'I must send for Mr. Frampton,' said Rachel, homeopathy succumbing to her terror; but then, with a despairing glance, she beheld all the male part of the establishment handing tea.
'Where does he live? I'll send him up.'
'Thank you, oh! thank you. The house with the rails, under the east cliff.'
He was gone, and Rachel endured the reeling of the lights, and the surges of talk, and the musical performances that seemed to burst the drum of her ear; and, after all, people went away, saying to each other that there was something very much amiss, and that poor dear Mrs. Curtis was very much to blame for not having controlled her daughters.
They departed at last, and Grace, without uttering the terrible word, was explaining to the worn-out mother that little Lovedy was more unwell, and that Captain Keith had kindly offered to fetch the doctor, when the Captain himself returned.
'I am sorry to say that Mr. Frampton is out, not likely to be at home till morning, and his partner is with a bad accident at Avonford. The best plan will be for me to ride back to Avoncester, and send out Macvicar, our doctor. He is a kind-hearted man, of much experience in this kind of thing.'
'But you are not going back,' said polite Mrs. Curtis, far from taking in the urgency of the case. 'You were to sleep at Colonel Keith's. I could not think of your taking the trouble.'
'I have settled that with the Colonel, thank you. My dog-cart will be here directly.'
'I can only say, thank you,' said Rachel, earnestly. 'But is there nothing to be done in the meantime? Do you know the treatment?'
He knew enough to give a few directions, which revealed to poor Mrs. Curtis the character of the disease.
'That horrible new sore throat! Oh, Rachel, and you have been hanging over her all this time!'
'Indeed,' said Alick Keith, coming to her. 'I think you need not be alarmed. The complaint seems to me to depend on the air and locality. I have been often with people who had it.'
'And not caught it?'
'No; though one poor little fellow, our piper's son, would not try to take food from any one else, and died at last on my knee. I do not believe it is infectious in that way.'
And hearing his carriage at the door, he shook hands, and hurried off, Mrs. Curtis observing--
'He really is a very good young man. But oh, Rachel, my dear, how could you bring her here?'
'I did not know, mother. Any way it is better than her being in Mrs. Kelland's hive of children.'
'You are not going back to her, Rachel, I entreat!'
'Mother, I must. You heard what Captain Keith said. Let that comfort you. It would be brutal cruelty and cowardice to stay away from her to night. Good night, Grace, make mother see that it must be so.'
She went, for poor Mrs. Curtis could not withstand her; and only turned with tearful eyes to her elder daughter to say, 'You do not go into the room again, Grace, I insist.'
Grace could not bear to leave Rachel to the misery of such a vigil, and greatly reproached herself for the hurry that had prevented her from paying any heed to the condition of the child in her anxiety to make her sister presentable; but Mrs. Curtis was in a state of agitation that demanded all the care and tenderness of this 'mother's child,' and the sharing her room and bed made it impossible to elude the watchfulness that nervously guarded the remaining daughter.
It was eleven o'clock when Alexander Keith drove from the door. It was a moonlight night, and he was sure to spare no speed, but he could hardly be at Avoncester within an hour and a half, and the doctor would take at least two in coming out. Mrs. Kelland was the companion of Rachel's watch. The woman was a good deal subdued. The strangeness of the great house tamed her, and she was shocked and frightened by the little girl's state as well as by the young lady's grave, awe-struck, and silent manner.
They tried all that Captain Keith had suggested, but the child was too weak and spent to inhale the steam of vinegar, and the attempts to make her swallow produced fruitless anguish. They could not discover how long it was since she had taken any nourishment, and they already knew what a miserable pittance hers had been at the best. Mrs. Kelland gave her up at once, and protested that she was following her mother, and that there was death in her face. Rachel made an imperious gesture of silence, and was obeyed so far as voice went, but long-drawn sighs and shakes of the head continued to impress on her the aunt's hopelessness, throughout the endeavours to change the position, the moistening of the lips, the attempts at relief in answer to the choked effort to cough, the weary, faint moan, the increasing faintness and exhaustion.
One o'clock struck, and Mrs. Kelland said, in a low, ominous voice, 'It is the turn of the night, Miss Rachel. You bad best leave her to me.'
'I will never leave her,' said Rachel impatiently.
'You are a young lady, Miss Rachel, you ain't used to the like of this.'
'Hark!' Rachel held up her finger.
Wheels were crashing up the hill. The horrible responsibility was over, the immediate terror gone, help seemed to be coming at the utmost speed, and tears of relief rushed into Rachel's eyes, tears that Lovedy must have perceived, for she spoke the first articulate words she had uttered since the night-watch had begun, 'Please, ma'am, don't fret, I'm going to poor mother.'
'You will be better now, Lovedy, here is the doctor,' said Rachel, though conscious that this was not the right thing, and then she hastened out on the stairs to meet the gaunt old Scotsman and bring him in. He made Mrs. Kelland raise the child, examined her mouth, felt her feet and hands, which were fast becoming chill, and desired the warm flannels still to be applied to them.
'Cannot her throat be operated on?' said Rachel, a tremor within her heart. 'I think we could both be depended on if you wanted us.'
'She is too far gone, poor lassie,' was the answer; 'it would be mere cruelty to torment her. You had better go and lie down, Miss Curtis; her mother and I can do all she is like to need.'
'Is she dying?'
'I doubt if she can last an hour longer. The disease is in an advanced state, and she was in too reduced a state to have battled with it, even had it been met earlier.'
'As it should have been! Twice her destroyer!' sighed Rachel, with a bursting heart, and again the kind doctor would have persuaded her to leave the room, but she turned from him and came back to Lovedy, who had been roused by what had been passing, and had been murmuring something which had set her aunt off into sobs.
'She's saying she've been a bad girl to me, poor lamb, and I tell her not to think of it! She knows it was for her good, if she had not been set against her work.'
Dr. Macvicar authoritatively hushed the woman, but Lovedy looked up with flushed cheeks, and the blue eyes that had been so often noticed for their beauty. The last flush of fever had come to finish the work.
'Don't fret,' she said, 'there's no one to beat me up there! Please, the verse about the tears.'
Dr. Macvicar and the child both looked towards Rachel, but her whole memory seemed scared away, and it was the old Scotch army surgeon that repeated--
''The Lord God shall wipe off tears from all eyes.' Ah! poor little one, you are going from a world that has been full of woe to you.'
'Oh, forgive me, forgive me, my poor child,' said Rachel, kneeling by her, the tears streaming down silently.
'Please, ma'am, don't cry,' said the little girl feebly; 'you were very good to me. Please tell me of my Saviour,' she added to Rachel. It sounded like set phraseology, and she knew not how to begin; but Dr. Macvicar's answer made the lightened look come back, and the child was again heard to whisper--'Ah! I knew they scourged Him--for me.'
This was the last they did hear, except the sobbing breaths, ever more convulsive. Rachel had never before been present with death, and awe and dismay seemed to paralyse her whole frame. Even the words of hope and prayer for which the child's eyes craved from both her fellow-watchers seemed to her a strange tongue, inefficient to reach the misery of this untimely mortal agony, this work of neglect and cruelty--and she the cause.
Three o'clock had struck before the last painful gasp had been drawn, and Mrs. Kelland's sobbing cry broke forth. Dr. Macvicar told Rachel that the child was at rest. She shivered from head to foot, her teeth chattered, and she murmured, 'Accountable for all.'
Dr. Macvicar at once made her swallow some of the cordial brought for the poor child, and then summoning the maid whom Grace had stationed in the outer room, he desired her to put her young mistress to bed without loss of
