_ILL TIDINGS._
ANOTHER hour of waiting passed. Millicent was really growing anxious,
and she found Diana's cool assurances that all was and must be
right somewhat difficult to bear. Escott had found his way to the
drawing-room, and was watching with them.
Suddenly a little figure became visible, hurrying along the pavement in
a manner which told of failing power. The hat was falling off behind,
the steps though rapid were uncertain, and a general air of disorder
and distress was apparent. Millicent and Escott exchanged looks. Diana
stared, and Beryl gazed fixedly. All had a suspicion of the truth, yet
it was not till the little figure was almost below the window that a
general exclamation broke out—"It is Pearl."
And then there was a simultaneous, "Where is Ivor?"
"He has stayed behind for something, of course," said Diana.
Millicent stood up, but did not move farther. Diana rushed to the door,
followed by Escott; but when Pearl came in, she pushed past them both,
and reached Millicent.
That was all she could do. She was a pitiful sight, wan and
blue-lipped, with wide-open distressed eyes, and breath in such
laboured gasps that speech was utterly impossible. She grasped both
Millicent's hands with her poor little shaking fingers, and struggled,
but struggled in vain, for utterance.
The others came pressing round her, unnoticed. Pearl seemed to see
no face except Millicent's. Diana was exclaiming and questioning in
voluble style. Millicent had grown white to the lips, but she was calm.
"Hush, Di," she said. "Be quiet, all of you. Pearl will tell us
directly what is wrong. She has run too fast. We must have a moment's
patience."
The gasps were lessening slowly, but with returning breath came thick
passionate sobs, fighting their way up, and preventing speech. Pearl
wrung her hands together in voiceless agony. And when Diane would
have touched her, she flung herself into Millicent's arms, with an
incoherent shriek, meant for words.
Millicent held her firmly. "Hush, Pearl, hush," she commanded, with her
colourless lips. "There must be no screams. Diana, you 'must' be quiet,
or leave the room. Beryl, will you get a glass of water, please? Not a
word, any of you."
Even Diana yielded, and for the moment said nothing.
Millicent with difficulty made Pearl swallow a few sips of water. "A
little more," she said. "Now wait for a few seconds,—keep quite still,
and then you must tell me quietly what is wrong."
Pearl buried her face in Millicent's shoulder, and for several seconds
the silence was unbroken, except by her sobs.
[Illustration: She grasped both Millicent's hands
with her poor little shaking fingers.]
"Now," Millicent said at length.
The agony of distress came back. "Ivor—Ivor—Ivor," gasped Pearl. "Oh,
what shall I do? I don't know what to do!"
"Pearl, is Ivor dead?"
The mother's lips asked the question slowly and distinctly.
Pearl thrilled all over, and said, "O no!—O no!"
"Then he is hurt."
"O yes—"
"How was it?"
Pearl could not speak. Her efforts only resulted in heart-broken sobs.
A stronger and more unselfish nature would, in pity to the poor mother,
have put thoughts of self aside for the moment, but this Pearl could
not do. She was utterly overpowered.
"Where is Ivor?" asked Millicent, her own self-restraint so heavily
taxed as to be in danger of failing. "Pearl, I must know," she said
gently. "I must go to him."
Pearl managed to gasp out something about, "near Kewstoke," "house,"
and "doctor wanted."
Beryl came forward for the first time. "Can't I help?" she asked. "I
could fetch a fly,—and if I knew who your doctor is—"
A faint look of relief at the suggestion passed over Millicent's
features.
"One moment," Escott said, with a detaining movement. "Pearl will have
to tell us where to go."
"Pearl, do have pity on Mrs. Cumming, and speak," said Beryl, in a low
voice.
Sobbing still, but not so violently, Pearl drew a folded scrap of paper
from her glove. "The men wrote—wrote down the address," she said.
Escott glanced at it. "Then we need lose no more time," he said. "If
Beryl will kindly call a fly, I will find a doctor to go with us. Is
Ivor 'much' hurt, Pearl?" The words were very gently uttered.
"Oh—yes," gasped Pearl.
"Had he a fall?"
"Not—not exactly!" Pearl was crying excessively again. "He—he—caught
his foot—"
It was very unsatisfactory, but more could not yet be obtained. Pearl
seemed to be on the verge of hysterics.
Beryl and Escott disappeared on their respective errands, and Millicent
too went away, speedily to return, ready for her drive. She found Pearl
in a renewed flood of tears, under a process of close questioning from
Diana.
"I can't get much out of her," Diana said, "except that Ivor went after
something at her request, and she thinks herself guilty in consequence."
"Poor little girl," Millicent said kindly, and she kissed Pearl's brow.
"No one will count that of you, my dear."
"He must have been pretty bad. The men had to carry him," continued
Diana.
Millicent's hand came on Pearl's. "Was he insensible?" she asked.
"No," sobbed Pearl. "He couldn't—couldn't move."
Then Escott came back, having happily found at home the first doctor at
whose house he had called; and immediately afterwards Beryl drove to
the door in a fly.
"Mother, I am coming too," Escott said decidedly. "I told the doctor we
would call for him in ten minutes, or less."
Then the two were gone, and the stir was over.
"Well,—I shall decide to get home as soon as possible," Diana said,
in rather an injured tone. "This sort of thing really is too much for
one's nerves. I declare—nobody has thought of Uncle Josiah all this
time. Just like Millie! He will be dreadfully angry not to have been
told. Well, it cannot be helped now. Do stop crying, Pearl."
The tone was not exactly unkind, but certainly it was not sympathising.
Pearl crouched down in a corner of the sofa, burying her face in the
cushions, and sobbing still in a kind of exhausted way, as if she had
no strength to leave off.
Beryl longed to go to her, but dared not.
"Come,—the best place for you is bed," said Diana.
Pearl silently declined to move, and Diana made no attempt to enforce
her own mandate.
Mr. Crosbie presently came in, and heard the whole story from Diana's
lips, gaps in knowledge being lavishly filled up with suppositions.
The old gentleman waxed impatient, and questioned Pearl, but she
only crouched lower in her corner, and would not speak. When further
pressed, she started up and ran away.
"The best thing you can do is to go and put her to bed," Diana observed
carelessly to Beryl,—"if you wish to make yourself useful."
Beryl's heart bounded at the suggestion, though her manner showed no
particular pleasure. She obeyed immediately, only to find Pearl's door
locked. Pearl turned for some time a deaf ear to raps, but it was at
length opened.
"May I come in?" asked Beryl.
"No, I don't want anybody," Pearl said, holding the door against her.
"Please let me be alone."
"But you will make yourself ill, if you cry so. Aunt Di told me to
come."
"I don't care. If you would only leave me alone—"
"I need not stay long. Just let me help you to undress."
"I don't want help. I'm—I'm not going to bed—till—till I know how Ivor
is."
She ceased resistance suddenly, and threw herself on the couch, sobbing
as much as ever.
Beryl entered and stood over her, a good deal at a loss how to act.
"Pearl, is Ivor very much hurt indeed?" she asked at length. "Don't you
think you would feel better if you could speak about it?"
Pearl shook her head and moaned.
Beryl suddenly bethought herself of a certain mode of school-treatment
for a certain hysterical child. She brought a basin of water to a chair
near, and began bathing Pearl's flushed face and disordered hair with a
wet sponge.
Pearl did not resist, but seemed rather to like it, and the violent
crying lessened.
"And now you will take your things off," said Beryl persuasively. "Do,
Pearl. You are so tired."
Pearl did not respond to the suggestion. She was cramped up on the
couch, with her blistered face resting on one arm, sighing deeply every
few seconds.
"I can't yet," she said. "Do let me be quiet. Beryl, he—he—didn't fall
exactly,—but it was in getting over a high gate,—he caught his foot—"
The sentences were broken up by long sighs.
"Yes, Pearl," said Beryl encouragingly.
"I don't know how—I didn't see. He was going to get a flower for me—"
and her face drew up into distressed puckers.
"Don't cry any more," said Beryl. "It's of no use."
"I can't help crying. It was so dreadful," sobbed Pearl. "If only I had
not wanted that flower. And I didn't know what to do. I thought he was
going to die—he looked so awful—I can't tell you how."
"Did he say he was very badly hurt?"
"Yes—he—he—said so. He couldn't move, and he could hardly speak; but he
said it was bad—he thought it was a strain. And I got the men to come,
and one of them—one said—it was 'very' bad."
"But I don't understand," said Beryl. "How could he hurt himself so
much, if it was a mere slip?"
"O no, it wasn't. I didn't mean that. I think he tried to jump, and it
was too high, and his foot caught on the top bar, and he went over. It
was a longer way the other side to fall. I don't know how I climbed
over to him," sobbed Pearl, "I 'did' tremble so. I saw he couldn't
move, and I heard him moan; and when I saw him, I thought he would die
that minute. He said I must get help,—and we had seen two men just
before, quite near, and I ran for them."
"And they took Ivor to Kewstoke?"
"Yes, at least near Kewstoke,—the house where one of them was a
gardener, I think. He said he didn't dare move Ivor farther till a
doctor had seen him. He just wrote down the name of the house, and told
me I must come straight back for a doctor, and he sent the other man
for something to carry Ivor on. Oh, it is so very very dreadful," wept
Pearl. "If only Aunt Di and I had never come to Weston. And I made her
do it. Oh, I wish I hadn't."
Crying came on again, and Beryl returned to cold water sponging, as
better than talk. Presently, to her great relief, Pearl dropped into a
sound sleep.
Beryl drew a chair near, and settled herself to watch. She was quite
content to sit there, doing nothing. It was a sort of fulfilment of her
childish dream of caring for Pearl's wants. The old passionate love of
Pearl, long thrust down into deep recesses of her heart, came welling
up this hour. The poor little reddened and blistered face was sweeter
now to Beryl, than it had been in its loveliness that morning.
"O Pearlie! If you could only care for me!" she murmured.
Then Diana came in, opening the door without warning, and not too
quietly.
Pearl stirred, but did not wake.
Beryl looked up, and with difficulty checked a "Hush," which would have
given dire offence.
"Asleep, is she?" said Diana. "Silly little goose."
Beryl flushed hotly with a kind of anger. Diana came to the couch.
"Well, the best thing she can do is to sleep on. I shall allow no more
long walks. They knock her quite up. I suppose she has not told you any
particulars."
"Not much," Beryl said in a low voice. "Ivor tried to leap a high gate,
and caught his feet, and fell over. He told Pearl he thought it was a
strain."
"Young men are always trying to do more than they are able. It is an
absurd habit," said Diana. "I don't suppose it will prove to be much. A
sprained ankle, probably."
Beryl was glad to see her rustle out of the room.
Pearl presently woke, but was so weary as to be glad to undress
and go to bed, where, after having some tea, she soon sank again
into unconsciousness. Beryl waited on her assiduously, restraining
expressions of affection, but curiously happy in her task.
Late in the evening, she saw a fly stop in front of the house, and some
one descended from it,—Escott, Beryl thought, in the dusky light. She
went noiselessly out of the room, not waking Pearl, and entered the
drawing-room, just before Escott came in. He walked with bent head and
slow step. Beryl knew in a moment that he had brought no good news.
"Well, Escott, what does it all mean?" asked Diana. "A false alarm, I
suspect."
Escott looked at her vacantly, and then at Beryl. "Don't tell Pearl
to-night," he said. "Let her sleep quietly till the morning. Ivor is
dying."