OTHER DISCOVERIES
In the morning Letty awoke with a sore throat, and before night she had
developed a cold which spent itself in paroxysms of coughing. "Oh, Miss
Meade, make me well before Friday," she begged, as Caroline undressed
her. "Isn't Friday almost here now?"
"In three days, dear. You must hurry and get over this cold."
"Do you think I am going to be well, Mammy?" They were in the nursery at
Letty's bedtime, and Mammy Riah was heating a cup of camphorated oil
over the fire.
"You jes' wait twel I git dish yer' red flan'l on yo' chist, en hit's
gwinter breck up yo' cough toreckly," replied Mammy Riah reassuringly.
"I'se done soused hit right good in dis hot ile."
"I'll do anything you want. I'll swallow it right down if it will make
me well."
"Dar ain't nuttin dat'll breck up a cole quick'n hot ile," said the old
woman, "lessen hit's a hot w'iskey toddy."
"Well, you can't give her that," interposed Caroline quickly, "if she
isn't better in the morning I'm going to send for Doctor Boland. I've
done everything I could think of. Now, jump into bed Letty, dear, and
let me cover you up warm before I open the window. I am going to sleep
on the couch in the corner."
"Hit pears to me like you en Marse David is done gone clean 'stracted
'bout fresh a'r," grumbled Mammy Riah, as she drew a strip of red
flannel out of the oil. "Dar ain' nuttin in de worl' de matter wid dis
chile but all dis night a'r you's done been lettin' in on 'er w'ile she
wuz sleepin'. Huh! I knows jes ez much about night a'r ez enny er yo'
reel doctahs, en I ain' got er bit er use fur hit, I ain't. Hit's a
woner to me you all ain' done kilt 'er betweenst you, you and Marse
David en Miss Angy, 'en yo' reel doctah. Ef'n you ax me, I 'ud let down
all dem winders, en stuff up de chinks wid rags twel Letty was peart
enuff ter be outer dat baid."
The danger in night air had been a source of contention ever since the
first frost of the season, and though science had at last carried its
point, Caroline felt that the victory had cost her both the respect and
the affection of the old negress.
"I ain' never riz noner my chillun on night a'r," she muttered
rebelliously, while she brought the soaked flannel over to Letty's bed.
"I hope it will cure me," said the child eagerly, and she added after a
moment in which Mammy Riah zealously applied the oil and covered her
with blankets, "Do you think I'd better have all the night air shut out
as she says, Miss Meade?"
"No, darling," answered Caroline firmly. "Fresh air will cure you
quicker than anything else."
But, in spite of the camphorated oil and the wide-open windows, Letty
was much worse in the morning. Her face was flushed with fever, and she
refused her breakfast, when Mammy Riah brought it, because as she said,
"everything hurt her." Even her passionate interest in the tableaux had
evaporated, and she lay, inert and speechless, in her little bed, while
her eyes followed Caroline wistfully about the room.
"I telephoned for Doctor Boland the first thing," said Caroline to the
old woman, "and now I am going to speak to Mrs. Blackburn. Will you sit
with Letty while I run down for a cup of coffee?"
"Ef'n I wuz you, I wouldn't wake Miss Angy," replied the negress.
"Hit'll mek 'er sick jes ez sho' ez you live. You'd better run along
down en speak ter Marse David."
"I'll tell him at breakfast, but oughtn't Letty's mother to know how
anxious I am?"
"She's gwine ter know soon enuff," responded Mammy Riah, "but dey don'
low none un us ter rouse 'er twell she's hed 'er sleep out. Miss Angy is
one er dem nervous sort, en she gits 'stracted moughty easy."
In the dining-room, which was flooded with sunshine, Caroline found the
housekeeper and Blackburn, who had apparently finished his breakfast,
and was glancing over a newspaper. There was a pile of half-opened
letters by his plate, and his face wore the look of animation which she
associated with either politics or business.
"I couldn't leave Letty until Mammy Riah came," she explained in an
apologetic tone. "Her cold is so much worse that I've telephoned for the
doctor."
At this Blackburn folded the paper and pushed back his chair. "How long
has she had it?" he inquired anxiously. "I thought she wasn't well
yesterday." There was the tender, protecting sound in his voice that
always came with the mention of Letty.
"She hasn't been herself for several days, but this morning she seems
suddenly worse. I am afraid it may be pneumonia."
"Have you said anything to Angelica?" asked Mrs. Timberlake, and her
tone struck Caroline as strained and non-committal.
"Mammy Riah wouldn't let me wake her. I am going to her room as soon as
her bell rings."
"Well, she's awake. I've just sent up her breakfast." The housekeeper
spoke briskly. "She has to be in town for some rehearsals."
Blackburn had gone out, and Caroline sat alone at the table while she
hastily swallowed a cup of coffee. It was a serene and cloudless day,
and the view of the river had never looked so lovely as it did through
the falling leaves and over the russet sweep of autumn grasses. October
brooded with golden wings over the distance.
"I had noticed that Letty had a sort of hacking cough for three days,"
said Mrs. Timberlake from the window, "but I didn't think it would
amount to anything serious."
"Yes, I tried to cure it, and last night Mammy Riah doctored her. The
child is so delicate that the slightest ailment is dangerous. It seems
strange that she should be so frail. Mr. Blackburn looks strong, and his
wife was always well until recently, wasn't she?"
For a moment Mrs. Timberlake stared through the window at a sparrow
which was perched on the topmost branch of a juniper. "I never saw any
one hate to have a child as much as Angelica did," she said presently in
her dry tones. "She carried on like a crazy woman about it. Some women
are like that, you know."
"Yes, I know, but she is devoted to Letty now."
The housekeeper did not reply, and her face grew greyer and harsher than
ever.
"No one could be sweeter than she is with her," said Caroline, after a
moment in which she tried to pierce mentally the armour of Mrs.
Timberlake's reserve. "She isn't always so silent," she thought. "I hear
her talking by the hour to Mammy Riah, but it is just as if she were
afraid of letting out something if she opened her lips. I wonder if she
is really so prejudiced against Mrs. Blackburn that she can't talk of
her?" Though Caroline's admiration for Angelica had waned a little on
closer acquaintance, she still thought her kind and beautiful, except in
her incomprehensible attitude to the old sewing woman in Pine Street.
The recollection of that scene, which she had found it impossible to
banish entirely, was a sting in her memory; and as she recalled it now,
her attitude toward Angelica changed insensibly from that of an advocate
to a judge.
"Oh, Angelica is sweet enough," said the housekeeper suddenly, with a
rasping sound, as if the words scraped her throat as she uttered them,
"if you don't get in her way." Then facing Caroline squarely, she added
in the same tone, "I'm not saying anything against Angelica, Miss Meade.
Our grandmothers were sisters, and I am not the sort to turn against my
own blood kin, but you'll hear a heap of stories about the way things go
on in this house, and I want you to take it from me in the beginning
that there are a plenty of worse husbands than David Blackburn. He isn't
as meek as Moses, but he's been a good friend to me, and if I wanted a
helping hand, I reckon I'd go to him now a sight quicker than I would to
Angelica, though she's my kin and he isn't."
Rising hurriedly, as she finished, she gave a curt little laugh and
exclaimed, "Well, there's one thing David and I have in common. We're
both so mortal shutmouthed because when we once begin to talk, we always
let the cat out of the bag. Now, if you're through, you can go straight
upstairs and have a word with Angelica before she begins to dress."
She went over to the sideboard, and began counting the silver aloud,
while Caroline pushed back her chair, and ran impatiently upstairs to
Mrs. Blackburn's room. At her knock the maid, Mary, opened the door, and
beyond her Angelica's voice said plaintively, "Oh, Miss Meade, Mary
tells me that Letty's cold is very bad. I am so anxious about her."
A breakfast tray was before her, and while she looked down at the china
coffee service, which was exquisitely thin and fragile, she broke off a
piece of toast, and buttered it carefully, with the precise attention
she devoted to the smallest of her personal needs. It seemed to Caroline
that she had never appeared so beautiful as she did against the lace
pillows, in her little cap and dressing sack of sky-blue silk.
"I came to tell you," said Caroline. "She complains of pain whenever she
moves, and I'm afraid, unless something is done at once, it may turn
into pneumonia."
"Well, I'm coming immediately, just as soon as I've had my coffee. I
woke up with such a headache that I don't dare to stir until I've eaten.
You have sent for the doctor, of course?"
"I telephoned very early, but I suppose he won't be here until after his
office hours."
Having eaten the piece of toast, Angelica drank her coffee, and
motioned to Mary to remove the tray from her knees. "I'll get up at
once," she said. "Mary, give me my slippers. You told me so suddenly
that I haven't yet got over the shock."
She looked distressed and frightened, and a little later, when she
followed Caroline into the nursery and stooped over Letty's bed, her
attitude was that of an early Italian Madonna. The passion of motherhood
seemed to pervade her whole yearning body, curving the soft lines to an
ineffable beauty.
"Letty, darling, are you better?"
The child opened her eyes and stared, without smiling, in her mother's
face.
"Yes, I am better," she answered in a panting voice, "but I wish it
didn't hurt so."
"The doctor is coming. He will give you some medicine to cure it."
"Mammy says that it is the night air that makes me sick, but father says
that hasn't anything to do with it."
From the fire which she was tending, Mammy Riah looked up moodily. "Huh!
I reckon Marse David cyarn' teach me nuttin' 'bout raisin chillun," she
muttered under her breath.
"Ask the doctor. He will tell you," answered Angelica. "Do you think it
is warm enough in here, Miss Meade?"
"Yes, I am careful about the temperature." Almost unconsciously Caroline
had assumed her professional manner, and as she stood there in her white
uniform beside Letty's bed, she looked so capable and authoritative that
even Mammy Riah was cowed, though she still grumbled in a deep whisper.
"Of course you know best," said Angelica, with the relief she always
felt whenever any one removed a responsibility from her shoulders, or
assumed a duty which naturally belonged to her. "Has she fallen asleep
so quickly?"
"No, it's stupor. She has a very high fever."
"I don't like that blue look about her mouth, and her breathing is so
rapid. Do you think she is seriously ill, Miss Meade?" Angelica had
withdrawn from the bed, and as she asked the question, she lowered her
voice until her words were almost inaudible. Her eyes were soft and
anxious under the drooping lace edge of her cap.
"I don't like her pulse," Caroline also spoke in a whisper, with an
anxious glance at the bed, though Letty seemed oblivious of their
presence in the room. "I am just getting ready to sponge her with
alcohol. That may lower her temperature."
For a moment Mrs. Blackburn wavered between the bed and the door. "I
wish I didn't have to go to town," she said nervously. "If it were for
anything else except these tableaux I shouldn't think of it. But in a
cause like this, when there is so much suffering to be relieved, I feel
that one ought not to let personal anxieties interfere. Don't you think
I am right, Miss Meade?"
"I haven't thought about it," replied Caroline with her usual
directness. "But I am sure you are the best judge of what you ought to
do."
"I have the most important part, you see, and if I were to withdraw, it
would be such a disappointment to the committee. There isn't any one
else they could get at the last moment."
"I suppose not. There is really nothing that you can do here."
"That is what I thought." Angelica's tone was one of relief. "Of course
if I were needed about anything it would be different; but you are
better able than I am to decide what ought to be done. I always feel so
helpless," she added sadly, "when there is illness in the house."
With the relinquishment of responsibility, she appeared to grow almost
cheerful. If she had suddenly heard that Letty was much better, or had
discovered, after harrowing uncertainty, the best and surest treatment
for pneumonia, her face would probably have worn just such a relieved
and grateful expression. In one vivid instant, with a single piercing
flash of insight, the other woman seemed to look straight through that
soft feminine body to Mrs. Blackburn's thin and colourless soul. "I know
what she is now--she is thin," said Caroline to herself. "She is thin
all through, and I shall never feel the same about her again. She
doesn't want trouble, she doesn't want responsibility because it makes
her uncomfortable--that is why she turns Letty over to me. She is
beautiful, and she is sweet when nothing disturbs her, but I believe she
is selfish underneath all that softness and sweetness which costs her so
little." And she concluded with a merciless judgment, "That is why she
wasn't kind to that poor old woman in Pine Street. It would have cost
her something, and she can't bear to pay. She wants to get everything
for nothing."
The iron in her soul hardened suddenly, for she knew that this moment of
revelation had shattered for her the romance of Briarlay. She might
still be fascinated by Mrs. Blackburn; she might still pity her and long
to help her; she might still blame Blackburn bitterly for his
hardness--but she could never again wholly sympathize with Angelica.
"There isn't anything in the world that you can do," she repeated
gravely.
"I knew you'd say that, and it is so good of you to reassure me." Mrs.
Blackburn smiled from the threshold. "Now, I must dress, or I shall be
late for the rehearsal. If the doctor comes while I am away, please ask
him if he thinks another nurse is necessary. David tells me he
telephoned for an extra one for night duty; but, dear Miss Meade, I feel
so much better satisfied when I know that Letty is in your charge every
minute."
"Oh, she is in my charge. Even if the other nurse comes, I shall still
sleep in the room next to her."
"You are so splendid!" For an instant Angelica shone on her from the
hall. Then the door closed behind her, and an hour afterwards, as
Caroline sat by Letty's bed, with her hand on her pulse, she heard the
motor start down the drive and turn rapidly into the lane.
At one o'clock the doctor came, and he was still there a quarter of an
hour later, when Mrs. Blackburn rustled, with an anxious face, into the
room. She wore a suit of grey cloth, and, with her stole and muff of
silver fox, and her soft little hat of grey velvet, she made Caroline
think of one of the aspen trees, in a high wind, on the lawn at The
Cedars. She was all delicate, quivering gleams of silver, and even her
golden hair looked dim and shadowy, under a grey veil, as if it were
seen through a mist.
"Oh, Doctor, she isn't really so ill, is she?" Her eyes implored him to
spare her, and while she questioned him, she flung the stole of silver
fox away from her throat, as if the weight of the furs oppressed her.
"Well, you mustn't be too anxious. We are doing all we can, you know. In
a day or two, I hope, we'll have got her over the worst." He was a young
man, the son of Mrs. Colfax's friend, old Doctor Boland, and all his
eager youth seemed to start from his eyes while he gazed at Angelica.
"Beauty like that is a power," thought Caroline almost resentfully. "It
hides everything--even vacancy." All the men she had seen with Mrs.
Blackburn, except her husband, had gazed at her with this worshipful and
protecting look; and, as she watched it shine now in Doctor Boland's
eyes, she wondered cynically why David Blackburn alone should be lacking
in this particular kind of chivalry. "He is the only man who looks at
her as if she were a human being, not an angel," she reflected. "I
wonder if he used to do it once, and if he has stopped because he has
seen deeper than any of the others?"
"Then it isn't really pneumonia?" asked Angelica.
He hesitated, still trying to answer the appeal in her eyes, and to
spare her the truth if it were possible.
"It looks now as if it might be, Mrs. Blackburn, but children pick up so
quickly, you know." He reached out his arm as he answered, and led her
to the couch in one corner. "Have you some aromatic ammonia at hand,
Miss Meade? I think you might give Mrs. Blackburn a few drops of it."
Caroline measured the drops from a bottle on the table by Letty's bed.
"Perhaps she had better lie down," she suggested.
"Yes, I think I'll go to my room," answered Angelica, rising from the
couch, as she lifted a grateful face to the young doctor. "A shock
always upsets me, and ever since Mary told me how ill Letty was, I have
felt as if I couldn't breathe."
She looked really unhappy, and as Caroline met her eyes, she reproached
herself for her harsh criticism of the morning. After all, Angelica
couldn't help being herself. After all, she wasn't responsible for her
limited intelligence and her coldness of nature! Perhaps she felt more
in her heart than she was able to express, in spite of her perfect
profile and her wonderful eyes. "Even her selfishness may be due to her
bringing up, and the way everyone has always spoiled her," pursued the
girl, with a swift reaction from her severe judgment.
When Angelica had gone out, Doctor Boland came over to the bed, and
stood gazing thoughtfully down on the child, who stirred restlessly and
stared up at him with bright, glassy eyes. It was plain to Caroline that
he was more disturbed than he had admitted; and his grave young features
looked old and drawn while he stood there in silence. He was a thickset
man, with an ugly, intelligent face and alert, nearsighted eyes behind
enormous glasses with tortoise-shell rims.
"If we can manage to keep her temperature down," he said, and added as
if he were pursuing his original train of thought, "Mrs. Blackburn is
unusually sensitive."
"She is not very strong."
"For that reason it is better not to alarm her unnecessarily. I suppose
Mr. Blackburn can always be reached?"
"Oh, yes, I have his telephone number. He asked me to call him up as
soon as I had seen you."
After this he gave a few professional directions, and left abruptly
with the remark, "I'll look in early to-morrow. There is really nothing
we can do except keep up the treatment and have as much fresh air as
possible in the room. If all goes well, I hope she will have pulled
through the worst by Friday--and if I were you," he hesitated and a
flush rose to his sandy hair, "I should be careful how I broke any bad
news to Mrs. Blackburn."
He went out, closing the door cautiously, as if he feared to make any
sound in the house, while Caroline sat down to wonder what it was about
Angelica that made every man, even the doctor, so anxious to spare her?
"I believe his chief concern about poor Letty is that this illness
disturbs her mother," she mused, without understanding. "Well, I hope
his prophecy will come true, and that the worst will be over by Friday.
If she isn't, it will be a blow to the entertainment committee."
But when Friday came, the child was so much worse that the doctor, when
he hurried out before his office hours, looked old and grey with
anxiety. At eleven o'clock Blackburn sent his car back to the garage,
and came up, with a book which he did not open, to sit in Letty's room.
As he entered, Angelica rose from the couch on which she had been lying,
and laid her hand on his arm.
"I am so glad you have come, David. It makes me better satisfied to have
you in the house."
"I am not going to the works. Mayfield is coming to take down some
letters, and I shall be here all day."
"It is a comfort to know that. I couldn't close my eyes last night, so
if you are going to be here, I think I'll try to rest a few minutes."
She was pale and tired, and for the first time since she had been in
the house, Caroline discerned a shade of sympathy in the glances they
interchanged. "What a beautiful thing it would be if Letty's illness
brought them together," she thought, with a wave of happiness in the
midst of her apprehension. She had read of men and women who were
miraculously ennobled in the crucial moments of life, and her vivid
fancy was already weaving a romantic ending to the estrangement of the
Blackburns. After all, more improbable things had happened, she told
herself in one of her mother's favourite phrases.
At five o'clock, when Doctor Boland came, Blackburn had gone down to his
library, and Caroline, who had just slipped into a fresh uniform, was
alone in the room. Her eyes were unnaturally large and dark; but she
looked cool and composed, and her vitality scarcely felt the strain of
the three sleepless nights. Though the second nurse came on duty at six
o'clock, Caroline had been too restless and wakeful to stay in her room,
and had spent the nights on the couch by the nursery window.
"If we can manage to keep up her strength through the night----"
The doctor had already looked over the chart, and he held it now in his
hand while he waited for a response.
"There is a fighting chance, isn't there?"
His face was very grave, though his voice still maintained its
professional cheerfulness. "With a child there is always a chance, and
if she pulls through the night----"
"I shall keep my eyes on her every minute." As she spoke she moved back
to Letty's bed, while the doctor went out with an abrupt nod and the
words, "Mr. Blackburn wishes me to spend the night here. I'll be back
after dinner."
The door had hardly closed after him, when it opened again noiselessly,
and Mrs. Timberlake thrust her head through the crack. As she peered
into the room, with her long sallow face and her look of mutely inviting
disaster, there flashed through Caroline's mind the recollection of one
of her father's freckled engravings of "Hecuba Gazing Over the Ruins of
Troy."
"I've brought you a cup of tea. Couldn't you manage to drink it?"
"Yes, I'd like it." There was something touching in the way Mrs.
Timberlake seemed to include her in the distress of the family--to
assume that her relation to Letty was not merely the professional one of
a nurse to a patient.
Stepping cautiously, as if she were in reality treading on ruins, the
housekeeper crossed the room and placed the tray on the table at the
bedside. While she leaned over to pour out the tea, she murmured in a
rasping whisper, "Mammy Riah is crying so I wouldn't let her come in.
Can Letty hear us?"
"No, she is in a stupor. She has been moaning a good deal, but she is
too weak to keep it up. I've just given her some medicine."
Her gaze went back to the child, who stirred and gave a short panting
sob. In her small transparent face, which was flushed with fever, the
blue circle about the mouth seemed to start out suddenly like the mark
of a blow. She lay very straight and slim under the cover, as if she had
shrunken to half her size since her illness, and her soft, fine hair,
drawn smoothly back from her waxen forehead, clung as flat and close as
a cap.
"I'd scarcely know her," murmured the housekeeper, with a catch in her
throat.
"If she passes the crisis she will pick up quickly. I've seen children
as ill as this who were playing about the room a few days afterwards."
Caroline tried to speak brightly, but in spite of her efforts, there was
a note of awe in her voice.
"Is it really as grave as we fear, Miss Meade?"
Caroline met the question frankly. "It is very grave, Mrs. Timberlake,
but with a child, as the doctor told me a minute ago, there is always
hope of a sudden change for the better."
"Have you said anything to Angelica?"
"She was in here a little while ago, just before the doctor's visit, but
I tried not to alarm her. She is so easily made ill."
The windows were wide open, and Mrs. Timberlake went over to the nearest
one, and stood gazing out on the lawn and the half-bared elms. A light
wind was blowing, and while she stood there, she shivered and drew the
knitted purple cape she wore closer about her shoulders. Beyond the
interlacing boughs the sunlight streamed in a golden shower on the
grass, which was still bright and green, and now and then a few
sparkling drops were scattered through the broad windows, and rippled
over the blanket on Letty's bed. "It is hard to get used to these
new-fangled ways," observed the housekeeper presently as she moved back
to the fire. "In my days we'd have thought a hot room and plenty of
whiskey toddy the best things for pneumonia."
"The doctor told me to keep the windows wide open."
"I heard him say so, but don't you think you had better put on a wrap?
It feels chilly."
"Oh, no, I'm quite warm." Caroline finished the cup of tea as she spoke
and gave back the tray. "That did me good. I needed it."
"I thought so." From the tone in which the words were uttered Caroline
understood that the housekeeper was gaining time. "Are you sure you
oughtn't to say something to Angelica?"
"Say something? You mean tell her how ill Letty is? Why, the doctor gave
me my instructions. He said positively that I was not to alarm Mrs.
Blackburn."
"I don't think he understood. He doesn't know that she still expects to
be in the tableaux to-night."
For an instant Caroline stared back at her without a word; then she said
in an incredulous whisper, "Oh, she wouldn't--she couldn't!"
"She feels it to be her duty--her sacred duty, she has just told me so.
You see, I don't think she in the least realizes. She seems confident
that Letty is better."
"How can she be? She was in here less than an hour ago."
"And she said nothing about to-night?"
"Not a word. I had forgotten about the tableaux, but, of course, I
shouldn't have mentioned them. I tried to be cheerful, to keep up her
spirit--but she must have seen. She couldn't help seeing."
The housekeeper's lips twitched, and she moistened them nervously. "If
you knew Angelica as well as I do," she answered flatly, "you'd realize
that she can help seeing anything on earth except the thing she wants to
see."
"Then you must tell her," rejoined Caroline positively. "Someone must
tell her."
"I couldn't." Mrs. Timberlake was as emphatic as Caroline. "And what's
more she wouldn't believe me if I did. She'd pretend it was some of my
crankiness. You just wait till you try to convince Angelica of something
she doesn't want to believe."
"I'll tell her if you think I ought to--or perhaps it would be better to
go straight to Mr. Blackburn?"
Mrs. Timberlake coughed. "Well, I reckon if anybody can convince her,
David can," she retorted. "He doesn't mince matters."
"The night nurse comes on at six o'clock, and just as soon as she gets
here I'll go downstairs to Mr. Blackburn. That will be time enough,
won't it?"
"Oh, yes, she isn't going until half-past seven. I came to you because I
heard her order the car."
When she had gone Caroline turned back to her watch; but her heart was
beating so rapidly that for a moment she confused it with Letty's
feverish breathing. She reproached herself bitterly for not speaking
frankly to Mrs. Blackburn, for trying to spare her; and yet, recalling
the last interview, she scarcely knew what she could have said. "It
seemed too cruel to tell her that Letty might not live through the
night," she thought. "It seemed too cruel--but wasn't that just what
Mrs. Timberlake meant when she said that Mr. Blackburn 'wouldn't mince
matters?'"
The night nurse was five minutes late, and during these minutes, the
suspense, the responsibility, became almost unbearable. It was as if the
whole burden of Angelica's ignorance, of her apparent heartlessness,
rested on Caroline's shoulders. "If she had gone I could never have
forgiven myself," she was thinking when Miss Webster, the nurse, entered
with her brisk, ingratiating manner.
"I stopped to speak to Mrs. Blackburn," she explained. "She tells me
Letty is better." Her fine plain face, from which a wealth of burnished
red hair was brushed severely back, beamed with interest and sympathy.
Though she had been nursing private cases for ten years, she had not
lost the energy and enthusiasm of a pupil nurse in the hospital. Her
tall, erect figure, with its tightly confined hips, bent back, like a
steel spring, whenever she stooped over the child.
Caroline shook her head without replying, for Letty had opened her eyes
and was gazing vacantly at the ceiling. "Do you want anything, darling?
Miss Webster is going to sit with you a minute while I run downstairs to
speak to father."
But the child had closed her eyes again, and it was impossible to tell
whether or not the words had penetrated the stupor in which she had been
lying for the last two or three hours. A few moments later, as Caroline
descended the staircase and crossed the hall to Blackburn's library, the
memory of Letty's look floated between her and the object of her errand.
"If Mrs. Blackburn could see that she would know," she told herself
while she raised her hand to the panel of the door. "She couldn't help
knowing."
At the knock Blackburn called to her to enter, and when she pushed the
door open and crossed the threshold, she saw that he was standing by the
window, looking out at the afterglow. Beyond the terrace and the dark
spires of the junipers, the autumn fields were changing from brown to
purple under the flower-like pink of the sky. Somewhere in the distance
one of the Airedale terriers was whining softly.
As soon as he caught sight of her, Blackburn crossed the floor with a
rapid stride, and stood waiting for her to speak. Though he did not open
his lips, she saw his face grow white, and the corners of his mouth
contract suddenly as if a tight cord were drawn. For the first time she
noticed that he had a way of narrowing his eyes when he stared fixedly.
"There hasn't been any change, Mr. Blackburn. I wish to speak to you
about something else."
From the sharp breath that he drew, she could measure the unutterable
relief that swept over him.
"You say there hasn't been any change?"
"Not since morning. She is, of course, very ill, but with a child," she
had repeated the phrase so often that it seemed to have lost its
meaning, "the crisis sometimes comes very quickly. If we can manage to
keep up her strength for the next twenty-four hours, I believe the worst
will be over."
His figure, as he stood there in the dim light, was impressed with a new
vividness on her mind, and it was as he looked at this moment that she
always remembered him.
"Do you wish anything?" he asked. "Is everything being done that is
possible?"
"Everything. The doctor is coming to spend the night, and I shall sit up
with Miss Webster."
"But don't you need rest? Can you go without sleep and not lose your
strength?"
She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep until she is better."
A look of gratitude leaped to his eyes, and she became aware, through
some subtle wave of perception, that for the first time, she had assumed
a definite image in his thoughts.
"Thank you," he answered simply, but his tone was full of suppressed
feeling.
While he looked at her the old prejudice, the old suspicion and
resentment faded from her face, and she gazed back at him with trusting
and friendly eyes. Though she was pale and tired, and there were lines
of worry and sleeplessness in her forehead, she appeared to him the
incarnation of helpfulness. The spirit of goodness and gentleness shone
in her smile, and ennobled her slight womanly figure, which drooped a
little in its trim uniform. She looked as if she would fight to the
death, would wear herself to a shadow, for any one she loved, or for any
cause in which she believed.
"I came to ask you," she said very quietly, "if it would not be better
to tell Mrs. Blackburn the truth about Letty?"
He started in amazement. "But she knows, doesn't she?"
"She doesn't know everything. She thinks Letty is better. Miss Webster
has been talking to her."
"And you think she ought to be warned?"
Her question had evidently puzzled him.
"I think it is unfair to leave her in ignorance. She does not in the
least realize Letty's condition. Mrs. Timberlake tells me she heard her
order the car for half-past seven."
"Order the car?" He seemed to be groping through a fog of uncertainty.
If only heaven had granted intuition to men, thought Caroline
impatiently, how much time might be saved!
"To go to the tableaux. You know the tableaux are to-night."
"Yes, I had forgotten." His tone changed and grew positive. "Of course
she must be told. I will tell her."
"That is all." She turned away as she spoke, and laid her hand on the
knob of the door. "Mrs. Timberlake and I both felt that I ought to speak
to you."
"I am glad you did." He had opened the door for her, and following her a
step or two into the hall, he added gratefully, "I can never thank you
enough."
Without replying, she hurried to the staircase, and ran up the steps to
the second storey. When she reached the door of the nursery, she glanced
round before entering, and saw that Blackburn had already come upstairs
and was on his way to Angelica's room. While she watched, she saw him
knock, and then open the door and cross the threshold with his rapid
step.
Miss Webster was sitting by Letty's bed, and after a look at the child,
Caroline threw herself on the couch and closed her eyes in the hope that
she might fall asleep. Though she was profoundly relieved by her
conversation with Blackburn, she was still anxious about Angelica, and
impatient to hear how she had borne the shock. As the time dragged on,
with the interminable passage of the minutes in a sickroom, she found it
impossible to lie there in silence any longer, and rising from the
couch, she glanced at the clock before going to her room to wash her
hands and straighten her hair for dinner. It was exactly half-past
seven, and a few minutes later, when she had finished her simple
preparations, and was passing the window on her way to the hall, she
heard the sound of a motor in the circular drive. "I suppose they forgot
to tell John," she thought, "or can it be the doctor so soon?"
The hall was empty when she entered it; but before she had reached the
head of the stairs, a door opened and shut in the left wing, and the
housekeeper joined her. At the bend in the staircase, beneath a copy of
the Sistine Madonna, which had been crowded out of the drawing-room, the
elder woman stopped and laid a detaining hand on Caroline's arm. Even
through the starched sleeve her grasp felt dry and feverish.
"Miss Meade, did you get a chance to speak to David?"
"Why, yes, I spoke to him. I went straight down as soon as Miss Webster
came on duty."
"Did he say he would tell Angelica?"
"He came up at once to tell her. I saw him go into her room."
Mrs. Timberlake glanced helplessly up at the Sistine Madonna. "Well, I
don't know what he could have said," she answered, "for Angelica has
gone. That was her motor you heard leaving the door."