Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Sanker knew the Squire, and put out his hand. The Squire took it without saying a word. He told us later that to him Sanker’s face looked as if it had death in it. When he would have spoken, Sanker’s eyes had grown wild again, and he was talking nonsense about his class-books.

  “Johnny, boy, you sit in this room a bit at times; you are patient and not rough,” said the Squire, when he went out to his carriage, for he had driven over. “I have asked them to let you be up there as much as they can. The poor boy is very ill, and has no relatives near him.”

  Dwarf Giles, touching his hat to Tod and me, was at the horses’ heads, Bob and Blister. The cattle knew us: I’m sure of it. They had had several hours’ rest in old Frost’s stables while the Squire went on foot about the neighbourhood to call on people. Dr. Frost, standing out with us, admired the fine dark horses very much; at which Giles was prouder than if the Doctor had admired him. He cared for nothing in the world so much as those two animals, and groomed them with a will.

  “You’ll take care that he wants for nothing, Doctor,” I heard the Squire say as he shook hands. “Don’t spare any care and expense to get him well again; I wish to look upon this illness as my charge. It seems something like an injustice, you see, that my boy should come off without damage, and this poor fellow be lying there.”

  He took the reins and stepped up to his seat, Giles getting up beside him. As we watched the horses step off with the high step that the Squire loved, he looked back and nodded to us. And it struck me that, in this care for Sanker, the Pater was trying to make some recompense for the suspicion cast on him a year before at Dyke Manor.

  It was a sharp, short illness, the fever raging, though not infectious; I had never been with any one in anything like it before, and I did not wish to be again. To hear how Sanker’s mind rambled, was marvellous; but some of us shivered when it came to raving. Very often he’d be making hay; fighting against numbers that were throwing cocks at him, while he could not throw back at them. Then he’d be in the water, buffeting with high waves, and shrieking out that he was drowning, and throwing his thin hot arms aloft in agony. Sometimes the trouble would be his lessons, hammering at Latin derivations and Greek roots; and next he was toiling through a problem in Euclid. One night when he was at the worst, old Featherston lost his head, and the next day Mr. Carden came posting from Worcester in his carriage.

  There were medical men of renown nearer; but somehow in extremity we all turned to him. And his skill did not fail here. Whether it might be any special relief he was enabled to give, or that the disease had reached its crisis, I cannot tell, but from the moment Mr. Carden stood at his bedside, Sanker began to mend. Featherston said the next day that the worst of the danger had passed. It seemed to us that it had just set in; no rat was ever so weak as Sanker.

  The holidays came then, and the boys went home: all but me. Sanker couldn’t lift a hand, but he could smile at us and understand, and he said he should like to have me stay a bit with him; so they sent word from home I might. Mr. Blair stayed also; Dr. Frost wished it. The Doctor was subpœnaed to give evidence on a trial at Westminster, and had to hasten up to London. Blair had no relatives at all, and did not care to go anywhere. He told me in confidence that his staying there saved his pocket. Blair was strict in school, but over Sanker’s bed he got as friendly with me as possible. I liked him; he was always gentlemanly; and I grew to dislike their calling him Baked Pie as much as he disliked it himself.

  “You go out and get some air, Ludlow,” he said to me the day after the school broke up, “or we may have you ill next.”

  Upon that I demanded what I wanted with air. I had taken precious long walks with the fellows up to the day before yesterday.

  “You go,” said he, curtly.

  “Go, Johnny,” said Sanker, in his poor weak voice, which couldn’t raise itself above a whisper. “I’m getting well, you know.”

  My way of taking the air was to sit down at one of the schoolroom desks and write to Tod. In about five minutes some one walked round the house as if looking for an entrance, and then stopped at the side-door. Putting my head out of the window, I took a look at her. It was a young lady in a plain grey dress and straw bonnet, with a cloak over her arm, and an umbrella put up against the sun. The back regions were turned inside out, for they had begun the summer cleaning that morning, and the cook came clanking along in pattens to answer the knock.

  “This is Dr. Frost’s, I believe. Can I see him?”

  It was a sweet, calm, gentle voice. The cook, who had no notion of visitors arriving at the cleaning season, when the boys were just got rid of, and the Doctor had gone away, stared at her for a moment, and then asked in her surly manner whether she had business with Dr. Frost. That cook and old Molly at home might have run in a curricle, they were such a match in temper.

  “Business! — oh, certainly. I must see him, if you please.”

  The cook shook off her pattens, and went up the back stairs, leaving the young lady outside. As it was business, she supposed she must call Mr. Blair.

  “Somebody wants Dr. Frost,” was her announcement to him. “A girl at the side door.”

  Which of course caused Blair to suppose it might be a child from one of the cottages come to ask for help of some sort; as they did come sometimes. He thought Hall might have been called to her, but he went down at once; without his coat, and his invalid-room slippers on. Naturally, when he saw the young lady, it took him aback.

  “I beg your pardon, sir; I hope you will not deem me an intruder. I have just arrived here.”

  Blair stared almost as much as the cook had done. The face was so pleasant, the voice so refined, that he inwardly called himself a fool for showing himself to her in that trim. For once, speech failed him; a thing Blair had never done at mathematics, I can tell you; he had not the smallest notion who she was or what she wanted. And the silence seemed to frighten her.

  “Am I too late?” she asked, her face growing white. “Has the — the worse happened?”

  “Happened to what?” questioned Blair, for he never once thought of the sick fellow above, and was all at sea. “Pardon me, young lady, but I do not know what you are speaking of.”

  “Of my brother, Edward Sanker. Oh, sir! is he dead?”

  “Miss Sanker! Truly I beg your pardon for my stupidity. He is out of danger; is getting well.”

  She sat down for a minute on the old stone bench beyond the door, roughed with the crowd of boys’ names cut in it. Her lips were trembling just a little, and the soft brown eyes had tears in them; but the face was breaking into a happy smile.

  “Oh, Dr. Frost, thank you, thank you! Somehow I never thought of him as dead until this moment, and it startled me.”

  Fancy her taking him for Frost! Blair was a good-looking fellow under thirty, slender and well made. The Doctor stood out an old guy of fifty, with a stern face and black knee-breeches.

  “My mother had your letter, sir, but she was not able to come. My father is very ill, needing her attention every moment; she strove to see on which side her duty lay — to stay with him, or to come to Edward; and she thought it must lie in remaining with papa. So she sent me. I left Wales last night.”

  “Is Mr. Sanker’s a fever, too?” asked Blair, in wonder.

  “No, an accident. He was hurt in the mine.”

  It was odd that it should be so; the two illnesses occurring at the same time! Mr. Sanker, it appeared, fell from the shaft; his leg was broken, and there were other injuries. At first they were afraid for him.

  Blair fell into a dilemma. He wouldn’t have minded Mrs. Sanker; but he did not know much about young ladies, not being accustomed to them. She got up from the bench.

  “Mamma bade me say to you, Dr. Frost — —”

  “I beg your pardon,” interrupted Blair again. “I am not Dr. Frost; the Doctor went to London this morning. My name is Blair — one of the masters. Will you walk in?”

  He shut her into the parlour on his way to cal
l Hall, and to put on his boots and coat. Seeing me, he turned into the schoolroom.

  “Ludlow, are not the Sankers connections of yours?”

  “Not of mine. Of Mrs. Todhetley’s.”

  “It’s all the same. You go in and talk to her. I don’t know what on earth to do. She has come to be with Sanker, but she won’t like to stay here with only you and me. If the Doctor were at home it would be different.”

  “She seems an uncommon nice girl, Mr. Blair.”

  “Good gracious!” went on Blair in his dilemma. “The Doctor told me he had written to Wales some time ago; but he supposed Mrs. Sanker could not make it convenient to come; and yesterday he wrote again, saying there was no necessity for it, as Sanker was out of danger. I don’t know what on earth to do with her,” repeated Blair, who had a habit of getting hopelessly bewildered on occasions. “Hall! Where’s Mrs. Hall?”

  As he went calling out down the flagged passage, a boy came whistling to the door, carrying a carpet-bag: Miss Sanker’s luggage. The coach she had had to take on leaving the rail put her down half-a-mile away, and she walked up in the sun, leaving her bag to be brought after her.

  It seemed that we were going in for mistakes. When I went to her, and began to say who I was, she mistook me for Tod. It made me laugh.

  “Tod is a great, strong fellow, as tall as Mr. Blair, Miss Sanker. I am only Johnny Ludlow.”

  “Edward has told me all about you both,” she said, taking my hand, and looking into my face with her sweet eyes. “Tod’s proud and overbearing, though generous; but you have ever been pleasant with him. I am afraid I shall begin to call you ‘Johnny’ at once.”

  “No one ever calls me anything else; except the masters here.”

  “You must have heard of me — Mary?”

  “But you are not Mary?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  That she was telling truth any fellow might see, and yet at first I hardly believed her. Sanker had told us his sister Mary was beautiful as an angel. Her face had no beauty in it, so to say; it was only kind, nice, and loving. People called Mrs. Parrifer a beautiful woman; perhaps I had taken my notions of beauty from her; she had a Roman nose, and great big eyes that rolled about, had a gruff voice, and a lovely peach-and-white complexion (but people said it was paint), and looked three parts a fool. Mary Sanker was just the opposite to all this, and her cheeks were dimpled. But still she had not what people call beauty.

  “May I go up and see Edward?”

  “I should think so. Mr. Blair, I suppose, will be back directly. He is looking very ill: you will not be frightened at him?”

  “After picturing him in my mind as dead, he will not frighten me, however ill he may look.”

  “I should say the young lady had better take off her bonnet afore going in. Young Mr. Sanker haven’t seen bonnets of late, and might be scared.”

  The interruption came from Hall; we turned, and saw her standing there. She spoke resentfully, as if Miss Sanker had offended her; and no doubt she had, by coming when the house was not in company order, and had nothing better to send in for dinner but cold mutton and half a rhubarb pie. Hall would have to get the mutton hashed now, which she would never have done for me and Blair.

  “Yes, if you please; I should much like to take my bonnet off,” said Miss Sanker, going up to Hall with a smile. “I think you must be Mrs. Hall. My brother has talked of you.”

  Hall took her to a room, and presently she came forth all fresh and nice, the travel dust gone, and her bright brown hair smooth and glossy. Her grey dress was soft, one that would not disturb a sick-room; it had a bit of white lace at the throat and wrists, and a little pearl brooch in front. She was twenty-one last birthday, but did not look as much.

  Blair had been in to prepare Sanker, and his great eyes (only great since his illness) were staring for her with a wild expectation. You never saw brother and sister less alike; the one so nice, the other ugly enough to frighten the crows. Sanker had my hand clasped tight in his, when she stooped to kiss him. I don’t think he knew it; but I could not get away. In that moment I saw how fond they were of each other.

  “Could not the mother come, Mary?”

  “No, papa is — is not well,” she said, for of course she would not tell him yet of any accident. “Papa wanted her there, and you wanted her here; she thought her duty lay at home, and she was not afraid but that God would raise up friends to take care of you.”

  “What is the matter with him?”

  “Some complicated illness or other,” Mary Sanker answered, in careless tones. “He was a little better when I came away. You have been very ill, Edward.”

  He held up his wasted hand as proof, with a half smile; but it fell again.

  “I don’t believe I should have pulled through it all, Mary, but for Blair.”

  “That’s the gentleman I saw. The one without a coat. Has he nursed you?”

  Sanker motioned with his white lips. “Right well, too. He, and Hall, and Johnny here. Old Hall is as good as gold when any of us are ill.”

  “And pays herself out by being tarter than ever when we are well,” I could not help saying: for it was the truth.

  “Blair saved Todhetley’s life,” Sanker went on. “We used to call him Baked Pie before, and give him all the trouble we could.”

  “Ought you to talk, Edward?”

  “It is your coming that seems to give me strength for it,” he answered. “I did not know that Frost had written home.”

  “There was a delay with the letters, or I might have been here three days ago,” said Miss Sanker, speaking in penitent tones, as if she were in the habit of taking other people’s faults upon herself. “While papa is not well, the clerk down at the mine opens the business letters. Seeing one directed to papa privately, he neither spoke of it nor sent it up, and for three days it lay unopened.”

  Sanker had gone off into one of his weak fits before she finished speaking: lying with his eyes and mouth wide open, between sleeping and waking. Hall came in and said with a tone that snapped Miss Sanker up, it wouldn’t do: if people could not be there without talking, they must not be there at all. I don’t say but that she was a capable nurse, or that when a fellow was downright ill, she spared the wine in the arrowroot, and the sugar in the tea. Mary Sanker sat down by the bedside, her finger on her lips to show that she meant to keep silence.

  We had visitors later. Mrs. Vale came over, as she did most days, to see how Sanker was getting on; and Bill Whitney brought his mother. Mrs. Vale told Mary Sanker that she had better sleep at the Farm, as the Doctor was away; she’d give her a nice room and make her comfortable. Upon that, Lady Whitney offered a spacious bed and dressing-room at the Hall. Mary thanked them both, saying how kind they were to be so friendly with a stranger; but thought she must go to the Farm, as it would be within a walk night and morning. Bill spoke up, and said the carriage could fetch and bring her; but Vale Farm was decided upon; and when night came, I went with her to show her the way.

  “That’s the water they went into, Miss Sanker; and that’s the very spot behind the trees.” She shivered just a little as she looked, but did not say much. Mrs. Vale met us at the door, and the old lady kissed Mary and told her she was a good girl to come fearlessly all the way alone from Wales to nurse her sick brother. When Mary came back the next morning, she said they had given her such a beautiful room, the dimity curtains whiter than snow, and the sheets scented with lavender.

  Her going out to sleep appeased Hall; — that, or something else. She was gracious all day, and sent us in a couple of chickens for dinner. Mr. Blair cut them up and helped us. He had written to tell Dr. Frost in London of Miss Sanker’s arrival, and while we were at table a telegram came back, saying Mrs. Hall was to take care of Miss Sanker, and make her comfortable.

  It went on so for three or four days; Mary sleeping at the Farm, and coming back in the morning. Sanker got well enough to be taken to a sofa in the pretty room that poor Mrs. Frost sat in nearly to the
last; and we were all four growing very jolly, as intimate as if we’d known each other as infants. I had taken to call her Mary, hearing Sanker do it so often; and twice the name slipped accidentally from Mr. Blair. The news from Wales was better and better. For visitors we had Mrs. Vale, Lady Whitney, and Bill, and old Featherston. Some of them came every day. Dr. Frost was detained in London. The trial did not come on so soon as it was put down for; and when it did, it lasted a week, and the witnesses had to stay there. He had written to Mary, telling her to make herself quite happy, for she was in good hands. He also wrote to Mrs. Vale, and to Hall.

  Well, it was either the fourth or fifth day. I know it was on Monday; and at five o’clock we were having tea for the first time in Sanker’s sitting-room, the table drawn near the sofa, and Mary pouring it out. It was the hottest of hot weather, the window was up as high as it would go, but not a breath of air came in. Therefore, to see Blair begin to shake as if he were taken with an ague, was something inexplicable. His face looked grey, his ears and hands had turned a sort of bluish white.

  “Halloa!” said Sanker, who was the first to notice him. “What’s the matter, sir?”

  Blair got up, and sat down again, his limbs shaking, his teeth chattering. Mary Sanker hastily put some of the hot tea into a saucer, and held it to his lips. His teeth rattled against the china; I thought they would bite a piece out of it; and in trying to take the saucer from Miss Sanker, the tea was spilt on the carpet.

  “Just call Mrs. Hall, Johnny,” said Sanker, who had propped himself up on his elbow to stare.

  Hall came, and Mr. Featherston came; but they could not make anything out of it except that Blair had had a shaking-fit. He was soon all right again (except for a burning heat); but the surgeon, given naturally to croak (or he wouldn’t have got so frightened about Sanker when Mr. Carden was telegraphed for), said he hoped the mathematical master had not set in for fever.