But it might be all quite right—men were so stupid about babies. A pretty hand a Fairfield man would make of a nursery! At all events the morrow would clear a great deal up.
The morning came. The doctor had looked in, and, as often happened, had surprised the lookers-on by pronouncing positively, that the patient was not worse.
With a qualm at her heart, Mildred asked him when he had seen the child: and watched his face hard while he answered quite frankly that he had seen it the day before—that it was decidedly better, and might possibly do well.
When should he see it again?
There was nothing alarming, probably tomorrow; certainly not later than the next day. There was nothing urgent—the chances were rather in favour of its recovery, but, of course, there were the risks, and we weren’t to hollo till we were out of the wood.
With this cheer Mildred was much comforted, so much reassured that when eight o’clock came next morning and brought no Harry Fairfield, she felt rather relieved of a bore than disappointed.
Two days later Dr. Willett reported more favourably than he had yet done on Alice. His account of the boy, however, was by no means so cheery.
Harry looked in still later, and talked the matter over with Mildred.
“I thought, ye see, I might just be makin’ a fool o’ myself—and another o’ you, so I went over there quietly next day, and I’m sure it was a mistake. The child’s thinner a deal, and its colour gone, and it was dark a’most when I saw it, and she held the candle too low and cast a shadow from its nose, by Jove, across its face. You never see so queer a monkey as it looked, and so I held my tongue, but made over here to put our heads together and make sure o’ the matter. But when I went next day and saw it in the daylight, by Jove it was all right—the child and no mistake. But it is grown awful thin and wry-faced, only you couldn’t take it for any other, and the doctor sees it every second day, and I’m glad to hear that poor little Alice is getting on so well. She’ll be on her legs again in no time, I’m thinking.”
After Harry had gone, Dr. Willett arrived with a very ill account of the baby.
“Dying, poor little thing. Its heart wrong, and all the organs; but you mustn’t tell poor Mrs. Fairfield. It may cost her her life, if she begins to fret about it, and just tell her it’s quite well, for it’s true, you know—it’s nearer heaven, and best of all when it gets there. So tell her, when she asks, that it was sent in charge of careful people to get it out of the reach of the infection that is in the neighbourhood, and keep her mind quiet.”
A few days later the news of its death arrived in the kitchen, and Lilly Dogger, who was afraid to give way to her emotions before Mrs. Tarnley, abruptly rose, and ran out, and throwing her apron over her head, broke into absolute screams of crying under the great old trees that stand by the scales.
Here there was a sad secret to disclose when the time came, and poor Alice was strong enough to bear the story.
In the meantime Harry Fairfield came and had a stormy interview with old Mildred. The doctor, he swore, didn’t know his business. The women at Twyford had neglected the child. He’d see to it. He’d be a devil among the tailors. He’d open their eyes for them. He had often got fifty pounds for a less neglect of a filly. They should smoke all round for it. And there now was Wyvern without an heir, for, d⸺n him if he’d ever marry; he wouldn’t for Saint Peter. It wouldn’t do—it couldn’t be, at no price; and there was old Wyvern, and never a Fairfield to see tankard filled or faggot fired in the old house.
Harry was not married, although he had insinuated some matrimonial ambiguities in his talk with old Mildred. But I believe he swore truly when he vowed that he never would marry. He had quite made up his mind on that point for some time.
For the rest, his threatenings ended in the noise they began in. In truth there was no ground for complaint, and both nurse and doctor had done their duty.
Alice recovered. I do not attempt to describe the long mourning that followed, the sweet, the bitter, and the terrible recollections that ever after tinted the image of Carwell Grange in her memory.
As soon as she could bear removal to her kind kinswoman, Lady Wyndale insisted on taking her to Oulton. After a time they travelled, and finally returned to Oulton, where they lived on together in the happiness of great and tried affection.
A difference of five-and-thirty years did not separate them any more than the interval of a generation did Naomi and Ruth. Lady Wyndale, being one of those gifted women in whom the girlish spirit burns high and bright so long as life itself continues, full of sympathy and gaiety, with a strong vein of romance, and a pleasant sense of the ridiculous, and also fine immovable affections, was to one who had suffered calamities so dire as had befallen Alice Fairfield, a more delightful companion than any of her own age could have been. For when it was needed, there was the graver charm of a long and sad experience, and there were also the grander teachings of religion, and these were not obtruded or vaunted in anywise, but rather toned her thoughts and feelings, with their peculiar sublime and melancholy lights, in which all things are subdued and also glorified.
LVI
The Old Squire Leaves Wyvern
The old folk can’t go on living always.
