by Ellen Wood
“Hark, Johnny! What’s that?”
Cries, screams, sobs. We were near the end of the walk then and rushed out. Anna met us in a dreadful state of agitation. Charley was in the lake! Whitney caught the truth before I did, and was off like a shot.
The nurse, Willis, was dancing frantically about at the water’s edge; the children roared. Willis said Master Charles had slipped on to the ice “surrepstitiously” when her back was turned, and had gone souse in. John Whitney had already plunged in after his little brother; his coat, jacket, and waistcoat were lying on the bank. William Whitney and Tod, hearing the noise, came rushing up.
“Mamma sent me to tell nurse they had been out long enough, and were to come in,” sobbed Anna, shaking like a leaf. “While I was giving her the message, Charley fell in. Oh, what will be done?”
That was just like Anna. Helen would have been cool as a cucumber. Done? Why, John had already saved him. The ice, not much thicker than a shilling, and breaking whenever touched, hardly impeded him at all. Bill and Tod knelt down and lent hands, and they were landed like a couple of drowned rats, Charley howling with all his might. John, always thoughtful, wrapped his great-coat round the lad, and the other two went off with him to the house.
John caught a cold. Not very much of one. He was hot, you see, when he plunged in; and he had only his jacket to put on over his wet clothes to walk home in. Not much of a cold, I say; but he never seemed to be quite the same after that day: and when all was over they would date his illness back from it. Old Featherstone physicked him; and the days passed on.
“I can’t think why John should be so feverish,” Lady Whitney would remark. His hands would be hot, and his cheeks scarlet, and he did not eat. Featherstone failed to alter the state of things; so one day Sir John took him into Worcester to Mr. Carden.
Mr. Carden did not seem to think much of it — as we heard over at Dyke Manor. There was nothing wrong with the lungs or any other vital part. He changed the medicine that Featherstone had been giving, and said he saw no present reason why John should not go back to school. Sir John, standing by in his old spectacles, listening and looking, caught up the words “at present” and asked Mr. Carden whether he had any particular meaning in saying it. But Mr. Carden would not say. Sending his pleasant blue eyes straight into Sir John’s, he assured him that he did not anticipate mischief, or see reason to fear it. He thought, he hoped, that, once John was back with his studies and his companions, he would recover tone and be as well as ever.
And Mr. Carden’s physic did good; for when Whitney came back after the holidays, he seemed himself again. Lady Whitney gave five hundred directions to Mrs. Frost about the extras he was to eat and drink, Hall being had in to assist at the conference. The rest of us rather wished for fevers ourselves, if they entailed beaten-up eggs and wine and jelly between meals. He did his lessons; and he came out in the playground, though he did not often join in play, especially rough play: and he went for walks with us or stayed in as inclination led him, for he was allowed liberty in all things. By Easter he had grown thinner and weaker: and yet there was no specific disease. Mr. Carden came over to Whitney Hall and brought Dr. Hastings, and they could not discover any: but they said he was not strong and wanted care. It was left to John to decide whether he would go back to school after Easter, or not: and he said he should like to go. And so the weeks went on again.
We could not see any change at all in him. It was too gradual, I suppose. He seemed very quiet, strangely thoughtful always, as though he were inwardly puzzling over some knotty question hard to solve. Any quarrel or fight would put him out beyond belief: he’d come up with his gentle voice, and stretch out his hands to part the disputants, and did not rest until he had made peace. Wolfe Barrington, with one of his sneers, said Whitney’s nerves were out of joint. Once or twice we saw him reading a pocket-Bible. It’s quite true. And there was something in his calm face and in his blue-grey eyes that hushed those who would have ridiculed.
“I say, Whitney, have you heard?” I asked. “The Doctor means to have the playground enlarged for next half. Part of the field is to be taken in.”
“Does he?” returned Whitney. It was the twenty-ninth of May, and a half-holiday. The rest had gone in for Hare-and-Hounds. I stayed with Whitney, because he’d be dull alone. We were leaning over the playground gate.
“Blair let it out this morning at mathematics. By the way, Whitney, you did not come in to them.”
“I did not feel quite up to mathematics to-day, Johnny.”
“I am glad it’s going to be done, though. Are not you?”
“It won’t make much difference to me, I expect. I shall not be here.”
“Not here!”
“I don’t think so.”
His chin rested on his hands above the gate. His eyes were gazing out straight before him; looking — as I said before — for something they did not see.
“Do you think you shall be too ill to come next half, Whitney?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Are you feeling worse?” I asked after a minute or two, taken up with staring at the sky.
“That’s what they are always asking me indoors?” he remarked. “It’s just this, Johnny; I don’t feel worse from day to day; I could not say any one morning that I feel a shade worse than I did the previous one: but when I look back a few weeks or months; say, for example, to the beginning of the half, or at Easter, and remember how very well I was then, compared with what I am now, I know that I must be a great deal worse. I could not do now what I did then. Why! I quite believe I might have gone in for Hare-and-Hounds then, if I had chosen. Fancy my trying it now!”
“But you don’t have any pain.”
“None. I’m only weak and tired; always feeling to want to lie down and rest. Every bit of strength and energy has gone out of me, Johnny.”
“You’ll get well,” I said hastily.
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to?” It was his cool answer made me ask it.
“Why, of course I do.”
“Well then?”
“I’ll tell you, Johnny Ludlow; there is a feeling within me, and I can’t say why it’s there or whence it comes, that’s always saying to me I shall not get well. At least, whenever I think about it. It seems just as though it were telling me that instead of getting well it will be — be just the opposite.”
“What a dreadful thing to have, Whitney! It must be like a fellow going about with a skeleton!”
“Not at all dreadful. It never frightens me, or worries me. Just as the rest of you look forward naturally to coming back here, and living out your lives to be men, and all that, so I seem not to look to it. The feeling has nothing bad at all about it. If it had, I dare say it would not be there.”
I stood on the small gate and took a swing. It pained me to hear him say this.
“I suppose you mean, Whitney, that you may be going to die?”
“That’s about it, Johnny. I don’t know it; I may get well, after all.”
“But you don’t think you will?”
“No, I don’t. Little Hearn first; I next. Another ought to follow, to make the third.”
“You speak as easily as if it were only going out to tea, Whitney!”
“Well, I feel easy. I do, indeed.”
“Most of us would be daunted, at any rate.”
“Exactly. Because you are not going to die. Johnny Ludlow, I am getting to think a great deal; to have a sort of insight that I never had before; and I see how very wisely and kindly all things are ordered.”
If he had gone in for a bout of tumbling like the mountebanks, I could not have been as much surprised as to hear him say this. It was more in Mrs. Frost’s line than in ours. It laid hold on me at once; and from that moment, I believed that John Whitney would die.
“Look here, Whitney. It is evident by what you say about failing strength, that you must be getting worse. Why don’t you tell them at home, and go th
ere and be nursed?”
“I don’t want to be nursed. I am not ill enough for it. I’m better as I am: here, amongst you fellows. As to telling them — time enough for that. And what is there to tell? They see for themselves I am not as strong as I was: there’s nothing else to tell.”
“There’s this feeling that you say lies upon you.”
“What, and alarm them for nothing? I dare say. There would be a hullabaloo. I should be rattled home in the old family coach, and Carden would be sent for, post haste, Hastings also, and — well, you are a muff, Johnny. I’ve told you this because I like you, and because I thought you would understand me; which is more than the other fellows would. Mind you keep counsel.”
“Well, you ought to be at home.”
“I am better here, while I am as I am. The holidays will be upon us soon. I expect I shall not come back afterwards.”
Now, if you ask me till next week, I could not give a better account of the earlier part of John Whitney’s illness than this. He was ill; and yet no one could find out why he should be ill, or what was the matter with him. Just about this time, Featherstone took up the notion that it was “liver,” and dosed him for it. For one thing, he said Whitney must ride out daily, good hard riding. So a horse would be brought over from the Hall by the old groom, and they would go out together. During the Whitsun week, when Sir John was away from Parliament, he came also and rode with him. But no matter whether they went slow or fast, Whitney would come back ready to die from the exertion. Upon that, Featherstone changed his opinion, and said riding must be given up.
By the time the Midsummer holidays came, any one might see the change in Whitney. It struck Mrs. Frost particularly when he went in to say good-bye to her.
“For the last time, I think,” he said in a low tone, but with a smiling countenance, as she stood holding his hand.
Mrs. Frost knew what he meant, and her face, always so pale, and delicate, went red.
“I trust not,” she answered. “But — God knows what is best.”
“Oh yes, and we do not. Farewell, dear Mrs. Frost. Thank you truly for all your care and kindness.”
The tears stood in her eyes. She was to be the next one to go from us, after John Whitney.
Wolfe Barrington stood at the door as he passed. “Good luck to you, Whitney,” said he, carelessly. “I’d throw all those nerves of yours over, if I were you, before I came back again.”
Whitney turned back and held out his hand. “Thank you, Barrington,” he replied in his kind, truthful voice; “you wish me well, I know. Good luck to you, in all ways; and I mean it with my whole heart. As to nerves, I do not think I possess any, though some of you have been pleased to joke about it.”
They shook hands, these two, little thinking that, in one sense, the life of both would soon be blighted. In a short time, only a few weeks, Wolfe was to be brought nearer to immediate death than even John Whitney.
Not until he was at home and had settled down among them, did his people notice the great change in him. Lady Whitney, flurried and anxious, sent for Sir John from London. Mr. Carden was summoned, and old Featherstone met him often in consultation. Dr. Hastings came once or twice, but he was an invalid himself then; and Mr. Carden, as every one knew, was equal to anything. Still — it was a positive fact — there was no palpable disease to grapple with in John, only weakness and wasting away. No cough, no damaged lungs. “If only it were gout or dropsy, one would know what to do,” grumbled Featherstone; but Mr. Carden kept his own counsel. They decided that John should go to the seaside for change.
“As if it could do me any good!” he remonstrated. “Change won’t make any difference to me. And I’d a great deal rather stay quietly at home.”
“Why do you say it will not do you good?” cried Lady Whitney, who happened to hear him.
“Because, mother, I feel nearly sure that it will not.”
“Oh dear!” cried she, flurried out of her senses, “John’s going to turn rebellious now.”
“No, I am not,” said John, smiling at her. “I mean to go without any rebellion at all.”
“There’s my best lad,” said she fondly. “Change of scene is all pleasure, John. It’s not like going through a course of pills and powders.”
Well, they all went to the seaside, and at the end of five weeks they all came back again. John had to be assisted out of the carriage, from fatigue. There could be no mistake now.
After that, it was just a gradual decay. The sinking was so imperceptible that he seemed to be always at a stand-still, and some days he was as well as any one need be. His folk did not give up hope of him: no one does in such cases. John was cheerful, and often merry.
“It can’t be consumption,” Sir John would say. “We’ve nothing of the kind in our family; neither on his mother’s side nor on mine. A younger sister of hers died of a sort of decline: but what can that have to do with John?”
Why, clearly nothing. As every one agreed.
In one of Mr. Carden’s visits, Sir John tackled him as he was going away, asking what it was. The two were shut up together talking for a quarter-of-an-hour, Mr. Carden’s horses — he generally came over in his carriage — growing rampant the while. Sir John did not seem much wiser when the sitting was over. He only shuffled his spectacles about on his old red nose — as he used to do when perplexed. Talking of noses: you never saw two so much alike as his and the Squire’s, particularly when they went into a temper.
Not very long after they were back from the seaside, and directly after school met, the accident occurred to Barrington. You have heard of it before: and it has nothing to do with the present paper. John Whitney took it to heart.
“He is not fit to die,” Bill heard him say. “He is not fit to die.”
One morning John walked over to see him, resting on stiles and gates between whiles. It was not very far; but he was good for very little now. Barrington was lying flat on his bed, Mrs. Hearn waiting on him. Wolfe was not tamed then.
“It’s going to be a race between us, I suppose, Whitney,” said he. “You look like a shadow.”
“A race?” replied Whitney, not taking him.
“In that black-plumed slow coach that carries dead men to their graves, and leaves them there. A race which of us two will have the honour of starting first. What a nice prospect! I always hated clayey soil. Fancy lying in it for ever and a day!”
“Fancy, rather, being borne on angels’ wings, and living with God in heaven for ever and ever!” cried Whitney earnestly. “Oh Barrington, fancy that.”
“You’d do for a parson,” retorted Barrington.
The interview was not satisfactory: Whitney so solemnly earnest, Wolfe so mockingly sarcastic: but they parted good friends. It was the last time they ever saw each other in life.
And thus a few more weeks went on.
Now old Frost had one most barbarous custom. And that was, letting the boys take the few days of Michaelmas holiday, or not, as the parents pleased. Naturally, very few did please. I and Tod used to go home: but that was no rule for the rest. We did not go home this year. A day or two before the time, Sir John Whitney rode over to Dyke Manor.
“You had better let the two boys come to us for Michaelmas,” he said to the Squire. “John wants to see them, and they’ll cheer us up. It’s anything but a lively house, I can tell you, Todhetley, with the poor lad lying as he is.”
“I can’t see why he should not get well,” said the Squire.
“I’m sure I can’t. Carden ought to be able to bring him round.”
“So he ought,” assented the Squire. “It would be quite a feather in his cap, after all these months of illness. As to the boys, you may be troubled with ‘em, and welcome, Sir John, if you care to be.”
And so, we went to Whitney Hall that year, instead of home.
John had the best rooms, the two that opened into one another. Sometimes he would be on the bed in one, sometimes on the sofa in the other. Then he would walk about on
some one’s arm; or sit in the easy-chair at the west window, the setting sun full on his wasted face. Barrington had called him a shadow: you should have seen him now. John had talked to Barrington of angels: he was just like an angel in the house himself. And — will you believe it? — they had not given up hope of his getting well again. I wondered the doctors did not tell Lady Whitney the plain truth, and have done with it: but to tell more professional truth than they can help, is what doctors rarely put themselves out of the way to do.
And still — the shadow of the coming death lay on the house. In the hushed voices and soft tread of the servants, in the subdued countenances of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and in the serious spirit that prevailed, the shadow might be seen. It is good to be in such a house as this: for the lessons learnt may take fast hold of the heart. It was good to hear John Whitney talk: and I never quite made out whether he was telling of dreams or realities.
Tod was out of his element: as much so as a fish is out of water. He had plenty of sympathy with John, would have made him well at any sacrifice to himself: but he could not do with the hushed house, in which all things seemed to give way to that shadow of the coming presence. Tod, in his way, was religious enough; more so than some fellows are; but dying beds he did not understand, and would a great deal rather have been shooting partridges than be near one. He and Bill Whitney — who was just as uncomfortable as Tod — used to get off anywhere whenever they could. They did not forget John. They would bring him all kinds of things; flowers, fruit, blackberries as big as Willis’s thimble, and the finest nuts off the trees; but they did not care to sit long with him.
John was awake one afternoon, and I was sitting beside him. He sat in his easy-chair at the window — as he liked to do at this hour when the evening was drawing on. The intensely serene look that for some time now had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpassed in boy or man.
“How quiet the house is, Johnny!” he said, touching my hand. “Where are they all?”