“Is there?” he said. “I have not met with anything to make me glad for a long time past!”
“And I don’t seem able to recollect what it was, or even if I ought to tell,” said Rosamond, in the same faint, bewildered voice, which made Raymond very glad they were at the gate, where stood Julius.
But before Rosamond would descend into her husband’s arms, she opened all her child’s mufflings, saying, “Kiss her, kiss her, Raymond—how she shall love you!” And when he had obeyed, and Rosamond had handed the little one down to her father, she pressed her own wet cheek against his dripping beard and moustache, and exclaimed, “I’ll never forget your goodness. Have you got her safe, Julius? I’ll never, never go anywhere again!”
O no, no, no; ’tis true. Here, take this too;It is a basilisk unto mine eye,Kills me to look on’t. Let there be no honour,Where there is beauty; truth, where semblance; love,Where there’s another man.—Cymbeline
O no, no, no; ’tis true. Here, take this too;It is a basilisk unto mine eye,Kills me to look on’t. Let there be no honour,Where there is beauty; truth, where semblance; love,Where there’s another man.—Cymbeline
When Julius, according to custom, opened his study shutters, at half-past six, to a bright sunrise, his eldest brother stood before the window. “Well, how are they?” he said.
“All right, thank you; the child woke, had some food, and slept well and naturally after it; and Rose has been quite comfortable and at rest since midnight. You saved us from a great deal, Raymond.”
“Ah!” with a sound of deep relief; “may Julia only turn out as sweet a piece of womanhood as her mother. Julius, I never understood half what that dear wife of yours was till yesterday.”
“I was forced to cut our gratitude very short,” said Julius, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You know I’ve always taken your kindness as a matter of course.”
“I should think so,” said Raymond, the more moved of the two. “I tell you, Julius, that Rosamond was to me the only redeeming element in the day. I wanted to know whether you could walk with me to ask after that poor girl; I hear she came home one with her grandmother.”
“Gladly,” said Julius. “I ought to have gone last night; but what with Rose, and the baby, and Terry, I am afraid I forgot everything.” He disappeared, and presently issued from the front door in his broad hat, while Raymond inquired for Terry.
“He is asleep now, but he has been very restless, and there is something about him I don’t like. Did not Worth say he would come and look at the baby?”
“Yes, but chiefly to pacify Rosamond, about whom he was the most uneasy.”
“She is quite herself now; but you look overdone, Raymond. Have you had any sleep?”
“I have not lain down. When we came home at four o’clock, Cecil was quite knocked up, excited and hysterical. Her maid advised me to leave her to her; so I took a bath, and came down to wait for you.”
Julius would have liked to see the maid who could have soothed his Rosamond last night without him! He only said, however, “Is Frank come down? My mother rather expected him.”
“Yes, he came to the race-ground.”
“Indeed! He was not with you when you came back, or were we not sufficiently rational to see him?”
“Duncombe gave a dinner at the hotel, and carried him off to it. I’m mortally afraid there’s something amiss in that quarter. What, didn’t you know that Duncombe’s filly failed?”
“No, indeed, I did not.”
“The town was ringing with it. Beaten out-and-out by Fair Phyllida! a beast that took them all by surprise—nothing to look at—but causing, I fancy, a good deal of distress. They say the Duncombes will be done for. I only wish Frank was clear; but that unhappy engagement has thrown him in with Sir Harry’s set, and he was with them all day—hardly spoke to me. To a fellow like him, a veteran scamp like old Vivian, with his benignant looks, is ten times more dangerous than men of his own age. However, having done the damage, they seem to have thrown him off. Miss Vivian would not speak to him at the ball.”
“Eleonora! I don’t know how to think it!”
“What you cannotthink, a Vivian candoand does!” said Raymond, bitterly. “My belief is that he was decoyed into being fleeced by the father, and now they have done their worst, he is cast off. He came home with us, but sat outside, and I could not get a word out of him.”
“I hope my mother may.”
“If he be not too far gone for her. I always did expect some such termination, but not with this addition.”
“I don’t understand it now—Lena!”
“I only wonder at your surprise. The girl has been estranged from us all for a long time. If it is at an end, so much the better. I only wish we were none of us ever to see the face of one of them again.”
Julius knew from his wife that there were hopes for Raymond, but of course he might not speak, and he was revolving these words, which had a vehemence unlike the wont of the speaker, when he was startled by Raymond’s saying, “Julius, you were right. I have come to the conclusion that no consideration shall ever make me sanction races again.”
“I am glad,” began Julius.
“You would not be glad if you had seen all I saw yesterday. You must have lent me your eyes, for when you spoke before of the evils, I thought you had picked up a Utopian notion, and were running a-muck with it, like an enthusiastic young clergyman. For my own part I can’t say I ever came across anything offensive. Of course I know where to find it, as one does wherever one goes, but there was no call to run after it; and as we were used to the affair, it was a mere matter of society—”
“No, it could never be any temptation to you,” said Julius.
“No, nor to any other reasonable man; and I should add, though perhaps you might not allow it, that so long as a man keeps within his means, he has a right to enhance his excitement and amusement by bets.”
“Umph! He has a right then to tempt others to their ruin, and create a class of speculators who live by gambling.”
“You need not go on trying to demolish me. I was going to say that I had only thought of the demoralization, from the betting side; but yesterday it was as if you had fascinated my eyes to look behind the scenes. I could not move a step without falling on something abominable. Roughs, with every passion up to fever-pitch, ferocity barely kept down by fear of the police, gambling everywhere, innocent young things looking on at coarseness as part of the humour of the day, foul language, swarms of vagabond creatures, whose trade is to minister to the license of such occasions. I declare that your wife was the only being I saw display a spark of any sentiment human nature need not blush for!”
“Nay, Raymond, I begin to wonder whose is the exaggerated feeling now.”
“You were not there,” was the answer; and they were here interrupted by crossing the path of the policeman, evidently full of an official communication.
“I did not expect to see you so early, sir,” he said. “I was coming to the Hall to report to you after I had been in to the superintendent.”
“What is it?”
“There has been a burglary at Mrs. Hornblower’s, sir. If you please, sir,” to Julius, “when is the Reverend Mr. Bowater expected home?”
“Not before Monday. Is anything of his taken?”
“Yes, sir. A glass case has been broken open, and a silver cup and oar, prizes for sports at college, I believe, have been abstracted. Also the money from the till below; and I am sorry to say, young Hornblower is absconded, and suspicion lies heavy on him. They do say the young man staked heavily on that mare of Captain Duncombe’s.”
“You had better go on to the superintendent now,” said Raymond. “You can come to me for a summons if you can find any traces.”
Poor Mrs. Hornblower, what horror for her! and poor Herbert too who would acutely feel this ingratitude. The blackness of it was beyond what Julius thought probable in the lad, and the discussion of it occupied the brothers till they reached the Reynolds colony, where they were received by the daughter-in-law, a much more civilized person than old Betty.
After Fanny’s dislocated arm had been set, the surgeon had sent her home in the Rectory carriage, saying there was so much fever in Wil’sbro’, that she would be likely to recover better at home; but she had been suffering and feverish all night, and Dan Reynolds was now gone in quest of ‘Drake,’ for whom she had been calling all night.
“Is he her husband?” asked Julius.
“Well, I don’t know, sir; leastways, Granny says he ought to be answerable for what’s required.”
Mrs. Reynolds further betrayed that the family had not been ignorant of Fanny’s career since she had run away from home, leaving her child on her grandmother’s hands. She had made her home in one of the yellow vans which circulate between fairs and races, driving an ostensible trade in cheap toys, but really existing by setting up games which were, in fact, forms of gambling, according to the taste of the people and the toleration of the police. From time to time, she had appeared at home, late in the evening, with small sums of money and presents for her boy; and Mrs. Dan believed that she thought herself as good as married to ‘that there Drake.’ She was reported to be asleep, and the place ‘all of a caddle,’ and Julius promised to call later in the day.
“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Reynolds; “it would be a right good thing, poor girl. She’ve a kind heart, they all do say; not as I know, not coming here till she was gone, nor wanting to know much on her, for ’twas a right bad way she was in, and ’twere well if them nasty races were put down by Act of Parliament, for they be the very ruin of the girls in these parts.”
“There’s a new suggestion, Raymond,” said Julius as he shut the garden gate.
Raymond was long in answering, and when he spoke, it was to say, “I shall withdraw from the subscription to the Wil’sbro’ Cup.”
“So much the better.”
Then Raymond began discussing the terms of the letter in which he would state his reasons, but with an amount of excitement that made Julius say, “I should think it better not to write in this first heat. It will take more effect if it is not so visibly done on the spur of the moment.”
But the usually deliberate Raymond exclaimed, “I cannot rest till it is done. I feel as if I must be like Lady Macbeth, continually washing my hands of all this wreck and ruin.”
“No wonder; but I should think there was great need of caution—to use your own words.”
“My seat must go, if this is to be the price,” said Raymond. “I felt through all the speeches at that gilt-gingerbread place, that it was a monument of my truckling to expediency. We began the whole thing at the wrong end, and I fear we are beginning to see the effects.”
“Do you mean that you are anxious about that fever in Water Lane?”
“There was an oppressive sickly air about everything, strongest at the ball. I can’t forget it,” said Raymond, taking off his hat, so that the morning air might play about his temples. “We talked about meddling women, but the truth was that they were shaming us by doing what they could.”
“I hope others will see it so. Is not Whitlock to be mayor next time?”
“Yes. He may do something. Well, they will hardly unseat me! I should not like to see Moy in my place, and it would be a sore thing for my mother; but,” he continued, in the same strange, dreamy manner, “everything has turned out so wretchedly that I hardly know or care how it goes.”
“My dear old fellow!”
Raymond had stopped to lean over a gate, where he could look up to the old red house in the green park, set in brightly-tinted trees, all aglow in the morning sunshine. Tears had sprung on his cheeks, and a suppressed sob heaved his chest. Julius ventured to say, “Perhaps there may yet be a change of mind.”
“No!” was the answer. “In the present situation there is nothing for it but to sacrifice my last shred of peace to the one who has the chief right—in a certain way.”
They walked on, and he hardly spoke again till, as they reached the Rectory, Julius persuaded him to come in and have a cup of tea; and though he said he must go back and see his friend off, he could not withstand the sight of Rosamond at the window, fresh and smiling, with her child in her arms.
“Not a bit the worse for her dissipation,” she merrily said. “Oh, the naughty little thing!—to have begun with the turf, and then the ‘Three Pigeons’! Aren’t you ashamed of her, papa? Sit down, Raymond; how horribly tired you do look.”
“Ha! What’s this?” exclaimed Julius, who had been opening the post-bag. “Here’s a note from the Bishop, desiring me to come to the palace to-day, if possible.”
“Oh!” cried Raymond. “Where is there vacant—isn’t there a canonry or a chaplaincy?”
“Or an archbishopric or two?” said Julius. “The pony can do it, I think, as there will be a long rest. If he seems fagged, I can put up at Backsworth and take a fly.”
“You’ll let James drive you,” said Rosamond.
“I had rather not,” said Julius. “It may be better to be alone.”
“He is afraid of betraying his elevation to James,” laughed Rosamond.
“Mrs. Daniel Reynolds to see you, sir.”
This was with the information that that there trapezing chap, Drake, had fetched off poor Fanny in his van. He had been in trouble himself, having been in custody for some misdemeanour when she was thrown down; but as soon as he was released, he had come in search of her, and though at first he seemed willing to leave her to be nursed at home, he had no sooner heard of the visitors of that morning than he had sworn he would have no parson meddling with his poor gal! she was good enough for him, and he would not have a pack of nonsense put in her head to set her against him.
“He’s good to her, sir,” said Mrs. Reynolds, “I think he be; but he is a very ignorant man. He tell’d us once as he was born in one of they vans, and hadn’t never been to school nor nothin’, nor heard tell of God, save in the way of bad words: he’ve done nothin’ but go from one races and fairs to another, just like the gipsies, though he bain’t a gipsy neither; but he’s right down attacted to poor Fanny, and good to her.”
“Another product of the system,” said Raymond.
“Like the gleeman, whom we see through a picturesque medium,” said Julius; “but who could not have been pleasant to the mediæval clergyman. I have hopes of poor Fanny yet. She will drift home one of these days, and we shall get hold of her.”
“What a fellow you are for hoping!” returned Raymond, a little impatiently.
“Why not?” said Julius.
“Why! I should say—” replied Raymond, setting out to walk home, where he presided over his friend’s breakfast and departure, and received a little banter over his solicitude for the precious infant. Cecil was still in bed, and Frank was looking ghastly, and moved and spoke like one in a dream, Raymond was relieved to hear him pleading with Susan for to his mother’s room much earlier than usual.
Susan took pity and let him in; when at once he flung himself into a chair, with his face hidden on the bed, and exclaimed, “Mother, it is all over with me!”
“My dear boy, what can have happened?”
“Mother, you remember those two red pebbles. Could you believe that she has sold hers?”
“Are you sure she has? I heard that they had a collection of such things from the lapidary at Rockpier.”
“No, mother, that is no explanation. When I found that I should be able to come down, I sent a card to Lady Tyrrell, saying I would meet them on the race-ground—a post-card, so that Lena might see it. When I came there was no Lena, only some excuse about resting for the ball—lying down with a bad headache, and so forth—making it plain that I need not go on to Sirenwood. By and by there was some mild betting with the ladies, and Lady Tyrrell said, ‘There’s a chance for you, Bee; don’t I see the very fellow to Conny’s charm?’ Whereupon that girl Conny pulled out the very stone I gave Lena three years ago at Rockpier. I asked; yes, I asked—Lena had sold it; Lena, at the bazaar; Lena, who—”
“Stay, Frank, is this trusting Lena as she bade you trust her? How do you know that there were no other such pebbles?”
“You have not seen her as I have done. There has been a gradual alienation—holding aloof from us, and throwing herself into the arms of those Strangeways. It is no fault of her sister’s. She has lamented it to me.”
“Or pointed it out. Did she know the history of these pebbles?”
“No one did. Lena was above all reserved with her.”
“Camilla Tyrrell knows a good deal more than she is told. Where’s your pebble? You did not stake that?”
“Those who had one were welcome to the other.”
“O, my poor foolish Frank! May it not be gone to tell the same tale of you that you think was told of her? Is this all?”
“Would that it were!”
“Well, go on, my dear. Was she at the ball?”
“Surrounded by all that set. I was long in getting near her, and then she said her card was full; and when I made some desperate entreaty, she said, in an undertone that stabbed me by its very calmness, ‘After what has passed to-day, the less we meet the better.’ And she moved away, so as to cut me off from another word.”
“After what had passed! Was it the parting with the stone?”
“Not only. I got a few words with Lady Tyrrell. She told me that early impressions had given Lena a kind of fanatical horror of betting, and that she had long ago made a sort of vow against a betting man. Lady Tyrrell said she had laughed at it, but had no notion it was seriously meant; and I—I never even heard of it!”
“Nor are you a betting man, my Frank.”
“Ay! mother, you have not heard all.”
“You are not in a scrape, my boy?”
“Yes, I am. You see I lost my head after the pebble transaction. I couldn’t stand small talk, or bear to go near Raymond, so I got among some other fellows with Sir Harry—”
“And excitement and distress led you on?”
“I don’t know what came over me. I could not stand still for fear I should feel. I must be mad on something. Then, that mare of Duncombe’s, poor fellow, seemed a personal affair to us all; and Sir Harry, and a few other knowing old hands, went working one up, till betting higher and higher seemed the only way of supporting Duncombe, besides relieving one’s feelings. I know it was being no end of a fool; but you haven’t felt it, mother!”
“And Sir Harry took your bets?”
“One must fare and fare alike,” said Frank.
“How much have you lost?”
“I’ve lost Lena, that’s all I know,” said the poor boy; but he produced his book, and the sum appalled him. “Mother,” he said in a broken voice, “there’s no fear of its happening again. I can never feel like this again. I know it is the first time one of your sons has served you so, and I can’t even talk of sorrow, it seems all swallowed up in the other matter. But if you will help me to meet it, I will pay you back ten or twenty pounds every quarter.”
“I think I can, Frankie. I had something in hand towards my own possible flitting. Here is the key of my desk. Bring me my banker’s book and my cheque book.”
“Mother! mother!” he cried, catching her hand and kissing it, “what a mother you are!”
“You understand,” she said, “that it is because I believe you were not master of yourself, and that this is the exception, not the habit, that I am willing to do all I can for you.”
“The habit! No, indeed! I never staked more than a box of gloves before; but what’s the good, if she has made a vow against me?”
Mrs. Poynsett was silent for a few moments, then she said, “My poor boy, I believe you are both victims of a plot. I suspect that Camilla Tyrrell purposely let you see that pebble-token and be goaded into gambling, that she might have a story to tell her sister, when she had failed to shake her constancy and principle in any other way.”
“Mother, that would make her out a fiend. She has been my good and candid friend all along. You don’t know her.”
“What would a friend have done by you yesterday?”
“She neither saw nor heard my madness. No, mother, Lenore’s heart has been going from me for months past, and she is glad of this plea for release, believing me unworthy. Oh! that stern face of hers! set like a head of Justice with not a shade of pity—so beautiful—so terrible! It will never cease to haunt me.”
He sat in deep despondency, while Mrs. Poynsett overlooked her resources; but presently he started up, saying, “There’s one shadow of a hope. I’ll go over to Sirenwood, insist on seeing one her and having an explanation. I have a right, whatever I did yesterday; and you have forgiven me for that, mother!”
“I think it is the most hopeful way. If you can see her without interposition, you will at least come to an understanding. Here, you had better take this cheque for Sir Harry.”
When he was gone, she wondered whether she had been justified in encouraging him in defending Eleonora. Was this not too like another form of the treatment Raymond had experienced? Her heart bled for her boy, and she was ready to cry aloud, “Must that woman always be the destroyer of my sons’ peace?”
When Frank returned, it was with a face that appalled her by its blank despair, as he again flung himself down beside her.
“She is gone,” he said.
“Gone!”
“Gone, and with the Strangeways. I saw her.”
“Spoke to her?”
“Oh no. The carriage turned the corner as I crossed the road. The two girls were there, and she—”
“Going with them to the station?”
“I thought so; I went to the house, meaning to leave my enclosure for Sir Harry and meet her on her way back; but I heard she was gone to stay with Lady Susan in Yorkshire. Sir Harry was not up, nor Lady Tyrrell.”
Mrs. Poynsett’s hope failed, though she was relieved that Camilla’s tongue had not been in action. She was dismayed at the prone exhausted manner in which Frank lay, partly on the floor, partly against her couch, with his face hidden.
“Do you know where she is gone?”
“Yes, Revelrig, Cleveland, Yorkshire.”
“I will write to her. Whatever may be her intentions, they shall not be carried out under any misrepresentation that I can contradict. You have been a foolish fellow, Frankie; but you shall not be painted worse than you are. She owes you an explanation, and I will do my best that you shall have it. My dear, what is the matter?”
She rang her bell hastily, and upheld the sinking head till help came. He had not lost consciousness, and called it giddiness, and he was convicted of having never gone to bed last night, and having eaten nothing that morning; but he turned against the wine and soup with which they tried to dose him, and, looking crushed and bewildered, said he would go and lie down in his own room.
Raymond went up with him, and returned, saying he only wanted to be alone, with his face from the light; and Mrs. Poynsett, gazing at her eldest son, thought he looked as ill and sunken as his younger brother.
And the boy not out of him.—TENNYSON’S Queen Mary
And the boy not out of him.—TENNYSON’S Queen Mary
Julius had only too well divined the cause of his summons. He found Herbert Bowater’s papers on the table before the Bishop, and there was no denying that they showed a declension since last year, and that though, from men without his advantages they would have been passable, yet from him they were evidences of neglect of study and thought. Nor could the cause be ignored by any one who had kept an eye on the cricket reports in the county paper; but Herbert was such a nice, hearty, innocent fellow, and his father was so much respected, that it was with great reluctance that his rejection was decided on and his Rector had been sent for in case there should be any cause for extenuation.
Julius could not say there was. He was greatly grieved and personally ashamed, but he could plead nothing but his own failure to influence the young man enough to keep him out of a rage for amusement, of which the quantity, not the quality, was the evil. So poor Herbert was sent for to hear his fate, and came back looking stunned. He hardly spoke till they were in the fly that Julius had brought from Backsworth, and then the untamed school-boy broke forth: “What are you doing with me? I say, I can’t go back to Compton like a dog in a string.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t care. To Jericho at once, out of the way of every one. I tell you what, Rector, it was the most ridiculous examination I ever went up for, and I’m not the only man that says so. There was Rivers, of St. Mary’s at Backsworth,—he says the questions were perfectly unreasonable, and what no one could be prepared for. This fellow Danvers is a new hand, and they are always worst, setting one a lot of subjects of no possible use but to catch one out. I should like to ask him now what living soul at Compton he expects to be the better for my views on the right reading of—”
Julius interrupted the passionate tones at the lodge by saying, “If you wish to go to Jericho, you must give directions.”
Herbert gave something between a laugh and a growl.
“I left the pony at Backsworth. Will you come with me to Strawyers and wait in the park till I send Jenny out to you?”
“No, I say. I know my father will be in a greater rage than he ever was in his life, and I won’t go sneaking about. I’d like to go to London, to some hole where no one would ever hear of me. If I were not in Orders already, I’d be off to the ivory-hunters in Africa, and never be heard of more. If this was to be, I wish they had found it out a year ago, and then I should not have been bound,” continued the poor young fellow, in his simplicity, thinking his thoughts aloud, and his sweet candid nature beginning to recover its balance. “Now I’m the most wretched fellow going. I know what I’ve undertaken. It’s not your fault, nor poor Joanna’s. You’ve all been at me, but it only made me worse. What could my father be thinking of to make a parson of a fellow like me? Well, I must face it out sooner or later at Compton, and I had better do it there than at home, even if my father would have me.”
“I must go to Strawyers. The Bishop gave me a letter for your father, and I think it will break it a little for your mother. Would you wait for me at Rood House? You could go into the chapel, and if they wish for you, I could return and fetch you.”
Herbert caught at this as a relief, and orders were given accordingly. It seemed a cruel moment to tell him of young Hornblower’s evasion and robbery, but the police wanted the description of the articles; and, in fact, nothing would have so brought home to him that, though Compton might not appreciate minutiæ of Greek criticism, yet the habit of diligence, of which it was the test, might make a difference there. The lingering self-justification was swept away by the sense of the harm his pleasure-seeking had done to the lad whom he had once influenced. He had been fond and proud of his trophies, but he scarcely wasted a thought on them, so absorbed was he in the thought of how he had lorded it over the youth with that late rebuke. The blame he had refused to take on himself then came full upon him now, and he reproached himself too much to be angered at the treachery and ingratitude.
“I can’t prosecute,” he said, when Julius asked for the description he had promised to procure.
“We must judge whether it would be true kindness to refrain, if he is captured,” said Julius. “I had not time to see his mother, but Rosamond will do what she can for her, poor woman.”
“How shall I meet her?” sighed Herbert; and so they arrived at the tranquil little hospital and passed under the deep archway into the gray quadrangle, bright with autumn flowers, and so to the chapel. As they advanced up the solemn and beautiful aisle Herbert dropped on his knees with his hands over his face. Julius knelt beside him for a moment, laid his hand on the curly brown hair, whispered a prayer and a blessing, and then left him; but ere reaching the door, the low choked sobs of anguish of heart could be heard.
A few steps more, and in the broad walk along the quadrangle, Julius met the frail bowed figure with his saintly face, that seemed to have come out of some sacred bygone age.
Julius told his errand. “If you could have seen him just now,” he said, “you would see how much more hope there is of him than of many who never technically fail, but have not the same tender, generous heart, and free humility.”
“Yes, many a priest might now be thankful if some check had come on him.”
“And if he had met it with this freedom from bitterness. And it would be a great kindness to keep him here a day or two. Apart from being with you, the showing himself at Compton or at Strawyers on Sunday would be hard on him.”
“I will ask him. I will gladly have him here as long as the quiet may be good for him. My nephew, William, will be here till the end of the Long Vacation, but I must go to St. Faith’s on Monday to conduct the retreat.”
“I leave him in your hands then, and will call as I return to see what is settled, and report what his family wish. I grieve more for them than for himself.”
Julius first encountered Jenny Bowater in the village making farewell calls. He stopped the carriage and joined her, and not a word was needed to tell her that something was amiss. “You have come to tell us something,” she said. “Herbert has failed?”
“Prayers are sometimes answered as we do not expect,” said Julius. “I believe it will be the making of him.”
“Oh, but how will mamma ever bear it!” cried Jenny.
“We must remind her that it is only a matter of delay, not rejection,” said Julius.
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes, the Bishop sent for me, and asked me to see your father. It was partly from slips in critical knowledge, which betrayed the want of study, and the general want of thought and progress, and all the rest of it, in his papers—”
“Just the fact—”
“Yes, which a man of less reality and more superficial quickness might have concealed by mere intellectual answers, though it might have been much worse for him in the end.”
“Where is he?”
“At Rood House. Unless your mother wishes for him here, he had better stay there till he can bear to come among us again.”
“Much better, indeed,” said Jenny. “I only hope papa and mamma will see how good it is for him to be there. O, Julius, if he is taking it in such a spirit, I can think it all right for him; but for them—for them, it is very hard to bear. Nothing ever went wrong with the boys before, and Herbert—mamma’s darling!” Her eyes were full of tears.
“I wish he had had a better Rector,” said Julius.
“No, don’t say that. It was not your fault.”
“I cannot tell. An older man, or more truly a holier man, might have had more influence. We were all in a sort oflaissez-allerstate this autumn, and now comes the reckoning.”
“There’s papa,” said Jenny. “Had you rather go to him alone, or can I do any good?”
“I think I will go alone,” said Julius.
Mr. Bowater, who had grown up in a day when examinations were much less earnest matters, never guessed what brought Julius over, but simply thought he had come to wish them good-bye; then believed in any accident rather than in failure, and finally was exceedingly angry, and stormed hotly, first at examinations and modern Bishops, then at cricket and fine ladies, then at Julius, for not having looked after the lad better, and when this was meekly accepted, indignation took a juster direction, and Herbert’s folly and idleness were severely lashed more severely than Julius thought they quite deserved, but a word of pleading only made it worse. Have him home to take leave? No, indeed, Mr. Bowater hoped he knew his duty better as father of a family, when a young man had publicly disgraced himself. “I’ll tell you what, Julius Charnock, if you wish him to forget all the little impression it may have made, and be ready to run after any amount of folly, you’d make me have him home to be petted and cried over by his mother and sisters. He has been their spoilt pet too long, and I won’t have him spoilt now. I’ll not see him till he has worked enough to show whether there’s any real stuff in him.”
Mr. Bowater never even asked where his son was, probably taking it for granted that he was gone back to Compton; nor did Julius see Jenny again, as she was trying to comfort her mother under the dreadful certainty that poor dear Herbert was most cruelly treated, and that the examining chaplain came of a bad stock, and always had had a dislike to the family. It was to be hoped that Mr. Bowater would keep to his wise resolution, and not send for Herbert, for nothing could be worse for him than the sympathy he would have met with from her.
What with looking in to report at Rood House and finding Herbert most grateful for leave to remain there for a few days, Julius did not reach home till long after dark. Pleasantly did the light greet him from the open doorway where his Rosamond was standing. She sprang at once into his arms, as if he had been absent a month, and cried, “Here you are, safe at last!” Then, as she pulled off his wraps, “How tired you must be! Have you had any food? No—it’s all ready;” and he could see ‘high tea’ spread, and lighted by the first fire of the season. “Come and begin!”
“What, without washing my hands?”
“You are to do that in the study; it is all ready.” He did not exactly see why he should be too tired to mount to his dressing-room; but he obeyed, not ungratefully, and his chair was ready, his plate heaped with partridge and his tumbler filled with ale almost before his eyes had recovered the glare of light. The eagerness and flutter of Rosamond’s manner began to make him anxious, and he began for the third time the inquiries she had always cut short—“Baby all right? Terry better?”
“Baby—oh yes, a greater duck than ever. I put her to bed myself, and she was quite delicious. Eat, I say; go on.”
“Not unless you eat that other wing.”
“I’ll help myself then. You go on. I don’t see Herbert, so I suppose it is all right. Where’s your canonry?”
“Alas! poor Herbert is plucked. I had to go round by Strawyers to tell them.”
“Plucked! I never heard of such a thing. I think it is a great shame such a nice honest fellow should be so ill-used, and when all his pretty things have been stolen too! Do you know, they’ve taken up young Hornblower; but his friends have made off with the things, and they say they are in the melting-pot by this time, and there’s no chance of recovering them.”
“I don’t think he cares much now, poor fellow. Did you see Mrs. Hornblower?”
“No; by the time I could get my hat on she had heard it, poor thing, and was gone to Backsworth; for he’s there, in the county gaol; was taken at the station, I believe; I don’t half understand it.”
Her manner was indeed strange and flighty; and though she recurred to questions about the Ordination and the Bowaters, Julius perceived that she was forcing her attention to the answers as if trying to stave off his inquiries, and he came to closer quarters. “How is Terry? Has Dr. Worth been here?”
“Yes; but not till very late. He says he never was so busy.”
“Rosamond, what is it? What did he say of Terry?”
“He said”—she drew a long breath—“he says it is the Water Lane fever.”
“Terry, my dear—”
She held him down with a hand on his shoulder—
“Be quiet. Finish your dinner. Dr. Worth said the great point was to keep strong, and not be overdone, nor to go into infected air tired and hungry. I would not have let you come in if there had been any help for it; and now I’ll not have you go near him till you’ve made a good meal.”
“You must do the same then. There, eat that slice, or I won’t;” and as she allowed him to place it on her plate, “What does he call it—not typhus?”
“He can’t tell yet; he does not know whether it is infectious or only epidemic; and when he heard how the dear boy had been for days past at the Exhibition at the town-hall, and drinking lots of iced water on Saturday, he seemed to think it quite accounted for. He says there is no reason that in this good air he should not do very well; but, oh, Julius, I wish I had kept him from that horrid place. They left him in my charge!”
“There is no reason to distress yourself about that, my Rose. He was innocently occupied, and there was no cause to expect harm. There’s all good hope for him, with God’s blessing. Who is with him now?”
“Cook is there now. Both the maids were so kind and hearty, declaring they would do anything, and were not afraid; and I can manage very well with their help. You know papa had a low fever at Montreal, and mamma and I nursed him through it, so I know pretty well what to do.”
“But how about the baby?”
“Emma came back before the doctor came, crying piteously, poor child, as if she had had a sufficient lesson; so I said she might stay her month on her good behaviour, and now we could not send her out of the house. I have brought the nursery down to the spare room, and in the large attic, with plenty of disinfecting fluid, we can, as the doctor said, isolate the fever. He is quiet and sleepy, and I do not think it will be hard to manage, if you will only be good and conformable.”
“I don’t promise, if that means that you are to do everything and I nothing. When did Worth see him?”
“Not till five o’clock: and he would not have come at all, if Anne had not sent in some one from the Hall when she saw how anxious I was. He would not have come otherwise; he is so horribly busy, with lots of cases at Wil’sboro’. Now, if you have done, you may come and see my boy.”
Julius did see a flushed sleeping face that did not waken at his entrance; and as his wife settled herself for her watch, he felt as if he could not leave her after such a day as she had had, but an indefinable apprehension made him ask whether she would spare him to run up to the Hall to see his mother and ask after Raymond, whose looks had haunted him all day. She saw he would not rest otherwise, and did not show how unwilling was her consent, for though she knew little, her mind misgave her.
He made his way into the Hall by the back door, and found his mother still in the drawing-room, and Raymond dozing in the large arm-chair by the fire. Mrs. Poynsett gave a warning look as Julius bent over her, but Raymond only opened his eyes with a dreamy gaze, without speaking. “Why, mother, where are the rest?”
“Poor Frank—I hope it is only the shock and fatigue; but Dr. Worth wished him to be kept as quiet as possible. He can’t bear to see any one in the room, so that good Anne said she would sit in Charlie’s room close by.”
“Then he is really ill?” said Julius.
“He nearly fainted after walking over to Sirenwood in vain. I don’t understand it. There’s something very wrong there, which seems perfectly to have crushed him.”
“I’ll go up and see him,” said Julius. “You both of you look as if you ought to be in bed. How is Cecil, Raymond?”
“Quite knocked up,” he sleepily answered. “Here’s Susan, mother.”
Susan must have been waiting till she heard voices to carry off her mistress. Raymond pushed her chair into her room, bent over her with extra tenderness, bade her good night; and when Julius had done the same they stood by the drawing-room fire together.
“I’ve been trying to write that letter, Julius,” said Raymond, “but I never was so sleepy in my life, and I can’t get on with it.”
“What letter?”
“That letter. About the races.”
“Oh! That seems long ago!”
“So it does,” said Raymond, in the same dreamy manner, as if trying to shake something off. “Some years, isn’t it? I wanted it done, somehow. I would sit down to it now, only I have fallen asleep a dozen times over it already.”
“Not very good for composition,” said Julius, alarmed by something indefinable in his brother’s look, and by his manner of insisting on what was by no means urgent. “Come, put it out of your head, and go to bed.”
“How did you find the boy Terry?” asked Raymond, again as if in his sleep.
“I scarcely saw him. He was asleep.”
“And Worth calls it—?”
“The same fever as in Water Lane.”
“I thought so. We are in for it,” said Raymond, now quite awake. “He did not choose to say so to my mother, but I gathered it from his orders.”
“But Frank only came down yesterday.”
“Frank was knocked down and predisposed by the treatment he met with, poor boy. They say he drank quarts of iced things at the dinner and ball, and ate nothing. This may be only the effect of the shock, but his head is burning, and there is a disposition to wander. However, he has had hiscoup de grâce, and that may account for it. It is Cecil.”
“Cecil!”
“Cecil, poor child. She has been constantly in that pestiferous place. All Worth would say was that she must be kept quiet and cool, but he has sent the same draughts for all three. I saw, for Terry’s came here. I fancy Worth spoke out plainly to that maid of Cecil’s, Grindstone; but she only looks bitter at me, says she can attend to her mistress, and has kept me out of the room all day. But I will go in to-night before I go to bed,” added Raymond, energetically. “You are ready to laugh at me, Julius. No one has meddled between you and Rosamond.”
“Thank God, no!” cried Julius.
“Friend abroad, or you may leave out ther,” said Raymond, “maid at home. What chance have I ever had?”
“I’ll tell you what I should do, Raymond,” said Julius, “turn out the maid, keep the field, nurse her myself.”
“Yes,” said Raymond, “that’s all very well if—if you haven’t got the fever yourself. There, you need say nothing about it, nobody would be of any use to me to-night, and it may be only that I am dead beat.”
But there was something about his eyes and his heavy breath which confirmed his words, and Julius could only say, “My dear Raymond!”
“It serves us right, does not it?” said his brother, smiling. “I only wish it had not fixed on the one person who tried to do good.”
“If I could only stay with you; but I must tell Rosamond first.”
“No, indeed. I want no one to-night, no one; after that you’ll look after my mother, that’s the great thing.” He spoke steadily, but his hand trembled so that he could not light his candle, and Julius was obliged to do it, saying wistfully, “I’ll come up the first thing in the morning and see how you are.”
“Do, and if there is need, you will tell my mother. A night’s rest may set me right, but I have not felt well these three or four days—I shall be in my own old room.”
He leant heavily on the balusters, but would not take his brother’s arm. He passed into his dressing-room, and thus to the open door of the room where he heard his wife’s voice; and as Mrs. Grindstone came forward to warn him off, he said, “She is awake.”
“Yes, sir; but she must not be excited.”
“Raymond!”
“How are you now?” he asked, coming up to the bed.
“Oh! it is very hot and heavy,” said Cecil wearily, putting her hand into his; “I’m aching all over.”
“Poor child!” he said softly.
She lifted her eyes to his face. “I wanted to tell you all day,” she said. “Didn’t you come to the door?”
“Many times, my dear.”
“And now! oh dear! I don’t recollect. Don’t go, please.”
He sat down by her; she held his hand and dozed again.
“You had best leave her now, sir,” said the maid; “she will only go on in this way, and I can tend her.”
He would have given a great deal to have been sure that he could hold up his head ten minutes longer and to venture to send the woman away. Cecil muttered “Stay,” and he sat on till her sleep seemed deeper, and he felt as if a few moments more might disable him from crossing the room, but his first movement again made her say “Don’t.”
“Mr. Poynsett cannot stay, ma’am,” said Grindstone, in a persuasive tone. “He is very tired, and not well, and you would not wish to keep him.”
“Give me a kiss,” she said, like a tired child. It was not like the shy embrace with which they had sometimes met and parted, but he knew he must not rouse her, and only said very low, “Good night, my poor dear; God bless you, and grant us a happy meeting, whenever it is.”
Tears were flowing down his cheeks when Julius presently came to him again, and only left him when settled for the night.
The Water Lane Fever. People called it so, as blinking its real name, but it was not the less true that it was a very pestilence in the lower parts of Wil’sbro’; and was prostrating its victims far and wide among the gentry who had resorted to the town-hall within the last few weeks.
Cases had long been smouldering among the poor and the workmen employed, and several of these were terminating fatally just as the outbreak was becoming decisive.
On Monday morning Julius returned from visits to his brothers to find a piteous note from Mrs. Fuller entreating him to undertake two funerals. Her husband had broken down on Sunday morning and was very ill, and Mr. Driver had merely read the services and then joined his pupils, whom he had sent away to the sea-side. He had never been responsible for pastoral care, and in justice to them could not undertake it now. “Those streets are in a dreadful state,” wrote the poor lady, “several people dying; and there is such a panic in the neighbourhood that we know not where to turn for help. If you could fix an hour we would let the people know. The doctor insists on the funerals being immediate.”
Julius was standing in the porch reading this letter, and thinking what hour he could best spare from nearer claims, when he heard the gate swing and beheld his junior curate with a very subdued and sobered face, asking, “Is it true?”
“That the fever is here? Yes, it is.”
“And very bad?”
“Poor Frank is our worst case as yet. He is constantly delirious. The others are generally sensible, except that Terry is dreadfully haunted with mathematics.”
“Then it is all true about the Hall. Any one else ill?”
“Only the two Willses. They were carousing at the ‘Three Pigeons.’ I hope that Raymond’s prohibition against that place may have been the saving of the Hall servants. See here,” and he gave the note.
“I had better take those two funerals. I can at least do that,” said Herbert. “That Driver must be a regular case of a hireling.”
“He never professed that the sheep were his,” said Julius.
“Then I’ll go to the Vicarage and get a list of the sick, and see after them as far as I can,” said Herbert, in a grave, humble tone, showing better than a thousand words how he felt the deprivation he had brought on himself; and as to shame or self-consciousness, the need had swallowed them all.
“It will be a great act of kindness, Herbert. The point of infection does not seem clear yet, but I am afraid it will be a serious outbreak.”
“I did not believe it could all be true when the report came to Rood House, but of course I came to hear the truth and see what I could do. How is Mrs. Poynsett bearing up?”
“Bravely. Anne contrived our carrying her up-stairs, and it is the greatest comfort to Raymond to lie and look at her, and Susan looks after them both.”
“Then he can’t be so very ill.”
“Not so acutely, but there are symptoms that make Worth anxious. Shall I give you a note for Mrs. Fuller?”
“Do, and put me at your disposal for all you can spare for, or I can do. Have you written to Bindon?”
“I don’t know where, within some hundred miles. But, Herbert, I think we ought to undertake the help that is wanted at Wil’sbro’. Smith of Duddingstone is too weakly, and poor old Mr. Moulden neither could nor would. We are the nearest, and having it here already, do not run the risk of spreading it. As things are, I cannot be very long away from home, but I would come in for an hour or so every day, if you could do the rest.”
“Yes, that was what I meant,” said Herbert.
“Worth says the best protection is never to go among the sick hungry or exhausted. He says he keeps a biscuit in his pocket to eat before going into a sick house. I shall make Rosamond keep you supplied, and you must promise to use them.”
“Oh yes, I promise.”
“And never drink anything there. There is to be a public meeting to-morrow, to see whether the cause of this outbreak is not traceable to the water down there.”
“Mrs. Duncombe’s meddling?”
“Don’t judge without evidence. But it does seem as if the water at the well at Pettitt’s houses had done much of the harm. Terry was drinking it all that hot day, and to-day we hear that Lady Tyrrell and two of the servants are ill, besides poor little Joe Reynolds.”
“It is very terrible,” said Herbert. “Lady Tyrrell, did you say?”
“Yes. She was there constantly, like Raymond’s wife. Happily there is not much fear for your people, Herbert. Your father was at the dinner, but he is not a water drinker, and Jenny only just came to the bazaar, that was all. Edith happily gave up the ball.”
“I know,” said Herbert, colouring. “Jenny persuaded her to give it up because of—me. Oh, how I have served them all!”
“I told Jenny that perhaps her Ember prayers had been met in the true way.”
“Yes,” said Herbert. “I can’t understand now how I could have been such an audacious fool as to present myself so coolly after the year I had spent. God forgive me for it! Rector, thank you for leaving me at Rood House. It was like having one’s eyes opened to a new life. I say, do you know anything about Harry Hornblower? Is he come home?”
“Yes. You wouldn’t prosecute?”
“Happily I couldn’t. The things were gone and could not be identified, and there was nothing about him. So, though they had me over to Backsworth, they could not fall foul of me for refusing to prosecute. Have you seen him?”
“No, I tried, but he had got out of my way. You’ve not been there?” seeing that Herbert had brought back his bag.
“No; I will not till I come back;” and as he took the note he added, “Rector, I do beg your pardon with all my might.” Then, after a strong clasp of the hand, he sped away with a long, manful, energetic stride, which made Julius contrast his volunteer courage with the flight of the man who, if not pledged to pastoral care at Wil’sbro’, still had priestly vows upon him.
Julius had no scruples about risking this favourite home child. If he thought about it at all, it was to rejoice that Mrs. Bowater was safely gone, for he had passed unscathed through scenes at St. Awdry’s that would have made his mother tremble, and he had little fear of contagion, with reasonable care. Of course the doctors had the usual debate whether the fever were infectious or epidemic, but it made little difference. The local ones, as well as an authority from London, had an inspection previous to the meeting, which took place in the school, whose scholars were dispersed in the panic. No ladies were admitted. “We have had enough of them,” quoted Worshipful Mayor Truelove. Mr. Briggs, the ex-mayor, was at the bedside of his son, and there were hardly enough present to make decisions.
The focus of the disease was in Pettitt’s well. The water, though cold, clear, and sparkling, was affected by noxious gases from the drains, and had become little better than poison; the air was not much better, and as several neighbouring houses, some swarming with lodgers, used this water, the evil was accounted for. The ‘Three Pigeons’ had been an attraction to the servants waiting with their ladies’ carriages during the entertainments, and though they had not meddled much with the simple element, spirits had not neutralized the mischief. Thence too had come water for the tea and iced beverages used at the bazaar and ball. Odours there had been in plenty from the untouched drainage of the other houses, and these, no doubt, enhanced the evil; but every one agreed that the bad management of the drains on Mr. Pettitt’s property had been the main agency in the present outbreak.
The poor little perfumer had tears of grief and indignation in his eyes, but he defended his cause and shielded the ladies with chivalry worthy of his French ancestry. He said he had striven to do his duty as a proprietor, and if other gentlemen had done the same, and the channels could have had a free outlet, this misfortune would never have occurred. He found himself backed up by Mr. Julius Charnock, who rose to declare that what Mr. Pettitt had said was just what his brother, Mr. Charnock Poynsett, had desired should be stated as his own opinion, namely, that the responsibility rested, not with those who had done all within their power or knowledge for the welfare of their tenants, but with those whose indifference on the score of health had led them to neglect all sanitary measures.
“He desires me to say,” added Julius, “that being concerned both in the neglect and in the unfortunate consequences, he is desirous to impress his opinion on all concerned.”
Future prevention was no longer in the hands of the Town Council, for a sanitary commission would take that in hand; but in the meantime it was a time of plague and sickness, and measures must be taken for the general relief. Mr. Moy, to whom most of the houses belonged, was inquired for; but it appeared that he had carried off his wife and daughter on Saturday in terror when one of his servants had fallen ill, and even his clerks would not know where to write to him till he should telegraph. The man Gadley was meantime driving an active trade at the ‘Three Pigeons,’ whither the poor, possessed with the notion that spirits kept out the infection, were resorting more than ever, and he set at defiance all the preventives which doctors, overseer, and relieving officer were trying to enforce, with sullen oaths against interference.
Two deaths yesterday, one to-day, three hourly apprehended; doctors incessantly occupied, nurses, however unfit, not to be procured by any exertion of the half-maddened relieving-officer; bread-winners prostrated; food, wine, bedding, everything lacking. Such was the state of things around the new town-hall of Wil’sbro’, and the gentry around were absorbed by cases of the same epidemic in their own families.
To telegraph for nurses from a hospital, to set on foot a subscription, appoint a committee of management, and name a treasurer and dispenser of supplies, were the most urgent steps. Julius suggested applying to a Nursing Sisterhood, but Mr. Truelove, without imputing any motives to the reverend gentleman, was unwilling to insert the thin end of the wedge; so the telegram was sent to a London Hospital, and Mr. Whitlock, the mayor-elect, undertook to be treasurer, and to print and circulate an appeal for supplies of all sorts. Those present resolved themselves into a committee, and consulted about a fever hospital, since people could hardly be expected to recover in the present condition of Water Lane; but nothing was at present ready, and the question was adjourned to the next day. As Julius parted with Mr. Whitlock he met Herbert Bowater returning from the cemetery in search of him, with tidings of some cases where he was especially needed. As they walked on together Mrs. Duncombe overtook them with a basket on her arm. She held out her hand with an imploring gesture.
“Mr. Charnock, it can’t be true, can it?—they only say so out of ignorance—that it was Pettitt’s well, I mean?”
In a few words Julius made it clear what the evil had been and how it arose.
She did not dispute it, she merely grew sallower and said:
“God forgive us! We did it for the best. I planned. I never thought of that. Oh!”
“My brother insists that the mischief came of not following the example you set.”
“And Cecil!”
“Cecil is too much stupefied to know anything about it.”
“You are helping here? Make me all the use you can. Whatever has to be done give it to me.”
“Nay, you have your family to consider.”
“My boys are at their grandmother’s. My husband is gone abroad. Give me work. I have brought some wine. Who needs it most?”
“Wine?” said Herbert. “Here? I was going back for some, but half an hour may make all the difference to the poor lad in here.”
Mrs. Duncombe was within the door in a moment.
“There has been an execution in her house,” said Herbert, as they went home. “That fellow went off on Saturday, and left her alone to face it.”
“I thought she had striven to keep out of debt.”
“What can a woman do when a man chooses to borrow? That horse brought them to more unexpected smash. They say that after the ball, where she appeared in all her glory, as if nothing had happened, she made Bob give her a schedule of his debts, packed his portmanteau, sent him off to find some cheap hole abroad, and stayed to pick up the pieces after the wreck.”
“She is a brave woman,” said Julius.
Therewith they plunged into the abodes of misery, where the only other helper at present was good old Miss Slater, who was going from one to another, trying to show helpless women how to nurse, but able only to contribute infinitesimal grains of aid or comfort at immense cost to herself. Julius insisted on taking home with him his curate, who had been at work from ten o’clock that morning till six, when as Julius resigned the pony’s reins to him, he begged that they might go round and inquire at Sirenwood, to which consent was the more willingly given because poor Frank’s few gleams of consciousness were spent in sending his indefatigable nurse Anne to ask whether his mother had ‘had that letter,’ and in his delirium he was always feeling his watch-chain for that unhappy pebble, and moaning when he missed it. Mrs. Poynsett’s letter had gone on Friday, and still there was no answer, and this was a vexation, adding to the fear that the poor fellow’s rejection had been final. Yet she might have missed the letter by being summoned home. Close to the lodge, they overtook Sir Harry, riding dejectedly homewards, and, glad to be saved going up to the house, they stopped and inquired for Lady Tyrrell.
“Very low and oppressed,” he said. “M’Vie does not give us reason to expect a change just yet. Do they tell you the same? Worth attends you, I think?”
“He seems to think it must run on for at least three weeks,” said Julius.
“You’ve been to the meeting, eh? Was it that well of Pettitt’s? Really that meddling wife of Duncombe’s ought to be prosecuted. I hope she’ll catch the fever and be served out.”
“She tried to prevent it,” said Julius.
“Pshaw! women have no business with such things, they only put their foot in it. Nobody used to trouble themselves about drains, and one never heard of fevers.”
Instead of contesting the point, Julius asked whether Miss Vivian were at home.
“No; that’s the odd thing. I wrote, for M’Vie has no fear of infection, and poor Camilla is always calling for her, and that French maid has thought proper to fall ill, and we don’t know what to do. Upper housemaid cut and run in a panic, cook dead drunk last night, not a servant in the house to be trusted. If it were not for my man Victor I don’t know where I should be. Very odd what that child is about. Lady Susan can’t be keeping it from her. Unjustifiable!”
“She is with Lady Susan Strangeways?”
“Yes. Went with Bee and Conny. I was glad, for we can’t afford to despise a good match, though Iwassorry for your brother.”
“Do I understand you that she is engaged to Mr. Strangeways?”
“No, no; not yet. One always hears those things before they are true, and you see they are keeping her from us as if she belonged to them already. I call it unfeeling! I have just been to the post to see if there’s a letter! Can’t be anything wrong in the address,—Revelrig, Cleveland, Yorkshire.”
“Why don’t you telegraph?”
“I shall, if I don’t hear to-morrow morning.”
But the morning’s telegrams were baffling. None came in answer to Sir Harry, though he had bidden his daughter to telegraph back instantly; and two hospitals replied that they had no nurses to spare! This was the first thing Julius heard when he came to the committee-room. The second was that the only parish nurse had been found asleep under the influence of the port-wine intended for her patients, the third that there were five more deaths, one being Mrs. Gadley, of the ‘Three Pigeons,’ from diphtheria, and fourteen more cases of fever were reported. Julius had already been with the schoolmistress, who was not expected to live through the day. He had found that Mrs. Duncombe had been up all night with one of the most miserable families, and only when her unpractised hands had cared for a little corpse, had been forced home by good Miss Slater for a little rest. He had also seen poor Mr. Fuller, who was too weak and wretched to say anything more than ‘God help us, Charnock: you will do what you can;’ and when Julius asked for his sanction to sending for Sisters, he answered, “Anything, anything.”
The few members who had come to the committee were reduced to the same despairing consent, and Julius was allowed to despatch a telegram to St. Faith’s, which had sent Sisters in the emergency at St. Awdry’s. He likewise brought an offer, suggested by Raymond, of a great old tithe barn, his own property, but always rented by Mrs. Poynsett, in a solitary field, where the uninfected children might be placed under good care, and the houses in Water Lane thus relieved. As to a fever hospital, Raymond had sent his advice to use the new town-hall itself. A word from him went a great way just then with the Town Council, and the doctors were delighted with the proposal.
Funds and contributions of bedding, clothing, food and wine were coming in, but hands were the difficulty. The adaptations of the town-hall and the bringing in of beds were done by one strong carpenter and Mrs. Duncombe’s man Alexander, whom she had brought with her, and who proved an excellent orderly; and the few who would consent, or did not resist occupying the beds there, were carried in by Herbert Bowater and a strapping young doctor who had come down for this fever pasture. There Mrs. Duncombe and Miss Slater received them. No other volunteer had come to light willing to plunge into this perilous and disgusting abyss of misery; and among the afflicted families the power of nursing was indeed small.
However, the healthy children were carried away without much resistance, and established in the great barn under a trustworthy widow; and before night, two effective-looking Sisters were in charge at the hospital.
Still, however, no telegram, no letter, came from Eleonora Vivian. Mr. M’Vie had found a nurse for Lady Tyrrell, but old Sir Harry rode in to meet every delivery of the post, and was half distracted at finding nothing from her; and Frank’s murmurs of her name were most piteous to those who feared that, if he were ever clearly conscious again, it would only be to know how heavy had been the meed of his folly.