‘If I should have caught a fever from that poor thing, don’t let her be sent away while I am ill,’ she pleaded earnestly.
‘My dearest, it will not be in my power—’ he began.
‘It is the first favour I have asked you since our engagement, Bruno. Promise,’ she urged.
‘I promise, love. I will do my uttermost to prevent her being sent away.’
‘It is not her fault, remember, dear. She did not know that the fever was contagious. She had been told that she was. cured.’
‘Of course, dear. And who says you are going to have a fever?’ said Bruno, pretending to be intensely cheerful. ‘You are only a little tired with our rides and rambles in the sunshine. If you go to bed early, and let Marjoram nurse you, I daresay you will be quite well to-morrow morning.’
But Lucille was no better next morning — a great deal worse, rather; and on his early visit, before nine o’clock, the family doctor pronounced her indisposition a clearly marked case of scarlet fever. He saw Bess, and discovered that she was only just escaping from the most contagious condition of a convalescent patient, and that, when Lady Lucille took her home to the Castle, that dangerous condition must have been in full force. Tompion and Miss Marjoram had both had scarlet fever; but the carefully guarded Lucille had escaped the disease hitherto, and was a ready subject for contagion.
When Bess heard what had happened she was in an agony of grief. Mr. Wharton, the kind-hearted doctor, was constrained to comfort her by the assurance that at present there was no indication of danger.
‘But at the same time,’ said Miss Marjorum severely, ‘I must say it was a very cruel act of you to come into this house, and bring trouble and sickness with you.’
‘I had better go away this minute,’ said Bess, drying her tears, and drawing herself up with more dignity of gesture than might be expected of a girl who had sold violets for a penny a bunch; ‘but you may bear in mind, lady, that I was brought into this house by that sweet angel when I hardly knew whether I was alive or dead, and that it was by her wish I stopped here. As to bringing sickness and trouble — well, what should such as I bring with me but trouble, that has never knowed anything else? But I’ll go this moment. I can go on the tramp again, and fall back into all the old ways; but I can never forget the dear young lady that’s ill. She was the first lady that ever treated me as if I was made of the same flesh and blood as herself.
‘No, you are not to go away,’ said Bruno firmly. ‘It was Lady Lucille’s special request to me that you should not be sent away while she was ill. Tompion, you will look after this young person during your mistress’s illness, and you will see that she learns to make herself useful.’
Bess looked at Mr. Challoner with wide-open wondering eyes. It was the first time this godlike personage had spoken directly to her. His voice thrilled her; his eyes, with their steady divinely truthful look, awed her into silence. She stood before him as before a supernaturally gifted judge, who could read her secret thoughts.
‘Yes,’ muttered Tompion, as Mr. Challoner left the room; giving other people fevers, I’ll warrant! I don’t know but what I’ve got the fever upon me myself. There’s a many that have it twice.’
‘You needn’t be afraid,’ said Mr. Wharton. ‘I’ll take care that there shall be no risk of further infection, if this young person will do what I tell her.’
‘I’ll do anything, sir,’ answered Bess meekly, her eyes still fixed on the doorway through which Bruno had gone. ‘I’d give half my life if they’d let me nurse that dear young lady.’
‘Why, what can you know of nursing, young woman?’ asked the doctor.
‘Poor folks has to help one another, sir,’ answered the girl meekly. ‘Many’s the night I’ve sat up to nurse a neighbour, or a neighbour’s child. We all lived so scrooged together down our court, one couldn’t help being friendly.’
‘Yes, I know how good the poor are to the poor,’ said the doctor kindly. ‘Well, Mr. Challoner says you are to stay. We’ll see, by-and-by, if you can be handy in the sick-room; but we must have better help than yours. I have telegraphed for a couple of nurses from an institution in London.’
And now came all those dismal signs and tokens of an infectious illness which send a chill to the hearts of those who can only watch and wait for the result. Lady Lucille’s rooms were cut off from all direct communication with the rest of the house. Sheets steeped in diluted carbolic acid bung before the doors. A nursing sister, in a prim black gown and a picturesque white cap, emerged solemnly at intervals to receive the various necessaries for the sick-room. Bruno was forbidden all access to his cousin’s apartment, albeit he had no fear of infection. Miss Marjoram had suffered the malady in her infancy, and had an idea that the lapse of time had prepared her for a second attack; so, although deeply anxious about her pupil, she readily submitted to the decree of banishment.
To Bruno banishment seemed almost as hard to bear as it was to Romeo in the morning of his love. It was so hard to be parted from his betrothed in the very beginning of their engagement; to be so near her, and yet to be forbidden to see her, to clasp the dear hand, to whisper tender words of comfort and pity; hardest of all to know that while he walked about and chafed and fretted, in all the fulness of health and vigour, she lay prostrate and suffering, consumed with fever, the lips he kissed yesterday parched and pale, the sweet eyes dull and heavy.
He spent the greater part of the day pacing the garden-paths below Lady Lucille’s rooms, looking up at the open windows, longing to hear his darling’s voice, going into the house every half-hour to get the latest news of the sickroom. She was very ill, they told him, suffering a good deal from sore throat; but this was only natural. The disease must take its course.
The same train which brought the two nursing sisters brought Lord Ingleshaw, summoned by a telegram from Miss Marjoram. He had arranged to arrive at Ingleshaw on this day, and had looked forward to a joyful meeting with Bruno, who had written to tell him how Lucille and he only waited her father’s approval of their engagement to make them completely happy. Bruno knew very well that to ask his kinsman’s consent was only a respectful formula; enough had been said by the Earl in the past to assure him that Lord Ingleshaw had no dearer hope than to see his daughter married to her cousin.
But now, instead of meeting in joy, the Earl and his heir met in sorrow. True that the family doctor declared that the malady showed no sign of danger; that there was not even occasion for a second opinion. The fact that the bright happy girl lay prostrate and fever-stricken was full of pain and fear for those who so fondly loved her.
‘How, in Heaven’s name, can she have caught this fever?’ asked the Earl, looking from Bruno to Miss Marjoram. ‘Where has she been? What has she been doing? Is there scarlet fever in the village? Has she been visiting any sick people?’
‘I regret to say that the dear child’s wilfulness is the sole cause of this misfortune,’ said Miss Marjoram; and then she proceeded to tell the story of Lucille’s unconscious imitation of the good Samaritan.
The Earl was a Christian, deeply and earnestly religious; yet his first thought, on hearing the story, was that his daughter had acted like a fool. There is such a wide distance between mechanical benevolence — as shown in liberal contributions to all respectable charities, in large doles of bread and fuel dealt out by hireling hands — and in this personal practical compassion, which brings a patrician’s daughter face to face with the child of the gutter.
Lord Ingleshaw’s second thought was vindictive towards Bess.
‘What has become of this girl? She has been sent away, of course?’ he said.
‘I regret to say that she has not,’ replied Miss Marjoram, with a crushing look at Bruno.
‘Lucille earnestly entreated me last night that the young woman should not be sent away,’ said Bruno, unabashed. ‘I promised her that if it were in my power to prevent it she should not be sent away. She can do no further harm by remaining here.’
‘S
he can only rob the house, and murder us all in our beds,’ said Miss Marjorum.
‘His lordship can see her, and judge for himself what inclination she may have that way,’ replied Bruno.
‘I’ll see my daughter first,’ said Lord Ingleshaw.
‘My dear sir, consider: at your age scarlet fever might be fatal,’ exclaimed Miss Marjorum.
‘I believe I have had scarlet fever. At any rate I have no fear of infection,’ answered the Earl.
‘They won’t let me see her,’ said Bruno piteously. ‘How I wish I might go with you!’
Unhappily, Mr. Wharton had expressly ordered that his patient was to be kept as quiet as possible, and was to see no one but her nurses. The father’s authority overruled the doctor’s; but there could be no such exception made in Bruno’s favour. He had to content himself with pouring out his love and devotion in a hurried letter, which the Earl promised to give to Lucille.
Lord Ingleshaw stayed with his darling for about ten minutes, the day nurse looking grudgingly on at his caresses, as if he were poisoning her patient. Lucille was feeble and feverish but her eyes brimmed over with joyful tears at sight of the dear father. She put her arms round his neck and hugged him, as he bent over her pillow.
‘I’m afraid this is very agitating for her,’ murmured the nurse.
‘No, no, indeed, father; don’t go away yet. It does me a world of good to see you.’
Before Lord Ingleshaw left her bedside he had promised that Bess should not be sent away. The mischief that was done could not be undone; and he could not steel himself against his sick child’s tender pleading.
He sent for Bess, and saw her alone in the library; the girl deeply awed by the grave yet splendid aspect of the room — the walls of books, the carved oak cabinets, the massive writing-table, before which the Earl sat in his large crimson morocco-covered armchair, an imposing figure, with fine intellectual face, and silvered hair and beard.
He questioned her closely, as it would never have occurred to Lady Lucille to question her: and this was the utmost he could obtain from her.
She could remember neither father nor mother. She had been brought up by an old woman, who went hawking in town and country, sometimes selling one kind of goods, sometimes another — flowers and fruit mostly in London, lace and haberdashery in the country. The woman treated her badly, beat her, and half-starved her, and as soon as she was old enough she ran away, and sold flowers on her own account, sharing a garret in Whitechapel with three other girls, two of them match-box makers, and the third a hawker like herself. It was a hard life; but they got along somehow, till she fell ill of a fever, and they took her to the infirmary attached to the workhouse. When she recovered the workhouse authorities turned her out; and instead of going back to her garret she set out to walk to Dover, where she hoped to find a young man who had kept company with her, and who had’ listed, and gone with his regiment to that place.
Lord Ingleshaw made particular inquiries as to her relations with this young man. He had been employed at a horse-dealer’s in Whitechapel. He was an honest lad; had never got into trouble, so far as she knew. He wanted to marry her as soon as he had saved a little money; but in the meanwhile he had quarrelled with his master, and enlisted in a cavalry regiment. The girl answered his lordship’s questions without flinching. He could see no sign of guilt in her manner. The story of her youth and bringing up was wretched, but as common as it was wretched. She declared that she had never been in prison; she had managed to exist by honest labour, such as it was.
She had no knowledge of any other name than Bess. The old woman had called her by that name. Her young man had called her Starlight Bess, after a character in a play.
‘We will give you a surname at once,’ said the Earl. ‘My daughter found you on a May morning. Suppose we call you Elizabeth May? I shall allow you to remain at the Castle in Tompion’s charge for the present; and I hope you will take pains to learn all she can teach you. By-and-by I will see what can be done to place you in the way of earning your living. You must forget all about the young man at Dover. He is a soldier, and will have to go wherever his regiment may be ordered. You had better tell me his name, by-the-bye.
‘Tom Brook.’
The Earl wrote the name in his pocket-book.
‘And you must promise me that you will hold no communication with him while you are in this house.’
‘I can’t write,’ said the girl simply.
‘Very good. But you must understand that you are not to communicate with Mr. Brook by any other means. And now you can go.’
The girl, no longer Bess, but Elizabeth May, lifted her soft eyes gratefully to the Earl’s face, made him a curtsy, and retired.
‘She is the prettiest creature I ever saw,’ mused his lord-ship; ‘and she has the air of a lady, in spite of her vile English. This must be some waif from the superior classes that has drifted into the gutter.’
CHAPTER IV. OVER SUMMER SEAS.
‘And ever as we sailed, our minds were full
Of love and wisdom, which would overflow
In converse wild, and sweet, and wonderful;
And in quick smiles whose light would come and go,
Like music o’er wide waves.’
MIDSUMMER-DAY had come and gone, and June was nearly over, before Lady Lucille was so far convalescent as to sit in an armchair by the open window of her dressing-room, and take afternoon tea with her father. The fever had been worse than Mr. Wharton apprehended. A famous physician had been down from London four times, merely to approve Mr. Wharton’s treatment. Nurses and doctor had watched with unwavering care; and now the peril was past and gone, and Lady Lucille, pale, wan, and ethereal, reclined luxuriously in a nest of downy pillows, and sipped her tea, while her father watched her with eyes that were dimmed by happy tears. There had been a time — one terrible never-to-be-forgotten night — when he feared to lose this one jewel of his home.
Lady Lucille had had three nurses instead of two. Elizabeth May had pleaded with the doctor to be admitted to the sick-room, as a mere drudge to wait upon the trained nurses; and she had proved herself a genius at nursing.
‘I believe she has a genius for everything,’ said Lucille, looking up at the girl who stood beside her chair, ready to take the cup and saucer, which were almost too heavy a burden for the weak wasted hands. ‘Now that I am so much better, we can go on with our reading-lessons, Elizabeth.’
‘I shall be so glad of that, Lady Lucille. I have been learning with Tompion everyday; and I’ve read to myself at night when I’ve been wakeful; and I think I’ve got on. But it will be so much nicer to learn with you.’
‘She has left off using vulgar expressions,’ said Lord Ingleshaw approvingly. ‘She reads her Bible daily, and she has been to church with Tompion. I think she is getting clearer ideas of what Christianity means.’
Elizabeth looked at him gratefully with those gazelle eyes of hers. He, too, like Bruno Challoner, was one of the demi-gods, judged by that standard of humanity which was alone familiar to her. She looked with reverent admiration at the straight clearly-cut features, the thick gray hair brushed smoothly back from the broad open brow the commanding gaze of the gray eyes, under strongly marked brows, darker than the hair. Among all her companies of the past there had been no such face as this.
Bruno Challoner was in London. Lord Ingleshaw, seeing that he was fretting himself into a fever, has insisted upon his leaving the Castle directly Lucille was pronounced out of danger.
‘I’ll send you half a dozen telegrams a day, if you like,’ said his lordship; ‘but I won’t have you hanging about the corridors to question the nurses, or pacing the terrace, under Lucille’s windows, half the night.’
During the first fortnight of his betrothed’s illness, Bruno had been in frequent communication with Elizabeth, who was, indeed, his informant about his darling’s condition. She seemed more sympathetic than the hired nurses. She brought him messages from his love, and carried back
his own loving messages and the flowers which he had gathered to adorn his darling’s room. She was full of intelligence, divining his every thought, as it seemed to Bruno, with that wonderful keenness bred of stern necessity. Her devotion to the young lady, whose charity had opened the gates of a new world for her, was obvious in all her conduct.
‘I believe that for once in my life I have met with the black swan, gratitude,’ Bruno told himself.
And now Bruno was getting rid of his life, as best he might, an exile from Ingleshaw. He slept at the house in Grosvenor Square, dined at his club, spent his days in masculine society, talked politics with incipient Cabinet Ministers flushed with the small triumphs of their first session, and planned his own entrance into public life. He had no heart for the amusements of London, while Lucille was still an invalid. His spirits rose and fell in unison with the telegrams from the Castle. He would accept no invitation, and go to neither opera nor theatre. His only evening resort was the Strangers’ Gallery or the Lobby in the house of commons where he combined instruction with amusement. Never did three weeks of his life hang more heavily on his hands.
She, who little more than a month ago had been Wild Bess, Black-eyed Bess, of Whitechapel, but who now answered meekly to the name of Elizabeth, had ample occupation for her mind during this glowing summer-tide. Her introduction to Ingleshaw Castle had been like a new birth. Pygmalion’s animated statue could hardly have begun life more newly than this girl, suddenly transferred from the slums to the palace. Her eyes shone wide with wonder at a world where all things, animate and inanimate, were strange and beautiful. She had an intense appreciation of the Beautiful which surprised Lucille, who had been taught by the severely Aristotelean Marjorum that taste was the product of education, and was not to be expected from the ignorant.
Even Miss Marjoram was forced to admit that Elizabeth May showed a wonderful quickness at acquiring knowledge; but while owning as much as this, Lucille’s governess in nowise sank her prejudice against her pupil’s protégée. She would have disliked Elizabeth less had she been dull and slow. There was, to her mind, something uncanny, something impish, in this excessive quickness, this marvellous adaptability. That a creature plucked out of the quagmire of destitute dissolute East-end London could acquire all at once the graciousness of a lady, the low and musical tones of voice, the quiet measured movements, the tranquil beauty of educated girlhood — ay, of girlhood taught and trained through the slow course of years by Miss Marjoram — was a miracle that troubled and vexed the governess exceedingly. Of course this refinement was all surface — mere acting at best — a remarkable instance of mimetic power in the lower classes. Unfortunately, the Earl and his daughter were too ready to be deceived by these mimic graces. Already this characterless, creditless damsel was accepted as a member of the Ingleshaw household, and sat at meat with the upper servants, or was served apart in her own bower — she who should have been proud to eat with kitchen-maids and foot-men. There was no more talk of apprenticing her, or finding her service elsewhere. She was to learn the duties of an abigail from Tompion, and on Tompion’s marriage with the under-butler — an event which had been impending for the last five years — Elizabeth May was to take Tompion’s place. In the meantime there were small and gracious duties allotted to her. She dusted the books and china in Lady Lucille’s rooms; she arranged the flowers, handling with light and delicate touch those exquisite exotics which were to her verily the revelation of unknown worlds. Lucille often made these flowers the text for a brief lecture on the countries from which they came, Elizabeth listening delightedly to the description of those far-away tropical regions.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1106