways derived from chiefly consorting with older people.

Besides, the pretty little fellow was an object of great interest to all her acquaintances, especially as it was understood at Westhaven that it was only too possible that he might any day become Lord Northmoor; and never had Mrs. Morton’s drawing-room been so much resorted to by visitors anxious for bulletins, or perhaps more truly for excitement.  Mite was a young gentleman of some dignity.  He sat elevated on a hassock upon a chair to dine at luncheon-time, comporting himself most correctly; but his aunt was sorely chafed at Eden’s standing behind his chair, like Sancho’s physician, to regulate his diet, and placing her veto upon lobsters, cucumbers, pastry, and glasses of wine with lumps of sugar in them.

It amounted to a trial of strength between aunt and nurse.  Michael submitted once or twice, when told that his mamma would not approve, but the lobster struck him with extreme amazement and admiration, and he could not believe but that the red, long-whiskered monster was not as good as he was beautiful.

‘He has got a glove like what Peter wears to cut the holly hedge,’ exclaimed the boy, to the general amusement.  ‘Where’s his hand?’

‘My Mite shall have a bit of his funny hand,’ said Mrs. Morton, and Ida was dealing with the claw, when Eden interposed and said she did not think her ladyship would wish Master Michael to have any.

‘Just a taste, nurse, with some of the cream,’ said Mrs. Morton.  ‘Here, Mitey dear.’

‘No, Master Michael, mamma would say no,’ said Eden.

‘Really, Eden, you might let Mrs. Morton judge in her own house,’ said Ida.

‘Master Morton is under my charge, ma’am, and I am responsible for him,’ said Eden, respectfully but firmly.  But Ida held out the claw, and Michael made a dart at it.

Eden again said ‘No,’ but he looked up at her with an exulting roguish grin, and clasped it, whereupon she laid hold of him by the waist, and bore him off, kicking and roaring, amid the pitiful and indignant exclamations of his aunt and cousin.

It may be that the faithful Eden was somewhat wanting in tact, by her determined attention to the routine that chafed her hosts; but she had been forced to come away without directions, and could only hold fast to the discipline of her well-ordered nursery under all obstacles.

Master Michael was to have his cup of milk and run on the beach with the nursery-maid long before the usual awakening of the easy-going household, which regarded late hours as belonging to gentility; then, after the general breakfast, his small lessons, over which there often was a battle, first, because he felt injured by not doing them with his mother, and next, because his hostesses regarded them as a hardship, and taught him to cry over ‘Reading without tears,’ besides detaining him as late as they could over the breakfast, or proposing to take him out at once, without waiting for that quarter of an hour’s work.  Or when out-of-doors, they would not bring him home for the siesta, on which his nurse insisted, though it was often only lying down in the dark; nor had Mrs. Morton any scruple in breaking it, if she wanted to exhibit him to her friends, though if it were interrupted or omitted, the child’s temper was the worse all the afternoon.

‘That nurse is a thorough tyrant over the poor little darling, and a very impertinent woman besides,’ said Mrs. Morton.

‘A regular little spoiled brat,’ Ida declared him.

While certainly the worse his father was said to be, the more his aunt tried to spoil and indulge him, as a relief to her pity and grief.

He had missed his home and parents a good deal at first, had cried at his lessons, and cried more at not having father to carry him to the nursery, nor mother to hear him say his prayers and kiss him at night; but time wore off the association, and he was full of delight at the sea, the ships, the little crabs, and all the other charms of the shore.

Above all, he was excited about the little boys.  His own kind had never come in his way before, his chief playfellow being Amice, who was so much older as to play with him condescendingly and always give way to him.  There was a large family in a neighbouring lodging containing what he respectfully called ‘big knicker-bocker boys,’ who excited his intense admiration, and drew him like a magnet.

For once Mrs. Morton and Eden were agreed as to the propriety of the companionship, since Rollstone had pronounced them of ‘high family,’ and the governess who was in charge of them was quite ready to be interested in the solitary little stranger, even if he had not been the Honourable Michael.  So was the elder girl of the party, but, unluckily, Michael was just of the age to be a great nuisance to children who played combined and imaginative games which he could not yet understand.

When they were making elaborate approaches to a sand fortification, erected with great care and pains, he would dash on it with a coup de main, break it down at once with his spade, and stand proudly laughing and mixing up the ruins together, heedless of the howls of anger of the besiegers, and believing that he had done the right thing.

And once, when a wrathful boy of eight had shaken the troublesome urchin as he would have done his own junior, had this last presumed to stir up his clear pool of curiosities, most of the female portion of the family had taken the part of the intruder, and cried shame on any one who could hurt or molest a poor dear little boy away from a father who was so ill!

Thus the Lincoln family, for the sake of peace and self-defence, used sedulously to flee at the approach of Mite, and seek for secluded coves to which he was not likely to penetrate.

Mr. Rollstone was Eden’s great solace.  They discovered that they had once been staying in the same country-house, and had a great number of common acquaintances in the upper-servant world, and they entirely agreed in their estimate of Mrs. Morton and Ida, whom Mr. Rollstone pronounced to be neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, though as for Miss Constance, she was a lady all over, and always had been, and there might have been hopes for Mr. Herbert, if only he could have got into the army.

To sit with Mr. Rollstone, whom the last winter’s rheumatics had left very infirm, was Eden’s chief afternoon employment, as she could not follow her charge’s wanderings on the beach, but had to leave him to the nursery-maid, Ellen.  The old butler wanted much to show ‘Miss Eden’ his daughter, who took advantage of Whit-Sunday and the Bank-holiday to run down and see her parents, though at the next quarter she was coming home for good, extremely sorry to leave her advantages in London, and the friends she had made there, but feeling that her parents needed her so much that she must pursue her employment at home.

They were all very anxious on that Whit-Sunday, and Rose carried with her something of Constance’s feeling, as with tears in her eyes she looked at the little fellow at the children’s service, standing by his nurse, with wide open, inquiring eyes, chiefly fixed upon Willie Lincoln in satisfaction whenever an answer proceeded from that object of his unrequited attachment.  With the young maiden’s love of revelling in supposed grief, Rose already pitied the fair-faced, unconscious child as fatherless, and weighted with heavy responsibilities.

Another pair of eyes looked at the boy, not with pity, but indignant impatience.

Perhaps even already that little pretender was the only obstacle between Herbert and the coronet that was his by right, between Ida herself and—

Ida had walked from the school to the church with Mr. Deyncourt, and he had talked so gently and pitifully of the family distress, and assumed so much grief on her part, that his sympathy made her heart throb; above all, when he told her that his two sisters were coming to stay with him, Mrs. Rollstone had contrived to make room for them, and they would show her, better than he could, some of the plans he wished to have carried out with the little children.

So he wished to introduce her to his sisters!  What did that mean?  If the Deyncourts were ever so high they could not sneer at Lord Northmoor’s sisters.

Then she thought of many a novel, and in real life, of what she believed respecting that lost lover of Miss Morton’s.  And later in the day Tom Brady lounged up to Northmoor Cottage, and leaning with one elbow on the window-sill, while the other arm held away the pipe he had just taken from his lips, he asked if they would give him a cup of tea, the whole harbour was so full of such beastly, staring cads that there was no peace there.  One ought to give such places a wide berth at Whitsuntide.

‘I wonder you did not,’ said Ida, as she hastened to compound the tea.

‘Forgot it,’ he lazily droned, ‘forgot it.  Attractions, you know,’ and, as she brought the cup to the window, with a lump of sugar in the tongs, ‘when sugar fingers are—’ and the speech ended in a demonstration at the fingers that made Ida laugh, blush, and say, ‘Oh, for shame, Mr. Brady!’

‘You had better come in, Mr. Brady,’ called Mrs. Morton.  ‘You can’t drink it comfortably there, and you’ll be upsetting it.  We are down in the dining-room to-day, because—’

The cause, necessary to her gentility, was lost, as Ida proceeded to let him in at the front door, and he presently deposited himself on the sofa, grumbling complacently at the bore of holidays, especially bank holidays.  His crew would have been ready to strike, he declared, if he had taken them out of harbour, or he would have asked the ladies to come on a cruise out of the way of it all.

‘Why, thank you very much, Mr. Brady, but, really in my poor brother, Lord Northmoor’s state, I don’t know that it would be etiquette.’

‘Ah, yes.  By the bye, how’s the governor?’

‘Very sad, strength failing.  I hardly expect to hear he is alive to-morrow,’ and Mrs. Morton’s handkerchief was raised.

‘Oh ay, sad enough, you know!  I say, will it make any difference to you?’

‘My poor, dear brother!  Well, it ought, you know.  Indeed it would if it had not been for that dear little boy.  My poor Herbert!’

‘It must have been an awful sell for him.’

‘Yes,’ said Ida, ‘and some people think there was something very odd about it all—the child being born out in the Dolomites, with nobody there!’

‘Don’t, Ida, I can’t have you talk so,’ protested her mother.

‘Supposititious, by all that’s lucky!  I should strangle him!’ and Mr. Brady put back his head and laughed a loud and hearty laugh, by no means elegant, but without much sound of truculent intentions.

CHAPTER XXXII
A SHOCK

It was on the Thursday of Whitsun-week when Lady Adela and Bertha came down from their visit of inquiry, a little more hopeful than on the previous day, though they could not yet say that recovery was setting in.

But a great shock awaited them.  The parlour-maid met them at the door, pale and tearful.  ‘Oh, my lady, Mrs. Eden’s come, and—’

Poor Eden herself was in the hall, and nothing was to be heard but ‘Oh, my lady!’ and another tempest of sobs.

‘Come in, Eden,’ scolded Bertha, in her impatience.  ‘Don’t keep us in this way.  What has happened to the child?  Let us have it at once!  The worst, or you wouldn’t be here.’

For all answer, Eden held up a little wooden spade, a sailor hat, and a shoe showing traces of sand and sea-water.

‘It is so then,’ said Lady Adela.  ‘Oh, his mother!  But,’ after that one wail, she thought of the poor woman before her, ‘I am sure you are not to blame, Eden.’

‘Oh, my lady, if I could but feel that!  But that I should have trusted the darling out of my sight for a moment!’

Presently they brought her to a state in which she could tell her lamentable history.

She had been spending the afternoon at Mr. Rollstone’s, leaving Master Michael as usual in the care of the underling, Ellen, and after that she knew no more till neither child nor maid came home at his supper-time, and Mrs. Morton was slowly roused to take alarm, while Eden, half distracted, wandered about, seeking her charge, and found Ellen, calling and shouting in vain for him.  Ellen confessed that she had seen him running after the Lincoln children, and supposing him with them, had given herself up to the study of a penny dreadful in company with another young nursemaid.  When they had awakened to real life, the first idea had been that he must be with these children; but they were gone, and Ellen, fancying that he might have gone home with them, asked at their lodging, but no, he was not there.

The tide was by this time covering the beach, and driving away the miserable maids, with the aunt, cousin and others who had been on the fruitless quest.  No more could be done then, and they went home with desolation in their hearts.  Miss Ida, as Eden declared, stayed out long after everybody else when it was clearly of no use, and came back so tired and upset that she went up straight to bed.  There was still a hope that some one might have met the little boy and taken him home, unable clearly to make out to whom he belonged, more especially as the Lincolns in terror and compunction had confessed that they had seen him and his nurse from a distance, and had rushed headlong round a projecting rock into a cove, hoping that he had not seen them, because he was so tiresome and spoilt all their games.  And when that morning the spade, hat, and shoe were discovered upon the shore, not far from the very rock, the poor children had to draw plenty of morals on the consequences of selfishness.  No doubt that poor little Michael had pursued them barefooted and gone too near the waves!

There was nothing more but the forlorn hope that the waves would restore the little body they had carried off, and Mrs. Morton was watching for that last sad satisfaction.  In case of that contingency, Ellen, as the last person known to have seen the boy, had been left at Westhaven, in agonies of despair, vowing that she would never speak to any one, nor look at a story-book again in her life.  She had attempted the excuse that she thought she saw Miss Ida going in that direction, but the young lady had declared that she had never been on the beach at all that afternoon till after the alarm had been given; and had been extremely angry with Ellen for making false excuses and trying to shift off the blame, and the girl had been much terrified, and owned that she was not at all sure.

‘And oh, my lady,’ entreated Eden, ‘don’t send me up to the House!  Don’t make me face her ladyship!  I should die of it!’

‘We must think what is to be done about that,’ said Lady Adela.  ‘Can you tell whether any one from the House has seen you?’

Eden thought not, and after she had been consigned to her friend, Lady Adela’s maid, to be rested, fed, and comforted as far as might be possible, the sisters-in-law held sad counsel, and agreed that it was not safe to keep back the terrible news from the poor mother who expected daily tidings of her child, and might hear some report, in spite of her shut-up state.

‘Poor Adela, I pity you almost as much as her,’ said Bertha.

‘Oh, I know now how much I have to be thankful for!  No uncertainty—and my little one’s grave.’

‘Besides Amice.  Let me drive you up, Addie.  Your heart is beating enough to knock you down.’

‘Well, I believe it is.  But not up to the front door.  I will go in by the garden.  Oh, may he be spared to her at least!’

Very pale then Lady Adela crept in, meeting a weeping maid who was much relieved to see her, but was hardly restrained from noisy sobs.  Mr. Trotman, she said, had come just before the garden boy had inevitably dashed up with the tidings, and the household had been waiting till he came out, to secure that he should be near when Lady Northmoor was told.

Adela felt that this might be the safest opportunity, and sent a message to the door to beg that her ladyship would come and speak to her for a few minutes in the study.

Mary’s soft step was soon there, and her lips were framing the words, ‘No ground lost,’ when at sight of Adela’s face the light went out of her eyes, and setting herself firmly on her feet, she said, ‘You have bad news.  My boy!’

Adela came near and would have taken her hand, saying—‘My poor Mary’—but she clasped them both as if to hold herself together, and said, ‘The fever!’

‘No, no—sadder still!  Drowned!’

‘Ah, then there was not all that suffering, and without me!  Thankworthy—  Oh no, no, please’—as Lady Adela, with eyes brimming over, would have pressed her to her bosom—‘don’t—don’t upset me, or I could not attend to Frank.  It all turns on this one day, they say, and I must—I must be as usual.  There will be time enough to know all about it—if’—with a long oppressed gasp—‘he is saved from the hearing it.’

‘I think you are right, dear,’ said Adela, ‘if you keep him—’ but she could not go on.

‘Well, any way,’ said Mary, ‘either he will be given back, or he will be saved this.  Let me go back to him, please.’  Then at the door, putting her hand to her head—‘Who is here?’

‘Poor Eden.’

‘Ah, let her and Emma know that I am sure it is not their fault.  Come again to-morrow, please; I think he will be better.’

She went away in that same gliding manner, perfectly tearless.  Adela waited to see the doctor, who assured her that the patient had rather gained than lost during the last twenty-four hours, and that if he could be spared from any shock or agitation he would probably recover.  Lady Northmoor seemed so entirely absorbed by his critical state, that she was not likely to betray the sad knowledge she had put aside in the secret chamber of her heart, more especially as her husband was still too much weighed down, and too slumberous to be observant, or to speak much, and knowing the child to be out of the house, he did not inquire for him.

Nevertheless, Mr. Trotman gladly approved of Lady Adela’s intention of sleeping in the house in case of any sudden collapse; and the servants, who were not to let Lady Northmoor know, evidently felt this a great relief.

‘Yes, it is a comfort to think some one will be within that poor thing’s reach,’ said Bertha, as they went back together, ‘and, if you can bear it, you are the right person.’

‘She will not let herself dwell on it.  She never even looked at Mrs. Morton’s letter.’

‘And I really hope they won’t find the poor little dear, to have all the fuss and heart-rending.’

‘Oh, Birdie!’

‘There’s only one thing that would make me wish it.  I’m quite sure that that Miss Ida knows more about it than she owns.  No, you need not say, “Oh, Birdie” again; I don’t suspect her of the deed, but I do believe she saw the boy and kept out of his way, and now wants that poor Ellen to have all the blame!’

‘You will believe nothing against a girl out of an orphanage!’

‘I had rather any day believe Ellen Mole than Ida Morton.  There’s something about that girl which has always revolted me.  I would never trust her farther than I could see her!’

‘Prejudice, Birdie; because she is in bad style.’

‘You to talk of prejudice, Addie, who hardly knew how to go on living here under the poor stick!’

‘Don’t, Birdie.  He has earned esteem by sheer goodness.  Poor man, I don’t know what to wish for him when I think of the pang that awaits him.’

‘You know what to wish for yourself and Northmoor!  Not but that Herbert may come to good if he doesn’t come into possession for many a long year.’

‘And now I must write to that poor child, Constance.  But oh, Bertha, don’t condemn hastily!  Haven’t I had enough of that?’