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 or fainted 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. Suddenly she 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—not _very_ ill. 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 in attendance; 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, putting her 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 resuming her 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 comfort her, 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.