UPSET PLANS
But, as everybody knows, things in this world seldom turn out as they
are planned.
There was a great deal of writing and considering about Master Francis's
school, and I could see that both Sir Hulbert and my lady had it much on
their minds. They would never have thought of sending him anywhere but
of the best, but in those days schools, even for little boys, cost, I
fancy, quite as much or more than now. And I can't say but what I think
that the worry and the difficulty about it rather added to his aunt's
prejudice against the boy.
However, before long, all was settled, the school was chosen and the
very day fixed, and in our different ways we began to get accustomed to
the idea. Master Francis, I could see, had two quite opposite ways of
looking at it: he was bitterly sorry to go, to leave the home and those
in it whom he loved so dearly, more dearly, I think, than any one
understood. And he took much to heart also the fresh expenses for his
uncle. But, on the other hand, he was eager to get on with his learning;
he liked it for its own sake, and, as he used to say to me sometimes
when we were talking alone--
'It's only by my mind, you know, nurse, that I can hope to be good for
anything. If I had been strong and my leg all right, I'd have been a
soldier like papa, I suppose.'
'There's soldiers and soldiers, you must remember, Master Francis,' I
would reply. 'There's victories to be won far greater than those on the
battlefield. And many a one who's done the best work in this world has
been but feeble and weakly in health.'
His eyes used to brighten up when I spoke like that. Sometimes, too, I
would try to cheer him by reminding him there was no saying but what he
might turn out a fairly strong man yet. Many a delicate boy got improved
at school, I had heard.
But alas!--or 'alas' at least it seemed at the time--everything was
changed by what happened that winter.
It was cold, colder than is usual in this part of the world, and I
think Master Francis had got it in his head to try and harden himself by
way of preparing for school life. My lady used to say little things
sometimes, with a good motive, I daresay, about not minding the cold and
plucking up a spirit, and what her brothers used to do when they were
young, all of which Master Francis took to heart in a way she would not
then have believed if she had been told it. Dear me! it is strange to
think of it, when I remember how perfectly in later years those two came
to understand each other, and how nobody--after she lost her good
husband--was such a staff and support to her, such a counsellor and
comfort, as the nephew she had so little known--her 'more than son,' as
I had often heard her call him.
But I am wandering away from my story. I was just getting to Master
Francis's illness. How it came about no one could really tell. It is not
often one can trace back illnesses to their cause. Most often I fancy
there are more than one. But just after Christmas Master Francis began
with rheumatic fever. We couldn't at first believe it was going to be
anything so bad. For my lady's sake, and indeed for everybody's, I tried
to cheer up and be hopeful, in spite of the doctor's gloomy looks. It
was a real disappointment to myself and took down my pride a bit, for I
had done my best by the child, hoping to start him for school as strong
and well as was possible for him. And any one less just and fair than my
lady might have had back thoughts, such as damp feet, or sheets not
aired enough, or chills of some kind, that a little care might have
avoided.
It was my belief that he had been feeling worse than usual for some
time, but never a complaint had he made, perhaps he wouldn't own it to
himself.
It wasn't till two nights after Christmas that, sitting by the nursery
fire, just after Miss Augusta had been put to bed, he said to me--
'Nurse, I can't help it, my leg is so dreadfully bad, and not my leg
only, the pain of it seems all over. I'm _all_ bad legs to-night,' and
he tried to smile. 'May I go to bed now, and perhaps it will be all
right in the morning?'
I _was_ frightened! Sir Hulbert and my lady were dining out that
evening, which but seldom happened, and when I got over my start a
little I wasn't sorry for it, hoping that a good night might show it was
nothing serious.
We got him to bed as fast as we could. There was no going down to
dessert that evening, so Miss Bess and Miss Lalage set to work to help
me, like the womanly little ladies they were; one of them running
downstairs to see about plenty of hot water for a good bath and hot
bottles, and the other fetching the under housemaid to see to a fire in
his room. I doubt if he had ever had one before. Bedroom fires were not
in my lady's rule, and I don't hold with them myself, except in illness
or extra cold weather.
He cheered up a little, and even laughed at the fuss we made. And before
his uncle and aunt returned he was sound asleep, looking quiet and
comfortable, so that I didn't think it needful to say anything to them
that night. But long before morning, for I crept upstairs to his room
every hour or two, I saw that it was not going off as I had hoped. He
started and moaned in his sleep, and once or twice when I found him
awake, he seemed almost lightheaded, and as if he hardly knew me. Once I
heard him whisper: 'Oh! it hurts so,' as if he could scarcely bear it.
About five o'clock I dressed myself and took up my watch beside him. My
lady was an early riser; by eight o'clock, in answer to a message from
me, she was with us herself in her dressing-gown. Master Francis was
awake.
'O my lady!' I said, 'I'd no thought of bringing you up so early, and
you were late last night too.' For they had had a long drive. 'It was
only that I dursn't take upon me to send for the doctor without asking.'
'No, no, of course not,' she said. And indeed that was a liberty my lady
would not have been pleased with any one's taking. 'Do you really think
it necessary?'
The poor child was looking a little better just then, the pain was not
so bad. He seemed quiet and dreamy-like, though his face was flushed and
his eyes very bright.
'Auntie!' he said, smiling a very little; 'how pretty you look!'
[Illustration: 'Auntie!' he said, smiling a very little; 'how pretty you
look!']
And so she did in her long white dressing-gown, with her lovely fair
hair hanging about, for all the world like Miss Lally's.
I think myself the fever was on his brain a little already, else he
would scarce have dared speak so to his aunt.
She took no notice, but drew me out of the room.
'What in the world's the matter with him?' she said, anxious and yet
irritated at the same time. 'Has he been doing anything foolish that can
have made him ill?'
I shook my head.
'It's seldom one can tell how illness comes, but I feel sure the doctor
should see him,' I replied.
So he was sent for, and before the day was many hours older, there was
little doubt left--though, as I said before, I tried for a bit to hope
it was only a bad cold--that Master Francis was in for something very
serious.
Almost from the first the doctor spoke of rheumatic fever. There was a
sort of comfort in this, bad as it was--the comfort of knowing there was
no infection to fear. It was a great comfort to Master Francis himself,
whenever he felt the least bit easier, now and then to see his cousins
for a minute or two at a time, without any risk to them. For one of his
first questions to the doctor was whether his illness was anything the
others could catch.
After that for a few days he was so bad that he could really think of
nothing but how to bear the pain patiently. Then when he grew a shade
better, he began thinking about going to school.
'What was the day of the month? Would he be well, _quite_ well, by the
20th, or whatever day school began? Uncle would be _so_ disappointed if
it had to be put off'--and so on, over and over again, till at last I
had to speak, not only to the doctor, but to Sir Hulbert himself, about
the way the boy was worrying in his mind.
The doctor tried to put him off by saying he was getting on famously,
and such-like speeches. A few quiet words from Sir Hulbert had far more
effect.
'My dear boy,' he said gravely, 'what you have to do is to try to get
well and not fret yourself. If it is God's will that your going to
school should be put off, you must not take it to heart. You're not in
such a hurry to leave us as all that, are you?'
The last few words were spoken very kindly and he smiled as he said
them. I was glad of it, for I had not thought his uncle quite as tender
of the boy as he had used to be. They pleased Master Francis, I could
see, and another thought came into his mind which helped to quiet him.
'Anyway, nurse,' he said to me one day, 'there'll be a good deal of
expense saved if I don't go to school till Easter.'
It never struck him that there are few things more expensive than
illness, and as I had no idea till my lady told me that the term had to
be paid for, whether he went to school or not, I was able to agree with
him.
I was deeply sorry for my lady in those days. Some might be hard upon
her, for not forgetting all else in thankfulness that the child's life
was spared, and I know she tried to do so, but it was difficult. And
when she spoke out to me one day, and told me about the schooling having
to be paid all the same, I really did feel for her; knowing through Mrs.
Brent, as I have mentioned, all the past history of the troubles brought
about by poor Master Francis's father.
'I hope he'll live to be a comfort to you yet, if I may say so, my lady,
and I've a strong feeling that he will,' I said (she reminded me of
those words long after), 'and in the meantime you may trust to Mrs.
Brent and me to keep all expense down as much as possible, while seeing
that Master Francis has all he needs. I'm sure we can manage without a
sick-nurse now.'
For there had been some talk of having one sent for from London, though
in those days it was less done than seems the case now.
And after a while things began to mend. It was not a _very_ bad attack,
less so than we had feared at first. In about ten days' time Mrs. Brent
and Susan the housemaid and I, who had taken it in turns to sit up all
night, were able to go to bed as usual, only seeing to it that the fire
was made up once in the night, so as to last on till morning, and the
day's work grew steadily lighter.
Once they had finished their lessons, the little girls were always eager
to keep their cousin company. He was only allowed to have them one at a
time. Miss Bess used to take the first turn, but it was hard work for
her, poor child, to keep still, though it grew easier for her when it
got the length of his being able for reading aloud. But Miss Lally from
the first was a perfect model of a little sick-nurse. Mouse was no word
for her, so still and noiseless and yet so watchful was she, and if ever
she was left in charge of giving him his medicine at a certain time, I
could feel as sure as sure that it wouldn't be forgotten. When he was
inclined to talk a little, she knew just how to manage him--how to amuse
him without exciting him at all, and always to cheer him up.
The weather was unusually bad just then, though we did our best to
prevent Master Francis feeling it, by keeping his room always at an
even heat, but there were many days on which the young ladies couldn't
get out. Altogether it was a trying time, and for no one more than for
my lady.
I couldn't help thinking sometimes how different it would have been if
Master Francis had been her own child, when the joy of his recovering
would have made all other troubles seem nothing. I felt it both for her
and for him, though I don't think he noticed it himself; and after all,
now that I can look back on things having come so perfectly right,
perhaps it is foolish to recall those shadows. Only it makes the picture
of their lives more true.
Through it all I could see my lady was trying her best to have none but
kind and nice feelings.
'The doctor says that though Francis will really be almost as well as
usual in three or four weeks from now, there can be no question of his
going to school for ever so long--perhaps not at all this year.'
'Dear, dear,' I said. 'But you won't have to go on paying for it all the
same, my lady?'
She smiled at this.
'No, no, not quite so bad as that, only this one term, which is paid
already. Sir Hulbert might have got off paying it if he had really
explained how difficult it was. But that's just the sort of thing it
would really be lowering for him to do,' and she sighed. 'The doctor
says too,' she went on again, 'that by rights the boy should have a
course of German baths, that might do him good for all his life; but how
we _could_ manage that I can't see, though Sir Hulbert is actually
thinking of it. I doubt if he would think of it as much if it were for
one of our own children,' she added rather bitterly.
'He feels Master Francis a sort of charge, I suppose,' I said, meaning
to show my sympathy.
'He is a charge indeed,' said his aunt. 'And to think that all this time
he might have been really improving at school.'
I could say nothing more, but I did grieve that she couldn't take things
in a different spirit.
'It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.' Miss Lally had a fine
time for her knitting just then, with Master Francis out of the way. Of
course if he had been at school there would have been no difficulty, and
she had planned to have his socks ready to send him on his birthday, the
end of March. Now she had got on so fast--one sock finished and the heel
of the other turned, though not without many sighs and even a few
tears--that she hoped to have them as a surprise the first day he came
down to the nursery.
'I'll have to begin working in the attic again, after that,' she said to
me, 'for I'm going to make a pair for baby.'
'That's to say if the weather gets warmer,' I said to her. 'You
certainly couldn't have sat up in the attic these last few weeks, Miss
Lally.'