CHAPTER XI.THE MEDICAL LADY INTERVENES.

CHAPTER XI.THE MEDICAL LADY INTERVENES.

Miss Prudence did not appear at afternoon tea, so the symptoms of her sister, her refusal, or, at least, disinclination to call in a doctor, her extraordinary confusion and contradictory statements, as detailed by Mrs. Wilcox, were canvassed with much freedom by the boarders present. Mrs. Wilcox discreetly abstained from mentioning her suspicions, or using the ugly word “infection,” but she privately requested the medical lady to visit the invalid, and make a truthful report as to her condition.

The medical lady was a woman who had no weakness about her. She always recommended drastic remedies, and applied them if possible. She professed to enjoy her cold tub in the iciest weather. Nothing would persuade her that anyone who paled orfainted at the sight of blood or of ghastly accidents, or corpses, or took no delight in anatomical specimens in bottles, was not an affected creature. Mice she herself disliked, but that, she argued, was different. She administered physic with pleasure, and the nastier it was, and the more the ridiculous patient disliked it, the more she insisted on giving it as prescribed. She liked to take command of a sick-room as an admiral of his quarter deck, putting the invalid’s relatives to one side and making them feel they were intruders. As she assured them that responsibility for the death of the person afflicted would lie at their door if they resisted, they were generally afraid to turn her out, while the invalid was unable. She inspired Miss Prudence with terror, which expressed itself in slavish deference and humility, for, conscious of her own weakness, she felt, and with justice, that the medical lady despised her.

The younger Miss Semaphore was sitting solitary in her own room by the window, absorbed in anxious thought. The door of communication with her sister’s apartment stood open, so that she commanded a view of the bed and of the infant Augusta. Suddenlyshe started to her feet. Someone had knocked sharply at Augusta’s door, and immediately turned the handle. Finding it resisted efforts to open it, the voice of the medical lady was heard in the corridor, saying sweetly, “My dear Miss Semaphore, will you not let me in? I have come to enquire how you are.”

Augusta heard, and, forgetful of her voiceless condition, evidently made a desperate effort to summon Prudence, for she gave a feeble whimper.

“Hush! Do be quiet,” cried Prudence in a frightened, undertone. Then opening her own door, she looked out into the corridor. The medical lady was discovered kneeling on the mat and trying to peep through the keyhole. She started into an erect position with marvellous celerity.

“Do you want anything, Miss Lord,” asked Prudence timidly, yet with something of resentment in her tone.

“Oh! your dear sister,” said Miss Lord, slightly embarrassed, I just wanted to see her, but somehow I cannot open the door. I thought that possibly she might be glad of my services.”

“The door is locked,” answered Prudence.“My sister is not very well, and does not wish to be disturbed. She is trying to sleep.”

“But she will see me, my dear Miss Semaphore. I may be able to advise some course of treatment that will do her good.”

“Thank you, Miss Lord she is asleep just now, and I do not think would care to see anyone.”

“Oh, but I’ll not disturb her. I’ll just have a look at her in order to reassure you. You must be uneasy about her. I hear she is very ill.”

As she spoke the medical lady edged up to Prudence.

“Thank you; you are extremely kind, but I am really not so anxious. She is not so very ill, she is somewhat better now.”

“But I hear that you told Mrs. Wilcox after lunch that she was very ill indeed. This is a sudden change.”

“No—yes—notveryill. She’ll be better to-morrow.”

“But I think, my dear Miss Semaphore, you really ought to let me see her. As you decline to send for a doctor, someone with the requisite medical knowledge should be inattendance; and, forgive me for saying so, I do not think you are a very competent nurse. Besides, we owe it to Mrs. Wilcox to make sure your sister is not threatened with anything contagious.”

All this time the resolute medical lady had, step by step, moved Prudence back, so that they both stood within her room. Her eye caught the open door.

“Do let me in,” said the medical lady. “I advise it in your own interests. Let me have a peep at her, and if, as you say, she is better and sleeping, I shall be able to reassure Mrs. Wilcox and the others. Miss Belcher and Mrs. Dumaresq are so terribly afraid of anything infectious, that at tea they were talking of leaving.”

“No,” said Prudence, driven into a corner, “you shall not see her, Miss Lord. She is getting on all right, and does not want to see anyone.”

“Shan’t I?” suddenly ejaculated the medical lady; and before Prudence knew what she intended, she made a dash at the open door leading to Augusta’s room. Prudence, however, was too quick for her. She reached it first, pulled it to, locked it, for the key fortunately was on her side, and, puttingher back to it, stood flushed, panting, and breathless, facing Miss Lord.

“How dare you!” she cried, stung out of her ordinary meekness. “This is outrageous. Leave my room at once; no one asked you to come here.”

Miss Lord was hateful to look upon at that moment. If a soft featherbed had risen up and struck her in the face, she could scarcely have been more surprised.

“Ha, ha!” she said menacingly, “so there is a mystery here!”

“Will you go, please?”

“Oh yes, I’ll go.”

She stopped at the outer door.

“You had better take care, Miss Prudence Semaphore,” with a withering emphasis on the “Prudence.” “Perhaps I know more than you think. You may be sorry for this yet.”

With these vague but direful words she disappeared, leaving Prudence collapsed, her knees trembling under her, her mind filled with the gloomiest forebodings, and an undefined terror in her breast as to what Miss Lord might know.

How she got through the rest of that dreadful day Prudence never remembered.She dreaded the ordeal of dinner; but though the medical lady had evidently told her story, and there was an atmosphere of disquiet, no direct questions were asked, so the meal passed off better than she had expected. Still, the marked avoidance of the subject of her sister’s illness was a new source of uneasiness.

“I’m sure they think she has cholera or leprosy, or that I am poisoning her,” mused Prudence dolefully, as she crumbled her bread, and a dull resentment against Augusta, who had involved her in all this trouble and deceit, smouldered in her breast.

There was an added loftiness in. Mrs. Dumaresq’s manner which showed that Miss Semaphore had somehow incurred her displeasure, while Mrs. Whitley omitted to pass her the salt and pepper, which, with fussy officiousness, she presented to everyone else.

Good-natured Miss Belcher alone, forgetting Toutou and Miss Augusta’s bad temper, came up to her as the ladies filed out of the dining-room and said,

“I hope your sister is better.”

“Yes, thank you,” replied Prudence faintly.

“How tired and pale you look. I do believe you are fagged out nursing her. Do let me help, if I can be of any use to you.”

“You cannot help me, thank you,” said Prudence, with a sudden impulse to kiss her. “She does not like anyone else to come near her.”

“Cross, tyrannical old thing,” thought little Miss Belcher, who pitied Prudence for the slavery to which she submitted from her sister.

“Well, cheer up, dear Miss Prudence,” she said sympathetically. “I am glad she is better. Perhaps she may be all right to-morrow.”

“I’m sure I hope so,” answered the depressed Prudence, as she made her way to her own apartment. To-night she had no heart to enter the drawing-room and angle for a few words of conversation from Major Jones, round-eyed, stupid Mr. Batley, or gruff Mr. Lorimer, or to join the game of whist that so often resulted in personalities.

There was still a painful scene before her. She must tell her sister that Mrs. Geldheraus had left England, and that there was consequently no immediate hope of her resumingher proper size. Ever since Augusta awoke and saw that her sister had returned, she had followed her movements with anxious and enquiring eyes; but Prudence determined to give her no information until night, when all the boarders were safely in bed, and when infantile cries were unlikely to reach them. Accordingly, having waited until one by one the residents at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, had departed to their several rooms, and the house was wrapped in repose, Prudence stole into her sister’s apartment and communicated the disastrous intelligence. She had reason to congratulate herself on the choice of so late an hour, for Augusta, despite prayers and remonstrances, took it very badly indeed. She sobbed, howled, kicked, balled her little red fists into her eyes, and in every way that her circumstances permitted expressed her sorrow, anger, and disappointment. In vain Prudence implored her to be quiet. Her overwhelming dismay apparently shut out all other thought, and it was only when her sister actually put a pillow over her head, to stifle her cries, that she consented to moderate the expression of her grief. Once she grew quieter, the tender-hearted Prudence took her up, kissed and tried to comforther, walking her up and down the room as if she were in reality the baby she seemed to be, and continued this soothing progress until Augusta wept herself to sleep in her arms.

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