An hour later Brigit slowly mounted the stairs at the inn. She was
desperately tired, and as unhappy as she was tired. Joyselle's attitude,
although she was bound in common justice to acknowledge its correctness,
hurt her to an almost incredible degree. Nothing had ever so wounded
her, and she felt the longing common to reserved people to hide her pain
from everybody.
So she had escaped from the Rue Victor Hugo under pretext of a headache,
and, bidding Félicité and Théo good-night, hastened back here, not
allowing the young man to accompany her, as he desired.
"I am very seedy," she told him, "and my head aches; I shall be better
alone."
So Théo, with the biddableness that was an integral and to her rather
annoying quality of his character, had said no more, and returned to the
other guests. The gaily attired chambermaid, bearing a small jug
destined to strike dismay to some British admirers of the Conqueror, met
the girl on the stairs.
"_Bon soir_, mademoiselle," she said; "there's a telegram for you in
your _salon_."
Brigit stood still. A telegram! Bad news probably. And such was her
mental turmoil that at the thought she shrugged her shoulders. Almost
anything that would change the nature of her trouble would be welcome.
But the contents of the telegram were bad.
"Tommy very ill. Diphtheria. Wants you.
"Mother."
Tommy ill! Poor little boy, with all his joy of life and enthusiasms,
struck down by diphtheria! Why could it not be she instead?
But it was not the girl's nature to waste time in useless reflections
when any possible course of action lay before her.
Ringing, she sent for M. Berton, the proprietor, and finding that a
train left in half an hour, threw her belongings into her box and a few
minutes later was in a ramshackle cab clattering stationwards. She left
a note for Théo, but she was sincerely glad that time was too short for
her to make any attempt to see either him or Joyselle. They had faded
into the background of her mind, and in the foreground stood, piteous
and appealing, poor little Tommy.
It was a gruesome journey, never to be forgotten, and made more bearable
by several little acts of kindness on the part of her fellow-travellers,
as such journeys are apt to be.
Brigit never again saw the fat Jewish commercial traveller who rushed
from the train at some station, and nearly missed the train in his
efforts, successful at last, to get her some tea; but she never forgot
him. Neither did she ever forget a woman in shabby mourning who
insisted on giving her a packet of somebody's incomparable milk
chocolate.
And for hours and hours and hours the trains (for she had to change
twice) rushed on through the slow-dying autumn evening and night, and
part of the next day. Then at last London--a rush in a hansom to
Victoria from Charing Cross, and the familiar little journey homewards.
It was about three o'clock when she reached Kingsmead, and raining hard.
"'Is lordship is--still alive, my lady," Jarvis told her, choking a
little, "but--pretty bad, my lady." Tommy had always laughed at Jarvis'
manner, but Brigit liked it now.
The drive seemed endless, but at length there was the lodge, and the
carp-pond, and the tennis-court, and--the beautiful old house, all
blurred in the driving rain.
"Her ladyship is upstairs, my lady." And Brigit ran up the shallow,
red-carpeted steps. But who was this old woman wrapped in a white shawl.
"Brigit----"
It was Lady Kingsmead, and Brigit, looking at her mother, almost fainted
for the first time in her life.
"How is he?" she gasped, leaning against the wall and wondering why it
was so unsteady.
"He--his throat is better, but--he is very weak and--delirious. His
brain, they say, is--over-active." Poor Lady Kingsmead burst into tears,
wiping her eyes on the fringe of her shawl.
Brigit patted the strangely shrunken head compassionately. "Don't cry,
mother," she said. "Is he in his room?"
"No--in the boudoir. His chimney smokes so in the autumn, you know."
Tommy lay in his own brass bed in the silken nest of his mother, a
white-capped nurse by his side. The little boy's face was flushed and
his head tossing restlessly to and fro on the embroidered pillows.
"There's no use," he was muttering. "I tell you, it's quite silly to
waste time; you should have begun long ago. He always said so, and he's
right."
Brigit sat down by him. "Here's Bicky," she said, "with the Master's
love for you, Tommy."
"He's gone away. Ratting with the Prince of Wales. Let's play his fiddle
before he comes back. I've got that last exercise beautifully--only my
little finger is so beastly short. If I'd been whipped when I was a kid
it might have grown--there it goes! Hi, Pincher, after him!"
The nurse rose and moistened her patient's lips with water.
"How is he, nurse?" asked Brigit shortly.
"His throat's better, miss--my lady. But he's very weak. These
active-minded little boys----"
"I know; I know," interrupted the girl hastily. "When will he know me?"
The nurse hesitated. How could she tell? The relations always _did_ ask
senseless questions. The Persian kitten, now grown to be a cat less
Persian than had been expected, came into the room, and the nurse took
it up and put it out. "He always comes; he's a perfect nuisance," she
observed. "They get so used to places, cats, don't they?"
Brigit nodded. "I'll go and change," she said. "I'll be back in a few
minutes."
"Better take something to eat, my lady. The danger of infection is
great, you know, and the tireder one is----"
"I know."
When she came back, Brigit found her mother installed in the room while
nurse had her tea. Lady Kingsmead was a good nurse, greatly to her
daughter's surprise, and all her affectations seemed to have been left
in her dressing-room with her false hair.
The three women took turns sitting up with the invalid, but he
recognised none of them. It was a very long night, and only the greatest
determination kept Brigit awake during her watches, for she was
extremely tired after her journey.
But at last day came, and with it a short return of consciousness.
"Where's Bicky?"
"Here I am, Tommy darling," she answered, taking his hand. "Are you
better, love?"
"Yes, I think so. Where's my violin?"
She fetched it, and he went to sleep, his wasted hand lying across the
strings.
When he next spoke it was to talk utter nonsense about a flying-machine,
an account of which he had read in a newspaper.