In a few seconds the Doctor came down in his dressing-gown, and let himself be put into his easy-chair; his two daughters waiting on him with fond assiduity, their eyes questioning his fagged weary face, but reading there fatigue and concern that made them—rather awe-struck—bide their time till it should suit him to speak. Mary was afraid he would wait till she was gone; dear old Mary, who at twenty-two never dreamt of regarding herself as on the same footing with her three years’ senior, and had her toast been browner, would have relieved them of her presence at once. However, her father spoke after his first long draught of tea.
‘Well! How true it is that judgments are upon us while we are marrying and giving in marriage!’
‘What is it, papa? Not the scarlatina?’
‘Scarlatina, indeed!’ he said contemptuously. ‘Scarlet fever in the most aggravated form. Two deaths in one house, and I am much mistaken if there will not be another before morning.’
‘Who, papa?’ asked Mary.
‘Those wretched Martins, in Lower Pond Buildings, are the worst. No wonder, living in voluntary filth; but it is all over the street—will be all over the town unless there’s some special mercy on the place.’
‘But how has it grown so bad,’ said Ethel, ‘without our having even heard of it!’
‘Why—partly I take shame to myself—this business of Hector and Blanche kept Spencer and me away last dispensary day; and partly it was that young coxcomb, Henry Ward, thought it not worth while to trouble me about a simple epidemic. Simple epidemic indeed!’ repeated Dr. May, changing his tone from ironical mimicry to hot indignation. ‘I hope he will be gratified with its simplicity! I wonder how long he would have gone on if it had not laid hold on him.’
‘You don’t mean that he has it?’
‘I do. It will give him a practical lesson in simple epidemics.’
‘And Henry Ward has it!’ repeated Mary, looking so much dismayed that her father laughed, saying—
‘What, Mary thinks when it comes to fevers being so audacious as to lay hold of the doctors, it is time that they should be put a stop to.’
‘He seems to have petted it and made much of it,’ said Ethel; ‘so no wonder! What could have possessed him?’
‘Just this, Ethel; and it is only human nature after all. This young lad comes down, as Master Tom will do some day, full of his lectures and his hospitals, and is nettled and displeased to find his father content to have Spencer or me called in the instant anything serious is the matter.’
‘But you are a physician, papa,’ said Mary.
‘No matter for that, to Mr. Henry I’m an old fogie, and depend upon it, if it were only the giving a dose of salts, he would like to have the case to himself. These poor creatures were parish patients, and I don’t mean that his treatment was amiss. Spencer is right, it was an atmosphere where there was no saving anyone, but if he had not been so delighted with his own way, and I had known what was going on, I’d have got the Guardians and the Town Council and routed out the place. Seventeen cases, and most of them the worst form!’
‘But what was Mr. Ward about?
‘“Says I to myself, here’s a lesson for me; This man’s but a picture of what I shall be,”
‘when Master Tom gets the upper hand of me,’ returned Dr. May. ‘Poor Ward, who has run to me in all his difficulties these thirty years, didn’t like it at all; but Mr. Henry was so confident with his simple epidemic, and had got him in such order, that he durst not speak.’
‘And what brought it to light at last?’
‘Everything at once. First the clerics go to see about the family where the infant died, and report to Spencer; he comes after me, and we start to reconnoitre. Then I am called in to see Shearman’s daughter—a very ugly case that—and coming out I meet poor Ward himself, wanting me to see Henry, and there’s the other boy sickening too. Then I went down and saw all those cases in the Lower Ponds, and have been running about the town ever since to try what can be done, hunting up nurses, whom I can’t get, stirring dishes of skim milk, trying to get the funerals over tomorrow morning by daybreak. I declare I have hardly a leg to stand on.’
‘Where was Dr. Spencer?’
‘I’ve nearly quarrelled with Spencer. Oh! he is in high feather! he will have it that the fever rose up bodily, like Kuhleborn, out of that unhappy drain he is always worrying about, when it is a regular case of scarlet fever, brought in by a girl at home from service; but he will have it that his theory is proved. Then I meant him to keep clear of it. He has always been liable to malaria and all that sort of thing, and has not strength for an illness. I told him to mind the ordinary practice for me; and what do I find him doing the next thing, but operating upon one of the worst throats he could find! I told him he was as bad as young Ward; I hate his irregular practice. I’ll tell you what,’ he said, vindictively, as if gratified to have what must obey him, ‘you shall all go off to Cocksmoor tomorrow morning at seven o’clock.’
‘You forget that we two have had it,’ said Mary.
‘Which of you?’
‘All down to Blanche.’
‘Never mind for that. I shall have enough to do without a sick house at home. You can perform quarantine with Richard, and then go to Flora, if she will have you. Well, what are you dawdling about? Go and pack up.’
‘Papa,’ said Ethel, who had been abstracted through all the latter part of the conversation, ‘if you please, we had better not settle my going till tomorrow morning.’
‘Come, Ethel, you have too much sense for panics. Don’t take nonsense into your head. The children can’t have been in the way of it.’
‘Stay, papa,’ said Ethel, her serious face arresting the momentary impatience of fatigue and anxiety, ‘I am afraid Aubrey was a good while choosing fishing-tackle at Shearman’s yesterday with Leonard Ward; and it may be nothing, but he did seem heavy and out of order to-night; I wish you would look at him as you go up.’
Dr. May stood still for a few moments, then gave one long gasp, made a few inquiries, and went up to Aubrey’s
