CHAPTER VII.
NEXT MORNING
FERVENTLY, with upturned eyes, with hands joined together, with the dew of agony on her face, and a trembling voice, did Hileria Pullen do her part in the great rite of the Church.
And when it was over, she did seem comforted, and after a while, composed; and at last, worn out with fatigue, and aided by Doctor Lincote’s draught, she fell asleep, and slept deep and serenely till nearly ten o’clock next morning.
The little child slept also a great deal, but not so easily. Mrs. Jolliffe, who had remained in charge of it, was of opinion that there was some sickness hanging over it.
All through the night it was starting, as if in sudden pain, and “blarin’ ye could hear it across the green a’most; and there’s arrals come out all over its skin; and its poor, tiny-winey joints is creaked wi’ fits like, and ’twas always workin’ aswint in the bed; and it looks so pined,” said Mrs. Jolliffe, making her report; “and the babby’s very bad-there’s nout else to be said; and what its sickness may be, there’s none can tell; ‘taint like none that’s go in’, unless happen the doctor might guess.”
In the midst of this consternation the doctor, who had been sent for, arrived.
Mrs. Jenner, Mrs. Jolliffe, Kitty, and even Mall, the cook, were assembled there, hanging upon the words, and even the looks of the sage.
The doctor examined the child curiously, like a work of art. Then he stood up and looked at it with a frown, and asked some questions of Mrs. Jolliffe; and then he peered at it again, and felt its skin, and its pulse, and looked keenly into its eyes, and at last he remarked —
“It’s a very odd case indeed. Did you ever see a case like that, quite, Mrs. Jolliffe? No, I rather think not. It’s as odd a case as ever I saw. That child’s diet must have been played with. I’d say-only I know it has been in honest hands-the child was poisoned. Not enough, I hope, to kill it, whatever’s wrong. But it has had a squeak for it. Warm bathing; just a very little medicine I’ll send; as much whey and goat’s milk as it will drink, and the room kept warm but airy; and trust the rest to young blood, and the energy of new life. Disease, Mrs. Jenner, ma’am, quails before children.”
“You observe its eyes, Mr. Lincote. Do you think there is a -a squint, doctor?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am,” he answered. “It is a more dangerous thing — a symptom of pressure on the brain. Only slight, but it shows how general the derangement is.”
“I knew ’twas bad,” said Kitty, “for it only healed when I sang til’t, and jinked t’keys before its een.”
“If the light hurts its eyes, put a screen before it; and give it nothing solid to eat; and we’ll see how it gets on towards evening again.”
So the doctor took his leave.
Saint George and the Dragon, in spite of the sanguinary character of the situation, looked quite pleasant in the sharp, frosty sun this morning.
Familiar as this piece of blazonry was to the vicar’s eyes, hanging over the’edge of the road, exactly opposite the porch of the George Inn, the good clergyman thought that the valiant knight’s casque and mail, and the dragon’s scales, splendid in Dutch gold, and the georgeous crimson throat of the monster, down which the saint of the azure cloak and red cross had insinuated his gilded lance, never looked more; becomingly. The animated spires of the reptile’s burnished tail, and the goodhumoured grace with which the saint tickled rather than pierced its vermillion interior, gave an air of amicable frolic to the encounter, which quite took away any unpleasantness in the affair.
“Brilliant day, Mr. Turnbull,” said the vicar, with brilliant Saint George and the Dragon still in his eye; “and how is the poor woman to-day?”
“She freats a deal after the bam, sir,” said the innkeeper; “but the doctor says she’s better this morning, and she’s wearying to see you.”
“She shan’t weary long then,” said the vicar cheerily.
And in a few minutes more he stood in the sick woman’s room.
“How does Mrs. Pullen to-day?” he asked. “I’m glad to hear the doctor says you are better.”
“I wish I could see it, sir; I thank you all the same,” whimpered Hileria, who liked the sympathy due to sickness. “I’m very weak, sir. I hope I may leave this bed alive, sir.”
“Would you rather that I looked in another time, Mrs. Pullen? I live close by.”
“Please, sir, how is the poor darling baby?” she inquired. “They are taking every care of it; and the doctor shall look after it until it is quite well again, which I trust may be very soon.”
“Thank God, sir. It’s a sweet little thing, sir. May heaven bless and keep it. My heart’s a-breakin’-I miss it so.”
And Hileria, not finding her pockethandkerchief at the moment, hastily applied the hem of the sheet to her eyes.
“You will be sufficiently recovered, I trust, very soon, Mrs. Pullen, to come and see the child; and if not, the child will very soon be well enough to come and see you.”
“I’m thinking, sir, that can hardly be. I’m afraid, sir-I’m afraid of my life-of that man. I’m well off, sir: I’m well to do — thanks to the poor mistress. She left me by her will five hundred pounds, and I have my savings beside; and I’ll be easy for the rest of my days, I hope; and I’ll keep out of sight, sir, please, till this thing’s blowed over; for he’s a bad man, I’m afraid, sir; and he’s driven nigh desperate by losses and crosses lately, they say; and I should not wonder at anything he may do — he’s that savage; and t’would be a mercy almost he drew his razor across his throat, and made away with himself.”
“You speak of-of whom?” said the vicar.
“Captain Torquil, sir. He has not been here yet, but he will, I’m sure o’ that; and Mr. Turnbull has promised he won’t let him suppose I’m here. And you, sir, won’t neither; for he’s in a mad state, he is, and till I’m away, and out of his reach, I don’t count my life safe.”
“I’m shocked to hear you so speak of Captain Torquil. Not that I’m acquainted with him, or know anything particularly about him; but, everything considered, it is very shocking to think there should have been anything to give a colour in your mind to such language.”
“I’ll tell you, sir — I’ll tell you all,” said Hileria. “That is one reason has brought me here. If you can spare time now, ‘twill be best you should hear it at once. And I’d like to have it off my mind, sir; for I sometimes think ‘twill set me mad, striving to keep it to myself.
“You need not hurry yourself, I can afford you plenty of time,” said the vicar. “Shall I take a chair?”
“Please, sir; and I’ll tell you the best I can. I’m very weak, sir, as you see, but I’ll try and tell it as short as I can, sir.”
Hileria Pullen, with a lean, bilious face and very black eyes, was sitting up in the bed, with a wrapper on and a shawl drawn round her angular figure; a nightcap, with a broad, faded silk ribbon pinned tightly about it, round her head; and some black hair, streaked with white, peeping from under this pale ligature of lilac and faint green.
“Thank you, sir,” said she, and she hemmed to clear her voice, as the vicar took his seat near the foot of the bed, crossing his gaitered leg, and holding his hat and stick on his knee as he inclined an attentive ear towards the sick woman who had a story to tell.
CHAPTER VIII.
HILERIA PULLEN’S ACCOUNT OF CAPTAIN AND MRS. TORQUIL.
“YOU don’t know that family, sir, Captain and Mrs. Torquil?” she began.
“No, I’ve never seen them,” said he.
“After the poor mistress died, sir, the captain came down hot foot to Snedley with his lawyer — his lady, Mrs. Torquil, being named in the will for something-and he took a deal on him, and directed all things; and, not having no copy of the will at the time, which I have one now, I could not gainsay nothing. And he ordered me and the child away to Mrs. Torquil at Guildford.”
“And weren’t you comfortable there?” asked the vicar.
“Yes, s
ir, well enough in a way, but theie was things against it; comfortable in a manner, but not a house such as quiet folk would like to live in. Captain Torquil was a very nice-spoken gentleman at first, but no one likes him long; and he’s scarce ever at Guildford, always in London. So much the better for them as lives in t’other place. A very violent-tempered, dangerous gentleman.”
“But Mrs. Torquil, you found her kind, I dare say?” said the vicar.
“Mrs. Torquil, sir, is nothing in her own house,” said she.
“Oh! controlled by her husband, I suppose?” he suggested.
“Well, sir, I may mention to you, she’s scarce ever out of her bedroom. The fact is, sir — what I wouldn’t on no account tell to another — the poor lady has her failin’, and it’s come to that she’s scarce ever out of her bed.
“She’s too fond of drinkin’, sir, and has ruined her ‘ealth, which she cannot last very long, sir; and ‘twill not fret them much, I’m afraid, that should fret most. ’Tis a bad world, sir, and a sorrowful; and I’m told, poor lady, if she had bin happier mated she’d a bin very different in many ways.”
“Dear me! poor thing! that’s very sad,” said the clergyman, with something of wonder as well as of pain. “That such things are, who could believe if one didn’t see them? Ah, Mrs. Pullen, in the midst of li fe we are in death — that spiritual death, which is so unspeakably more terrible for us than its awful physical image. It is very sad indeed, Mrs. Pullen, what you tell me.”
“So it is, sir, and he leading such a life they do say — gambling, and every other wickedness-and no servants stops there any length of time; and often not the price of a loaf in that house for days together, and credit hard to get for that house, I can tell you, sir.
“But how did Mrs. Mildmay, of Queen’s Snedley, come to admit him at her house?”
“Law love you, sir, she knew nothing. If she had a knewn what sort he was, or she, poor lady, she’d a’ never left them nothing in hei will, nor suffered him nigh the house. But he had a way with him, and flattered her, poor good lady; she was too simple for such like. It wasn’t till I came to Guildford that I got a copy of the will from Mr. Tute, the lawyer. I have it here, sii, in this bag, by my bed; and I’d be glad, sir, if you’d read it, or get a copy took, since the poor darling child is under your care, which, as you will hear, is the saving of its life, no less, the blessed baby.”
“Pray explain — do, my good friend, explain what you mean.”
“What I mean, sir, please, is just this. The poor mistress has left all she can, except about fifty pounds a year, to her cousin, Mrs. Torquil, which she would as soon have burnt her hand in the fire as have done it, if she had a knewn that the poor lady was always more or less in liquor, and seldom out of her bedroom, or fit to speak to no one, I’m sorry to say, sir.”
The vicar raised his hands and eyes, and shook his head slowly. “She had in her power to leave about a thousand a year, which she has left to the darling child, Miss Laura; and if the dear baby should die unmarried, it is all to go, you will see, sir, when you come to read the will, to her afflicted cousin-little she thought what was afflicting of her — Mrs. Torquil.”
“Is Captain Torquil appointed guardian to the child?”
“Not he, sir.”
“Then he has no more right to the custody of that child than he has to the custody of you or me!” said the vicar. “He has no more right than Mr. Turnbull, the innkeeper here — less in fact; because if anything happened to the child he would have a great accession of fortune. He is, for that reason, the very last person who should have charge of the child; no selection could possibly be more improper.”
“Well, sir, I’ll tell you just what happened; but please, sir, you’ll promise not to get me into no trouble for speaking so plain; for, indeed, sir, except to show you how the matter really is, and what a sin it would be in the sight of God to give the child back to that bad man, I would not open my lips to no one on the matter.”
“I see what you mean — that is, I can understand why Captain Torquil, as I have said, should, on consideration, most gladly rid himself of all responsibility about the child.”
“Ah! sir, that ain’t what the captain wants. But I don’t like it no ways, and I could not stay no longer at Guildford, at no price. I could not allow him to take to doctoring the baby, sir.” And she looked darkly at the vicar, and nodded.
“Eh? I don’t quite understand,” hesitated the good man.
“This was it, you must know, sir. He didn’t trouble us out at Guildford much with his company, no more than his money, and he never paid a shilling nowhere without disputing and fighting over it like a dog and cat; but that’s neither here nor there. He did come out to Guildford about ten days after we got there, and he spoke me fair, and made me a present, and for all that there was something about him I did not like, and I could not know myself what it was, only there was. What I then saw first against him was the way he used to walk into poor Mrs. Torquil’s room; just shove open the door and walk in, as if ’twas a stable, and look at her as if he’d like to strangle her; and never a good morning, nor how do you do; and she all of a tremble while he was there, and no word, I am sorry to say, sir, too bad to call her. And whatever she may be, poor lady, it isn’t for him to call her them dreadful names — before servants more especially, when ’twas his own bad treatment that brought her to it; and she there with never a word, nothing but just crying and sobbing, poor thing, as if her heart would break; and whatever money there was, everyone knew ’twas with her it came. Well, he never stayed long, I must say, in her room, only to rummage about for her letters, and reading every scrap ôf paper he could find.
“Well, sir, the first time Captain Torquil came out I did not know him so well, and he walked upstairs right to the nursery — a queer place for a gentleman to be poking into-and he was very nice-spoken and smiling, and he asked how I was, and hoped I was comfortable, and told me to ask for whatever I wanted. And he said he heard the child had a cold. And I said it had, but was getting better; and he said smiling, ‘You know, nurse, I’m a great doctor,’ which I told him I did not know it before.
‘Yes,’ said he. ‘Would you mind putting it to bed, and I’ll have it quite well by tomorrow. It is feverish, and till that is right it can’t get better.’
“Well, sir, it was only wrapped round with its flannels and my quilted shawl, and the little cot all ready, so I did as he bid me; and said he, ‘The thing it wants is James’s powder, and you know how to manage it.’
“And then he went downstairs, and came back, and divided the powder he brought, with him in two; and he said he’d come back and see how it did. And I gave it that powder-he standing by — and it never was the same since.”
“H’m!” said the vicar, with his eyes fixed on a knot in the floor.
And a little silence followed.
“Well, sir, you see, he was angry when I refused to give the child the t’other half of the powder; and when he frowns, and laughs, and turns white, as he does when he’s vexed, he looks very bad, and I could not get his face out of my head, although he did not stay long, nor make much of the matter. But lately he’s bin coming up again to the nursery, and he says the child isn’t thriving with me, which I know well what it was as disagreed with the darling infant, and he wanted me to give it a bottle he had made up in his coat pocket, and I said I’d rayther not, and he pulled off the wrapper and showed me the label with ‘Daffy’s Elixir’ on it, and the name of the apothecary; and he said, ‘You must give it the medicine, the child will die else;’ and I said, ‘I won’t give it no physic, except what the doctor over the way orders and makes up;’ and with that he laughed and called me a fool, and slapt his hand down on the table, and told me to be ready to quit the house and give up the child to a new nurse the next morning; and he gave me a look that frighted me, and I heard him laughing very angry as he ran down the stairs.
“Now, if that stuff in the bottle was really ‘Daffy’s Elixir’ and
nothing mixed in it, why mightn’t he a’ left it where he had put it, on the table, instead of taking it away again in his pocket? Mind ye, sir, I don’t say nothing, but I know what I thought. I was as cold as lead, and trembling all over, and I think I’d a took a fit, only I looked at the poor darling little baby, and I burst out a-cryin,’ and that I think saved me.”
Here Hileria Pullen paused, and the vicar said what is told in the next chapter.
CHAPTER IX.
HILERIA PULLEN’S ADVENTURES.
“YOU are right, Mrs. Pullen, to be very cautious in what you say, because there is no proof, nothing but suspicion. You may depend upon me. You were right to be frank, and you have acted perfectly right. How soon after that did you leave?”
“I’ll tell you all, sir, please. I never was so frightened in all my days. It was easy enough for me to take care of myself. It was just the thing he’d a liked best, for me to take myself off, and leave him to say what he liked of me, and have his will of the darling babby. I knowed well enough what I was afraid of, and who to hinder him? La, sir, you would not think the taking I was in.”
“I can well understand it, Mrs. Pullen, well; go on, pray, I’m all attention,” said the vicar.
“I was ill, sir, and that made matters worse,” said Mrs. Pullen, “much worse. I wasn’t good for nothing; there wasn’t ‘amost no life in me. I thought of this thing and that, as well as I could, with my poor head; and I’d a blessed God, if an angel had come into the room, and told me that me and the baby was to die that night. But God knows best what’s fit for us all.”
“Very true, Mrs. Pullen; that is our best consolation, come what may. If we could only believe that ‘God is Love,’ we should bear the afflictions of this life with serener hearts,” interposed the good vicar.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 741