Chapter Seventeen.
What Dally was Doing

“I feared it,” said North, as he returned from the bedroom, where he had left Leo with the servants, who stood staring helplessly at her, and listening to her ravings about the mare, the plunge into the cold river, and the injured shoulder. “Violent fever and delirium. Poor girl! what could we expect? Heated with her ride, the fall, the sudden plunge into the water, and then a long, slow ride in the drenched garments.”

“Do you think she is very ill?” said Mary anxiously.

“Very; but not dangerously, I hope. There, trust to me, and I will do everything I can. You must have a good nurse at once. Those women are worse than useless. I’ll send on my housekeeper.”

“But you are not going?” cried Salis, with the look of alarm so commonly directed at a doctor.

“My dear boy – only to fetch medicine. I’ll not be long; and mind this: she must not leave her room now. She must be kept there at any cost.”

“And I am so helpless, Hartley,” whispered Mary piteously. “It is so hard to bear.”

The curate bent down and kissed her, and then, taking his place by the bedroom door, he remained to carry out the instructions he had received.

They were necessary, for he had not been there five minutes before the delirious girl rose from her couch, and there was an angry outcry on the part of the women. She insisted upon going to the stable to see to her mare. It was being neglected; and it was only by the exercise of force that she was kept in the room.

Before half-an-hour had passed, the doctor was back, and quiet, firm Mrs Milt, who put off her crotchety ways in the face of this trouble, took her place by the bedside, and with good effect; for, partly soothed by the old woman’s firm management, and partly by the strong opiate the doctor had administered, Leo sank into a restless sleep, in which she kept on muttering incoherently, the only portions of her speech at all connected being those dealing with her accident, which seemed to her to be repeated again and again.

It was towards ten o’clock, as the doctor was returning by the short cut of the fields to the Rectory, after having been home for a short time, that he caught sight of a couple of figures a short distance over the stile leading down to the meadows, through which the little river ran.

“Humph!” he muttered, as, in spite of the darkness, he recognised the figures, his own steps being hushed by the moist pasture, and the couple too intent upon their conversation to hear him pass.

“Humph!” he said; “poor old Moredock is right, perhaps, about the girl. Confounded hard upon the people to have such a scoundrel loose among them.”

He half-hesitated, as if he felt that it was his duty to interfere, but there was too much earnest work at the Rectory for him to speak at a time like this. And, besides, he could not have explained why, but the thought seemed to afford him something like satisfaction, for it was evident that if Tom Candlish had stooped to court pretty Dally Watlock, the Rectory servant, everything must have long been at an end between Leo and the squire’s brother, the thrashing administered by Mr Salis having been effectual in its way.

He was extremely anxious, too, about Leo; for unconsciously a new interest was awakening in him, and he felt that no case in which he had been engaged had ever caused him more anxiety than this. So he hurried on to his patient’s room, where the fever was growing more intense, and the flushed face was rolled from side to side upon the white pillow.

“Just the same, sir,” said Mrs Milt, as he asked a few eager questions. “She’s been going on like that ever since you left. Isn’t she very bad? Hark at her breath.”

“Very bad, Milt,” said the doctor gravely; “and if matters go on like this I shall send over to King’s Hampton for – ”

“No, no; don’t you do that, sir,” said the old housekeeper sharply. “If you can’t save her no one can.”

“Why, Milt!” exclaimed the doctor wonderingly.

“Oh! you needn’t look like that, sir. I know you. It’s a deal of wherrit you give me with your awkward ways and irregular hours; but I will say this for you, there isn’t a cleverer doctor going.”

“And yet you walked over to King’s Hampton to the other doctor when you were ill.”

“Well, you had put me out so just then, and I felt as if I would sooner have died than come to you.”

“Ugh! you obstinate old thing,” said North. “There, I’m going down to talk to Mr Salis for a while; then I shall come and take your place for six hours while you go and lie down.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Mrs Milt; and she tightened her lips and remained silent for a few moments, while her master re-examined his patient. Then, drawing herself up: “I may be obstinate, sir, but I think I know my duty in a case of illness. I’m here to watch by Miss Leo Salis’s bedside, and here I’m going to stay.”

“Mrs Milt,” said the doctor sternly, “the first duty of a nurse is to obey instructions, as you well know. Now, no more talking, but sit down till I return.”

Mrs Milt looked tighter than ever, and her rigid stay-bone gave a crack, but she obeyed; while the doctor went down to where Salis and Mary were anxiously awaiting his report.

“I meant to have had some tea ready for you,” said Mary, after hearing what he had to say; “but Dally is missing. She must have gone to her grandfather’s cottage.”

The doctor uttered a loud “Humph!” and then remarked that he could wait.

He had to wait some time, as Dally had gone to keep an appointment in the meadows, and had come upon a figure leaning against a great willow pollard on the river’s brink.

The figure started forward out of the darkness and caught her arm, with the result that Dally uttered a little affected squeal.

“La, Mr Candlish! how you made me jump!”

“Why, what brings you here?” he cried, passing his arm round the girl’s waist.

“Now, do adone, sir; you’ve no business to touch me like that. What would Joe Chegg say?”

“That I was a wise man, and that it was the prettiest little waist in Duke’s Hampton.”

“Please keep your fine speeches for Miss Leo, and talk about her waist, sir, and let me go. I only come for a walk.”

“Nonsense! tell me. You’ve got a message?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You – you have a letter?”

“No,” said Dally, shaking her head, and struggling just a little for appearance’ sake.

“Is she coming, then?”

“No, she isn’t; for she’s too ill.”

“Eh? Nonsense!”

“But indeed she is, sir, and confined to her bed.”

“And she sent you, Dally. Oh! how good of her.”

“No, nor she didn’t send me neither, Mr Candlish; and do let go. You shouldn’t.”

“Has she caught a cold, Dally?”

“Horrid bad one; and she’s gone right off her head.”

“Gammon!”

“She has, indeed, sir; and me and cook had to hold her down: she was so bad.”

“Hold her down?”

“Yes; and she kept on talking in a hurry like, all about the hunting and falling in the water.”

“Did she say anything about me?” said Tom Candlish eagerly.

“About you? I should think not, indeed. You men seem to think that ladies are always thinking about you. Such stuff!”

Then a long amount of whispering took place, Tom Candlish being one of those gentlemen who never fret after the absent, but possess a sailor-like power of taking the good the gods provide.

At the end of five minutes there was the sound of a smart smack – not a kiss, but the contact of a palm upon a cheek.

Then, from out the darkness came the expression, “You saucy jade!” following upon the rush of feet in flight.

A minute later the swing gate leading into the Rectory grounds was heard to clap to, and Tom Candlish stopped in his pursuit and walked home across the fields.

Chapter Eighteen.
Leo makes a Confession

“Yes, doctor, I’m better, and you needn’t come again.”

“Yes, you’re better, Moredock. Seen any more ghosts?”

“Nay; I never see no ghosts. I only see what I did see; but how’s young miss up yonder?”

Horace North’s brow wrinkled, and his voice sounded stern.

“Ill, Moredock – seriously ill. Violent fever.”

“Fever – fever!” said the old man, backing away with unwonted excitement.

“Yes, fever, you selfish old rascal!” cried the doctor irascibly. “You oughtn’t to be afraid of catching a fever at your time of life.”

“But I am, doctor – I am,” said the old man, with a peculiar change in his voice. “You see, I’ve just been ill, and it would be very hard to be ill again. Is – is it ketching?”

“No!” roared the doctor angrily; “not at all. There, take care of yourself, and don’t go to the church again in the dark.”

“I shall go to the church as often as I like and when I like,” grumbled the old man. “It’s my church; but, I say, doctor, is it likely to be – eh? – you know – job for me?”

North looked at him with an expression of horror and loathing that made the old man stare.

“Why, you hideous old ghoul!” he cried; “do you want me to strangle you? Ugh!”

He hurried out of the cottage, and Moredock rose slowly and followed him as far as the door.

“What’s he mean by that? Gool? What’s a gool? He’s been drinking. I see his hand shake; that’s what’s the matter with him; and I’m glad he hasn’t got to mix no physic for me this morning. Now, I wonder what he takes. Them doctors goes into their sudgeries, and mixes theirselves drops as makes ’em on direckly. Old Borton used to, and I buried him. He’s making a bad job of it up at the Rectory, and he’s drinking, but I put him out by speaking of it. Ay, there he goes in at the Rect’ry gate. Wonder whether they’ll have a tomb for her, or a plain grave.”

Leo Salis had looked for some hours past as if one or the other would be necessary, and Moredock’s words had seemed to North as if each bore a sting.

So bad was the patient that when he reached the Rectory that day he decided to stay.

“I’d say, send for other advice directly, Salis,” he said drearily; “but if you had the heads of the profession here, they could do nothing but wait. The fever will run its course. We can do nothing but watch.”

“And pray,” said Salis sternly.

“And pray,” said the doctor, repeating his words. “Will you send over to the town, and telegraph?”

“No,” replied the curate. “I have confidence in you, North.”

He said no more, but turned into his study to hide his emotion, while North crossed to where poor helpless Mary lay back in her chair, looking white and ten years older as her eyes sought his, dumbly asking for comfort.

He took her hand, and kissed it, retaining it in his for a few minutes, as he stood talking to her, trying to instil hope, and little thinking of the agony he caused.

“I’ll go to her now,” he said. “There, try and be hopeful and help me to cheer up poor Hartley. He wants comfort badly. I’ll come and tell you myself if there is any change.”

“The truth,” said Mary faintly.

“The truth? Yes: to you,” he said meaningly; and his words seemed to convey that she was so old in suffering that she could bear to be told anything, though perhaps it might be withheld from her brother.

Mrs Milt, who had been an untiring watcher by the sick-bed, made her report – one that she had had to repeat again and again – of restless mutterings and delirium: otherwise no change.

“No, Mrs Milt, we have not reached the climax yet,” said North, sighing.

“There, go and lie down, my good soul,” he added after a short examination; “you must be tired out.”

“Tired, but not tired out, sir,” said the old lady. “Poor child! she has something on her mind, too, which frets her.”

“Indeed!” said North. “Yes,” continued Mrs Milt, in a whisper. “She keeps muttering about telling him something – confessing, she calls it sometimes.”

“Some old trouble come up into her brain,” said the doctor; and he sat down by the bedside, to gaze at Leo’s flushed face as she lay there with her eyes half closed, apparently sleeping heavily now.

“Not yet, not yet,” sighed North, as he took the hot, dry hand in his, and a shiver ran through him as he thought of the old sexton’s words, and wondered whether he would be able to save her – so young and beautiful – from so sad a fate.

“Poor child!” he said, half aloud; and then he sat on, hour after hour, wondering whether it would be possible to do more; whether he had done everything that medical skill could devise; and finally, as he came to the conclusion that he had thoroughly done his duty by his patient, his heart sank, and he owned to himself that in some instances he and the rest of the disciples of the great profession were singularly impotent, and merely attendants on Nature’s will.

Salis came up from time to time, to enter the room softly, and mutely interrogate his friend, and then go sadly back to his study – where Mary sat with him – to give her such news as he had to bear, and join with her in watching and praying for the wilful sister they both so dearly loved.

It was getting towards nine o’clock on the gloomy, stormy winter’s night when, after softly replenishing the fire, as North was returning to his place by the bed, he heard a faint sigh, and bending down over his patient, he found that her eyes were wide open – not in a fixed, delirious stare, full of excitement, but calm and subdued, while a sweet smile passed into her expression as his face neared hers.

“Is that dreadful old woman there?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, laying his hand upon her forehead. “I am alone.”

“Then I will speak,” she said, in a low, passionate voice. “You have not known – you have not believed it possible – but tell me, I have been very ill?”

“Yes,” he said gently, “you have been ill; but don’t talk – try and rest.”

“I have been very ill, and I may die, and then you would never know,” she whispered quickly. “It is no time, then, for a foolish, girlish reserve. I may have been light and frivolous – coquettish too – but beneath it all I have loved you, and you alone. I do love you with all my heart.”

Two soft, white arms were thrown about Horace North’s neck, to draw him closer to his patient’s gently heaving breast.