by Ellen Wood
What on earth were they? What did they mean? A woman’s gown, tawdry but pretty; a shawl; a neck-scarf, with gold-coloured fringe; two pairs of gloves, the fingers worn into holes; a bow of handsome ribbon; a cameo brooch, fine and false; and one or two more such articles, not new, stood disclosed. The party around gazed in sheer amazement.
“If ever I saw such a collection as this!” exclaimed Mrs. Dare. “It is a woman’s clothing. Why should they have been sent to you, Anthony?”
Anthony’s cheek wore rather a conscious colour just then. “How should I know?” he replied. “They must have been directed to me by mistake. Take the rags away, Ann” — spurning them with his foot— “and throw them into the dust-bin. Who knows what infected place they may have come from?”
Mrs. Dare and the young ladies shrieked at the last suggestion, gathered their skirts about them, and retired as far as the limits of the room allowed. Some enemy of malicious intent must have done it, they became convinced. Ann — no more liking to be infected with measles or what not than they — seized the tongs, gingerly lifted the articles inside the paper, dragged the whole outside the door, and called Joseph to carry them to the receptacle indicated by Mr. Anthony.
Charlotte East had thought she would not do her work by halves.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FEAR GROWING GREATER.
We must leap over some months. A story, you know, cannot stand still, any more than we can.
Spring had come round. The sofa belonging to Mrs. Reece’s parlour was in Mrs. Halliburton’s, and Janey was lying on it — her blue eyes bright, her cheeks hectic, her fair curls falling in disorder. Through autumn, through winter, it had appeared that Dobbs’s prognostications of evil for Jane were not to be borne out, for she had recovered from the temporary indications of illness, and had continued well; but, with the early spring weather, Jane failed, and failed rapidly. The cough came back, and great weakness grew upon her. She was always wanting to be at rest, and would lie about anywhere. Spreading a cloak on the floor, with a pillow for her head, Janey would plant herself between her mother and the fire, pulling the cloak up on the side near the door. One day Dobbs came in and saw her there.
“My heart alive!” uttered Dobbs, when she had recovered her surprise; “what are you lying down there for?”
“I am tired,” replied Janey; “and there’s nowhere else to lie. If I put three chairs together, it is not comfortable, and the pillow rolls off.”
“There’s the sofa in our room,” said Dobbs. “Why don’t you lie on that?”
“So I do, you know, Dobbs; but I want to talk to mamma sometimes.”
Dobbs disappeared. Presently there was a floundering and thumping heard in the passage, and the sofa was propelled in by Dobbs, very red with the exertion. “My missis is indignant to think that the child should be upon the floor,” cried she, wrathfully. “One would suppose some folks were born without brains, or the sofa might have been asked for.”
“But, Dobbs,” said Janey — and she was allowed to “Dobbs” as much as she pleased, unreproved— “what am I to lie on in your room?”
“Isn’t there my easy chair, with the high foot-board in front — as good as a bed when you let it out?” returned Dobbs, proceeding to place Janey comfortably on the sofa. “And now let me say what I came in to say, when the sight of that child on the cold floor sent me shocked out again,” she added, turning to Jane. “My missis’s leg is no better to-day, and she has made up her mind to have Parry. It’s erysipelas, as sure as a gun. Every other spring, about, she’s laid up with it in her legs, one or the other of ‘em. Ten weeks I have known her in bed with it — —”
“The very best preventive to erysipelas is to take an occasional warm bath,” interrupted Jane.
The suggestion gave immense offence to Dobbs. “A warm bath!” she uttered, ironically. “And how, pray, should my missis take a warm bath? Sit down in a mashing-tub, and have a furnace of boiling water turned on to her? Those new-fangled notions may do for Londoners, but they are not known at Helstonleigh. Warm baths!” repeated Dobbs, with increased scorn: “hadn’t you better propose a water-bed at once? I have heard that they are inventing them also.”
“I have heard so, too,” pleasantly replied Jane.
“Well, my missis is going to have Parry up, and she intends that he shall see Janey and give her some physic — if physic will be of use,” added Dobbs, with an incredulous sniff. “My missis says it will. She puts faith in Parry’s physic as if it was gold; it’s a good thing she’s not ill often, or she’d let herself be poisoned if quantity could poison her! And, Janey, you’ll take the physic, like a precious lamb; and heaps of nice things you shall have after it, to drive the taste out. Warm baths!” ejaculated Dobbs, as she went out, returning to the old grievance. “I wonder what the world’s coming to?”
Mr. Parry was called in, and soon had his two regular patients there. Mrs. Reece was confined to her bed with erysipelas in her leg; and if Janey seemed better one day, she seemed worse the next. The surgeon did not say what was the matter with Jane. He ordered her everything good in the shape of food; he particularly ordered port wine. An hour after the latter order had been given Dobbs appeared, with a full decanter in her hand.
“It’s two glasses a day that she is to take — one at eleven and one at three,” cried she without circumlocution.
“But, indeed, I cannot think of accepting so costly a thing from Mrs. Reece as port wine,” interrupted Jane, in consternation.
“You can do as you like, ma’am,” said Dobbs with equanimity. “Janey will accept it; she’ll drink her two glasses of wine daily, if I have to come and drench her with it. And it won’t be any cost out of my missis’s pocket, if that’s what you are thinking of,” logically proceeded Dobbs. “Parry says it will be a good three months before she can take her wine again; so Janey can drink it for her. If my missis grudged her port wine or was cramped in pocket, I should not take my one glass a day, which I do regular.”
“I can never repay you and Mrs. Reece for your kindness and generosity to Jane,” sighed Mrs. Halliburton.
“You can do it when you are asked,” was Dobbs’s retort. “There’s the wing and merrythought of a fowl coming in for her dinner, with a bit of sweet boiled pork. I don’t give myself the ceremony of cloth-laying, now my missis is in bed, but just eat it in the rough; so the child had better have hers brought in here comfortably, till my missis is down again. And, Janey, you’ll come upstairs to tea to us; I have taken up the easy chair.”
“Thank you very much, Dobbs,” said Janey.
“And don’t you let them cormorants be eating her dinners or drinking her wine,” said Dobbs, fiercely, as she was going out. “Keep a sharp look-out upon ‘em.”
“They would not do it!” warmly replied Jane. “You do not know my boys yet, if you think they would rob their sick sister.”
“I know that boys’ stomachs are always on the crave for anything that’s good,” retorted Dobbs. “You might skin a boy if you were forced to it, but you’d never drive his nature out of him; and that’s to be always eating!”
So she had even this help — port wine! It seemed almost beyond belief, and Jane lost herself in thought.
“Mamma, you don’t hear me!”
“Did you speak, Janey?”
“I say I think Dobbs got that fowl for me. Mrs. Reece is not taking meat, and Dobbs would not buy a fowl for herself. She will give me all the best parts, and pick the bones herself. You’ll see. How kind they are to me! What should I have done, mamma, if I had only our plain food? I know I could not eat it now.”
“God is over us, my dear child,” was Jane’s reply. “It is He who has directed this help to us: never doubt it, Jane. Whether we live or die,” she added pointedly, “we are in His hands, and He orders all things for the best.”
“Can to die be for the best?” asked Janey, sitting up to think over the question.
“Why, yes, my dear girl; certainly it is,
if God wills it. How often have I talked to you about the rest after the grave! No more tears, no more partings. Which is best — to be here, or to go to that rest? Oh, Janey! we can put up surely with illness and with crosses here, if we may only attain to that. This world will last only for a little while at best; but that other will abide for ever and for ever.”
A summons from Mr. Parry’s boy: Miss Halliburton’s medicine had arrived. Miss Halliburton made a grievous face over it, when her mamma poured the dose out. “I never can take it! It smells so nasty!”
Jane held the wine-glass towards her, a grave, kind smile upon her face. “My darling, it is one of earth’s little crosses; try and not rebel against it. Here’s a bit of Patience’s jam left, to take after it.”
Janey smiled bravely as she took the glass. “It was not so bad as I thought, mamma,” said she, when she had swallowed it.
“Of course not, Janey; nothing is that we set about with a brave heart.”
But, with every good thing, Janey did not improve. Her mother shrank from admitting the fact that was growing only too palpable; and Dobbs would come in and sit looking at Janey for a quarter of an hour together, never speaking.
“Why do you look at me so, Dobbs?” asked Janey, one day, suddenly. “You were crying when you looked at me last night at dusk.”
Dobbs was rather taken to. “I had been peeling onions,” said she.
“Why do you shrink from looking at the truth?” an inward voice kept repeating in Mrs. Halliburton’s heart. “Is it right, or wise, or well to do so?” No; she knew that it could not be.
That same day, after Mr. Parry had paid his visit to Mrs. Reece, he looked in upon Janey. “Am I getting better?” she asked him. “I want to go into the green fields again, and run about.”
“Ah,” said he, “we must wait for that, little maid.”
Jane went out to the door with him. When he put out his hand to say good morning, he saw that she was white with emotion, and could not speak readily. “Will she live or die, Mr. Parry?” was the whispered question that came at last.
“Now don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Halliburton. In these lingering cases we must be content to wait the issue, whatever it may be.”
“I have had so much trouble of one sort or another, that I think I have become inured to it,” she continued, striving to speak more calmly. “These several days past I have been deciding to ask you the truth. If I am to lose her, it will be better that I should know it beforehand: it will be easier for me to bear. She is in danger, is she not?”
“Yes,” he replied; “I fear she is.”
“Is there any hope?”
“Well, you know, Mrs. Halliburton, while there is life there is hope.”
His tone was kindly; but she could not well mistake that, of human hope, there was none. Her lips were pale — her bosom was heaving. “I understand,” she murmured. “Tell me one other thing: how near is the end?”
“That I really cannot tell you,” he more readily replied. “These cases vary much in their progression. Do not be downcast, Mrs. Halliburton. We must every one of us go, sooner or later. Sometimes I wish I could see all mine gone before me, rather than leave them behind to the cares of this troublesome world.”
He shook hands and departed. Jane crept softly upstairs to her own room, and was shut in for ten minutes. Poor thing! she could not spare time for the indulgence of grief, as others might! she must hasten to her never-ceasing work. She had her task to do; and ten minutes lost from it in the day must be made up at night.
As she was going downstairs, with red eyes, Mrs. Reece heard her footstep and called to her from her bed. “Is that you, ma’am?”
So Jane had to go in. “Are you better?” she inquired.
“No, ma’am, I don’t see much improvement,” replied the old lady. “Mr. Parry is going to change the lotion; but it’s a thing that will have its course. How is Janey? Does he say?”
“She is much the same,” said Jane. “She grows no better. I fear she never will.”
“Ay! so Dobbs says; and it strikes me Parry has told her so. Now, ma’am, you spare nothing that can do her good. Whatever she fancies, tell Dobbs, and it shall be had. I would not for the world have a dying child stinted while I can help it. Don’t spare wine; don’t spare anything.”
“A dying child!” The words, in spite of Jane’s previous convictions; nay, her knowledge; caused her heart to sink with a chill. She proceeded, as she had done many times before, to express a tithe of her gratitude to Mrs. Reece for the substantial kindness shown to Janey.
“Don’t say anything about it, ma’am,” returned the old lady in her simple, straightforward way. “I have neither chick nor child of my own, and both I and Dobbs have taken a liking for Janey. We can’t think anything we can do too much for her. I have spoken to Parry — therefore don’t spare his services; at any hour of the day or night send for him if you deem it necessary.”
With another attempt at heartfelt thanks, Jane went down. Full as her cup was to the brim, she was yet overwhelmed with the sense of kindness shown. From that time she set herself to the task of preparing Janey for the great change by gradual degrees — a little now, a little then: to make her long for the translation to that better land.
One evening, about eight o’clock, Patience entered — partly to inquire after Janey, partly to ask William if he would go to bring Anna from Mrs. Ashley’s, where she had been taking tea. Samuel Lynn was detained in the town on business, and Grace had been permitted to go out: therefore Patience had no one to send. William left his books, and went out with alacrity. Patience sat down by Janey’s sofa.
“I get so tired, Patience. I wish I had some pretty books to read! I have read all Anna’s over and over again.”
“And she won’t eat solids now, and she grows tired of mutton-broth, and sago, and egg-flip, and those things,” put in Dobbs, in an injured tone, who was also sitting there.
“I would try her with a little beef-tea, made with plenty of carrots and thickened with arrowroot,” said Patience.
“Beef-tea, made with carrots and thickened with arrowroot!” ungraciously responded Dobbs, who held in contempt every one’s cooking except her own.
“I can tell thee that it is one of the nicest things taken,” said Patience. “It might be a change for the child.”
“How’s it made?” asked Dobbs. “It might do for my missis: she’s tired of mutton broth.”
“Slice a pound of lean beef, and let it soak for two hours in a quart of cold water,” replied Patience. “Then put meat and water into a saucepan, with a couple of large carrots scraped and sliced. Let it warm gradually, and then simmer for about four hours, thee putting salt to taste. Strain it off; and, when cold, take off the fat. As the broth is wanted, stir it up, and take from it as much as may be required, boiling the portion, for a minute, with a little arrowroot.”
Dobbs condescended to intimate that perhaps she might try it; though she’d be bound it was poor stuff.
William had hastened to Mr. Ashley’s. He was shown into a room to wait for Anna, and his attention was immediately attracted by a shelf full of children’s story-books. He knew they were just what Janey was longing for. He had taken some in his hand, when Anna came in, ready for him, accompanied by Mrs. Ashley, Mary, and Henry. Then William became aware of the liberty he had taken in touching the things, and, in his self-consciousness, the colour, as usual, rushed to his face. It was a frank, ingenuous face, with its fair, open forehead, and its earnest, dark grey eyes; and Mrs. Ashley thought it so.
“Were you looking at our books?” asked Henry, who was in a remarkably good humour.
“I am sorry to have touched them,” replied William. “I was thinking of something else.”
“I would be nearly sure thee were thinking of thy sister,” cried Anna, who had an ever-ready tongue.
“Yes, I was,” replied William candidly. “I was wishing she could read them.”
“I have told her about t
he books,” said Anna, turning from William to the rest. “I related to her as much as I could remember of ‘Anna Ross:’ that book which thee had in thy hand, William. She would so like to read them; she is always ill.”
“Is she very ill?” inquired Mrs. Ashley.
“She is dying,” replied Anna.
It was the first intimation William had received of the great fear. His countenance changed, his heart beat wildly. “Oh, Anna! who says it?” he cried out, in a low, wailing tone.
There was a dead silence. Anna’s announcement sounded sufficiently startling, and Mrs. Ashley looked with sympathy at the evidently agitated boy.
“There! that’s my tongue!” cried Anna repentantly. “Patience says she wonders some one does not cut it out for me.”
Mary Ashley — a fair, gentle little girl, with large brown eyes, like Henry’s — stepped forward, full of sympathy. “I have heard of your sister from Anna,” she said. “She is welcome to read all my books; you can take some to her now, and change them as often as you like.”
How pleased William was! Mary selected four, and gave them to him. “Anna Ross,” “The Blind Farmer,” “Theophilus and Sophia,” and “Margaret White.” Very old, some of the books, and childish; but admirably suited to what people were beginning to call Jane — a dying child.
“I say,” cried out Henry, a little aristocratic patronage in his tone, as William was departing, “how do you get on with your Latin?”
“I get on very well. Not quite so fast as I should with a master. I have to puzzle out difficulties for myself, and I am not sure but that’s one of the best ways to get on. I go on with my Greek, too; and Euclid, and — —”
“How much time do you work?” burst forth Henry.
“From six o’clock till half-past nine. A little of the time I am helping my brothers.”
“There’s perseverance, Henry!” cried Mrs. Ashley; and Master Henry shrugged his shoulders.
“Anna,” began William, as they walked along, “how do you know that Janey is so ill?”
“Now, William, thee must ask thy mother whether she is ill or not. She may get well — how do I know? She was ill last summer, and Hannah Dobbs would have it she was in a bad way then; but she recovered. Dost thee know what Patience says?”
