CHAPTER XVII.
How vast the rooms appeared to me, how endless the main passages, afterthe dimensions long familiar at Tossil's Barton, and Mrs. Shelfer's. Ieven feared to lose the way, where my childish feet had measured everystep. First I hurried to my own snug room, or rooms--for I had parlourand bedroom adjoining--in the western wing, where mother used to live.Everything there was in beautiful order, a lamp and a good fire lighted;and Matilda Jenkins met me at the door.
Directly after our departure for Devonshire, Mr. Vaughan had thought fitto discharge all the old servants, except the housekeeper and Matilda.They were all in league against him, for they could not bear that the"rightful owners," whom they had known so long, should be ejected.Moreover, his discipline was far more stern than ours; for my father andmother had always ruled by love. The housekeeper, a great friend ofmine, was retained from respect and policy, and poor Tilly (who enteredlife through a dust-bin) from contempt of her insignificance. By thattime she had risen to the rank of scullery-maid and deputy dishwasher;now she had climbed in the social scale to the position ofunder-housemaid.
"Why, Matilda, how well you look, and how smart! I declare you aregetting quite tall. I suppose the new times agree with you better thanthe old."
"Oh don't say that, Miss Clara, please don't! I'd tear the gownd off myback"--looking savagely at the neat print--"if I thought it make youthink that. No, I gets a little more wages, but a deal more work, and Inever gets a kind word. Oh it does my heart good to see you here again,in your own house, Miss Clara dear, and evil to them as drove youout"--and she lifted the corner of her new white muslin apron;--"and Ihave tended your rooms all myself, though it wasn't in my part, andnever let no one else touch them, ever since I was took from thekitchen, and always a jug full of flowers, Miss, because you was so fondof them."
"Thank you, Matilda. How kind of you, to be sure!"
"Many's the time I've cried over them, Miss, and the new shilling yougive me, when we was little girls together. But please to call me'Tilly,' Miss, the same as you always used."
"I can't stop to talk to you now, Tilly; how is Mrs. Fletcher?"
"Quite hearty, Miss, all but the rheumatics. Ah, she do suffer terriblefrom them. Us both waited up, Miss, and I to and fro the door, till thecarriage come home; and then she went off to bed, and I was up with her,and never knowed when you come. But she's getting up now, Miss, to comehere to see you."
"Go and stop her, at once. I will see her to-morrow. Stop, show mefirst your master's room; knock gently and bring out the nurse. Thedoctor is gone I believe."
"Yes, Miss, he left here at eight o'clock, for he had a long way todrive, and he couldn't do nothing more. But you must not go, Miss, ohpray, Miss, don't go there!"
We went along the passage, until we came to the door. I was surprisedto see a new door across the lobby, very closely fitted. There was aninner door also, and the nurse did not seem very wakeful. Instead ofknocking again, Matilda retreated hastily. At last the nurse appeared,and I found her to be a very respectable woman, who had been with mymother, through several attacks of illness. A dark suspicion, which Ihad scarcely confessed to myself, was partly allayed hereby. Afterwhispering for a few moments, she led me into the dimly lighted room,and to my uncle's bed.
I started back in terror. Prepared as I was for a very great change,what I saw astounded me. The face so drawn and warped aside, witheredand yet pulpy, with an undercast of blue; the lines of the mouth sotrenched and livid, that the screwed lips were like a bull's-eye in ablue diamond pane; and the hair, so dark and curly when last I saw him,now shredded in patches of waxy gray. The only sign of life I saw, wasa feeble twitching of the bed-clothes, every now and then. The pooreyes were closed, hard, and wrinkled round; one wasted arm lay on thequilt, the hand bent up at the wrist, the fingers clutched yet flabby,and as cold as death. It was a sight for human pride to cower at, andbe quelled.
"Is he like this always?"
"No," she replied, "but he has been so now for ten hours and more:generally he is taken with pain and thirst, every six hours; and itmakes my heart ache to hear him moan and cry."
"Does he say anything particular then?"
God knows I was not pursuing my own fell purpose in asking this. ThankHim, I was not such a fiend as that. All I wished was to relieve himwhom I pitied so.
"Yes, he opens his eyes and stares, and then he always says, and hetries to shake his head only he isn't strong enough, 'My fault, ah me,my fault, and to rob them too! If I could but see her, if I could butsee her, and die!' He always says that first, and then that exhaustshim so, he can hardly say 'water' after, and then he moans somelancholy, and then he goes off again."
The tears stood in her eyes, for she had a tender heart. I burst into myusual violent flood, for I never have any half-crying.
"Have you any medicine to give him?"
"No, Miss, no more; he has taken a shopful already, though he can onlyswallow at the time he wakes up. The doctor said to-night he could do nomore; this awful black fever must end in mortification; no medicinemoves it at all."
"Did the doctor call it black fever?"
"Yes, the very worst form of typhus of the real Irish type, such as theyhave had once or twice in Manchester. It has settled most on thestomach, but all the blood is poisoned."
And she sprinkled herself, and the bed again, with disinfecting fluid,and threw some over me.
"Excuse me, Miss, you wouldn't allow me, so I am bound not to ask you.You know you came in dead against my will, and dead against allorders"--this was what the whispering had been about--"and if anythinghappens to you, Miss Vaughan, who is to have all the property, but thatbad Mrs. Daldy?"
Oh! In a moment I saw the whole; though it was too black for belief,blacker than any fever that festers the human heart. This was thepurpose with which that woman had sent for me. She had lied to me as tothe character of the disease. She had opposed me, because she knew itthe surest way to urge me. She had brought me too at night, when feversare doubly infectious.
"You see, Miss, we are forced to keep the three windows open, and thepassage doors all closed. It's a wonder I had any of the fluid left,for they never sent it up this afternoon; but I had a drop put by, nothanks to them for the same. Mrs. Daldy brought the first nurse, butshe ran clean away when the fever took the turn; and they were forced tosend for me, for nobody else would come near him. But my poor old manhas no work, and I've minded as bad a case as this, and they say I befever-proof. But you, Miss, you; I should never forgive myself, ifanything happened to you, and in your youth and bloom. Though I couldnot stop you, you know I did my best. And they say you catch thingsmost when you come off a journey."
"Jane, whatever happens, you are not to blame. I have no fear whatever;and now I am here, I will stay. It is safer so, both for myself andothers."
"Well, Miss, so I have heard say. Once in for it, keep to the air. Butcome into this little room, if you want to talk to me, Miss. We canhear the poor gentleman move, or even sigh; and the air is a littlefresher there. But we must keep the window open."
She led me into the dressing room; but even there the same crawlingcreeping smell pervaded, as if a grave had been opened, when the groundwas full of gas. Instead of talking to the nurse, I began to think. Itbroke upon me vaguely, that I had heard of some very simple remedy for afever of this nature, and that my dear mother, who in her prosperoustimes was the village doctoress, had been acquainted with the case. Butin the whirl of my brain, I could not bring to mind what it was. Ohwhat would I give, only to think of it now! Though not, I am sorry tosay, at all of a pious turn (at least if Mrs. Daldy is so), in thestrong feeling of the moment, I fell upon my knees, and prayed for help.So had my mother taught me, and Mother Nature taught me now. I will notbe so daring as to say that my prayer was answered. Perhaps it was onlythat it calmed my mind.
"Jane, have they been brewing lately?" Alas the bathos! But I ca
n'thelp it.
"Yes, Miss; last Thursday and Friday. They won't let me go near thekitchen part: but I know it all the same."
"Go and get me a nice jug of fresh yeast. I will watch your master."
She stared, and hesitated; but saw that I was in earnest.
"I don't know where to find it, Miss; and none of them will come nearme; and they'll stop me too if they can. Why they won't bring my foodto the door, but put it half-way down the passage. They wanted to lockme in, only I wouldn't stand that; and they break all the plates anddishes, and to-day they sent word that my dinner must come in at thewindow to-morrow."
"Low cowards and zanies! Now find the yeast, Jane, if you have tosearch for an hour. They must all be gone to bed now, except MatildaJenkins; and she dare not stop you if you say you have my orders."
"Bless you, Miss; she'll run away as if I was a ghost."
"Then call to her, that I say she must go to bed directly."
After a few more words, Jane went her way stealthily, like athorough-bred thief; and I was left alone with my poor dying uncle.Wonderful as it seemed to me, I felt now a tender affection for him, Ithe resolute, the consistent, the bitter Clara Vaughan. Even if he hadtold me that moment, that he had plotted my father's death, I would haveperilled my life for his; because I should have known that he was sorry.Yet I was full of cold fear, lest he should awake to consciousness, andutter that awful cry, while I alone was with him, in the dead hour ofnight.
Sooner than I expected, the nurse came back with a jug of beautifulyeast, smelling as fresh as daybreak. We put it outside the window onthe stone sill, to keep it cool and airy. She had seen no one exceptMatilda, who was waiting for me, and crying dreadfully, predicting mycertain death, and her own too; if she should have to attend me. Shekept at a most respectful distance from Jane; and, with all heraffection, was glad to be clear of me for the night.
For nearly two hours, the nurse and I sat watching, with hardly a spokenword, except that I asked one question.
"How often has Mrs. Daldy been to see my uncle?"
"She would hardly leave his bedside, until the fever declared itself.Since then she has not been once."
Broad awake at that strange hour, and in that strange way, I began topass through the stereoscope of my brain the many strange slides of mylife. Of all of these, the last for the moment seemed the strangest.Suddenly we heard a low feeble moan. Running into the bedroom, there wesaw the poor sick one with his eyes wide open, vainly attempting torise. I put my arms around him, and raised him on the pillow. He triedto say 'thank you,' for he was always a gentleman in his manners; thenhe gazed at me with hazily wondering eyes. Then he opened his mouth ina spasmodic way, and began that bitter cry.
Ere he closed his mouth again, I poured well into his throat atable-spoonful of yeast, handed to me by Jane. To my great pleasure, itglided beyond the black tongue; and I gave him two more spoonfuls, whilehe was staring at me with a weak and rigid amazement.
"No water, Jane, not a drop of water! It will work far better alone.He doesn't know what it is, and he thinks he has had his water. Keephim thirsty that he may take more."
As he lay thus in my arms, I felt that one side was icily cold, and theother fiery hot. His face looked most ghastly and livid, but there wasnot that mystical gray upon it, like the earth-shine on the moon, whichshows when the face of man is death's mirror, and the knee of death onman's heart. In a minute he slid from my grasp, down on the pillowagain, and, with a long-drawn sigh, became once more stiff andinsensible. My hope was faint indeed, but still it was hope: if he hadhope's vitality, he might yet be saved.
The rest of that night was passed by the nurse and myself in heavy yetbroken sleep. Jane assured me that there was no chance of my poor unclebecoming conscious again, for at least six hours. I was loth to foregomy watch, and argued that the dose we had given might cut short thisinterval; but lo--while I kept repeating at weary and weary periods,that I could do no harm, since the physician gave up, and I might dogood--sleep, the lover of repetition, laid his hand alike on my formulaand myself. Dear Judy's howl was in my dream, and Mrs. Shelfer's neverceasing prattle.