"Now come along upstairs with me. You are going to bed. I want to turn
you out a first-class Candidate in the morning--not a boiled owl."
His cheery masterfulness had its effect, and I suddenly felt a man
again.
"Never fear!" I said. "I shall go through with it right enough--the
whole business--unless--unless--Robin, old man, supposing--supposing----"
"Blethers!" said Robin hastily. "She'll be much better in the morning.
Here's your room. Good-night!"
He shepherded me into my bedroom, shut the door on me, and tiptoed away.
I really made a determined effort to go to bed. I actually lay down and
covered myself up, but sleep I could not. After an hour of conscientious
endeavour I rose, inspired with a new idea.
The doctor had straitly forbidden me to enter Phillis's room; but
opening out of it was the apartment that was used as her nursery. There
would be a fire there: I would spend the rest of the night on a sofa in
front of it.
I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. I took a candle, walked softly
down the passage, and let myself quietly into the nursery. The door
leading into Phillis's room was ajar, and a slight smell of some drug or
disinfectant assailed my sharpened senses.
The room was in darkness, except that a good fire burned in the grate. A
silent figure rose up from before it at my entrance.
It was Robin. Somehow I was not in the least surprised to see him there.
"Come along," he said softly. "I was expecting you."
* * * * *
We sat there for the rest of the long night. The house was very still,
but every quarter of an hour the Cathedral chimes across the Close--our
rooms lay in a quiet wing of the hotel, which formed a hollow square
with the Cathedral, Chapter-house, and Canonries--furnished a musical
break in the silence. So tensely mechanical does one's brain become
under such circumstances, that presently I found myself anticipating the
exact moment when the next quarter would strike; and I remember feeling
quite disappointed and irritable if, when I said to myself _"Now!"_ the
chime did not ring out for another fifteen seconds or so. Truly, at
three o'clock on a sleepless morning the grasshopper is a burden.
Once Robin rose softly to his feet and turned towards the door of
Phillis's room. I had not heard any one move there, but when I looked
round Dolly was standing on the threshold. She was wrapped in a
kimono,--I remember its exact colour and pattern to this day, and the
curious manner in which the heraldic-looking animals embroidered upon it
winked at me in the firelight,--and she held an incongruous-looking
coal-scuttle in her hand. It was not by any means empty, but she handed
it to Robin with a little nod of authority and vanished again.
I looked listlessly at Robin, wondering what he was to do with the
coal-scuttle. He began to cut a newspaper into strips, after which he
picked suitable lumps of coal out of the scuttle and tied them up into
neat little paper packets, half a dozen of which he presently handed
through the door to Dolly. I suppose she placed them noiselessly on the
fire in Phillis's room, but we heard no sound.
It was a bitterly cold night, and outside the snow was lying thick; so
Robin busied himself with preparing other little packets of coal, and at
intervals throughout the long night he passed them through the door to
the tireless Dolly.
Various sounds came from within. Occasionally the child suffered spasms
of pain, and we could hear her crying. Then all-wise Nature would grant
the sorely tried little body a rest at the expense of the mind that
ruled it, and poor Phillis would drop into a sort of rambling delirium,
through which we perforce accompanied her. At one time she would be
wandering through some Elysian field of her own; we heard her calling
her mates and proposing all manner of attractive games. (Even
"Beckoning" was included. Once I distinctly heard her "choose" me.) But
more often she was in deadly fear. Her solitary little spirit was too
plainly beset by those nameless ghosts that haunt the borderland
separating the realms of Death from those of his brother Sleep. Once her
voice rose to a scream.
"Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's coming--it's breaving on
me! Uncle _Robin_! oh----!"
I looked at Robin. He was sitting gripping the arms of his chair, with
every muscle in his body rigid; and I knew that he, like myself, was
praying God to strike down the cowardly devil that would torment a
child.
Then I heard, for the first time that night, the soothing murmur of
Kitty's voice.
"It's all right, dearie. Mother is holding you fast. It shan't hurt you.
There, it's running away now, isn't it? See!"
Kitty's tones would have lightened the torments of the Pit, and
Phillis's cries presently died down to an uneasy whisper. After a sudden
and curiously pathetic little outburst of singing,--chiefly a jumble of
scraps from such old favourites as "Onward, Christian _Sailors_!"--there
was silence again, and the Cathedral chimed out half-past four.
Shortly after this the doctor came out of the room with a message from
Kitty that I ought to be in bed. Evidently Dolly had told her about me.
"How is she now, doctor?" I whispered, disregarding the command.
"Up and down, up and down. She is making a brave fight of it, poor
lassie, but we can do little at present except stand by and give relief
when the bad fits come."
"May I go in and see her?"
"No, no! You could do no good, and she might be frightened if she caught
sight of a large dim figure in the dark. Leave it to the women, and
thank God for them. Hark!"
Phillis was back in Elysium again.
"Who's been eating my porridge?" said a gruff little voice. Then came a
rapturous shriek. Evidently the Little Bear had caught Curly Locks in
his bed. We sat listening, while the game ended and another followed in
its place. Suddenly she began to sing again--
"Then three times round went that gallant ship,
And three times round went she;
Then three times round went that gallant ship,
And--sank--to the--bottom of the sea--ea--ee--"
There was a little wailing _rallentando_, and silence.
"Philly, Philly, _don't_!" It was the only time that night that Kitty
gave any sign of breaking down. The doctor hurried back into the room.
The clock struck five.
* * * * *
After that there was a very long silence. It must have lasted nearly an
hour. Then Dolly tiptoed out to us.
"She's asleep," she whispered. "He says she's a shade better. I want
another coal-packet."
She took what Robin gave her, and faded away.
After that I think we dozed in our chairs. The next thing I remember was
a knock at the outer door. I opened my heavy eyes and stirred my stiff
joints. The Boots put his head in, and I realised it was daylight.
"Half-past eight, sir. Mr Cash is waiting downstairs. Poll's been open
half an hour, he says."