by Ellen Wood
CHAPTER II.
HAPPILY OVER.
As Judith Ford went back through the lighted streets, the landlady of the Red Lion was standing at her door.
“Good evening, Mrs. Fitch.”
“Why, who — why, Judith, it’s never you! What on earth have you been making yourself such a guy as that for?”
Judith laughed, and explained how it was that she happened to be out in Mrs. Gould’s things, and where she had been to. “After all, my visit has been a useless one,” she remarked, “for Mr. Carlton is away. Gone to London, that impudent boy of his said.”
“I could have told you so, and saved you the trouble of a walk, had I seen you passing,” said Mrs. Fitch. “His groom drove him to the Great Wennock station this morning, and called here as he came back for a glass of ale. Is the lady ill?”
“She does not seem well; she had a fainting-fit just after tea, and thought she had better see a doctor at once.”
“And Dame Gould could send for Mr. Carlton! What have the Greys done to her?”
“Dame Gould thought you recommended Mr. Carlton to the lady.”
“I!” exclaimed Mrs. Fitch; “well, that’s good! I never opened my lips to the lady about any doctor at all.”
“It was her own doing to send for Mr. Carlton, and Mrs. Gould thought you must have spoken for him.”
“Not I. If I had spoken for any it would have been for the Greys, who are our old fellow-townspeople; not but what Mr. Carlton is a nice pleasant gentleman; skilful too. Look here, Judith, you tell Dame Gould that when the time comes for the young lady to be ill, if there’s currant jelly wanted for her, or any little matter of that sort, she can send to me for it, and welcome. I don’t know when I have seen such a sweet young lady.”
Judith gave a word of thanks, and sped on towards Palace Street. She had barely rung the bell when she heard Mrs. Gould floundering downstairs in hot haste. She flung open the door, and seized upon Judith.
“Oh, Judith, thank Heaven you are come! What on earth’s to be done? She is taken ill!”
“Taken ill!” repeated Judith.
“She is, she is, really ill; it’s as true as that you are living. Where’s Mr. Carlton?”
Judith made no reply. Shaking off the timorous woman, and the shawl and bonnet at the same time, which she thrust into her hands, she sped up to the sitting-room. Mrs. Crane was clasping the arm of the easy-chair, in evident pain; the combs were out of her hair, which now fell in wavy curls on her neck, and she moaned aloud in what looked like terror, as she cast her fair girlish face up to Judith. Never, Judith thought, had she seen eyes so wondrously beautiful; they were large tender brown eyes, soft and mournful, and they and their peculiarly sweet expression became fixed from that hour in Judith’s memory.
“Don’t be cast down, poor child,” she said, forgetting ceremony in her compassion. “Lean on me. It will be all right.”
She laid her head on Judith’s shoulder. “Will Mr. Carlton be long?” she moaned. “Cannot some one go and hurry him?”
“Mr. Carlton can’t come, ma’am,” was Judith’s answer. “He went to London this morning.”
A moment’s lifting of the head, a sharp cry of disappointment, and the poor head fell again and the face was hidden. Judith strove to impart comfort.
“They are all strangers to you, ma’am, so what can it matter? I know you cannot fail to like the Greys as well as you would Mr. Carlton. Nay, dear young lady, don’t take on so. Every one likes Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey. Why should you have set your mind on Mr. Carlton?”
She lifted her eyes, wet with tears, whispering in Judith’s ear.
“I cannot afford to pay both, and it is Mr. Carlton I have written to.”
“Pay both! of course not!” responded Judith in a warm tone. “If Mr. Carlton can’t come because he is away, and Mr. Grey attends for him, there’ll be only one of them to pay. Doctors understand all that, ma’am. Mr. Carlton might take Mr. Grey’s place with you as soon as he is back again, if you particularly wish for him.”
“I did wish for him; I do wish for him. Some friends of mine know Mr. Carlton well, and they speak highly of his skill. They recommended him to me.”
That explains it, thought Judith, but she was interrupted by a quaking, quivering voice beside her.
“What in the world will be done?”
It was Widow Gould’s, of course. Judith scarcely condescended to answer: strong in sense herself, she had no sympathy with that sort of weakness.
“The first thing for you to do is to leave off being an idiot; the second is, to go and fetch one of the Mr. Greys.”
“I will not have the Mr. Greys,” spoke the young lady peremptorily, lifting her head from the cushion of the easy-chair, where she had now laid it. “I don’t like the Mr. Greys, and I will not have them.”
“Then, ma’am, you must have been prejudiced against them!” exclaimed Judith.
“True,” said Mrs. Crane; “so far as that I have heard they are not clever.”
Judith could only look her utter astonishment. The Greys not clever! But Mrs. Crane interposed against further discussion.
“I may not want either of them, after all,” she said; “I am feeling easy again now. Perhaps if you leave me alone I shall sleep a little.” They arranged the cushions about her comfortably, and went downstairs, where a half-dispute ensued. Judith reproached Mrs. Gould for her childish cowardice, and that lady retorted that if folks were born timid they couldn’t help themselves. In the midst of it, a cry came from above, and Judith flew up. Mrs. Gould followed, taking her leisure over it, and met the girl, who had come quickly down again, making for the front door.
“One of the Mr. Greys must be got here, whether or not,” she said in passing; “she’s a great deal worse.”
“But, Judy, look here,” were the arresting words of the widow. “Who’ll be at the responsibility? She says she won’t have the Greys, and I might have to pay them out of my own pocket.”
“Nonsense!” retorted Judith. “I wouldn’t bring up pockets, if I were you, when a fellow-creature’s life is at stake. You go up to her then; perhaps you can do that.”
Judith hastened into the street. The two brothers lived in houses adjoining each other, situated about midway between Mrs. Gould’s and the Red Lion Inn. Mr. John, generally called Mr. Grey, occupied the larger house, which contained the surgery and laboratory; Mr. Stephen the smaller one. Mr. Stephen, the younger, had married when he was only twenty-one, and he now wanted a year or two of forty; Mr. John had more recently married, and had a troop of very young children.
The hall-door of Mr. John’s house stood open, and Judith went in, guided by the bright lamp in the fanlight. Too hurried to stand upon ceremony, she crossed the hall and pushed open the surgery door. A handsome, gentlemanly lad of sixteen stood there, pounding drugs with a pestle and mortar. Not perhaps that the face was so handsome in itself; but its exceeding intelligence, the broad, intellectual forehead, the honest expression of the large and earnest blue eyes, would have made the beauty of any countenance. He was the son and only child of Mr. Stephen Grey.
“What is it you, Judith?” he exclaimed, turning his head quickly as she entered. “You come gliding in like a ghost.”
“Because I am in haste, Master Frederick. Are the gentlemen at home?”
“Papa is. Uncle John’s not.”
“I want to see one of them, if you please, sir.”
The boy vaulted off, and returned with Mr. Stephen: a merry-hearted man with a merry and benevolent countenance, who never suffered the spirits of his patients to go down while he could keep them up. A valuable secret in medical treatment.
“Well, Judith, and what’s the matter with you?” he jokingly asked. “Another tooth to be drawn?”
“I’ll tell my errand to yourself, sir, if you please.”
Without waiting to be sent away, Frederick Grey retired from the surgery and closed the door. Judith gave an outline of the case to Mr. Steph
en Grey.
He looked grave; grave for him; and paused a moment when she had ceased.
“Judith, girl, we would prefer not to interfere with Mr. Carlton’s patients. It might appear, look you, as though we grudged him the few he had got together, and would wrest them from him. We wish nothing of the sort: the place is large enough for us all.”.
“And what is the poor young lady to do, sir? To die?”
“To die!” echoed Stephen Grey. “Heaven forbid.”
“But she may die, sir, unless you or Mr. Grey can come to her aid. Mr. Carlton can be of no use to her; he is in London.”
Mr. Stephen Grey felt the force of the argument. While Mr. Carlton was in London, the best part of a hundred miles off, he could not be of much use to any one in South Wennock.
“True, true,” said he, nodding his head. “I’ll go back with you, Judith. Very young, you say? Where’s her husband?”
“Gone travelling abroad, sir,” replied Judith, somewhat improving upon the information supplied by Mrs. Gould. “Is there no nurse that can be sent in, sir?” she continued. “I never saw such a stupid woman as that Mrs. Gould is in illness.”
“Nurse? To be sure. Time enough for that. Frederick,” Mr. Stephen called out to his son, as he crossed the hall, “if your uncle comes in before I am back, tell him I am at Widow Gould’s. A lady who has come to lodge there, is taken ill.”
Judith ran on first, and got back before Mr. Stephen. Somewhat to her surprise, she found Mrs. Crane seated at the table, writing.
“You are better, ma’am!”
“No, I am worse. This has come upon me unexpectedly, and I must write to apprize a friend.”
The perspiration induced by pain was running off her as she spoke. She appeared to have written only two or three lines, and was thrusting the letter into an envelope. Mrs. Gould stood by, helplessly rubbing her hands, her head shaking with a tremulous motion, as though she had St. Vitus’s dance.
“Will you post it for me?”
“Yes, sure I will, ma’am,” replied Judith, taking the note which she held out. “But I fear it is too late to go to-night.”
“It cannot be helped: post it at all risks. And you had better call on one of the medical gentlemen you spoke of, and ask him to come and see me.”
“I have been, ma’am,” replied Judith in a glow of triumph. “He is following me down. And that’s his ring,” she added, as the bell was heard. “It is Mr. Stephen Grey, ma’am; Mr. Grey was not at home. Of the two brothers, Mr. Stephen is the pleasantest, but they are both nice gentlemen. You can’t fail to like Mr. Stephen.”
She went out with the letter, glancing at the superscription. It was addressed to London, to a Mrs. Smith. On the stairs she encountered Mr. Stephen Grey.
“I suppose I am too late for the post to-night, sir?” she asked. “It is a letter from the lady.”
Mr. Stephen took out his watch. “Not if you make a run for it, Judith. It wants four minutes to the time of closing.”
Judith ran off. She was light and active, one of those to whom running is easy; and she saved the post by half-a-minute. Mr. Stephen Grey meanwhile, putting the Widow Gould aside with a merry nod, entered the room alone. Mrs. Crane was standing near the table; one hand lay on it, the other was pressed to her side, and her anxious, beautiful eyes were strained on the door. As they fell on the doctor an expression of relief came into her face. Mr. Stephen went up to her, wondering at her youth. He took one of her hands in his, and looked down with his reassuring smile.
“And now tell me what is the matter?”
She kept his hand, as if there were protection in it, and the tears came into her eyes as she raised them to him, speaking in a whisper.
“I am in great pain: such pain! Do you think I shall die?”
“Die!” cheerily echoed Mr. Stephen. “Not you. You may talk about dying in some fifty or sixty years to come, perhaps; but not now. Come, sit down, and let us have a little quiet chat together.”
“You seem very kind, and I thank you,” she said; “but before going further, I ought to tell you that I am Mr. Carlton’s patient, for I had written to engage him before I knew he was away. I have come an entire stranger to South Wennock, and I had heard of Mr. Carlton’s skill from some friends.”
“Well, we will do the best we can for you until Mr. Carlton’s return, and them leave you in his hands. Are you quite alone?”
“It happens unfortunately that I am. I have just sent a note to the post to summon a friend. You see I never expected to be ill for the next two months.”
“And very likely you will not be,” returned Mr. Stephen. “When you shall have half-a-dozen children about you, young lady, you will know what importance to attach to false alarms. Your husband is abroad, I hear?”
She inclined her head in the affirmative.
But it was no false alarm. The lady grew worse with every minute; and when Judith came back she met Mr. Stephen coming forth from the bedroom.
“You must help me, Judith,” he said. “Dame Gould is utterly useless. First of all, look into the lady’s travelling trunk. She says there are baby’s clothes and other things there. Make haste over it.”
“I’ll do anything and everything I can, sir,” replied Judith; “but I’d make her useful. I have no patience with her.”
“I’ll make her useful in one way if I don’t in another. Where is she now?”
“Sitting on the stairs outside, sir, with her hands to her ears.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Stephen, and he went out to the widow.
“Mrs. Gould, you know Grote’s Buildings?”
“Of course, sir, I do,” was the whimpered answer, as she rose. “Oh, sir, I’m shook!”
“Go there without delay: you can shake as you go along, you know. Ask for Mrs. Hutton, and desire her to come here to me immediately. Tell her the nature of the case.”
Mrs. Gould lost no time in starting, glad to be out of the house. She returned with a short, stout barrel of a woman, with grizzled hair and black eyes. She was attired in a light-coloured print gown, and went simpering into the room, carrying a bundle, and dropping curtseys to Mr. Stephen Grey. Mr. Stephen stared at the woman for a full minute, as if disbelieving his own eyes, and his face turned to severity.
“Who sent for you, Mrs. Pepperfly?”
“Well, sir; please, sir, I came,” was the response, the curtseys dropping all the while. “You sent for Hutton, sir; but she were called out this afternoon; and I was a stopping at number three, and thought I might come in her place.”
“Hutton was called out this afternoon?”
“This very blessed afternoon what’s gone, sir, just as four o’clock was a striking from St. Mark’s Church. Mrs. Gilbert on the Rise is took with fever again, sir, and she won’t have nobody but Hutton to nurse her.”
Mr. Stephen Grey ran over the sisterhood of nurses in his mind, but could think of none available just then. He beckoned the woman from the room.
“Hark ye, Mother Pepperfly,” he said in a stern tone. “You know your failing; now, if you dare to give way to it this time, as you have done before, you shall never again nurse a patient of mine or my brother’s. You can do your duty — none better — if you choose to keep in a fit state to do it. Take care you do so.”
Mrs. Pepperfly squeezed out a tear. She’d be upon her Bible oath, if Mr. Stephen chose to put her to it, not to touch nothing stronger than table beer. Mr. Stephen, however, did not put her to the ordeal.
There was sufficient bustle in the house that night; but by the morning quiet and peace had supervened; and Nurse Pepperfly, on her best behaviour, was carrying about, wrapped in flannel, a wee, wee infant.
Judith had not left Mrs. Crane’s side during the night, and the latter appeared to be drawn to her by some attraction, to find comfort in her genuine sympathy.
“You have been a good girl, Judith,” Mr. Stephen said to her as he was leaving in the morning, and she went down to open the door for him.
“Famously,” answered Mr. Stephen. “Never had a safer case in my life. Give a look to Mother Pepperfly, Judith. I trust her as far as I can see her. I shall be back in a couple of hours.”
Things went on well during the day. Mrs. Pepperfly busied herself chiefly with the baby, nursing it by the fire in the sitting-room; Judith attended on the sick lady. In the afternoon, Mrs. Crane, who was lying awake, suddenly addressed her.
“Judith, how is it you are able to be with me? I thought the landlady told me you were in service.”
“Not just now, ma’am. I have been in service, but have left my place, and am stopping with my sister, at the next door, while I look out for another.”
“Does your sister let lodgings, as Mrs. Gould does?”
“A lady lives at the next door, a Mrs. Jenkinson,” was Judith’s reply, “and my sister is her servant. Margaret has lived with her going on for eleven years.”
“So that just now you are at liberty?”
“Quite so, ma’am.”
“See now how merciful God is!” spoke Mrs. Crane, placing her hands together in an attitude of reverence. “Last night, when I began to feel ill, and thought I should have no one about me but that timid Mrs. Gould, I turned sick with perplexity, — with fear, I may say, — at the prospect of being left with her. And then you. Seemed to be raised up for me, as it were on purpose, and can be with me without let or hindrance. None but those who have stood in need of it,” she added, after a pause, “can know the full extent of God’s mercy.”
A glow, partly of pleasure, partly of shame, came over Judith’s face as she listened. In a little corner of her inmost heart there had lurked a doubt whether it was all as straight as it ought to be with the young lady who had come there in so strange a manner — whether that plain gold ring on her finger had been a genuine wedding-ring, or only a bauble placed there to deceive. The reverential words of trust convinced Judith that the lady, whoever she might be, and whatever might be the mystery, was as honest as she was, and she took shame to herself for having doubted her. No girl, living a life of sin, could speak with that unaffected simplicity of the goodness of God. At least, so felt Judith.