‘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 p. 204doctor, 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 p. 205whom 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 Mиre 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! p. 206And 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 p. 207in 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.
p. 208CHAPTER 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.
p. 209It 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,’ exclai
med 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 p. 210forced 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 p. 211night; 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 p. 212intruder, 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 p. 213little 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, p. 214he 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. H
is 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?’
p. 215‘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.
p. 216CHAPTER 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.’
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