BAD NEWS.
The next day was Sunday, and all the party went to church together in
the open carriage. Alice, in a lovely white bonnet, a mass of ostrich
feathers, sat opposite to Geoffrey, who, after carefully inspecting
her, patronisingly remarked:
“That is a most touching construction on your head, Alice, and _not_
unbecoming. Have yourself painted for the next Academy, ‘Lady in a
Bonnet.’”
“How ridiculous! Fancy _me_ in the Royal Academy!”
“Why not? Are you above it, like the old lady who said ‘she would not
mind being painted for the Academy, but would wait till she went to
Rome and have herself done by one of _the old masters_.’”
“I believe you spend your time making up these stories, Geoffrey. Here
we are--now hand me down nicely; don’t haul me out as you generally do.”
“You want to show off your new boots; I know your vanity,” he retorted
as he sprang out.
The church being central was fuller than most country churches, and
attended by many of the county families. As the Monkswood party walked
up the aisle every eye was turned on them with unconcealed curiosity.
With Lady Fairfax’s appearance all were familiar, but which of these
two young men was the roving husband? “The elder of the two, of
course; he was dark and bronzed, and looked like a soldier; the other
was a youth.” N.B.--Geoffrey, although three-and-twenty, looked about
nineteen.
The Fairfaxes formed a topic of discourse at many a luncheon-table that
day.
“Did you see Lady Fairfax in church, and her husband?” said one young
lady.
“How do you know which was her husband, or if he was there at all?”
replied her mother, who, with bonnet-strings thrown back, was making an
ample meal. “I don’t believe he has come back one bit.”
“Oh, but he has,” persisted her daughter; “their coachman told Brown;
he arrived last Monday, and that was him sitting next the door.”
“Pray how do you know?”
“Because he found the hymns for her, and gave her a hassock.”
“Weighty reasons certainly. It is much more likely, from what you
say, that he is _not_ her husband. You never see your father finding
my place or giving me a footstool,” returned the old lady, as she
tossed off a glass of sherry and looked round as much as to say, “This
argument is a clincher.”
“Well, but when the offertory-bag came round I saw her get very red,
as if she had forgotten her purse, and he slipped a sovereign into her
hand.”
“And that’s conclusive, you think?” said her mother.
“Pray may I inquire how you saw all this byplay?” asked her brother.
“I was sitting right behind them, and made good use of my eyes, as
usual--that’s all.”
“Well,” responded the youth, pushing away his plate, “I don’t care who
he is, but I should like to know who his tailor is. He was uncommonly
well got up. I never saw a better-built coat,” he added with fervour.
“I expect the block had something to say to it. It might not look
so well on shoulders like a champagne-bottle,” returned his sister,
looking at him amiably.
Leaving them to the impending battle, we return to Monkswood, and find
our friends also at luncheon.
“What disgraceful singing! I never heard a less unanimous choir;
everyone for himself it seemed to me, time and tune being quite beneath
notice,” remarked Geoffrey.
“It is splendid to what it used to be when I was a boy,” replied Sir
Reginald; “we had a kind of orchestra composed of a fiddle and a flute.”
“Did any of you see me?” asked Alice, appealing to the company. “Every
time I knelt down and leant forward the jet fringe on the jacket of the
lady in front, who would sit bolt upright, became entangled in the
feathers of my bonnet. At one time it threatened to be quite serious. I
was afraid I should have had to have slipped off my bonnet and left it
behind.”
“No, I did not remark you,” responded Geoffrey. “But did you see the
old buffer with the white waistcoat exactly under the pulpit? Miss
Ferrars has taken such a fancy to him. She never took her eyes off him,
and whispered to me during the sermon, ‘That she would rather be an old
man’s darling than a young man’s slave.’”
“Mr. Saville, how can you?”
“_He_ might not suit,” pursued Geoffrey unabashed, “but I’ll look
out for another old gentleman for you, very old, very infirm, and
very rich--the most tender and assiduous care during his lifetime
guaranteed, _n’est-ce pas_?”
“I have no intention of marrying at present, many thanks for your kind
offer.”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” returned Geoffrey calmly. “I myself am
inclined to agree with the Frenchman who said, ‘Three weeks’ paradise,
thirty years’ war!’ Married people always fight either quietly at home,
which is the most _deadly_, or publicly, which is the most amusing.”
“Really, Geoffrey,” said Miss Saville, “with two married people present
it is hardly polite to air such opinions.”
“Oh,” replied this incorrigible young man, looking mischievously at
Alice, “if the cap does not fit them they need not put it on.”
“Have some claret, Alice?” interrupted her husband, seeing that
Geoffrey was in a teasing humour.
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, but you will have to take it, my dear girl,” said her aunt; “you
know you were ordered it.”
“Was she?” exclaimed Sir Reginald, pouring out a glass and gently
pushing it towards her.
“Oh, but I really cannot drink it. I hate it!” she urged.
“Then have some on your handkerchief,” said Geoffrey soothingly; “like
the man who became a teetotaller after indulging for years, and being
asked to take some _real_ ‘mountain dew,’ reluctantly declined, but
said, ‘Give me a drop on my handkerchief, it will do me good to _smell_
it.’”
“Hold out your handkerchief; it will be all the same as if you
swallowed it.”
“Geoffrey, I declare I think you are quite off your head at times; is
he not, Mary?--or is it his Irish proclivities breaking out?” said
Alice, waving away Geoffrey and the claret-jug.
“Don’t _you_ talk about Irish proclivities, ma’am; you have a strong
suspicion of the blarney-stone yourself, and Irish eyes, and a real
Irish temper.”
“Geoffrey, how _can_ you say so?”
“Very easily. I often see you blarneying and wheedling that child of
yours as only an Irishwoman can. I suppose you don’t say, ‘Ah, won’t
you now, just to please mother?’ and you coaxed and talked me out of
that photo of----”
“Geoffrey, I declare, if you say another word, I’ll never be friends
with you again!” exclaimed Alice, half rising.
“Oh, all right, I’m dumb; but you _did_, you know; and I maintain that
your Irishisms are as thick as the leaves in Vallambrosa. Why should
the leaves be thicker _there_ than anywhere else?” said he, standing
up and looking round. “Can anyone tell me? I thought not. Well, I’m
off, not to study the leaves, but the _fruit_ in the garden.”
* * * * *
On Sunday evening, just as Alice was about to step into bed, and Mary
was already sound asleep, the nurse came in to say, “Master Maurice
is very bad with croup, and such a time to have it, too--not a drop
of ipecacuanha in the house since Mary the housemaid broke the bottle
last week.” To hurry on her dressing-gown and run up to the nursery
took Alice less than two minutes. Maurice lay gasping in his cot. He
was very ill indeed, as the nurse had said. He had never had such a bad
attack before. His plaintive eyes, his poor little hot clasping hands,
his struggles for breath, drove Alice nearly wild.
The nurse said, “I can’t leave the child, ma’am. Will you go down and
rouse Sir Reginald or Master Geoffrey, and send off for the doctor at
once?”
Alice flew down the passage, and had gone some distance before she
suddenly remembered that she did not know which was her husband’s
room, and he must be called up in preference to Geoffrey. She knew it
was in the old wing, and that no one but himself slept there. Opening
the swing-door into the dark carpetless corridor, she tried the first
room. Silence. She opened the door--all was dark and still; in the next
equal blackness and stillness; at the third, her patience exhausted,
she dispensed with a knock, turned the handle, and all but fell down
the steps into a lighted room, large, low, and old-fashioned, bare
of curtains and all luxuries. A small iron bed, some obsolete chairs
and tables, a huge bookcase, and a couple of cabinets containing
birds’-nests and fossils, were ranged round the walls. Her husband was
standing in the middle of the room with his coat off, winding up his
watch. Shutting it with a sharp click, he viewed the apparition on the
doorstep with unmeasured astonishment. His wife’s white frightened face
told him that something was amiss, as she stood before him pale and
distracted.
“What is the matter?” he cried. “Robbers! or is the house on fire?”
“Maurice is very ill. I want you to rouse up the men and send for the
doctor.”
“Very well,” he replied, resuming his coat and taking up his candle.
“I’ll have a look at him first; perhaps he is not as bad as you
imagine.”
He followed Alice to the nursery; and when he saw the state of the
case he looked very grave indeed.
“Shall I go for the doctor myself, Alice?” he asked.
“No, sir, _do not_,” interposed the nurse significantly. “You had much
better stay here.”
Whilst he was below giving directions, Alice and the nurse administered
a steaming hot bath to Maurice; but it was of no avail, his breathing
was as laboured as ever. The nurse going downstairs, on an errand, met
her master returning.
“Well, is he better?” he asked eagerly.
“No, sir; but worse! How long will it be before the doctor comes?”
“An hour, at the least,” replied Sir Reginald.
“An hour’s the very most he will last, poor lamb.”
“Is he so very bad as all _that_?” inquired her master, turning deadly
pale.
“Very bad. He could not be worse! Will you please to stay with my lady
whilst I am away--if anything do happen to the child, she’ll go clean
out of her mind, for certain--it’s a terrible pity Mrs. Mayhew is away,
and Miss Saville is no more use than a child herself.”
“Shall I have her called? Surely she has some experience.”
“No, sir; the fewer people in the nursery the better; and I’m afraid
that all the experience in the country could not save the child
_now_--he’s desperate bad.” So saying, this Job’s comforter continued
her way downstairs, leaving Sir Reginald to take her place with his
wife. He stood for a moment to collect his thoughts, and then quickly
ascended to the nursery, where he found the child on Alice’s lap,
fighting and gasping for breath--a most heartrending sight. His mother,
perfectly collected so far, but as white as marble, was soothing him
with such soft endearments and caresses as only a mother knows.
When her husband entered, she raised her sweet pathetic eyes to his, as
if in mute entreaty for help for her child.
“I wish I knew something to suggest, Alice,” he said, coming over to
the table, near which she was sitting; “I am a capital nurse if it were
typhoid fever or broken bones; but I know nothing about children. There
is an old book on household medicine in the library, we might find some
hints in it. Shall I fetch it?”
“Do, and don’t be long,” she answered.
In a few minutes he had returned with the book, over which they pored
together--the barrier between them was completely broken down for
the time being by this common anxiety. Alice found herself ordering
him hither and thither as if he were Geoffrey. None of the remedies
suggested were of any use, as there was no medicine-chest in the house,
and a mustard plaster and hot bath had been already tried in vain.
Reginald lifted the child from Alice’s arms and laid him in his bed,
saying that he would have more air.
Presently the nurse returned, and, standing at the foot of the cot,
surveyed the little patient critically. Whilst Alice was bending over
him, she approached her master and whispered in his ear:
“It is all over with him; another fit like the last and he will choke;
he can’t live above a quarter of an hour.”
“In that case you had better leave me alone with Lady Fairfax; but
bring the doctor the instant he comes.”
“But I’d better stay, sir; I had, indeed.”
“No--no,” he returned impatiently, “go--go at once. You can be of no
use here.”
This whispered conversation was unnoticed by Alice, who was bending
over Maurice, fanning him. With watch in hand, Sir Reginald stood at
one side of the child, whilst his wife knelt at the other. Maurice
seemed weaker and weaker.
Alice looked at her husband and read in his face that he shared her
worst fears. Her child was dying. She leant over her boy in an agony of
tearless grief.
“Oh, my darling Maurice!” she cried almost frantically, “don’t die,
don’t leave me! you are all I have in the world!” looking at him with
distracted eyes and wringing her small thin hands. “If you are taken I
will go with you. I won’t, no, I won’t live without you!”
“Alice, Alice!” remonstrated her husband; “think of what you are
saying.”
Suddenly rising, she took the child up in her arms and carried him to
the window.
“At least he shall die in my arms,” she said. “Yes, he shall!” she
exclaimed excitedly.
“But he is not dying now,” said Sir Reginald. “Give him to me for a
little; he is much too heavy for you. Remember, whilst there’s life
there’s hope.”
“No--no--no! Do not take him from me for the little time he may be
left. Oh, my own darling, how you are suffering! If I could only bear
it for you; if I might only die in your stead!” she moaned, rocking
the boy in her arms. “How glad I am that they say I am so weak and
delicate; I will soon follow you, my treasure.”
Sir Reginald, leaning against the window-shutter, listened to his
half-distracted wife in silence.
“I know you think that I am wicked, that I am insane,” continued Alice;
“but if he dies I will die too; it will kill me.” And she turned on him
a look akin to madness and despair.
“Alice, am I nothing to you, then?”
“You! You are only the shadow of my husband. No; you are nothing to
me; you said so yourself,” she murmured as she kissed her boy’s hands
convulsively.
“I know that I am nothing to you but the shadow of a husband. Deeply as
you have injured me, what else could I be? But consider me now--for the
next few hours at least--the husband I _would_ have been to you, and
let me comfort you, my dearest. If your child is taken, who can share
your grief like me--his father? and if he is spared--as I sincerely
trust he will be--who can so deeply feel the happiness of having him
restored? His pulse is still pretty strong,” he added, taking the
child’s little hand in his. “The doctor will be here in five minutes.
Do not give up all hope yet, my poor Alice.”
“Oh Reginald,” she said gratefully, “you have lifted a little of the
load off my heart; you have comforted me already.”
At this instant the door opened, and the doctor and nurse came into the
room; the former bustled over to the side of Maurice’s cot.
“Ah-h!” said he. He always prefaced his remarks with a long breath, as
if he had just swallowed something delicious. “I’m in time, after all,
I see! Bring him here to the table, Lady Fairfax, and I’ll give him a
dose that will cure him in no time. Don’t look so frightened, my dear
young lady.”
White as her dressing-gown, her long hair hanging in a thick loose
plait far below her waist, she rose and gave her boy into the doctor’s
hands. He administered a remedy that had an almost instantaneous
effect, and, within a quarter of an hour, Maurice lay in his little cot
sound asleep.
The doctor, an elderly, eccentric, and extremely clever man, after
staring at Sir Reginald for some seconds, said brusquely:
“And who is this young gentleman who has dropped the medicine so
accurately and been so useful?”
“He is my husband, Dr. Barton.”
“Ah-h! I thought so, from the likeness to the boy; but you told me your
husband was in India! By what conjuring trick is he here to-night?”
“No conjuring trick beyond a medical board,” replied Sir Reginald
coolly.
“Ah-h! Well, as you _are_ here, Sir Reginald, I want to speak to you.
The child is all right, there is not the slightest fear of him--a
bad attack of croup; but I’ve pulled children through worse often.
That idiot of a nurse, to swell her own importance, seems to have
frightened Lady Fairfax nearly into fits. I never thought much of that
nurse--never; I often told you so,” nodding solemnly at Alice. “Well,
we may as well go downstairs, Sir Reginald. Good-night, Lady Fairfax;
good-night, and go to bed.”
Together they descended to the library. The doctor, having usurped the
rug and refreshed himself with some spirits and water, said abruptly:
“I want particularly to speak to you, Sir Reginald, now you _are_ here,
about your wife. The boy is all right, he will live to plague you for
many a year; he is as strong as a pony; there’s no fear of _him_.”
“Do you mean,” said Sir Reginald, fixing on him an eye piercing as an
eagle’s, “that there _is_ fear of my wife?”
“I do,” he replied emphatically, “and I think it my duty to tell you
so, now you _are_ here. That you set off to India and left a delicate
girl of seventeen moping here alone is your concern, of course!”
“Of course,” repeated his host, reddening with anger.
Dr. Barton eyed the young man standing before him with a resentful
glance from under his bushy, luxuriant, gray eyebrows.
“He looks overbearing, harsh, and cold. I’ve no doubt he treats her as
he treats his troopers; I’ll not spare him then. Your wife,” clearing
his throat and speaking slowly, “will probably leave you a widower ere
long. She comes of a delicate stock, and, as far as I can observe, is
rapidly following in her mother’s footsteps.”
Seeing that this thrust told, he continued:
“She is subject to deadly fainting fits, and might go off in one of
them any day.”
A dead silence followed this remark, during which the doctor, after
glaring at Sir Reginald over the edge of his tumbler, swallowed the
remainder of his whisky and water, and, buttoning up his coat and
taking his hat, briskly prepared to depart.
Sir Reginald’s dry lips refused to speak; large drops of perspiration
stood like beads on his brow; the veins in his hand, where he was
grasping the back of a chair, resembled thick cords.
“Ah,” thought the doctor, complacently, “he does care. However, he had
no business to leave her,” he said to himself, as he feasted his eye on
his victim with an air of tranquil enjoyment.
“She may,” he proceeded aloud, “come round with care and indulgence
of every kind; she must never be crossed, thwarted, or agitated, and
always have her own way. (Looks as if he liked his own way.) I’ll come
round in a day or two and see how she is going on. Good-bye.”
“Wait a second,” said Sir Reginald vehemently, detaining him with one
hand; “you cannot go like this. If my wife is so seriously ill, you
must leave me some more fixed directions.”
“She is not actually ill, only threatened with illness. As for
directions, I say watch her and guard her as the very apple of your
eye. She nearly died when that child was born, as I daresay you know.
A sudden chill, a bad cold, would carry her off; she has no stamina.”
Exit.
“What a night this has been,” thought Sir Reginald, looking at the
clock wearily; “first I am told that the child is dying, now my wife.”
He drew a chair to the table, and, leaning his elbows on it, buried his
face in his hands.
“Anything but _this_,” he said to himself; “after all I have gone
through can _this_ be coming?”
For more than a quarter of an hour he remained in the same attitude,
wrestling with the bitterest anguish he had ever known. The door, which
was ajar, was softly pushed open and Alice came in.
“Well,” she said, “what does he say; is it all right?”
Then catching sight of her husband’s face, she seized his arm.
“Tell me the worst at once,” she gasped, steadying herself by her other
hand on the back of his chair. “Don’t hide it from me, for God’s sake!”
“There is nothing to be told,” he replied, making a valiant effort to
speak and look as usual. “Maurice was not nearly as ill as we imagined;
he will be all right to-morrow; I assure you there is no cause for
alarm,” he added earnestly, “none whatever.”
“You are sure? You are not saying this out of mistaken kindness? It is
true?”
“Quite true,” he repeated, pushing back his chair and standing up.
Alice gazed fixedly at her husband; he was deathly pale, and had a
half-stunned look, and surely when she first saw him his thick black
lashes were _wet_.
“Then what was the matter with you just now?” she inquired. “Won’t
you tell me? Won’t you let me share your trouble after all you said
to-night?”
“I can’t. At least not now,” he stammered.
“Why not now?” she exclaimed. “It must be some very bad news, I know,
for you look even more sorry than when we thought Maurice was dying;
and yet it _cannot_ be anything worse than that! Let me help you to
bear it whatever it is; do, my dear Regy?”
“Never allude to the subject again, Alice, unless you wish to drive
me frantic. You could not share this trouble with me, no one could.
Perhaps some day I may tell you, not now. You must go to bed at once,
it is past two o’clock,” he added authoritatively.
“No, no,” she replied firmly; “I am going to sit up with Maurice.”
“Indeed you will do nothing of the kind; I will stay with him if it
is necessary; but you are to go to bed this instant,” he replied in
a tone that effectually repelled argument. And in spite of all Alice
could say she was obliged to obey, and, very reluctantly, retired.