by Various
The beams of the setting sun streamed into the dining-room of the Taylor mansion; it was a room of fine proportions, not dull and heavy as it is the custom of some dining-rooms, but light and graceful as could be wished. Charles Taylor, with his fine beauty, sat at one end of the room, Miss Mary Taylor, a maiden lady of mature years, good looking also in her peculiar style, sat opposite him, she wore a white dress, its make remarkably young, and her hair fell in ringlets, young also; at her right-hand sat Matilda, singularly attractive in her quiet loveliness, with her silver dotted muslin dress trimmed with white ribbons; at her left sat Martha, quiet in manner, plain in features; she had large gray eyes, reflective strangely deep, with a circle of darker gray around them, when they were cast upon you it was not at you they looked, but at what was within you, at your mind, your thoughts; at least such was the impression they carried. Thus sat this worthy group, deep in thought, for they had been conversing about the weather, that had been so damp, for it had been raining for months, and the result was a malarial fever, visiting the residents of Belleville, and it was very dangerous, for the sufferer would soon lapse into unconsciousness and all was over; and it was generally believed that the fever was abated. A rap at the door brought Charles Taylor to his feet, it was George, the old gardener, he had come to tell them the fever had broken out again. “What!” exclaimed Charles. “The fever broken out again?” “Yes, it have,” said George, who had the build of a Dutchman, and was taciturn upon most subjects; in manner he was most surly and would hold his own opinion, especially if it touched upon his occupation, against the world.
The news fell upon Charles’ heart like a knell; he fully believed the danger to have passed, though not yet the sickness. “Are you sure that the fever has broken out again, George?” he asked, after a pause. “I ain’t no surer than I was told,” returned George. “I met Doctor Brown, and he said as he passed, that the fever had broken out again.” “Do you know where?” asked Charles. “He said, I believe, but I didn’t catch it; if I stopped to listen to the talk of fevers where would my work be?” George moved on ere he had done speaking, possibly from the impression that the present talk was not forwarding his work. Taking his black silk hat Charles said, “I shall go out and see if I can glean any news; I hope it may be a false report.” He was just outside the walks when he saw Doctor Brown, the most popular doctor in the village, coming along quickly in his buggy; Charles motioned his hand, and the driver pulled up. “It is true, this fresh report of fever?” “Too true, I fear,” replied the doctor. “I am on my way now, just summoned.” “Who’s attacked?” “Mary Ann Brewster.” The name appeared to startle Charles. “Mary Ann Brewster,” he uttered, “she will never pull through it.” The doctor raised his eye-brows as if he thought it doubtful, and motioned to his driver to move on. On the morning in question Mary Ann Brewster awoke sick; in her impatient, fretful way she called out to Janey, who slept in an adjoining room. Janey was fast asleep, but she was used to being aroused out of her sleep at unreasonable hours by Mary Ann and she threw on her dressing-gown and hastened to her. “I want some tea,” began Mary Ann, “I am as sick and thirsty as I can be.” She was really of a sickly constitution and to hear her complain of being “sick and thirsty” was nothing unusual. Janey in her loving nature, her sweet patience, received the information with as much concern as though she had never heard it before. She bent over Mary Ann and spoke tenderly, “where do you feel pain, dear, in your head or chest, where is it?” “I told you that I was sick and thirsty, and that’s enough,” peevishly answered Mary Ann. “Go and get me some tea.” “As soon as I can,” said Janey, soothingly. “There is no fire yet, the girls are not up, I do not think it can be later than four, by the look of the morning.” “Very well,” cried Mary Ann, the sobs being contrived by the catching up of her breath in temper not by tears, “you can’t call the maids I suppose, and you can’t put yourself the least out of the way to alleviate my suffering; you want to go to bed again and sleep till nine o’clock; when I am dead you will wish you were more like a sister; you possess great, rude health yourself, and you feel no compassion for those who do not.” An assertion unjust and untrue like many others made by Mary Ann. Janey did not possess rude health, though she was not like her sister always complaining, and she had more compassion for Mary Ann than she deserved. “I will see what I can do,” she gently said, “you shall soon have some tea.” Passing into her own room Janey hastily dressed herself. When Mary Ann was in one of her exacting moods there could be no more sleep for Janey.
“I wonder,” she said to herself, “whether I could not make the fire without waking the girls, they had such a hard day’s work yesterday cleaning house; yes, if I can get some chips I will make a fire.” She went down to the kitchen, hunted up what was required, laid the fire and lighted it; it did not burn quickly, she thought the chips might be damp and she got the bellows; there she was on her knees blowing at the chips and sending the blaze amid the coals, when some one entered the kitchen. “Miss Janey!” It was one of the girls, Eliza; she had heard a noise in the kitchen and had arisen. Janey explained that her sister was sick and tea was wanted. “Why did you not call us?” “You went to bed so late and had worked so hard, I thought that I would not disturb you.” “But it is not lady’s work, Miss.” “I think ladies should put on gloves when they undertake it,” gayly laughed Janey: “look at my black hands.” “What would Mr. Taylor say if he saw you on your knees lighting a fire?” “He would say I was doing right, Eliza,” replied Janey, a shade of reproof in her firm tones, though the allusion caused the color to crimson her cheeks; the girl had been with them some time and assumed more privilege than a less respected servant would have been allowed to do. The tea ready Janey carried a cup of it to her sister, with a slice of toast that she had made. Mary Ann drank the tea at a draft, but she turned with a shiver from the toast, she seemed to be shivering much. “Who was so stupid as to make that? you might know I could not eat it, I am too sick.” Janey began to think she looked very sick, her face was flushed shivering though she was, her lips were dry, her bright eyes were unnaturally heavy; she gently laid her hands, cleanly washed, upon her sister’s brow; it felt burning, and Mary Ann screamed out, “Do keep your hands away, my head is splitting with pain.” All at once Janey thought of the fever, the danger from which they had been reckoning to have passed. “Would you like me to bathe your forehead with water, Mary Ann?” asked Janey, kindly. “I would like you to stop until things are asked for and not to worry me,” replied Mary Ann. Janey sighed, not for the cross temper, Mary Ann was always cross in sickness, but for the suffering she thought she saw and the half-doubt, half-dread which had arisen within her. I think I had better call mamma, she thought to herself, though if she sees nothing unusual the matter with Mary Ann she will only be angry with me; proceeding to her mother’s chamber Janey knocked gently, her mother slept still, but the entrance aroused her. “Mamma, I do not like to disturb you, but Mary Ann is sick.” “Sick again, and only last week she was in bed three days, poor, dear sufferer; is it her chest?”
“Mamma she seems unusually ill, otherwise I should not have disturbed you, I feared, I thought you will be angry with me, if I say, perhaps”; “say what, don’t stand like a statue, Janey.” Janey dropped her voice, “dear mamma, suppose it should be the fever?” For one startling moment Mrs. Brewster felt as if a dagger was piercing her heart; the next she turned upon Janey. “Fever for Mary Ann! How dared she prophesy it, a low common fever confined to the poor and the town and which had gone away or all but; was it likely to turn itself back again and come up here to attack her darling child?” Janey, the tears in her eyes, said she hoped it would prove to be only a common headache; that it was her love for Mary Ann which awoke her fears. The mother proceeded to the sick-chamber and Janey followed. Mrs. Brewster was not accustomed to observe caution and she spoke freely of the “fever” before Mary Ann; seemingly for the purpose of casting blame upon Janey. Mary Ann did not cat
ch the fear, she ridiculed Janey as her mother had done; for several hours Mrs. Brewster did not catch it either, she would have summoned medical aid at first, but Mary Ann in her fretfulness protested that she would not have a doctor; later she grew worse and Doctor Brown was sent for, you saw him in his buggy going to the house.
Mrs. Brewster came forward to meet him, Janey, full of anxiety, near her. Mrs. Brewster was a thin woman, with a shriveled face and a sharp red nose, her gray hair banded closely under a white cap, her style of headdress never varied, it consisted always of a plain cap with a quilled border trimmed with purple ribbon, her black dresses she had not laid aside since the death of her husband and intended never to do so. She grasped the arm of the doctor, “You must save my child!” “Higher aid permitting me,” answered the surgeon. “What makes you think it’s the fever? For months I have been summoned by timid parents to any number of fever cases and when I have arrived in haste they have turned out to be no fever at all.” “This is the fever,” Mrs. Brewster replied; “had I been more willing to admit that it was, you would have been sent for hours ago, it was Janey’s fault; she suggested at day-break that it might be the fever, and it made my darling girl so angry that she forbade my sending for advice; but she is worse now, come and see her.” The doctor laid his hand upon Janey’s head with a fond gesture as he followed Mrs. Brewster; all the neighbors of Bellville loved Janey Brewster. Tossing upon her uneasy bed, her face crimson, her hair floating untidily around it, lay Mary Ann, still shivering; the doctor gave one glance at her, it was quite enough to satisfy him that the mother was not mistaken.
“Is it the fever,” impatiently asked Mary Ann, un-closing her hot eyelids; “if it is we must drive it away,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Why should the fever have come to me?” she rejoined in a tone of rebellion. “Why was I thrown from my buggy last year and my back sprained? Such unpleasant things do come to us.” “To sprain your back is nothing compared with this fever; you got well again.” “And we will get you well if you will be quiet and reasonable.” “I am so hot, my head is so heavy.” The doctor, who had called for water and a glass, was mixing up a brown powder which he had produced from his pocket; she drank it without opposition, and then he lessened the weight of the bedclothes, and afterward turned his attention to the bedroom. It was close and hot, and the sun which had just burst forth brightly from the gray sky shone full upon it. “You have got the chimney stuffed up,” he exclaimed. “Mary Ann will not allow it to be open,” said Mrs. Brewster; “she is sensitive to cold, and feels the slightest draft.” The doctor walked to the chimney, turned up his coat cuff and wristband and pulled down a bag filled with shavings; some soot came with it and covered his hand, but he did not mind that; he was as little given to ceremony as Mrs. Brewster was to caution, and he walked leisurely up to the wash-stand to wash it off. “Now, if I catch that bag or any other bag up there obstructing the air, I shall pull down the bricks and make a good big hole that the sky can be seen through; of that I give you notice, madam.” He next pulled the window down at the top behind the blind, but the room at its best did not find favor with him. “It is not airy; it is not cool,” he said. “Is there not a better ventilated room in the house? if so, she shall be moved to it.” “My room is a cool one,” interposed Janey eagerly; “the sun never shines upon it, doctor.” It appears that Janey, thus speaking, must have reminded the doctor that she was present for in the same unceremonious fashion that he had laid his hands upon the chimney bag, he now laid them upon her shoulder and walked her out of the room. “You go down stairs, Miss Janey, and do not come within a mile of this room again until I give you notice.” During this time Mary Ann was talking imperiously and fretfully. “I will not be moved into Janey’s room; it is not furnished with half the comforts of mine; it has only a little bed-side carpet; I will not go there, doctor.” “Now, see here, Mary Ann,” said the doctor firmly, “I am responsible for getting you well, and I shall take my own way to do it. If I am to be contradicted at every suggestion, your mother can summon some one else to attend you, I will not undertake it.”
“My dear you shall not be moved to Janey’s room”; said her mother coaxingly; “you shall be moved to mine, it is larger than this, you know, doctor, with a draft through it, if you wish to open the door and windows.”
“Very well,” replied the doctor, “let me find her in it when I come again this evening, and if there’s a carpet on the floor take it up, carpets were never intended for bed-rooms.” He went into one of the sitting-rooms with Mrs. Brewster as he descended; “What do you think of the case,” she earnestly inquired. “There will be some difficulty with it,” was his candid reply. “Her hair must be cut off.” “Her hair cut off!” screamed Mrs. Brewster, “that it never shall! She has the most beautiful hair, what is Janey’s compared to her’s?”
“You heard what I said,” he positively replied.
“But Mary Ann will not allow it to be done,” she returned, shifting the ground of remonstrance from her own shoulders, “and to do it in opposition would be enough to kill her.” “It will not be done in opposition,” he answered, “she will be unconscious before it is attempted.” Mrs. Brewster’s heart sank within her. “You anticipate she will be dangerously ill?” “In such cases there is always danger, but worse cases than, as I believe hers will be, are curable.” “If I lose her I shall die myself”; she exclaimed, “and if she is to have it badly she will die! Remember, doctor, how weak she has always been.” “We sometimes find that the weak of constitution battle best with an epidemic,” he replied, “many a hearty one is stricken down with it and taken off, many a sickly one has pulled through it and been the better afterward.”
“Everything shall be done as you wish,” said Mrs. Brewster humbly in her great fear. “Very well. There is one caution I would earnestly impress upon you, that of keeping Janey from the sick-room.” “But there is no one to whom Mary Ann is so accustomed as a nurse,” objected Mrs. Brewster. “Madam,” burst forth the doctor angrily, “would you subject Janey to the risk of taking the infection in deference to Mary Ann’s selfishness or to yours, better lose all the treasures your house contains than lose Janey, she is the greatest treasure.” “I know how remarkably prejudiced you have always been in Janey’s favor,” spitefully spoke Mrs. Brewster. “If I disliked her as much as I like her, I should be equally solicitous to guard her from the danger of infection,” said Doctor Brown. “If you chose to put Janey out of consideration you cannot put Charles Taylor; in justice to him she must be taken care of.”
Mrs. Brewster opened her mouth to reply, but closed it again; strange words had been hovering upon her lips. “If Charles Taylor had not been blind his choice would have fallen upon Mary Ann, not upon Janey.” In her heart there was a sore topic of resentment; for she fully appreciated the advantages of a union with the Taylors. Those words were swallowed down to give utterance to others. “Janey is in the house, and therefore must be liable to take the fever; whether she takes the infection or not, I cannot fence her around with an air-tight wall so that not a breath of tainted atmosphere shall touch her, I would if I could, but I cannot.” “I would send her from the house, Mrs. Brewster; at any rate, I would forbid her to go near her sister; I don’t want two patients on my hands instead of one,” he added in his quaint fashion as he took his departure. He was about to step into his buggy when he saw Charles Taylor advancing with a quick step. “Which of them is it that is seized?” he inquired as he came up. “Not Janey, thank goodness,” replied the doctor. “It is Mary Ann; I have been persuading the madam to send Janey from home; I should send her were she a daughter of mine.” “Is Mary Ann likely to have it dangerously?” “I think she will. Is there any necessity for you going to the house just now, Mr. Taylor?” Charles Taylor smiled. “There is no necessity for my keeping away; I do not fear the fever any more than you do.” He passed into the garden as he spoke, and the doctor drove on. Janey saw him and came running out. “Oh! Charl
es, don’t come in; do not come.” His only answer was to take her upon his arm and enter. He raised the drawing-room window, that as much air might circulate through the house as was possible, and stood at it with her holding her before him. “Janey, what am I to do with you?” “To do with me? What should you do with me, Charles?” “Do you know, my dear, that I cannot afford to let this danger touch you?” “I am not afraid,” she gently said. He knew that she had a brave unselfish heart, but he was afraid for her, for he loved her with a jealous love, jealous of any evil that might come too near her. “I should like to take you out of the house with me now, Janey. I should like to take you far from this fever-tainted town; will you come?” She looked up at him with a smile, the color coming into her cheeks. “How could I, Charles?” Anxious thoughts were passing through the mind of Charles Taylor. We cannot put aside the conventionalities of life, though there are times when they press upon us as an iron weight; he would have given his own life almost to have taken Janey from that house, but how was he to do it? No friend would be likely to receive her; not even his own sisters; they would have too much dread of the infection she might bring. He would fain have carried her to some sea-breezed town and watch over her and guard her there until the danger should be over. None would have protected her more honorably than Charles Taylor. But those conventionalities the world has to bow down to, how would the step have accorded with them? Another thought passed through his mind. “Listen, Janey,” he said, “suppose we get a license and drive to the parson’s house; it could all be done in a few hours, and you could be away with me before night.” As the meaning dawned upon her, she bent her head, and her blushing face, laughing at the wild improbability. “Oh! Charles, you are only joking; what would people say?” “Would it make any difference to us what they said?” “It could not be, Charles; it is a vision impossible,” she replied seriously. “Were all other things meet, how could I run away from my sister on her bed of dangerous illness to marry you?”