Part 39 (1/2)

It seemed as if a long time pa.s.sed before the doctor came; from Sir Tom to the youngest kitchen-wench, the scullery-maid, all were in suspense.

There was but one breath, long drawn and stifled, when he came into the house. He was a long time in the nursery, and when he came out he went on talking to those who accompanied him. ”You had better shut off this part of the house altogether,” he was saying, ”hang a sheet over this doorway, and let it be always kept wet. I will send in a person I can rely upon to take the night. You must not let Lady Randolph sit up.” He repeated the same caution to Sir Tom, who came out with a bewildered air to hear what he had said. Sir Tom was the only one who had taken no fright. ”Highly infectious,” the Doctor said. ”I advise you to send away every one who is not wanted. If Lady Randolph could be kept out of the room so much the better, but I don't suppose that is possible; anyhow, don't let her sit up. She is just in the condition to take it. It would be better if you did not go near the child yourself; but, of course, I understand how difficult that is. Parents are a nuisance in such cases,”

the Doctor said, with a smile which Sir Tom thought heartless, though it was intended to cheer him. ”It is far better to give the little patient over to scientific unemotional care.”

”But you don't mean to say that there is danger, Doctor,” cried Sir Tom.

”Why, the little beggar was as jolly as possible only this morning.”

”Oh, we'll pull him through, we'll pull him through,” the good-natured Doctor said. He preferred to talk all the time, not to be asked questions, for what could he say? Nurse looked very awful as she went upstairs, charged with private information almost too important for any woman to contain. She stopped at the head of the stairs to whisper to Fletcher, shaking her head the while, and Fletcher, too, shook her head and whispered to Mrs. Freshwater that the doctor had a very bad opinion of the case. Poor little Tom had got to be ”the case” all in a moment.

And ”no const.i.tution” they said to each other under their breath.

Thus the door closed upon Lucy and all her trouble. She forgot it clean, as if it never had existed. Everything in the world in one moment became utterly unimportant to her, except the fever in those heavy eyes. She reflected dimly, with an awful sense of having forestalled fate, that she had made a pretence that he was ill to s.h.i.+eld herself that night, the first night after their arrival. She had said he was ill when all was well. And lo! sudden punishment scathing and terrible had come to her out of the angry skies.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE.

Sir Tom was concerned and anxious, but not alarmed like the women. After all it was a complaint of which children recovered every day. It had nothing to do with the child's lungs, which had been enfeebled by his former illness. He had as good a chance as any other in the present malady. Sir Tom was much depressed for an hour or two, but when everything was done that could be done, and an experienced woman arrived to whom the ”case,” though ”anxious,” as she said, did not appear immediately alarming, he forced his mind to check that depression, and to return to the cares which, if less grave, hara.s.sed and worried him more. Lucy was invisible all day. She spoke to him through the closed door from behind the curtain, but in a voice which he could scarcely hear and which had no tone of individuality in it, but only a faint human sound of distress. ”He is no better. They say we cannot expect him to be better,” she said. ”Come down, dear, and have some dinner,” said the round and large voice of Sir Tom, which even into that stillness brought a certain cheer. But as it sounded into the shut-up room, where n.o.body ventured to speak above their breath, it was like a bell pealing or a discharge of artillery, something that broke up the quiet, and made, or so the poor mother thought, the little patient start in his uneasy bed. Dinner! oh how could he ask it, how could he think of it?

Sir Tom went away with a sigh of mingled uneasiness and impatience. He had always thought Lucy a happy exception to the caprices and vagaries of womankind. He had hoped that she was without nerves, as she had certainly been without those whims that amuse a man in other people's wives, but disgust him in his own. Was she going to turn out just like the rest, with extravagant terrors, humours, fancies--like all of them?

Why should not she come to dinner, and why speak to him only from behind the closed door? He was annoyed and almost angry with Lucy. There had been something the matter, he reflected, for some time. She had taken offence at something; but surely the appearance of a real trouble might, at least, have made an end of that. He felt vexed and impatient as he sat down with Jock alone. ”You will have to get out of this, my boy,” he said, ”or they won't let you go back to school; don't you know it's catching?” To have infection in one's house, and to be considered dangerous by one's friends, is always irritating. Sir Tom spoke with a laugh, but it was a laugh of offence. ”I ought to have thought of it sooner,” he said; ”you can't go straight to school, you know, from a house with fever in it. You must pack up and get off at once.”

”I am not afraid,” cried Jock. ”Do you think I am such a cad as to leave Lucy when she's in trouble? or--or--the little one either?” Jock added, in a husky voice.

”We are all cads in that respect nowadays,” said Sir Tom. ”It is the right thing. It is high principle. Men will elbow off and keep me at a distance, and not a soul will come near Lucy. Well, I suppose, it's all right. But there is some reason in it, so far as you are concerned.

Come, you must be off to-night. Get hold of MTutor, he's still in town, and ask him what you must do.”

After dinner Sir Tom strolled forth. He did not mean to go out, but the house was intolerable, and he was very uneasy on the subject of Bice. It felt, indeed, something like a treason to Lucy, shut up in the child's sick-room, to go to the house which somehow or other was felt to be in opposition, and dimly suspected as the occasion of her changed looks and ways. He did not even say to himself that he meant to go there. And it was not any charm in the Contessa that drew him. It was that uneasy sense of a possibility which involved responsibility, and which, probably, he would never either make sure of or get rid of. The little house in Mayfair was lighted from garret to bas.e.m.e.nt. If the lights were dim inside they looked bright without. It had the air of a house overflowing with life, every room with its sign of occupation. When he got in, the first sight he saw was Montjoie striding across the doorway of the small dining-room. Montjoie was very much at home, puffing his cigarette at the new comer. ”Hallo, St. John!” he cried, then added with a tone of disappointment, ”Oh! it's you.”

”It is I, I'm sorry to say, as you don't seem to like it,” said Sir Tom.

The young fellow looked a little abashed. ”I expected another fellow.

That's not to say I ain't glad to see you. Come in and have a gla.s.s of wine.”

”Thank you,” said Sir Tom. ”I suppose as you are smoking the ladies are upstairs.”

”Oh, they don't mind,” said Montjoie; ”at least the Contessa, don't you know? She's up to a cigarette herself. I shouldn't stand it,” he added, after a moment, ”in--Mademoiselle. Oh, perhaps you haven't heard. She and I--have fixed it all up, don't you know?”

”Fixed it all up?”

”Engaged, and that sort of thing. I'm a kind of boss in this house now.

I thought, perhaps, that was why you were coming, to hear all about it, don't you know?”

”Engaged!” cried Sir Tom, with a surprise in which there was no qualification. He felt disposed to catch the young fellow by the throat and pitch him out of doors.

”You don't seem over and above pleased,” said Montjoie, throwing away his cigarette, and confronting Sir Tom with a flush of defiance. They stood looking at each other for a moment, while Antonio, in the background, watched at the foot of the stairs, not without hopes of a disturbance.

”I don't suppose that my pleasure or displeasure matters much: but you will pardon me if I pa.s.s, for my visit was to the Contessa,” Sir Tom said, going on quickly. He was in an irritable state of mind to begin with. He thought he ought to have been consulted, even as an old friend, much more as---- And the young a.s.s was offensive. If it turned out that Sir Tom had anything to do with it Montjoie should find that to be the best _parti_ of the season was not a thing that would infallibly recommend him to a father at least. The Contessa had risen from her chair at the sound of the voices. She came forward to Sir Tom with both her hands extended as he entered the drawing-room. ”Dear old friend!