‘No such thing within I know not how many miles of these paths! But Mrs. Bury seems to think it not likely to be needed. Over-fatigue and the shake! What was I about? This air and all the rest were like an intoxication, making me forget my poor Mary!’
He passed his hand over his face with a gesture as if he were very much shocked and grieved at himself, and Constance suggested that it was all the mule’s fault, and Aunt Mary never complained.
‘The more reason she should not have been neglected,’ he said; and it was well for the excluded pair that just then the boxes were reported as arrived, and he was called on for the keys, so p. 134that wild searching for things demanded occupied them.
After a considerable time, Mrs. Bury came and told Lord Northmoor that he might go and look at his wife for a few moments, but that she must be kept perfectly quiet and not talked to or agitated. Constance was not to go in at all, but was conducted off by the good lady to her own tiny room, to get herself ready for the much-needed meal that was imminent.
They met again in the outer room. There was a great Speise saal, a separate building, where the bathers dived
Besides this there were only the bedrooms, as small as they well could be.
They were summoned down to the evening meal, and the maid Lenchen was left with Lady Northmoor. There was only one other guest, a spectacled and rather silent German, and Constance presently gathered that Mrs. Bury was trying to encourage and inspirit Lord Northmoor, but seemed to think p. 135there might be some delay before a move would be possible.
They sent her to bed, for she was really very tired after the long walk and ride, and she could not help sleeping soundly; but the first thing she heard in the morning was that the guide had been desired to send a doctor from Botzen, and the poor child spent a dreary morning of anxiety with nothing to do but to watch the odd figures disporting themselves or resting in the shade after their baths, to try a little sketching and a little letter-writing, but she was too restless and anxious to get on with either.
All the comfort she got was now and then Mrs. Bury telling her that she need not be frightened, and giving her a book to read; and after the midday meal her uncle was desired by Mrs. Bury, who had evidently assumed the management of him, to take the child out walking, for the doctor could not come for hours, and Lady Northmoor had better be left to sleep.
So they wandered out into the pinewoods, preoccupied and silent, gazing along the path, as if that would hasten the doctor. Constance had perceived that questions were discouraged, and did her best to keep from being troublesome by trying to busy herself with a bouquet of mountain flowers.
The little German doctor came so late that he had to remain all night, but his coming, as well as that of a brisk American brother and sister, seemed to have cheered things up a good deal. Mrs. Bury talked to the German, and the p. 136Americans asked so many questions that answering them made things quite lively. Indeed, Constance was allowed to wish her aunt good-night, and seeing her look just like herself on her pillows, much relieved her mind.
p. 137CHAPTER XX
RATZES
Things began to fall into their regular course at Ratzes, Lady Northmoor was in a day or two able to come into Mrs. Bury’s sitting-room for a few hours every day; but there she lay on a folding chaise-longue that had been arranged for her, languid but bright, reading, working, looking at Mrs. Bury’s drawings, and keeping the diary of the adventures of the others.
Her husband would fain never have left her, but he had to take his baths. These were in the lower story of the larger chвlet. They were taken in rows of pinewood boxes in the vault. He muttered that it felt very like going alive into his coffin, when, like others, he laid himself down in the rust-coloured liquid, ‘each in his narrow cell’ in iron ‘laid,’ with his head on a shelf, and a lid closing up to his chin, and he was uncheered by conversation, as all the other patients were Austrians of the lower middle class, and their Tyrolean dialect would have been hard to understand even by German scholars. However, the treatment p. 138certainly did him good, and entirely drove away his neuralgia, he walked, rode, and climbed a good deal with Constance and a lad attached to the establishment, whose German Constance could just understand. And while he stayed with his wife, Mrs. Bury took Constance out, showed her many delights, helped her crude notions of drawing, and being a good botanist herself, taught the whole party fresh pleasures in the wonderful flora of the Dolomites.
Now and then an English traveller appeared, and Lord Northmoor was persuaded to join in expeditions for his niece’s sake, that took them away for a night or two. Thus they saw Caprile Cadore, St. Ulrich, that town of toys, full of dolls of every tone, spotted wooden horses, carts, and the like. They beheld the tall points of Monte Serrata, and the wonderful ‘Horse Teeth,’ with many more such marvels; and many were the curiosities they brought back, and the stories they had to tell, with regrets that Aunt Mary had not been there to enjoy and add to their enjoyment.
So the days went on, and the end of Constance’s holidays was in view, the limit that had been intended for the Kur at Ratzes; but Aunt Mary had not been out of doors since their arrival, and seemed fit for nothing save lying by the window.
Constance had begun to wonder what would be done, when she was told that a good-natured pair of English travellers, like herself bound to school terms, would escort her safely to London and see her into the train for Colbeam, just in time for the High School term.
‘This will be the best way,’ said her aunt, kissing p. 139her. ‘You have been a dear good girl, Conny, and a great pleasure and comfort to us both.’
‘Oh, auntie, I have not done anything, Mrs. Bury has done it all.’
‘Mrs. Bury is most kind, unspeakably kind, but, my dear dear girl, your companionship has been so much to your dear uncle that I have been most thankful to you. Always recollect, dearest Conny, you can be more comfort to your uncle than anybody else, whatever may come. You
