Part 95 (1/2)

'She has starved herself!' said Phoebe, with affright.

'A swoon, don't be afraid,' said Robert, who was dressed, and had evidently been watching. 'Try to warm her; I will fetch something for her; we shall soon bring her round.'

'A swoon, only a swoon,' Phoebe was forced to reiterate to herself to keep her senses and check the sobbing screams that swelled in her throat during the hour-like moments of his absence. She rose, and partly dressed herself in haste, then strove to chafe the limbs; but her efforts only struck the deathly chill more deeply into her own heart.

He brought some brandy, with which they moistened her lips, but still in vain, and Phoebe's dismay was redoubled as she saw his terror. 'It _must_ be fainting,' he repeated, 'but I had better send for Jackson.

May G.o.d have mercy on us all--this is my fault!'

'Her lips move,' gasped Phoebe, as she rubbed the temples with the stimulant.

'Thank G.o.d!' and again they put the spoon to her lips, as the nostrils expanded, the eyes opened, and she seemed to crave for the cordial. But vainly Robert raised her in his arms, and Phoebe steadied her own trembling hand to administer it, there were only choking, sobbing efforts for words, resulting in hoa.r.s.e shrieks of anguish.

Mervyn and Miss Fennimore, entering nearly at the same moment, found Phoebe pale as death, urging composure with a voice of despair; and Robert with looks of horror that he could no longer control, holding up the sinking child, her face livid, her eyes strained. 'I can't, I can't,' she cried, with frightful catches of her breath; 'I shall die--'

and the screams recurred.

Mervyn could not bear the spectacle for an instant, and fled only to return to listen outside. Miss Fennimore brought authority and presence of mind. 'Hysterical,' she said. 'There, lay her down; don't try again yet.'

'It is hunger,' whispered the trembling Phoebe; but Miss Fennimore only signed to be obeyed, and decidedly saying, 'Be quiet, Bertha, don't speak,' the habit of submission silenced all but the choking sobs. She sent Robert to warm a shawl, ordered away the frightened maids, and enforced stillness, which lasted till Bertha had recovered breath, when she sobbed out again, 'Robert! Where is he! I shall die! He must pray!

I can't die!'

Miss Fennimore bade Robert compose his voice to pray aloud, and what he read tranquillized all except Mervyn, who understood this to mean the worst, and burst away to sit cowering in suspense over his fire. Miss Fennimore then offered Bertha a morsel of roll dipped in port wine, but fasting and agitation had really produced a contraction of the muscles of the throat, and the attempt failed. Bertha was dreadfully terrified, and Phoebe could hardly control herself, but she was the only person unbanished by Miss Fennimore. Even Robert's distress became too visible for the absolute calm by which the governess hoped to exhaust the hysteria while keeping up vitality by outward applications of warmth and stimulants, and from time to time renewing the endeavour to administer nourishment.

It was not till two terrible hours had pa.s.sed that Phoebe came to the school-room, and announced to her brothers that after ten minutes' doze, Bertha had waked, and swallowed a spoonful of arrowroot and wine without choking. She could not restrain her sobs, and wept uncontrollably as Mervyn put his arm round her. He was the most composed of the three, for her powers had been sorely strained, and Robert had suffered most of all.

He had on this day suspected that Bertha was burning the provisions forced on her, but he had kept silence, believing that she would thus reduce herself to a more amenable state than if she were angered by compulsion, and long before serious harm could ensue. Used to the sight of famine, he thought inanition would break the spirit without injuring the health. Many a time had he beheld those who professed to have tasted nothing for two days, trudge off tottering but cheerful, with a soup-ticket, and he had not calculated on the difference between the children of want and the delicately nurtured girl, full of overwrought feeling. Though he had been watching in loving intercession for the unhappy child, and had resolved on forcing his way to her in the morning, he felt as if he had played the part of the Archbishop of Pisa, and that, had she perished in her fearful determination, her blood would have been on himself. He was quite overcome, and forced to hurry to his own room to compose himself, ere he could return to inquire further; but there was little more to hear. Miss Fennimore desired to be alone with the patient; Phoebe allowed herself to be laid on the sofa and covered with shawls; Mervyn returned to his bed, and Robert still watched.

There was a great calm after the storm, and Phoebe did not wake till the dim wintry dawn was struggling with the yellow candlelight, and a consultation was going on in low tones between Robert and the governess, both wan and haggard in the uncomfortable light, and their words not more cheering than their looks. Bertha had become feverish, pa.s.sing from restless, talking sleep to startled, painful wakening, and Miss Fennimore wished Dr. Martyn to be sent for. Phoebe s.h.i.+vered with a cold chill of disappointment as she gathered their meaning, and coming forward, entreated the watchers to lie down to rest, while she relieved guard; but nothing would persuade Miss Fennimore to relinquish her post; and soon Phoebe had enough to do elsewhere; for her own peculiar patient, Mervyn, was so ill throughout the morning, that she was constantly employed in his room, and Robert looking on and trying to aid her, hated himself doubly for his hasty judgments.

Maria alone could go to church on that Sunday morning, and her version of the state of affairs brought Miss Charlecote to Beauchamp to offer her a.s.sistance. She saw Dr. Martyn, and undertook the painful preliminary explanation, and she saw him again after his inspection of Bertha.

'That's a first-rate governess! Exactly so! An educational hot-bed.

Why can't people let girls dress dolls and trundle hoops, as they used to do?'

'I have never thought Bertha oppressed by her lessons.'

'So much the worse! Those who can't learn, or won't learn, take care of themselves. Those who have a brain and use it are those that suffer! To hear that poor child blundering algebra in her sleep might be a caution to mothers!'

'Did you ever see her before, so as to observe the little hesitation in her speech?'

'No, they should have mentioned that.'

'It is generally very slight; but one of them--I think, Maria--told me that she always stammered more after lessons--'

'The blindness of people! As if that had not been a sufficient thermometer to show when they were overworking her brain! Why, not one of these Fulmorts has a head that will bear liberties being taken with it!'

'Can you let us hope that this whole affair came from an affection of the brain?'

'The elopement! No; I can't flatter you that health or sanity were in fault there. Nor is it delirium now; the rambling is only in sleep. But the three days' fast--'