“I should be afraid if I was here quite alone, or even with Miss Hawberk,” she explained; “but I’m not a bit afraid with you;” and indeed the tenderest and most experienced of nurses could not have been more careful of a tiny charge than was Sir John Penlyon.
“Did you ever have any little girls of your own?” Moppet asked him one day.
“Yes, Moppet, once upon a time.”
“And did you love them veway, veway, veway much,” with intense emphasis, “ever so much better than you love me?”
“Love cannot be measured off-hand, Moppet. It is a long time since I had any little girls of my own.”
“I am veway glad of that,” said Moppet; and Sir John was glad that she asked no further questions.
He took her to Pentargain Bay, to see the seals, and would have been very pleased to show her those creatures had there been any on view; but as there were none visible to the naked eye he could only tell her about the ways and habits of the seal tribe: and he took her down to the beach and prowled about with her between the caves and the sea, and she was full of interest and excitement.
Playing quietly in the library next morning while Sir John wrote his letters, he saw that she had made a kind of tent of Whitaker s Almanack, and had put three or four old gold seals — those ponderous gold and cornelian seals of the eighteenth century — in this tent, and was contemplating them with evident satisfaction.
“What new game is that, Moppet?” he asked.
“I am playing at seals.”
“But those seals are not a bit like the animals I told you about yesterday.”
“I know that, only I can make believe they are nice soft hairy animals, with funny blunt noses, living on land and in water. They are seals, you know.”
“That is a tremendous stretch for your small imagination.”
Small imagination, quotha! The dark, deep-set eyes gazing up at him indicated a power of imagination rare even among men and women.
The ice on the pond in the park was pronounced to be in perfect condition one bright morning, and Adela Hawberk gave herself up to the delight of skating with a little party of genteel youths from the neighbourhood. It was an ice carnival in a small way. Hot drinks and other refreshments were sent from Place House. The villagers came to look on. Mr. Danby was in his glory cutting figures upon the ice, and taking care of the children, who had a slide in a corner, upon which they slid and tumbled untiringly, with much noise of shrill voices and happy laughter. It was nearly dark when they all went back to the house, Moppet upon Danby’s shoulder. There was only time for a very noisy tea, at which Moppet’s excitement and conversational powers were tremendous — before the journey to Bedfordshire.
“I hope the sea will be frozen by the time we are home with mother,” said Moppet, as she was carried off.
Laddie and Lassie went back to the pond next day with Miss Hawberk; but Moppet was reported to have a cold, and was kept indoors. She did not rebel against this decree, but was quite contented to sit on her hassock in her favourite corner by Sir John’s fireside, with her dolls and Christmas toys spread about her on the hearthrug.
Looking up now and then from his letters, Sir John saw that she was not as busy with her dolls as usual. She sat very quietly, with her head leaning against the marble column of the chimney-piece, and her favourite doll, the one she had christened Mary, lying in her lap.
“I’m afraid my Moppet is not very well to-day,” he said.
“Oh yes, I’m very well, but I’ve got a little cold. People don’t take powders for colds,” she added hastily; “they only stay indoors and keep themselves warm. I am veway warm, thank you.” She screwed herself still
closer into her snug corner by the fire, and he saw her eyelids droop heavily over the tired eyes.
Certainly Moppet was not quite herself to-day. Her eyes were very dull, and her voice was thick; but everybody knows that these are the common symptoms of the common cold. Sir John would not allow himself to be uneasy about an everyday childish ailment.
When the luncheon gong sounded she told him she did not want any dinner, and would rather stay where she was. He compromised the matter by ordering a tray to be brought, and the old housemaid Sarah appeared with roast mutton and rice pudding, and tried her best to coax the child to eat; but Moppet stuck to her text.
“No, thank you, Sarah; I’m sure it’s very nice, but I’d rather not have any of it till to-morrow,” she said.
The day wore on to evening, the premature evening of those dark days after Christmas, and still Moppet sat in the corner fast asleep. Sir John had taken the velvet pillows from his sofa, and had made a luxurious little nest for the child in the angle of the projecting chimney-piece — a warm nook where the fire-glow could not scorch her face. Here she slept — breathing very heavily — till Mr. Danby came to look for her at afternoon tea-time.
The footman came in with a lamp immediately after him, and Sir John started up from his forty winks in his big armchair on the opposite side of the hearth. He had been giving himself a holiday in the dusk of the evening.
“Come, Moppet,” said Mr. Danby, kneeling down beside the child. “Aren’t you ready for tea? Why, what a cosy little bed you have made for yourself, and what a lazy little puss you are!”
The eyelids were lifted languidly, the dark grey eyes looked at him wearily, as if they hardly recognized the familiar face.
“I don’t want any tea,” said the small voice, piteously. “I want to stay here. Please go and take care of the others.”
She coughed with a short dry cough that alarmed Mr. Danby’s ear. He knew much more about children and their ailments than Sir John Penlyon, old bachelor
“I’m afraid my Moppet is ill,” he said gravely, lifting the weary little figure into a chair opposite Sir John’s, where the lamplight shone full upon flushed cheeks and swollen eyelids.
He felt the little wrist. Alas! the pulse was galloping faster than any horse in Sir John’s stables had ever galloped — galloping on the road that leads to wild fancies and strange delusions and all the terrors of fever.
“Good God!” cried Sir John, bending over Moppet, and thoroughly scared by this time, “the child’s forehead is burning.”
He felt the little languid hands. They too were scorched with fever.
“It’s nothing veway bad,” exclaimed Moppet. “I’ve often been feverish before.”
But the little choking cough which interrupted even this short speech, the quick panting breath, and the vivid crimson flush gainsaid Moppet’s reassuring words.
Mr. Danby took her up in his arms.
“She must go to bed this instant,” he said. “You’d better send off at once for the doctor, Jack. I’m very sorry to have brought this trouble upon you.”
“I’m very sorry the child should be ill,” said Sir John, ringing the bell furiously.
“Please don’t be unhappy about me,” gasped Moppet, as she was carried off, looking back at Sir John from the threshold, and waving a hot little hand in affectionate leave-taking. “I’m not going to be veway bad — children are so soon up and down, you know — but I’m afraid I shall have to be poulticed.”
Poultices were the word. Before midnight the whole household was concerned about Moppet’s poultices. The doctor had been at Place three times since tea-time, and a nurse had been telegraphed for, and was to arrive from Plymouth next morning; for Moppet was down with acute congestion of the lungs, and as the evening darkened into night, the symptomatic fever began its dreary effect upon the childish brain, and Moppet’s wits were wandering in strange places, and strange visions were passing before those shining glassy eyes, which seemed to see nothing of the real people about her bed, the serious upper housemaid, who put on the poultices, or Adela Hawberk, always ready with lemonade for the thirsty lips, or the doctor bending gravely down to listen to the laborious movement of the chest, or to take the patient’s temperature.
Little French phrases dropped from the dry lips now a
nd then, and it was clear that the child fancied herself in France again. And very often there were appealing cries to mother, which smote Sir John’s heart with intolerable pain, as he stood just inside the door of the spacious bedroom, hidden from Moppet by the tall fourleaved screen which sheltered the bed from the hazard of draughts.
The little life was trembling in the balance, he told himself, though the doctor had sounded no note of alarm, had indeed been quite cheerful about his small patient.
“It’s rather a sharp attack,” he told Sir John. “But children generally take kindly to congestion of the lungs.”
“This child is so fragile—”
“Fragile! Not a bit of it,” interrupted Mr. Nicholls. “Wiry, not fragile. There’s a great deal of brain, rather too much brain, perhaps. The dull child has always a better chance than the clever child. But I hope this one will do very well. It’s all a question of nursing. The trained nurse will be here to-morrow morning — and in the mean time all my instructions are being carried out by Miss Hawberk and the maid.”
They were thus distinctly assured that there was no danger; yet nobody at Penlyon seemed inclined to go to bed that night. One o’clock struck with the sound of ghostly solemnity which belongs particularly to the single solitary stroke of the first hour after midnight; two o’clock struck, and Sir John and Mr. Danby sat reading by the drawing-room fire, pretending not to know how late it was.
At half-past two Adela came fluttering in to tell them that Moppet was asleep; very feverish still, and still with short and painful breath, but sleeping. That was in itself cause for rejoicing.
After this hopeful news Sir John discovered the lateness of the hour, and he and Mr. Danby bade each other good night.
“I’m very sorry the child is ill, for your sake, Danby,” he said. “I know how fond you are of her.”
Yes, I could not be fonder of her; and it may be my fault that she is ill. I hate myself for having kept her so long in that east wind; but she was so happy, she was enjoying herself so thoroughly. I never dreamt of danger.”
“Don’t talk of danger. Nicholls says she will be better to-morrow, and if she isn’t better we’ll get some great man from London. But I have faith in our Boscastle doctor. He has a great deal of experience and plenty of sound common sense, and he has no antiquated notions. But we’ll telegraph for a physician to-morrow morning, even though the child be better. We won’t waste time,” added Sir John, uneasily.
It was wonderful to see him so strongly moved by the waif’s illness, he who was supposed to have outlived every gentle emotion.
He sent his telegram by a mounted messenger before seven o’clock, a telegram addressed to Dr. South, the famous children’s doctor, entreating him to travel by the express from Waterloo which would arrive at Launceston before six o’clock. A carriage would be waiting for him at the station to bring him over the moor to Penlyon.
“We’ll have the highest authority,” Sir John said to Mr. Danby, who came into his room just as the servant carried off the message. “We must not have to reproach ourselves with neglect, if—”
He did not finish the sentence, but bent over his writing-table to arrange the papers which he had thrust aside when he wrote his telegram.
It was not seven o’clock yet, and the master of Penlyon Place was in his dressing-gown. His valet would not come to him till eight; but sleep had been impossible, and the only relief was in moving about his room by the ghastly morning candle-light, while Danby, who was fully dressed, stood looking at him.
“Danby!” cried Sir John, presently, stopping in his slow pacing up and down; “you look as if you hadn’t been in bed all night.”
“I haven’t — much.”
“Danby, you’re a fool — a fidgety old fool. You heard what Nicholls said about children — they generally take kindly to congestion of the lungs.”
“Yes, I heard him — and I have heard her breathing. One might take kindly to a wolf sitting on one’s chest, but one would rather not have him there. Take kindly! That’s a doctor’s phrase for struggling through a painful malady. The child survives where the adult might succumb; but in the mean time there’s acute suffering o to be borne somehow. And Moppet is so patient! One feels angry with Providence — for punishing — such a — little creature.”
Mr. Danby escaped hurriedly from the room, but Sir John heard something like a sob before the door shut behind him.
“What fools we are!” he muttered. “All this fuss and anxiety about a child, when all the London slums are choked with children whose future maintenance is problematical! One child less or more upon this teeming earth! What difference ought that to make? A creature that has only just begun to think and to feel! Why, less than five years ago there was no such thing as Moppet; and now I believe Danby thinks the world would be empty without her.”
Danby! Was it only Mr. Danby who was so foolishly anxious about that little life struggling with illness? Who was it who walked up and down the terrace in the early morning, watching for the coming of the doctor? Who was it who followed the doctor to the door of the sick-room, and waited outside in the corridor till he came out again; waited with aching heart and a sick dread of hearing bad news?
The news was bad. Mr. Nicholls found Moppet worse to-day than yesterday.
“If you would like a second opinion—” he began.
“I have telegraphed for Dr. South,” Sir John answered curtly, “and have had his reply. He will be here this evening.”
“Of course I can have no objection to meet a man of Dr. South’s distinction.”
Objection! As if this country doctor’s feelings, and
the petty restrictions of medical etiquette, were to be studied when that little life was wavering in the balance — weighed in a balance so fine that a hair might turn it.
Oh that long, dreadful day of waiting and suspense! Mr. Nicholls came many times in the day, indeed he only drove hither and thither on hurried journeys to see his other patients, and then came back to Penlyon Place, making that his head-quarters. The child showed no signs of improvement as the day wore on. There was a hush throughout the house, almost as if death were already there; while Danby and Adela went about with pale faces, too restless and anxious for settled occupation of any kind. Their talk was all of the child, and of different cases of childish illness out of which the patient had come triumphantly. If they had ever known of fatal cases they did not mention those.
And all through the sunny morning and the short afternoon Laddie and Lassie were at: play on a little lawn in front of the library, and a long way from the sick child’s room, a spot whence no sound of those shrill young voices could reach her. They had one of the women servants to look after them, and to see that they did not catch cold; and they had their shuttlecocks and battledores, and bats and balls and hoops, from their treasury of Christmas ‘gifts, and were as full of life and spirits as if there were no such thing as suffering in the world. Sir John almost hated these small egotists, flushed and happy under the cloudless blue of a bright winter sky, Lassie skimming across the little lawn like a scarlet bird, Laddie skipping and bounding about like a boy on wires, never still.
Sir John looked so worried when they approached him that Mr. Danby, quick to read all his old friend’s feelings, ordered their early dinner in the housekeeper’s room instead of at the family luncheon-table. They were treated all through the day as if they were in disgrace, and nobody took any notice of them. Towards evening they grew fractious and fretful, and began to feel really sorry that Moppet was ill, or that things in general had become uncomfortable.
“I should like to go home to mother,” said Lassie.
“So should I,” agreed Laddie. “It’s no fun being here when there’s only servants to play with.”
“We shan’t have such nice dinners when we go home,” mused the girl. “We shall have rice puddings some days, and potato soup some days; but not always fowls, and tarts, and cream, and junket, like we do here.”
“Who cares?” cried the boy, with a dash of defiance.
“You care — very much!” retorted his sister, with vigorous assertion. “It is a story to say you don’t. You know you’re much the greediest of us. You quite love your dinner.”
“So do you! So does everybody that is hungry; everybody except mother. She never cares. She likes us to have all the nice things, and pretends she doesn’t want any.”
And so, squabbling, but not unfriendly, and talking to each other through the open door between the two rooms, Laddie and Lassie dropped asleep, and their brief day was done; while to those elders below stairs, who waited for the London physician, it seemed hardly evening.
Sir John sat in the library, just where he had sat when the notion of the Christmas hirelings was first mooted, with the monthly time-table of the London and South-Western Railway open on his knee. He had looked at it a dozen times within the last hour to see how soon Dr. South could arrive.
It was night when there came that thrilling sound of carriage wheels — thrilling when every nerve is strained in expectation of some particular guest — and Sir John went out to the hall to receive the doctor. Then came the examination of the patient, and then the consultation within closed doors.
How long, how infinitely long it seemed to those who waited! Danby, Adela, and Sir John were in the drawing-room, having given up the library to the doctors. They sat with the door wide open, listening for the opening of that other door, which should announce the end of the consultation. It would be like the entrance of the jury after a trial of life and death. They were waiting for the verdict; waiting to know whether Moppet was to die.
At last the door opened, with the sonorous sound of a massive oaken door two hundred years old, and the two doctors came across to the drawing-room where Sir John stood waiting for them on the threshold.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1043
