“Well?” he asked.
Dr. South gave a faint sigh before he answered that monosyllabic question.
“The child is gravely ill,” he said. “We are going to do all that can be done. Mr. Nicholls thoroughly understands the case. There has been no time lost, no measure omitted. But I cannot disguise the fact from you — the child is gravely ill.”
“Mr. Nicholls told us that children generally take kindly to inflammation of the lungs.”
“The generality of children. But this is a peculiar child — a child of a very excitable temperament, with a preponderancy of brain. The mind here tells against the body. Everything will be done, but—” — , “There is danger!” interrupted Sir John.
“Yes, there is danger. I should do very wrong not to admit that. Has the child no mother?”
Not for a moment did the physician mistake Adela Hawberk for the child’s mother, though Adela might have been taken for any age between twenty and twenty-five, and thus might seem quite old enough to be the mother of Moppet. The doctor’s keen eye saw at a single glance that this pretty young lady in the evening frock was not the sick child’s mother. She was anxious and tearful and sympathetic; but the white despair, the agony of suspense and terror — that look of the wild animal at bay, and ready to fight for the menaced life of her young, which he knew in the mother’s eye, was lacking here. This pretty young lady was bound by no such close tie as motherhood to the little creature struggling for breath in the room above.
“The little girl’s mother is living,” answered Mr. Danby. “Ought she to be sent for?”
“Undoubtedly. I hope she is not very far off.”
That last sentence sounded like Moppet’s death-warrant.
“She is in London.”
“I thought she was in France,” muttered Sir John, with a curious downcast look.
“I hope she is in London by this time. I telegraphed to her yesterday. I told her the child was ill — but not dangerously ill — and that she had better come as far as Plymouth, in case of any change for the worse.”
“Shall you know where to find her in Plymouth?” asked Dr. South.
“Yes; she will expect a telegram at the post-office.”
“Good. Then get your message despatched as soon as you can.”
“It’s a pity you didn’t tell her to come straight here,” said Sir John.
Mr. Danby accepted the reproof in silence. Sir John led the way to the dining-room, where dinner was waiting for the traveller from London and the household doctor.
Dr. South was to spend the night at Penlyon, and was to be driven to Launceston next morning in time for the earliest train. There would doubtless be a change in the patient by the morning, either for better or worse. If the change were for worse, it would most likely be the last change of all, and the mother would arrive too late to clasp her living child even in a farewell embrace.
“Danby!” exclaimed Sir John, severely, when he and his old friend had gone back to the library, “in God’s name why did not you tell the mother to come straight through as fast as rail and coach could bring her?”
“I did not like,” faltered Danby. “I had no right to summon her to this house without your permission.”
“You might have asked my permission.”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed Danby, agitatedly. “I wanted it to be spontaneous. I could not introduce the subject—”
“Pshaw! what matters it to me who conies or goes while that child is lying at death’s door?” cried Sir John, fiercely. “I should not see — the person. It is of the child I think — the child only. She was calling her mother to-day when I was in the room — so sweet, so loving, so sensible. She kissed me again and again with her feverish lips as I bent over her bed. She knew me perfectly. Yet there was a touch of delirium; and she called to her mother as if she were in the room. That made my heart ache, Danby.”
“Well, the mother will be here to-morrow, I hope. I telegraphed to her yesterday. After Nicholls had seen the child for the second time, I fancied he was a little uneasy about her, though he wouldn’t own it. So I just walked into Boscastle and telegraphed to — the mother. She would be quick to take alarm, I dare say — though I only told her that her youngest was laid up with a severe cold, and she could come to Plymouth if she felt anxious, so as to be within easy reach. I had a reply a few hours after to say she was leaving for Folkestone by the boat. She is at Plymouth by this time, I have no doubt.”
“Folkestone!” muttered Sir John. “Then the place those children talk about is Boulogne.”
“Yes, it is Boulogne — a very good place, too, for a widow with a small family. They can live as cheaply there as anywhere, and in fine fresh air.”
Sir John made no comment upon this, but sat absorbed and silent by the neglected fire, and then rose restlessly, walked about the room, took a book from the shelves, taking pains to find a particular volume, opened, glanced at it, and threw it aside. His face had a look of listening, and often in his pacing to and fro he stopped to open the door, and stood for a few moments holding it ajar, as if waiting for some one.
They had moved Moppet to one of the principal bedrooms at the top of the grand staircase, the spacious chamber in which the most important guests had been always installed when there was a house party at Penlyon. This state room had been aired and warmed and prepared in hot haste for the tiny visitor, when it was found that Moppet’s bad cold was going to be a serious illness. It was chosen as the largest, airiest room in the large, airy house, and Mr. Nicholls highly approved the arrangement, though he had not advised it. Laddie and Lassie had their two rooms all to themselves, and — light-hearted and forgetful as they were in their morning play — in the silence and solitude of the after-bedtime affection prevailed over egotism, and Lassie and Laddie each shed a few tears for their missing sister.
“Do you think she’ll be quite well to-morrow?” questioned Lassie, sitting up in bed, and calling to her unseen brother in the adjoining room.
“I am afraid not. Sarah says she’s very bad, and that when Sarah’s little niece had the same complaint she died; but then Sarah’s little niece had a neglectful mother, Sarah says.”
“Moppet has no mother at all now,” said Lassie, dolefully. “Oh, I wish mother was here! I wish we were all at home. I don’t want Moppet to die. What will mother do if Moppet dies, and she has only us?”
“She’d be very miserable with only us,” replied Laddie, with a voice that was muffled by distance and bedclothes, and perhaps a little by sleepiness. “We’re so big, and mother’s so fond of little children.”
“We must be very, very, very good, and very, very, very kind to mother if Moppet should die,” Lassie said conclusively. And then, after a pause, she inquired, “Should we have to go into mourning?”
“You would, of course, because you’re a girl. But I shouldn’t. There’s no such thing as boy’s mourning, stupid,” replied Laddie, awakened by what he considered a futile question. “Fancy a boy playing football in mourning — or cricket! But Moppet isn’t going to die. There’s a doctor from London come to cure her. Sarah said his — What is it they give doctors?” questioned Laddie, suddenly at fault. “His free — that’s it! Sarah said his free would be two hundred guineas — down on the nail. I heard her tell the other housemaid so.”
“What does ‘down on the nail’ mean?” asked Lassie, more interested in that mysterious phrase than in the coming of the medical Alcides.
Unable to explain, and really sleepy. Laddie pretended to be actually asleep. He threw a little extra power into his breathing, and the imitation soon became reality.
The night wore on — another night on which people pretended to forget the hour, and no one thought of going to bed. It was felt that Dr. South’s presence in the house was a tower of strength, a rock of defence against the Great Enemy. Indeed, Sir John had reason to think so, when, stealing with cautious footfall to Moppet’s room in the dead of night, he saw the physician sitting
at the bottom of the bed watching for the result of his treatment.
Dr. South came down to the drawing-room half an hour afterwards, and found Sir John and his friend sitting forlornly, far apart, like people who had nothing to say to each other. It was between three and four o’clock. The clusters of candles on the mantelpiece had burnt down to the suckets, and one of the lamps had gone out. Adela had been sent off to bed an hour before, very reluctant to go, and indeed had been met by the doctor in the corridor, in her dressing-gown, hanging about fur news of the child.
“Oh, Doctor South, you don’t think she’s going to die, do you?” she asked piteously.
“I think we’re trying very hard to save her, my dear young lady, and with God’s help we may prevail,” answered the doctor, gravely; and with this assurance Adela was fain to be content.
Those clinging arms, and the showers of kisses that were like the bubbling up of childish love from a deep fountain of tenderness; those bright eyes and dimpling smiles, had endeared the little hireling to the light-hearted young woman as well as to the worn-out elderly man.
The night wore on. It was five o’clock before the doctor would go to the room that had been prepared for him, and where the fire had been made up again and again by the housemaid, who sat up all night to wait upon the sick-room. Mr. Danby had to remind him of his long journey to-morrow — actually to-day — after his long journey of to-day — actually yesterday; but Dr. South made light of the matter. He could always sleep in the train. He made his final visit to Moppet’s bedside at five, and went to bed, leaving instructions that he should be called instantly if there were any change for the worse.
This night — with the knowledge of danger staring them full in the face — neither Sir John nor Danby went to bed at all.
“Danby,” Sir John said vehemently, stopping suddenly in front of the despondent figure seated far away from the neglected fire, “yon had no right to do this thing.”
“What thing?” Danby asked, looking up at him confusedly.
“You had no right to bring that little child here — and let me love her — let her grow into an old man’s heart. Think what sorrow you have made for me — a sorrow at the end of my life — if she is to die.”
“She shan’t die,” cried Danby. “We’re making a good fight of it anyhow. I tell you she shan’t die,” he repeated huskily. “I’m going upstairs now — just to listen at her door — I won’t go in. I won’t risk waking her with the opening of the door. But I may hear something. The nurse may be stirring, or the maids may be in the corridor. It is agonizing to sit here, and not know if things are going well or ill.”
Mr. Danby went out like a ghost, and Sir John waited in the hall while his slow soft steps ascended the stairs. He came down again in about a quarter of an hour. He had seen one of the maids, who told him Moppet was a little less restless than she had been earlier in the night.
He and Sir John made the most of this news, and at the first glimmer of the grey cold day they both went to their dressing-rooms to make bath and toilet serve instead of sleep.
Breakfast was to be at half-past eight for Dr. South,
who was to leave Penlyon at nine. Sir John met Lassie on his way to the breakfast-room, very neat and prim in her warm serge frock, quite the elder sister. Lassie was to be six in May, a fact of which she informed people gravely, as if she were coming into a fortune at that date. Six years old! It is not every little girl who is soon going to be six. Poor little things who are only four look towards that dignified age across a desert of intervening years. Lassie had learnt to tie her petticoat strings, and put on her stockings, and even to button her boots, in anticipation of her approaching dignity.
“Mother says I must be very useful when I am six,” she told her friends.
Lassie ran to Sir John and put her hand into his, looking up at him piteously.
“Mayn’t we have breakfast with you, as we used to before Moppet was ill?” she asked. “Please don’t send Laddie and me to the housekeeper’s room. We haven’t been naughty, have we, Sir John?”
“No, no, my dear. You and Laddie are very good children — only—”
He stopped with a troubled air, looking down at the small face that looked so imploringly up at his, as if he were Providence personified.
He could not tell her that, while Moppet’s little life trembled in the balance, she and her brother were almost hateful to him. If Moppet were to die he would prefer the world to be altogether empty of children.
The voices and the faces of children would torture him with bitterest memories and regrets.
“You may come to breakfast with us, Lassie; but you and your brother must be very quiet. We are all of us anxious and a little unhappy about your sister.”
“But she will get well, won’t she?” Lassie asked, with a touch of deep distress.
“We hope so, my dear.”
Laddie was skipping about in front of the great hall window, keenly interested in a solitary fly that was buzzing drowsily and knocking itself feebly against the glass. Laddie came bounding across to Sir John presently, and said —
“Please mayn’t we have breakfast with you, we had no cream yesterday morning, how’s Moppet?” all in a breath.
Sir John frowned upon him darkly and did not answer; but Laddie, seeing his sister go to the breakfast-room hand in hand with their host, skipped airily after them, asking no further questions. Adela came down early in her very plainest tailor-made gown, but with her hair dressed as elaborately as usual. Harrop, the maid, would hardly have neglected that beautiful auburn hair in the midst of direst calamity. Laddie and Lassie nestled on either side of the young lady, and soon began to prattle to her, and to each other across her, in low voices which grew louder by degrees.
“If you talk so loud you will be sent away, Adela murmured warningly.
“But why mustn’t we talk? Moppet can’t hear us upstairs in that big, big room. It’s like being in church. Is it always like this when people are ill?” interrogated Laddie.
“When people are feeling unhappy they like to be very quiet.”
“People who are unhappy don’t like anything. Unhappiness is disliking,” argued the boy, with the air of an infant Socrates.
“Are you unhappy?” asked Lassie.
“I am very anxious.”
“Then you think she will die?” urged Lassie, searchingly.
“No, no, no. You must not say such things. Pray be quiet, children. Dr. South is just going.”
There was a little movement and talk and a quiet leave-taking. Sir John and Mr. Danby both went to the hall door to see the physician drive away. He had done or advised all that science could do for the little girl who was fighting so bitter a battle, and he left them not utterly hopeless.
“The outlook is brighter to-day than it was last night,” he said finally; “but I mustn’t promise too much. We are not out of the wood yet. Please let me have an occasional telegram to say how she is going on. She is a dear little child — a most winning little child. I have seen the loveliest children who did not interest me half so much as that quaint little face of hers, with the large forehead and the dark deep-set eyes. I hope her mother will be here to-day.”
Sir John did not respond to that last speech, and Dr. South stepped into the useful station brougham and was driven away by the useful upstanding horses. It is a good day’s work for any pair of horses to post from Penlyon Place to Launceston and back again.
The day wore on towards evening without any marked change in the sick-room. Moppet was living and suffering and Dr. Nicholls and the nurse were carrying out Dr. South’s thoughtful treatment with the utmost care. All that science and forethought could do for the child was being done, as Mr. Danby remarked at least a dozen times in the course of the day.
He was walking with Sir John on the terrace early in the afternoon when the carriage that had taken Dr. South to Launceston drove up to the hall door. The coachman had been ordered to watch the arrival of t
rains for a strange lady who was to come from Plymouth, and to bring that strange lady to Place. Mr. Danby had given the man his instructions as to the style and appearance of the lady for whom he was to look out.
The bell rang, the carriage door was opened, and a lady alighted, a tall slim figure in a dark cloak, a pale face under a neat black bonnet, Mr. Danby stood hesitatingly as she went quickly up the steps, he and Sir John being distant from the door by about twenty yards.
“Aren’t you going to her?” asked Sir John, sternly.
“I — yes — of course — yes. But won’t you see her — before she goes to the child?”
“See her? No!” with his darkest frown. “Why should I see her? She comes here to see her child — for that and for that alone. Go and look after her, Danby. You must consider her your guest.”
Danby gave him a distressed look, and was hurrying off, when he stopped suddenly and went back to Sir John, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket as he drew near.
“Stay,” he said agitatedly, “there is something I ought to have thought of before that lady entered your house.” Taking a folded paper out of his letter-case, “Your cheque. There it is; and it has never left my pocket since you gave it to me. The hiring was a fiction
“ — I wanted you to know those children — and I planned the thing on the spur of the moment.”
“You wanted to break my heart,” said Sir John, “and it’s quite likely that you will realize your wish.”
“No, no. I wanted to prove to you that you have a heart.”
“Go and look after your friend!”
Mr. Danby went one way, Sir John the other, and the cheque to bearer for one hundred guineas was torn up and scattered upon the thin cold air.
Deep and deeper into the heart of the park, where the wind-blown oaks all leant away from the west, went Sir John Penlyon, full of grief and anger — grief for the child who might die, anger against the friend who had brought her there.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1044
