It was autumn weather--October. A lot of us were steaming over to
Worcester in the train. Miss Whitney from Cheltenham, and a friend
of hers--a maiden lady as ancient as herself, one Miss Conaway, of
Devonshire--were staying at the Hall. Miss Conaway did not know
Worcester, and was now being taken to see it--especially the cathedral.
Lady Whitney, Helen, Anna, and I made up the party, and we filled
the carriage. My being with them arose from chance: I had come over
accidentally that morning to Whitney Hall. Of course Helen hoped to see
something besides the cathedral her curate. For in June Mr. Leafchild,
then in priest's orders, entered on his new curacy at Worcester, there
to stay until the expected living should fall in.
"How is he?" I asked Helen, bending over the arm of the seat that
divided us.
"Working himself to death," she whispered back to me, her tone a cross
one.
"He said he was glad there would be plenty of work, you know. And it is
a large parish."
"But he need not let it put _everything_ else out of his head."
"Meaning you?"
"I have not heard from him for more than a week. Papa had a letter from
Dr. Leafchild this morning. He said in it that Charles, when he last
wrote, complained of being poorly."
"A great many curates do get very overtaxed."
"Oh, and what do you think?" went on Helen. "He is actually beginning to
have scruples about taking that living, on the score that there'll be
hardly any work to do."
"But--he will take it!"
"Yes, I suppose he _will_, because of me; but it will go against the
grain, I fancy. I do think one may have too strict a conscience."
It was past one o'clock when we reached Worcester. Lady Whitney
complained in the train of having started too late. First of all there
was luncheon to be taken at the Star: that brought it to past two. Then
various other things had to be done: see the cathedral, and stay the
afternoon service, go over the china works at Diglis, and buy a bundle
of articles at the linen-draper's. All these duties over, they meant to
invade Mr. Leafchild's lodgings in Paradise Row.
They took the draper's to begin with, the whole of them trooping in, one
after another, like sheep into a pen: and I vow that they only came out
again when the bell was going for three-o'clock service. Helen was not
in a genial mood: at this rate there would not be much time left for
visiting the curate.
"It was Aunt Ann's fault," she grumbled to me--"and mamma's. They were
a good half-hour looking at the stuff for the children's winter frocks.
Aunt Ann maintained that cashmere was best, mamma held to merino. All
the shelves they had taken down! I would not be a linen-draper's shopman
for the world."
Just in time, were we, to get into our seats before the procession of
clergy and choristers came in. The chanter that afternoon was Mr.
Leafchild's rector: I knew him to speak to. But there's no space to
linger upon details.
A small knot of people, ourselves and others, had collected in the
transept after service, waiting for one of the old bedesmen to do the
honours of the cathedral, when the chanter came down the steps of the
south aisle, after disrobing in the vestry.
"Do you know who he is?" I said to Helen, who was standing with me a
little apart.
"No--how should I know? Except that he must be one of the minor canons."
"He is Mr. Leafchild's rector."
"Is he?" she eagerly cried, the colour coming into her face. And just
then he chanced to look our way, and nodded to me. I went up to him to
speak.
"This is a terrible thing about Leafchild," he exclaimed in a minute or
two.
"What is it?" I asked, my breath stopping.
Helen, who had slowly paced after me on the white flags, stood stock
still and turned as pale as you please.
"Have you not heard of his illness? Perhaps not, though: it has been so
sudden. A few days ago he was apparently as well as I am now. But it was
only last night that the doctors began to apprehend danger."
"Is it fever?"
"Yes. A species of typhoid, I believe. Whether caught in his
ministrations or not, I don't know. Though I suppose it must have been.
He is lying at his lodgings in Paradise Row. Leafchild has not seemed in
good condition lately," continued the clergyman. "He is most unremitting
in his work, fags himself from morning till night, and lives anyhow: so
perhaps he was not fortified to resist the attack of an enemy. He is
very ill: and since last night he has been unconscious."
"He is _dangerously_ ill, did you say?" spoke poor Helen, biting her
lips to hide their tremor.
"Almost more than dangerous: I fear there is little hope left," he
answered, never of course suspecting who Helen was. "Good-afternoon."
She followed him with her eyes as he turned to the cloister-door: and
then moved away towards the north entrance, looking as one dazed.
"Helen, where are you going?"
"To see him."
"Oh, but it won't do. It won't, indeed, Helen."
"_I am going to see him_," she answered, in her most wilful tone. "Don't
you hear that he is dying? I know he is; I feel it instinctively as a
sure and certain fact. If you have a spark of goodness you'll come with
me, Johnny Ludlow. It's all the same--whether you do or not."
I looked around for our party. They had disappeared up the other aisle
under convoy of the bedesman, leaving Helen and myself to follow at our
leisure; or perhaps not noticing our absence. Helen, marching away with
quick steps, passed out at the grand entrance.
"It is not _safe_ for you to go, Helen," I remonstrated, as we went
round the graveyard and so up High Street. "You would catch the fever
from him."
"_I_ shall catch no fever."
"He caught it."
"I wish you'd be quiet. Can't you _see_ what I am suffering?"
The sweetest sight to me just then would have been Lady Whitney, or any
one else holding authority over Helen. I seemed responsible for any ill
that might ensue: and yet, what could I do?
"Helen, pray listen to a word of reason! See the position you put me in.
A fever is not a light thing to risk."
"I don't believe that typhoid fever is catching. He did not say typhus."
"Of course it's catching."
"Are you afraid of it?"
"I don't know that I am afraid. But I should not run into it by choice.
And I'm sure you ought not to."
We were just then passing that large druggist's shop that the Squire
always called Featherstonhaugh's--just because Mr. Featherstonhaugh once
kept it. Helen darted across the street and into it.
"A pound of camphor," said she, to the young man behind the right-hand
counter.
"A pound of camphor!" he echoed. "Did you say _a pound_, ma'am?"
"Is it too much?" asked Helen. "I want some to put about me: I am going
to see some one who is ill."
It ended in his giving her two ounces. As we left the shop she handed
part of it to me, stowing the rest about herself. And whether it was
thanks to the camphor, I don't know, but neither of us took any harm.
"There. You can't grumble now, Johnny Ludlow."
Paradise Row, as every one knows, is right at the other end of the town,
past the Tything. We had nearly reached the house when a gentleman, who
looked like a doctor, came out of it.
"I beg your pardon," said Helen, accosting him as he met us, and
coughing to hide her agitation, "but we think--seeing you come out of
the house--that you may be attending Mr. Leafchild. Is he better?"