VISITING THE SICK
I had been quite prepared to find Polly a willing convert to my
charitable schemes, but I had not expected to find in Cousin Helen so
strong an ally as she proved. But our ideas were no novelty to her, as
we soon discovered. In truth, at nine years old, she was a bit of an
enthusiast. She read with avidity religious biographies furnished by
Miss Blomfield. She was delicate in health, but reticent and resolute
in character. She was ready for any amount of self-sacrifice. She
contributed liberally to our box; and I fancy that she and Polly
continued it after I had gone back to Dacrefield.
My new ideas were not laid aside on my return home. To the best of my
ability I had given Nurse Bundle an epitome of the sermon on
alms--deeds which had so taken my fancy, and I have reason to believe
that she was very proud of my precocious benevolence. Whilst the
subject was under discussion betwixt us, she related many anecdotes of
the good deeds of the "young gentlemen and ladies" in a certain
clergyman's family where she had lived as nursemaid in her younger
days; and my imagination was fired by dreams of soup-cans, coal-clubs,
linsey petticoats comforting the rheumatic limbs of aged women,
opportune blankets in winter, Sunday-school classes, etc., etc.
"My dear!" said Nurse Bundle, almost with tears in her eyes, "you're
for all the world your dear mamma over again. Keep them notions, my
dear, when you're a grown gentleman, and there'll be a blessing on all
you do. For in all reason it's you that'll have to look to your pa's
property and tenants some time."
My father, though not himself an adept in the details of what is
commonly called "parish work," was both liberal and kind-hearted. He
liked my knowing the names of his tenants, and taking an interest in
their families. He was well pleased to respond by substantial help
when Nurse Bundle and I pleaded for this sick woman or that unshod
child, as my mother had pleaded in old days. As for Nurse Bundle, she
had a code of virtues for "young ladies and gentlemen," as such, and
charity to the poor was among them. Though I confess that I think she
regarded it more in the light of a grace adorning a certain station,
than as a duty incumbent upon all men.
So I came to know most of the villagers; and being a quaint child,
with a lively and amusing curiosity, which some little refinement and
good-breeding stayed from degenerating into impertinence, I was, I
believe, very popular.
One afternoon, during the spring that followed our return from London,
I had strolled out with Rubens, and was bowling my hoop towards one of
the lodges when a poor woman passed by on the drive (which was a
public road through the park), her apron to her face, weeping
bitterly. I stopped her, and asked what was the matter, and finally
made out that she had been to some sale at a farmhouse near, where a
certain large blanket had "gone for" five shillings. That she had
scraped five shillings together, and had intended to bid for it, but
had (with eminent stupidity) managed just to be out of the way when
the blanket was sold; and that it had gone for the very sum she could
have afforded, to another woman who would only part with it for six
and sixpence--eighteenpence more than the price she had paid for it.
The poor woman wept, and said she had had hard work to "raise" the
five shillings, and could not possibly find one and sixpence more. And
yet she did want the blanket badly, for she had a boy sick in bed, and
his throat was so bad--he suffered a deal from the cold, and there
wasn't a decent "rag of a blanket" in her house. I did not quite
follow her long story, but I gathered that one and sixpence would put
an end to her troubles, and at once offered to fetch her the money.
"Where do you live?" I asked.
"The white cottage just beyond the gate, love," she answered.
"I will bring you the money," said I. For to say the truth, I was
rather pompous and important about my charitable deeds, and did not
dislike playing the part of Sir Bountiful in the cottages. In this
case, too, it was a kindness not to take the woman back to the hall,
for she had left the sick child alone; and when I arrived at the
cottage with the money he complained bitterly at the idea of her
leaving him again to get the blanket.
"Let me go a minute, love, and I'll fetch Mrs. Taylor to sit with thee
till I get the blanket."
"I don't want a blanket," fretted the child; "I be too hot as 'tis. I
don't want to be 'lone."
"If you'll only be a minute, I'll stop with him," said I; and there
was some kindness in the offer, for I was really afraid of the boy
with his heavy angry eyes and fever petulance. The woman gladly
accepted it, and hurried off, despite the child's fretful tears, and
his refusing to see in "the young gentleman's" condescension the
honour which his mother pointed out. No doubt she only meant to be "a
minute," and Mrs. Taylor's dwelling was, to my knowledge, near; but I
suppose she had to tell, and her friends to hear, the whole history of
the sale, her disappointment and subsequent relief, as a preliminary
measure. After which it is probable that Mrs. Taylor had to look at
her pie in the oven, or attend to some similar and pressing domestic
duty before she could leave her house; and so it was nearly half an
hour before they came to my relief. And all this time the sick boy
tossed and moaned, and cried for water. I gave him some from a mug on
the table, not so much from any precocious gift for sick nursing (for
I was simply "frightened out of my wits"), but because the imperative
tone of his demand forced me involuntarily into doing what he wanted.
He grumbled, when between us we spilt the water on his clothes, and
then, soothed for a few seconds, he lay down, till the fever, like a
possessing demon, tossed him about once more, and his throat became as
parched as ever, and again he moaned for "a drink," and we repeated
the process. This time the mug was emptied, and when he called a third
time I could only say, "The mug's empty."
"There's a pot behind the door," he muttered, impatiently; "look
sharp!"
Now food, and drink, and all other necessaries of life came to me
without effort or seeking, and I was as little accustomed as any other
rich man's son to forage for supplies; but on this occasion
circumstances forced out of me a helpfulness which necessity early
teaches to the poor. I became dimly cognizant of the fact that water
does not spring spontaneously in carafes, nor take a delicate colour
and flavour in toast-and-water jugs of itself. I found the water-pot,
replenished the mug, and went back to my patient. By the time his
mother returned I had become quite clever in checking the spasmodic
clutches which spilt the cold water into his neck.
From what Mrs. Taylor said to her friend, it was evident that she
disapproved in some way of my presence, and the boy's mother replied
to her whispered remonstrances, "I was _that_ put out, I never
thought;" which I have no doubt was strictly true.
As I afterwards learnt, she got the blanket, and never ceased to laud
my generosity.
I was rather proud of it myself, and it was not without complacency
that I recounted to Nurse Bundle my first essay in "visiting the
sick."
But complacency was the last feeling my narrative awoke in Mrs.
Bundle. She was alarmed out of all presence of mind; and her
indignation with the woman who had requited my kindness by allowing me
to go into a house infected with fever knew no bounds. She had no pity
to spare for her when the news reached us that the child was dead.
Nothing further came of it for some time. Days passed, and it was
almost forgotten, only I became decidedly ill-tempered. A captious
irritability possessed me, alternating with fits of unaccountable
fatigue. At that time I was always either tired or cross, and
sometimes both. I must have made Nurse Bundle very uncomfortable. I
was so little happy, for my own share, that when after a day's
headache I was put to bed as an invalid, it was a delicious relief to
be acknowledged to be ill, to throw off clothes and occupation, and
shut my eyes and be nursed.
This happiness lasted for about half an hour. Then I began to shiver,
and, through no lack of blankets my teeth were soon chattering and the
bed shaking under me, as it had been with the village boy. But when
this was succeeded by burning heat, and intolerable, consuming
restlessness, I would have been glad to shiver again. And then my mind
wandered with a restlessness more intolerable than the tossing of my
body; and all boundaries of time, and place, and person became
confused and indefinitely extended, and hot hours were like ages, and
I thought I was that other boy, and that myself would not wait upon
him; and the only sensible words I spoke were cries for drink; and so
the fever got me fairly into its clutches.