Poor little Tommy's passion for knowing things showed up very clearly
the next few days, his over-active brain working hard propounding to
itself question on subjects that Brigit had never heard him even
mention. And one of the most pathetic subjects was that of her relations
with her mother. "If Brigit would only come back and live here again,"
he said over and over again, "like other fellows' sisters. Things are so
much pleasanter when she is here."
"I'm here, Tommy darling," she told him a hundred times, but he only
shook his head and frowned gently. "You are very nice, and I like your
hands, because they are cool and dry, but you are not Bicky. Bicky is
beautiful."
His mother, on the contrary, the child always recognised, and his manner
to her was almost protecting.
"Don't cry, mother," he would say. "I'm not so bad, really I'm not. You
had better go and lie down, or you will not look pretty to-night."
His idea of evenings was, of course, of a time when mothers must look
their best at any cost, and when no mother ever stayed upstairs.
Every evening, therefore, he could not rest until Lady Kingsmead had
gone "to dress."
Brigit had never known how much the little fellow noticed the details
of dress, and so on, but now she learned, for his remarks about his
mother usually took the form of appreciation or dislike of some
particular toilette.
"Wear pink, mother--it suits you best--and pearls. The diamonds make you
look older."
Poor Lady Kingsmead, more lovable in her distress than her daughter had
ever seen her, obeyed him humbly, and promising to wear pink, or
whatever the colour might be, crept away to her bedroom and cried until
she was scarcely recognisable.
Two days passed thus, the doctor coming many times and shaking his head
doubtfully over questions about his patient. "The throat is much
better--the danger from that is quite past; but--the fever does not go
down, and I can't quite tell what the complication is. He is too young
to have had a mental shock, so I can only assume that the too great
activity of his mind is now against us. I understand that he has been
studying very hard?"
This Brigit denied, but the doctor, on insisting, was told to interview
Mr. Babington, and to the girl's amazement she learned that only a day
or two before he was taken ill Tommy had betrayed the fact that for
weeks he had been in the habit of spending part of each night in the
disused chapel, practising on his violin.
"He is quite mad about his music," the young man mourned. "I never could
get him to take the least interest in anything else, and as he always
worked as little as possible for me, I could not understand his looking
so tired, until, finding that he had heard the stable clock strike four,
and knowing that one cannot hear the clock from his room, I pinned him
down and he told me."
Brigit's eyes filled with tears.
The chapel, disused for many years, had evolved into a sort of
lumber-room, and she could see, in her imagination, the pathetic picture
of her little brother fiddling away among the piled-up boxes and old
furniture, trying to hasten the moment when his beloved master would
find him worthy of personal instruction.
It was all clear to his sister. Left alone, the child's whole
strength--far more strength than he should have been allowed to
expend--had gone to his passion for his violin, and now, unless a change
for the better should come very soon, he must die, burnt with fever. And
the fault would be hers. For the first time she felt the meaning of the
word "duty." Tommy had been her duty, and she had neglected him.
At length one day she made a further discovery.
She was sitting by the bed, and for over an hour the child had lain
still, his eyes half shut. It was five o'clock and a dark afternoon, so
that the room was full of shadows.
Suddenly Tommy turned and looked at her.
"Brigit," he asked, recognising her for the first time, "are you in love
with Joyselle?"
For a full minute she could not answer, and then said very gently,
"Darling Tommy--you know me?"
"Yes, yes, of course I know you. But--_are_ you? Carron and mother think
so."
"Do they, Tommy? Well--I love him dearly--and so do you, don't you?"
"I don't mean _that_," he returned, with a gesture of impatience; "I
mean the way people are who are going to marry each other."
His eyes, so huge in his wasted face, looked eagerly at her.
"Carron and mother think you do," he repeated, "and it makes me sorry."
She did not answer for a long time, and then she said humbly, not
knowing how far he understood that whereof he spoke, and therefore
obliged to feel her way, "Tommy dear--you forget _petite mère_."
"No, I don't--but she is _old_."
"She is younger than he."
But ill though he was, Tommy's sense of humour was still alive. "_That_
doesn't matter! Oh, Bick, darling, I am so tired! And I do hope you
aren't--I mean, _that_."
So, of course, she lied, and the little boy went to sleep, his hand in
hers.
When, an hour later, she went to her room, she found a wire from Théo,
announcing their arrival in London, and in spite of herself her spirits
rose. Things must be better now that _he_ was near her.
But things were not better, and the doctor, the next morning, looked
very grave. "I think it bad to allow him to have his violin," he said;
"it excites him and increases the fever. And--I think I should like a
consultation."
Lady Kingsmead burst into tears and hurried from the room, but Brigit
wrote a telegram, as dictated by the old doctor who had brought the boy
into the world, to a famous physician in London, and a groom was sent
galloping to the station to send it.
"Who is this person he always takes me for?" asked the doctor, polishing
his glasses. "This morning he insisted on my--on my playing for him. I
have never played anything except the cornet, when I was a young man.
I--it very nearly upset me, Lady Brigit. I love Tommy."
Brigit flushed. "Wanted you to play the violin?" she returned.
"Yes. He has not done so until this morning for several days, but he
quite insisted to-day."
"It must be--Joyselle. We--we know him very well, and Tommy adores him."
As she spoke the nurse came in.
"Would you mind coming, my lady? He is very restless and insists on
trying to play. I can't quiet him at all----"
They went back into the sick-room and found Tommy sitting up in bed,
holding his violin in the position for playing, and scolding in a sharp
staccato voice because he couldn't find his bow.
"Tommy, dear," Brigit said quietly, suddenly seeing her way clear, "I am
wiring the Master to come to see you. He will play for you. Now give me
your violin and lie down like a good boy."
Under the impression that she was Mrs. Champion, the housekeeper, but
perfectly satisfied with her words, he gave up the fiddle obediently and
lay down. The doctor nodded his approval and left a few moments later to
send the telegram to Joyselle. And Brigit sat down by the bed and
waited.