“cousin st. quentin,” sydney said, coming straight into the library, “i want to tell you that i saw and spoke to hugh to-day. you must forgive me, please, this time—i won’t again.”
her cousin looked at her with a curious expression in his eyes: at another time she would have been surprised to see no anger there at her confession, but now she did not seem to be surprised at anything. pauly was very ill—perhaps going to die—and hugh had not cared to see her. nothing else seemed to matter very much.
“are you ill, sydney?” her cousin spoke to her twice before she heard him.
she put her hands to her head. “i don’t know; my head aches rather.”
“go and lie down,” said st. quentin. “you’ve been worrying about that poor little
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chap at the vicarage. lie down till luncheon; then you will feel better.”
she felt dimly that his tone was kind in spite of her disobedience with regard to hugh. with a sudden impulse she knelt down beside his couch and laid her head upon his hand. “i shall not disobey you again,” she said, “for hugh—hugh doesn’t care, i think, to see me now.”
she was on her feet again, and had left the room before he had time to answer her.
st. quentin gazed after her with a softened look in his tired grey eyes. “poor little soul!” he muttered.
dr. lorry looked in at the castle as lady frederica and miss osric were sitting down to luncheon. sydney had fallen asleep on the sofa in the morning-room, and miss osric would not rouse her. the old doctor refused luncheon and went to the library at once. his face was very grave.
“is the little chap at the vicarage any worse?” st. quentin asked him sharply.
“very little change since yesterday,” the old doctor said. “i have great hopes from young chichester, and fresh treatment.... these young men, you know, are up in all the latest developments of science.”
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“what does he think of the fever?”
“badly, i’m afraid. now the school is closed he wants it turned into a hospital, and to borrow nurses from donisbro’, to work with the more effective women here. he thinks the patients will have very little chance of recovery in their own cottages.”
the marquess winced, then reached his desk and pen. “how much money will you want to start with?” he said. “i am, of course, accountable for all this. save what lives you can, and never mind my pocket.”
there was no time for mincing matters. the doctor told him what would be required, and st. quentin drew a cheque for the amount and signed it.
“let me know when more is wanted,” he said. “and now will you go upstairs and look at sydney. i think she needs change. if you agree, lady frederica shall take her off to the south of france somewhere to set her up after all this.”
dr. lorry made no comment upon this suggestion, but went quietly upstairs to sydney. she was awake now, looking rather better for her sleep and eating a basin of soup, which miss osric had brought her.
dr. lorry sat down beside her on the sofa,
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felt her pulse, looked into her eyes, and asked if she would like to go to bed.
“i think you would be more comfortable there,” he said, and sydney did not contradict him.
“well?” asked st. quentin anxiously, as dr. lorry re-entered the brown library a few minutes later. “how about the south of france—or do you think sea air would be better for her?”
“i shouldn’t recommend you to consider the idea of change quite at once,” the old doctor observed cautiously. “you see, miss lisle has been a good deal about among the cottages, and——”
“all the more reason for her needing change!”
“yes—yes; but that cottage where she held her meeting for the women was, i regret to say, in a most unhealthy condition, owing to defective drains, and——”
“i know; it was one i had marked to be pulled down!”
“miss lisle was in it for two hours twice a week, and oftener when that poor woman first fell ill,” the doctor persisted, as though his keen old eyes failed to see that the subject of the neglected cottages was a very sore
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one to their owner. he hated himself, as he saw how the thin face flushed beneath his words, but something had to be said, and he said it.
“so i should not recommend your worrying over sending miss lisle away from home at present.”
“what do you mean?” st. quentin had turned upon him like a flash and caught his hand as in a vice. “what is it? don’t say the child is ill! good heavens! not the fever!”
“remember, she will have every possible advantage,” the old doctor faltered, “every chance that anybody could have of complete recovery. there is no need to be at all despondent, but i fear—don’t agitate yourself—i fear we must not deceive ourselves into the belief that she is going to escape the fever.”
ten long days had gone by—the longest, mr. fenton thought, that he had ever known.
he had come straight down to the castle on hearing of sydney’s illness, to do what he could for lord st. quentin, under this fresh calamity which had fallen on what really seemed a doomed house.
he sat with the marquess in the library,
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except when, morning and evening, he walked down to the improvised hospital to get the latest news of the battle raging there.
sometimes it was dr. lorry, with the trimness gone from his person and his eyes a little bloodshot, who would come out and report to the lawyer waiting there in the deserted play-ground. sometimes hugh’s tall form and young haggard face would emerge from the school-door; or sometimes miss morrell, who had come from donisbro’ when the doctors were at their wits’ end to find sufficient and efficient nurses, and had stayed ever since, toiling with the rest to save the many sick.
or sometimes it was the vicar, striding between the vicarage and the hospital, who would stay to deliver his report upon the fight which he was sharing with the doctors and the nurses.
and mr. fenton would go back to lord st. quentin, lying staring dumbly at the fire, and thinking—thinking of that christmas day, when the girl who lay upstairs in the grip of fever had asked him if he could do nothing for the cottages. if he had only done it then, when she had asked him, what anxiety and distress would have been obviated!
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“they are saving so many,” mr. fenton would say, “and that young chichester is invaluable. dr. lorry cannot say enough for him. they are saving so many, that one cannot help feeling very hopeful for miss lisle.”
“i have no hope,” said st. quentin.
a specialist from london had come to see the girl on whom so many hopes were centred.
“she is very seriously ill,” had been his verdict—that verdict which seemed so terribly unsatisfying. “a great deal depends upon the nursing. there is no need to give up hope.”
then he had gone away, leaving those who loved the girl to make what they could out of those brief sentences.
“she is very seriously ill.”
“a great deal depends upon the nursing.”
“there is no need to give up hope.”
“she would have made a better job of the landlord business than i’ve done!” st. quentin said to mr. fenton, again and again. “she cared for the people, and when i wouldn’t do my duty, tried to do it for me!”
“they are quite devoted to her in lislehurst, and, indeed, at loam and styles as well,”
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said mr. fenton. “it is most touching to see the way men and women come rushing from their cottages as i pass, to ask for the latest news of her. she has won their hearts in the short time she has been among them.”
“she cared for them, and that accounts for it,” said st. quentin. “she even cared for me, though, god knows! i gave her small cause to do so. i took her from the people whom she loved, and cut her off as far as possible from intercourse with them. i made her unhappy for my own selfish ends, and now i’m going to lose her!”
“please god, no,” said mr. fenton, but his voice was not quite steady.
“i would give anything to think i made her happy——” poor st. quentin was going on, when he was checked by the entrance of a footman.
“mr. chichester to see mr. fenton, my lord.”
“show him in here.”
mr. fenton rose. “hadn’t i better go to him?”
“show him in here.”
“yes, my lord.”
the footman withdrew, and in a minute
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hugh came into the library. he was very white as he went forward to the man who had taken sydney from them. neither attempted any conventional greeting, and mr. fenton’s murmured introduction was unheard by both.
“so you are hugh chichester?” st. quentin said. “tell me—if i wire to your father and mother to come down to sydney, will they come?”
“is she worse?” hugh’s voice was metallic in the effort that he made to keep it steady.
“no!” st. quentin spoke so loudly as to make the lawyer jump. “tell me, would they come?”
hugh laughed unsteadily. the question seemed to him almost a mockery. “they’d come to her from the world’s end,” he said.
st. quentin filled hastily a telegraph form with the words:
“forgive me, and come to sydney.
“st. quentin.”
this he directed to “dr. and mrs. chichester” in full.
“send it off as you pass the post office,” he said to hugh, who took the form and went out silently.
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it was the night after the arrival of dr. and mrs. chichester.
all was very quiet in the nursery at the vicarage. at the foot of the little iron cot knelt the vicar, his face hidden in his hands. hugh was bending over it, his arm under pauly’s head, his eyes intently watching the worn baby face.
dr. lorry had been sent for to the castle. short as sydney’s illness had been in comparison with little pauly’s, its crisis had come to-night, and they knew that before the wet february dawn crept up into the sky they would see whether life or death were to be the girl’s portion.
“put a light in the passage window next her room, if—when—she turns the corner,” hugh had said to dr. lorry, when the old man was summoned to the castle that evening. “i must stay with pauly to-night, but—put a light in the window! i can see it from the vicarage!”
“i will, my boy,” the old doctor said, and went up to the castle, thinking deeply.
“one” boomed out from the clock upon the church tower, and pauly stirred and moaned. his father was on his feet in a second, but hugh signed for silence and put something
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in a spoon between the child’s lips. pauly cuddled himself close into the circle of the young man’s arm, and closed his eyes.
“is he going?” whispered the poor father hoarsely.
“hush!” hugh said, and there was silence again.
an hour went slowly by. hugh was sitting now upon a high nursery chair beside the little cot, but sideways, that he might not move the arm on which the child was resting. two struck, and the vicar, with a long look at the little wasted face, rose from his knees and stole out to the hospital.
three struck, and four: the vicar had returned, with a whispered, word to hugh that all was well at the hospital and in the village, and dr. mitchell, who had come to their help, satisfied. outside it was very dark. mr. seaton rose and looked long and earnestly from the window.
“is there a light in the passage next her room?” hugh’s voice was hardly more than a thread of sound.
the vicar came across and laid a hand upon the young man’s shoulder.
“no.”
the nursery clock, ticking on evenly, sounded
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very loud in the stillness. the nurse stole into the room to peer round the shaded lamp at the little patient, and then go away again.
five struck, and with it came the first faint sleepy twitter of a half-awakened bird.
pauly stirred: the vicar raised his head: the child looked at his father for a moment with a half-puzzled smile of recognition; then, with a little drowsy sound of contentment, dropped back upon the pillows, peacefully asleep.
hugh rose from his cramped posture and rubbed his stiffened arm. “thank god!” he said. mr. seaton’s hand closed over his in a way that was more expressive than any words had power to be. “the little chap will do now,” the young doctor told the father gently, and left him with his child.
he went down the stairs like a man in a dream, looked into the hospital, and then directed his steps straight towards the castle. the whole world seemed unreal to him to-night; he was unconscious that he had not slept or eaten for hours. all his powers seemed centred on one thought: was there a light in that passage window?
the lodge gates had been left open for the convenience of the doctors, and hugh
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made his way unopposed through the park, where sydney had gone that first morning.
as he drew near the castle he saw that he was not the only watcher. half a dozen figures were grouped near the marble steps, waiting, for the most part, silently. as he joined them hugh saw that one was old banks the groom, and the rest men from the village. no one made any comment when the young doctor stood among them. a common trouble makes the roughest quick of understanding.
old banks was speaking as hugh came up to the little group.
“she were a rare one for the riding,” he said in a low husky voice. “bless you! i’ve put a many up, but never one as took to it better than she did. and his lordship were fine and pleased, he were, for i saw the look in his eyes as we went past they windows of the library.
“‘please tell me anything i don’t do right, banks,’ she says, as pretty as can be, ‘for i want to ride well and please my cousin.’”
hugh went and stood close beside the old man, and silence fell again upon the little group of watchers.
“it were her as were all for the building
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of they new cottages on the hill,” sawyer said presently. “mr. fane, he told me so himself. his lordship wrote to him as it were ‘by the wish of his heir, miss lisle.’”
there was another pause, and in the silence they heard the distant clock upon the church strike six, followed immediately by the deep booming notes of the castle clock above the stables.
hugh involuntarily turned his head to hear from what the deep solemn sounds proceeded. as he turned old banks caught his arm in a convulsive grip—“look, sir!”
a hand had come to the window in the passage, dark and shrouded till that moment, and had left a light there.
a minute later, and the young doctor, of whose courage dr. lorry could not say enough, was hurrying back towards the village, crying like a child.
