Lady of Quality

Chapter 14

The weather remained unsettled for several days, and it became obvious that the various al fresco entertainments which had been planned by Corisande and her many friends would have to be postponed. This was naturally a disappointment to Lucilla; and after a very short space of time, even Lady Wychwood’s patience wore thin, and upon Lucilla’s asking, for the twentieth time, if she didn’t think the sky was growing lighter, and if it might not still be possible for the morrow’s party at the Sydney Garden to take place, she addressed mild but measured words of reproof to her, saying: “Dear child, the weather won’t improve because you keep running to the window, and asking us if we don’t believe it to be clearing up. Neither my sister nor I have the least notion whether it will be a fine day tomorrow, so of what use is it to expect us to answer you? You would do much better to stop pressing your nose against the window every few minutes and to occupy yourself with your drawing, or your music, instead.” She smiled kindly, and added: “You know, my dear, however fond people may be of you they will soon begin to think you a sad bore if you fall into the way of harping on every little thing that puts you out, as though you were still only a spoilt baby.”

Lucilla reddened, and it seemed for a moment as though she was going to retort; but after a moment’s inward struggle she said, in a subdued voice: “I’m sorry, ma’am!” and ran out of the room.

It was soon seen that Lady Wychwood’s words had gone home, for although Lucilla frequently cast wistful glances at the raindrops chasing one another down the window-panes she only now and then complained of the perversity of the weather, and really made a praiseworthy effort to bear her disappointment with cheerful composure.

Just as the weather at last showed signs of improvement, Miss Farlow created a most unwelcome diversion by succumbing to an attack of influenza. She dragged herself about the house, wrapped in a shawl, saying that she had contracted a slight cold in the head, and not until she fainted one morning when she got out of bed could she be induced either to remain in bed or to allow Annis to send for the doctor. There was nothing the matter with her; she was a trifle out of sorts, but would very soon be better; it was quite unnecessary for dear Annis to send for Dr Tidmarsh, not that she knew anything against him, for she was sure he was very amiable and gentleman-like, but dear papa hadn’t believed in doctors; and, besides, very strange behaviour it would be for her to fall ill when the house was full of guests, and it was her duty to remain on her feet, even if it killed her. However, she was clearly feverish, and in spite of being flushed, and complaining of feeling too hot, she shivered convulsively; so Annis took matters into her own hands, and despatched the page-boy with a message for Dr Tidmarsh. By the time he arrived, Miss Farlow was feeling so poorly that instead of repulsing him she greeted him as a saviour, wept bitterly, and described to him, with a wealth of detail, every one of her many symptoms. She ended by imploring him not to say that she had scarlet fever.

“No, no, ma’am!” he said soothingly. “Merely a touch of influenza! I shall send you a saline draught, and you will very soon be more comfortable. I’ll look in tomorrow, to see how you go on. Meanwhile, you must stay quietly in your bed, and do as Miss Wychwood bids you.”

He then went out of the room with Annis, told her that there was no reason for her to be anxious, gave her some instructions, and, when he took his leave, looked rather narrowly at her, and said: “Now, don’t wear yourself out, ma’am, will you? You don’t look to be in such good point as when I saw you last: I suspect you have been trotting too hard!”

When Annis returned to the sickroom, she found Miss Farlow in a state of tearful agitation, the reason for this fresh flow of tears being her fear that poor little Tom might have taken the disease from her, for which she would never, never forgive herself.

“My dear Maria, it will be time enough to cry about it if he does contract influenza, which very likely he won’t,” said Annis cheerfully. “Betty will be bringing you some lemonade directly, and perhaps when you have drunk a little of it you will be able to go to sleep.”

But it soon became plain that Miss Farlow was not going to be an easy patient. She begged Miss Wychwood not to give her a thought, but to go away and on no account to feel she must stay at her side, because she had everything she wanted, and she couldn’t bear to be giving her so much trouble; but if Miss Wychwood absented herself for more than half-an-hour she fell into sad woe, because this showed her that nobody cared what became of her, least of all her dear Annis.

Lady Wychwood and Lucilla were both anxious to share the task of nursing Miss Farlow, but Annis would not permit either of them to go into the sickroom. Lucilla looked decidedly relieved, for she had never nursed anyone in her life, and was secretly scared that she might do the wrong things; and Lady Wychwood, when it was pointed out to her that she had her children to consider and owed it to them not to expose herself to the risk of infection, agreed reluctantly to stay away from Poor Maria. “But you must promise me to take care of yourself, Annis! You must let Jurby help you, and you mustn’t linger in the room, or approach Maria too closely! How shocking it would be if you were to become ill!”

“Very shocking—and very surprising too!” said Annis. “You know I am never ill! You can’t have forgotten all the occasions when an epidemic cold has laid everyone at Twynham low, except Nurse and me! If you will look after Lucilla for me I shall be very much obliged to you!”

Jurby, when asked if she would help to nurse Miss Farlow, said that Miss Annis might leave it entirely to her, and not bother her head any more; but as she apparently believed that Miss Farlow had contracted influenza on purpose to set them all by the ears Annis took care always to be at hand when she stalked into the room to measure out a dose of medicine, wash Miss Farlow’s face and hands, or shake up her pillows. Jurby disliked Miss Farlow, thought that she could be better if she wished, and in general behaved as if she had been a gaoler in charge of a troublesome prisoner. Miss Wychwood remonstrated with her in vain. “I’ve no patience with her, miss, making such a rout about nothing more than the influenza! Anyone would think she was in a confirmed consumption to hear the way she talks about her aches and ills! What’s more, Miss Annis, it puts me all on end when she says she don’t want you to be troubled with her, or to sit with her, and the next minute wonders what’s become of you, and why you haven’t been next or nigh her for hours!”

“Oh, Jurby, pray hush!” begged Miss Wychwood. “I know she—she is being tiresome, but one must remember that influenza does make people feel very ill so that it is no wonder she should be in—in rather bad skin! But you won’t have to bear with her for much longer, I hope: Dr Tidmarsh has told me that he sees no reason why she should not get up out of her bed for a little while tomorrow, and I think it will vastly improve her spirits if she does so, because it is what she has been wanting to do from the outset.”

Jurby gave a snort of disbelief, and said darkly: “That’s what she says,Miss Annis, but it’s my belief we shan’t see her out of her bed for a sennight!”

But in this prophecy she wronged Miss Farlow. Permitted to sit up in an armchair for an hour or two on the following day, her spirits revived; she began to enumerate all the tasks which she had been obliged to leave undone; and announced her conviction that by the next day she would be stout enough to resume all her duties; so that Miss Wychwood had difficulty in dissuading her from setting to work immediately on the careful darning of a damaged sheet. Fortunately, she discovered herself to be so sadly weakened by her brief but severe attack that after the exertion of dressing her hair she was glad to sit quietly in her armchair, with one shawl round her shoulders and another spread over her legs, and to engage in no more strenuous occupation than that of reading the Court News in the Morning Post.

However, she was certainly on the mend, and Miss Wychwood, in spite of feeling unaccountably exhausted, was looking forward to a period of calm when she received from Jurby, as that stern handmaid drew back the curtains from round her bed on the following morning, the sinister tidings that Nurse wished to have Dr Tidmarsh summoned to take a look at Master Tom.

Thus rudely awakened, Miss Wychwood sat up with a jerk, and said in horrified accents: “Oh, Jurby, no! You can’t mean that he has got the influenza?”

“There isn’t a doubt of it, miss,” said Jurby implacably. “Nurse suspicioned he was sickening for it last night, but she had the sense to take the baby’s crib into the dressing-room, so we must hope the poor little innocent won’t have caught the infection from Master Tom.”

“Indeed we must!” said Annis, flinging back the blankets, and sliding out of bed. “Help me to dress quickly, Jurby! I must send a message to Dr Tidmarsh at once, and warn Wardlow to lay in a stock of lemons, and some more pearl barley, and chickens for broth, and—oh, I don’t know, but no doubt she will!”

“You may be sure she will, miss; and as for the doctor, her ladyship sent down a message to him the instant Nurse told her Master Tom was taken ill. Of course,” she added gloomily, as she handed her stockings to Miss Wychwood, “the next thing we shall know is that her ladyship has caught the infection. Then we shall be in the suds!”

“Oh, pray don’t say so, Jurby!” begged Miss Wychwood.

“I shouldn’t be doing my duty by you, miss, if I didn’t warn you. In my experience, if you get one trouble coming on you which you didn’t expect you may look to get two more.”

Miss Wychwood might smile at this oracular pronouncement, but it was in a mood of considerable dismay that she went down, some minutes later, to the breakfast-parlour. Here she found Lady Wychwood eating bread-and-butter, with her infant daughter in her lap, and Lucilla watching this domestic picture with a kind of awed fascination. Miss Wychwood, knowing how anxious her sister-in-law was inclined to be whenever anything ailed her children, was much relieved to see her looking so calm. She said, as she bent to kiss her: “I am so sorry, Amabel, to hear that Tom is now a victim of this horrid influenza!”

“Yes, it is most unfortunate,” agreed her ladyship, sighing faintly. “But not unexpected! I thought he would be bound to take it from Maria, for she had been playing with him the very day she began to feel unwell. But Nurse doesn’t think it will prove to be a bad attack, and I am persuaded I may have complete faith in Dr Tidmarsh. I formed the opinion, when I was talking to him the other day, that he is a perfectly competent person, which, of course, one would expect a Bath doctor to be. The worst of it is,” she added, her eyes filling with tears, and her lips trembling a little, “that I must not take care of Tom myself. Whenever he has been ill he has always called for Mama,and never have I left him for more than a minute! However, I do see that it’s my duty to keep Baby out of the way of the infection, and I don’t mean to be silly about it. I have talked it over with Nurse, and we are agreed that she is to look after Tom, and I am to have sole charge of Baby. Which I shall like very much, shan’t I, my precious?”

Miss Susan Wychwood, who had been chortling to herself, responded to this by uttering a series of unintelligible remarks, which her mama interpreted as signifying agreement; and blew several bubbles.

“What a clever girl!” said Lady Wychwood, in a voice of doting fondness.

When the doctor arrived, he confirmed Nurse’s diagnosis; warned Lady Wychwood that Tom was unlikely to make such a quick recovery as Miss Farlow’s had been; and told her that she must not worry if he was still inclined to be feverish at the end of a sennight, because it was often so with obstreperous little boys whom it was almost impossible to keep quietly in their beds, since the instant their aches and pains subsided it was one person’s work—or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say two persons’ work, to prevent them from bouncing about, and even getting out of bed the instant one took one’s eye off them. “I have two little rascals of my own, my lady!” he told her, with ill-concealed pride. “Just such bits of quicksilver as your boy is, so you may believe I don’t speak without personal experience!” He then told her that she was very wise to preserve her baby from any risk of infection; complimented her on Miss Susan Wychwood’s sturdy limbs and powerful lungs; and went off leaving her to inform Annis that he was quite the most agreeable and sympathetic doctor she had ever known.

On Miss Farlow the news that Tom was ill acted like a tonic. She did indeed burst into tears, and say that she would never dare to look dear Lady Wychwood in the face again, but this threatened relapse into gloom was not of long duration. An opportunity to prove herself to be of real value had presented itself, and she seized it. She cast off her shawls, dressed herself, and emerged from her bedchamber, rather shakily, but determined to share with Nurse the task of keeping Tom quiescent. Nurse accepted her services graciously. “For there is no denying, Miss Jurby,” said Nurse, “that though she may be a hubble-bubble female with a tongue that runs like a fiddlestick, she does know how to handle children, and will sit for hours telling them fairy-tales, and the like, which makes it possible for me to get a bit of rest.”

It began to seem as though Jurby’s bleak prophecy was going to be falsified, but two days later Betty, the young housemaid who had waited on Miss Farlow throughout her indisposition, also took to her bed, a circumstance of which Jurby informed her mistress with somewhat heartless satisfaction. “Which all goes to show how right I was, miss!” she said, opening the doors of the big wardrobe which housed Miss Wychwood’s dresses. “I told you troubles come in threes, and if it’s only Betty who’s got this dratted influenza there’s no harm done. Now, will you wear your blue cambric today, or shall I put out the French muslin, with the striped spencer?”

“Jurby,” said Miss Wychwood, in an uncertain voice, “I think—I am afraid—that I too have the influenza!”

Jurby turned quickly. Miss Wychwood was sitting on the edge of her bed, still wearing her nightgown, and although the rainy spell had given way to a hot, sunny day she was shivering so violently that the teeth chattered in her head. Jurby took one look at her, and then cast the French muslin aside, and hurried towards her, muttering: “Oh, my goodness me! I might have known this would happen!” She grasped Miss Wychwood’s hands, and instantly thrust her back into bed. “And there you’ll stay, Miss Annis!” she said, in a threatening tone. “It’s to be hoped you’ve nothing worse the matter with you than influenza!”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so!” Annis said faintly. “It came on me during the night. I woke up, feeling as though I had been beaten all over with cudgels, and with such a headache—! I hoped it would pass off, if I kept my eyes shut, but it didn’t, and I feel quite dreadfully ill. Don’t tell her ladyship!”

“Now, don’t start fretting and fussing, Miss Annis!” said Jurby, laying a hand on Miss Wychwood’s brow. “I’m bound to tell her ladyship that you’re out of curl today, and mean to stay in bed, but I won’t let her come into the room, I promise you!”

“Don’t let Miss Lucilla come near me either!”

“The only person who’ll come into this room is the doctor!” said Jurby grimly, stumping over to the window and drawing the blinds across it. “Do you lie quiet now till I come back, and don’t get into the high fidgets, fancying the house will fall down just because you’re knocked up with all the trouble you’ve had, and mean to recruit your strength by staying in bed today, because it won’t!” She sprinkled lavender-water lavishly over the pillow, drenched a handkerchief with it, which she tenderly wiped across Miss Wychwood’s burning forehead, assured her that she would be as right as a trivet before the cat had time to lick her ear, and hurried away, first to send the page-boy scurrying down the hill with an urgent message for Dr Tidmarsh, and then to inform Lady Wychwood, who had not yet left her room, that Miss Annis was laid up, and that she had sent for the doctor. “I don’t doubt it’s nothing worse than the influenza, my lady, but she’s in a raging fever!” she said bluntly.

Lady Wychwood started up instinctively, saying: “I’ll come at once!”

“No, that you won’t, my lady!” said Jurby, barring her passage to the door. “There’s nothing you can do for her, and you’ve got the baby to consider. Miss Annis has laid it on me not to let you, or Miss Lucilla, come near her. Very agitated she is, for fear you should insist on seeing her and get ill in consequence. If you don’t want her to get into a stew, which I’m sure you don’t, you’ll do as she asks you.”

“Alas, I must!” said Lady Wychwood, much distressed. “Why, oh, why didn’t I send the children home with Nurse the instant Miss Farlow took ill? Why didn’t I persuade Miss Annis to go to bed yesterday, and send for Dr Tidmarsh immediately? I could see she wasn’t quite well, but I never dreamed she was sickening for anything, because she is so very rarely ill! I might have guessed, though! Fool that I was!”

“Well, my lady, I don’t see that it would have done a bit of good if the doctor had come to see her yesterday, because if she had the influenza on her there was nothing he nor anyone else could have done to drive it off. And as for not guessing she was ill, I don’t see that you’ve any call to blame yourself, for I didn’t guess it, and—if you’ll pardon me for saying so, my lady!—there’s no one who knows her as well as I do! I knew she wasn’t in very plump currant but I thought she was out of sorts, on account of having to dance attendance on Miss Farlow, on top of—” She checked herself, and ended her sentence by saying, at her most forbidding: “Other things!”

They looked at one another. After a moment, Lady Wychwood said simply: “I know.” She then turned away to pick up her rings from the dressing-table, and said, as she slid them on to her fingers: “Give her my dear love, Jurby, and tell her that she mustn’t worry about the house, or about Miss Lucilla, because she knows she can trust me to see that everything goes on just as it ought. And tell her that I shan’t attempt to see her until Dr Tidmarsh says it is safe for me to do so.”

“Thank you, my lady! You can be sure I will! It will do her good to have that worry at least taken off her mind!” said Jurby, with real gratitude. She lingered, on the pretext of picking up a hairpin, and said: “I shall take the liberty of saying, my lady—being as I have been Miss Annis’s personal maid since she came out of the nursery—that I can’t help hoping that Mr Carleton will make some other arrangement for Miss Lucilla. Not that I have anything against her, for I am sure she is a sweetly behaved young lady, but I have always felt that Miss Annis was taking too much on her shoulders when she adopted her, as one might say. Particularly now, when Miss Annis is ill, and will be in a tender state, I daresay, for some weeks. I suppose you don’t know when Mr Carleton means to return to Bath? Or if he has gone away for good?”

“No,” answered Lady Wychwood. “I am afraid I don’t know, Jurby.”

Nothing more was said between them, but much that was unspoken was understood.

Dr Tidmarsh, when he arrived less than an hour later, spent much longer with Miss Wychwood than he had found it necessary to spend either with Miss Farlow or with Tom, and when he came downstairs again, he told Lady Wychwood that while Miss Wychwood was suffering from no more serious disorder than influenza the attack was a severe one. He had found her pulse tumultuous; she was extremely feverish; and although he was confident that the medicine he had prescribed for her would soon reduce the fever, he warned her ladyship that it was possible—even, he was sorry to say, probable—that she might become a trifle delirious as the day wore on. “I tell you this, my lady, because I don’t wish you to be alarmed if she should wander a little in her mind. I assure you there is no cause for alarm! I hope that she will sleep, but if she should be restless you may give her a few drops of laudanum. Rather, I should say, her maid may do so, for you will, I trust, abide by your wise determination to stay out of the way of infection. I must add that the fear that you, or Miss Carleton, should run the slightest risk of taking influenza from her is preying on her mind, which is very undesirable, as I am persuaded you must recognize. In short, I consider it to be of the first importance that she should be kept as quiet as may be possible. The fewer people to enter her room the better it will be for her, while she is so feverish.”

“No one shall enter it without your permission, doctor,” said Lady Wychwood.

She was agreeably surprised, when she reported the doctor’s words to Lucilla, to see a look of chagrin in Lucilla’s face, for she had been inclined to think that for all her engaging ways and pretty manners she wanted heart. She had certainly not expected tears to spring to Lucilla’s eyes when she was told that she must not enter Miss Wychwood’s room until all danger of infection was over, and she was a good deal touched when Lucilla said forlornly: “May I not nurse her, ma’am?”

“No, my dear, I am afraid not. Jurby is going to nurse her.”

“Oh, yes, but I could help her, couldn’t I? I promise I would do just as she bade me, and even if she doesn’t think I’m old enough to nurse people I could at least sit with Miss Wychwood while Jurby rests, or goes down to eat her dinner, couldn’t I? I can’t bear it if I am not allowed to do anything,because I do love her so much, and she does everything for me!”

Lady Wychwood was moved to put an arm round her, and to give her a slight hug. “I know how hard it is for you, dear child,” she said sympathetically. “I’m in the same case, you know. I would give anything to be able to look after my sister, but I must not.”

“But you have your baby to look after, ma’am, which makes it quite different!” Lucilla said urgently. “I haven’t got a baby, or anyone who would be a penny the worse for it if I caught influenza!”

“I can tell you of one who would be the worse for it, and that is my sister,” said Lady Wychwood. “Jurby tells me that she is in a great worry about us, and has made Jurby promise not to permit either of us to go near her. I know you wouldn’t wish to distress her—and to tell you the truth I think she is feeling too poorly even to wish to see anyone but Jurby. Wait until she is rather better! The instant Dr Tidmarsh tells us that she is no longer infectious I promise you shan’t be kept out of her room. As for sitting with her now, she isn’t ill enough to make it necessary for someone to be always with her, you know. Indeed, from what I know of her, I am very sure she would find it very irksome never to be left alone!”

Lucilla heaved a doleful sigh, but submitted, saying humbly that she didn’t mean to be troublesome. Lady Wychwood then had the happy notion that she might like to go out with Mrs Wardlow, who had shopping to do, and buy some flowers to put in Miss Wychwood’s room. The suggestion took well. Lucilla’s face brightened, and she exclaimed: “Oh, yes! I should like that of all things, ma’am! Thank you!” But when Lady Wychwood further suggested that she should write a note to Corisande to ask her to ride with her on the following morning, she shook her head, and said decidedly that nothing would prevail upon her to go pleasuring while Miss Wychwood was ill.

It was not to be expected that Miss Farlow would submit as meekly to the doctor’s decree, and nor did she. Hardly had Lucilla tripped out with the housekeeper than she subjected Lady Wychwood to an extremely trying half-hour, during which she complained passionately of Jurby’s insolence in daring to shut her out of Annis’s room; declared her intention of taking care of Annis herself, whatever the doctor said; delivered herself of a moving but muddled speech in support of her claims to be the only proper person to have charge of the sick-room, in which she several times begged Lady Wychwood to agree that whatever anyone said blood was thicker than water; and ended an agitated monologue by pointing out, in triumph, that it was of no use for her ladyship to talk of the danger of infection, because she had already had the influenza.

It was some little time before Lady Wychwood was able to bring her to reason, and a great deal of tact was necessary; but she managed it at last, and without wounding Miss Farlow’s sensibilities. She said that she did not know how she and Nurse were to go on, if Maria felt she must devote herself to Annis. That was quite enough. Miss Farlow, in a gush of affection, said that she was ready to do anything in the world to ease the burdens under which she knew well dear, dear Lady Wychwood was labouring, and went off, happy in the knowledge that her services were indispensable.

Unlike Tom, or Miss Farlow, Miss Wychwood was a very good patient. She obeyed the doctor’s directions, swallowed the nastiest of drugs without protest; made few demands, and still fewer complaints; and resolutely refrained from tossing and turning in what she knew to be an unavailing attempt to get into a more comfortable position. As Dr Tidmarsh had prophesied, her fever mounted, and though it was too much to say that she became delirious, her mind did wander a little, and once she started out of an uneasy doze, exclaiming: “Oh, why doesn’t he come?” in an anguished voice; but she almost immediately came to herself, and after staring for a moment in bewilderment at Jurby’s face, bent over her, she murmured: “Oh, it’s you, Jurby! I thought—I must have been dreaming, I suppose.”

Jurby saw no reason to report this incident to Lady Wychwood.

The fever began to abate on the second day, but it still remained high enough to make Dr Tidmarsh shake his head; and it was not until the third day that it burnt itself out, and did not recur. Miss Wychwood emerged from this shattering attack so much exhausted that for the next twenty-four hours she had no energy to do more than swallow, with an effort, a little liquid nourishment, or to rouse herself to take more than a vague interest in whatever events were taking place in her household. For the most part of the day she slept, conscious of a feeling of profound relief that her bones were no longer being racked, and that the Catherine wheel in her head was no longer making her life hideous.

The fourth day saw the arrival in Camden Place of Sir Geoffrey. He had borne with equanimity the news, conveyed to him by his dutiful wife, that Miss Farlow was in bed with influenza; a second letter, informing him that Tom had caught the infection disturbed him a little, but not enough to make him disregard Amabel’s assurance that there was not the smallest need for him to be anxious; but the third letter (though she still begged him not to come to Bath), containing the news that Annis too had succumbed to the prevailing epidemic, set him on the road to Bath within an hour of his receiving it. He couldn’t remember any occasion since her childhood when Annis had contracted anything more serious than a slight cold in the head, and it seemed to him that if she could fall ill there was no saying when his Amabel would also be laid low.

Lady Wychwood received him with mixed feelings. On the one hand she was overjoyed to have his strong arms round her again; on the other, she could not help feeling that his presence in the house would be an added burden in an establishment already overburdened by three invalids, one of whom was the second housemaid. She was a devoted wife, but she knew well that he did not shine in a sickroom: in fact, he was more of a liability than an asset, for, enjoying excellent health himself, he had very little experience of illness, and either caused the invalid to suffer a relapse by talking in heartily invigorating tones; or (if warned that the invalid was extremely weak) by tiptoeing into the room, addressing the patient in an awed and hushed voice, and bearing all the appearance of a man who had come to take a last farewell of one past hope of recovery.

He was considerably relieved to find that his Amabel, instead of being on a bed of sickness, was looking remarkably well, but he could not like it that she had been tied to a cradle ever since Tom had developed influenza. He thought it extraordinary that there should be no one in the household able to look after a mere infant, and could not be convinced that Amabel was neither tired nor bored. She laughed at him, and said: “No, no, of course I’m not! Do you realize, my love, that it is the first time I have ever had Baby all to myself? Except for being unable to go to Tom, and being very anxious about Annis, I have enjoyed every minute, and shall be sorry to give her back to Nurse tomorrow. Dr Tidmarsh considers it to be perfectly safe now, but I am keeping Baby with me for one more night, for she is cutting another tooth, and is rather fretful, and I want Nurse to have a peaceful night before she takes charge of her again. You shall see Tom presently: he is laid down for his rest at the moment. Say something kind to Maria, won’t you? She has been most helpful, looking after Tom.”

“Yes, very well, but tell me about Annis! I was never more shocked in my life than when I read that she was in such very queer stirrups! I could hardly believe my eyes, for I don’t recall that I’ve ever known her to collapse before. It must have been a pretty violent catching?”

At this moment they were interrupted by Miss Susan Wychwood, who had been laid down to sleep on the sofa in the back drawing-room, and who now awoke, querulously demanding attention. Lady Wychwood glided into this half of the room, and was just about to pick Miss Susan up when Miss Farlow came hurrying in, and begged to be allowed to take the little darling. “For I saw Sir Geoffrey drive up, and so, of course, I knew he would wish to talk to you, which is why I have been on the listen, thinking that very likely Baby would wake—Oh, how do you do, Cousin Geoffrey? Such a happiness to have you with us again, though I feel you will be quite alarmed, when you see our dear Annis—if Jurby permits you to see her!” She gave vent to a shrill titter. “I daresay it will astonish you to know that Jurby has become the Queen of Camden Place: none of us dares to move hand or foot without her leave! Even I have not been permitted to see dear Annis until today! I promise you, I was excessively diverted, but I couldn’t help pitying poor Annis, compelled to accept the services of her abigail when those of a blood-relation would have been more acceptable. However I made no demur, because I knew that, tyrant though she is, I could depend upon Jurby to take almost as good care of her mistress as I should have done, besides that there was dear Lady Wychwood to be thought of, so worn-down as she was, which made me realize that her need of me was greater than Annis’s!”

She began to rock the infant in her arms, and Sir Geoffrey, who had listened to her with growing disfavour, beat a retreat, almost dragging his wife with him. As they mounted the stairs he said: “Upon my word, Amabel, I begin to wish I hadn’t prevailed upon Annis to engage that woman! But I don’t remember that she talked us silly when she and Annis have visited us!”

“No, dear, but at home you never saw very much of her. That is what I dislike about town-houses: however commodious they may be one can never get away from the other people living in the house! And goodnatured and obliging though poor Maria is I own I have frequently been forced to shut myself into my bedchamber to escape from her. I think,” she added reflectively, “if ever she came to live at Twynham I should give her a sitting-room of her own.”

“Came to live at Twynham?” he ejaculated. “You don’t mean that Annis means to turn her off?”

“Oh, no! But one never knows what circumstances might arise to make her chaperonage unnecessary. Annis might be married, for instance.”

He laughed at this, and said, with comfortable conviction: “Not she! Why, she’s nine-and-twenty, and a confirmed old maid!”

She said nothing, but he apparently turned her words over in his mind, for he asked her, a few minutes later, if that fellow Carleton was still in Bath.

“He went to London some ten days ago,” she replied. “His niece, however, is still here, so I imagine he must mean to return.”

“Ay, you wrote to me that she was here, and I wish to my heart she were not! Mind you, she’s a taking little thing, and I don’t wish to say a word against her, but I’ve never approved of Annis’s conduct over that business, and I never shall!”

“Mr Carleton doesn’t approve of it either. He says Annis is not a fit person to take charge of Lucilla.”

“Damned impudence!” growled Sir Geoffrey, “Not but what she ain’t a fit person, and so I’ve said all along!”

“No, I am persuaded you are right,” she agreed. “But I fancy-indeed, I know—that Mr Carleton has every intention of removing her from Annis’s charge. That is why he has gone to London. You must not mention this, Geoffrey, for Lucilla knows nothing about it, and Annis told me in confidence.”

“You told me in the first letter you wrote after I left you here that you thought there was no danger of Annis’s losing her heart to him. The Lord only knows why so many women do lose their hearts to him, for a more disagreeable, top-lofty fellow I wish I may never meet!”

“I own I don’t like him, but I think he could make himself very agreeable to anyone he wished to please.”

“Good God, you don’t mean to tell me he’s been making up to Annis?” he exclaimed, in patent horror.

“You wouldn’t think so, but—I don’t know, Geoffrey! He doesn’t flirt with her, and he seems to say detestably uncivil things to her, but if he isn’t trying to fix his interests with her, I cannot help wondering why he has remained in Bath for so long.”

“Does she like him?” he demanded.

“I don’t know that either,” she confessed. “One wouldn’t think so, because they seem to rip up at each other every time they meet; but I have lately suspected that Annis is not as indifferent to him as she would have me believe.”

“You must be mistaken! Annis, of all people, to have a tendre for a fellow like Carleton? It isn’t possible! Why, they call him the rudest man in London! I am not surprised that he should be trying to attach her: he is notorious for his philandering, and I was very uneasy as soon as I discovered that Lucilla was his niece, for it seemed likely that he would come here, and Annis is a devilish goodlooking woman! But that she should be in love with him—no, no Amabel, you must be mistaken!”

“Perhaps I am, dearest. But if I am not—if she accepts an offer from him—we must learn to like him!”

“Like him?” echoed Sir Geoffrey, in a stupefied voice. “I can tell you this, Amabel: nothing will ever prevail upon me to consent to such a marriage!”

“But Geoffrey—!” she expostulated. “Your consent isn’t needed! Annis isn’t a minor! If she decides to marry Mr Carleton she will do so, and you will be obliged to accept him with a good grace—unless you wish to become estranged from her, which I am very sure you don’t.”

He looked to be somewhat disconcerted, but said: “If she chooses to marry Carleton, she will have to bear the consequences. But I shall warn her most solemnly that they may be more disagreeable than she foresees!”

“You will do as you think proper, dearest, but you must promise me that you won’t mention this matter to her until she herself speaks of it. Recollect that it is all conjecture at present! And on no account must you say anything to distress her! But when you see her you won’t wish to!”

He was not to see her, however, until the following day, a visit from Miss Farlow having left her with a headache, and a disinclination to receive any more visitors. Once the doctor had said that there was no longer any danger of infection to be feared, Lady Wychwood had found it to be impossible to exclude Miss Farlow from her room, for Annis had asked to see Lucilla, and Miss Farlow had, most unfortunately, encountered Lucilla coming out of the sickroom. A painful scene had been the outcome, for, accused of having gone slyly in to see Miss Wychwood when Jurby’s back had been turned, Lucilla said indignantly that she had done nothing of the sort: Miss Wychwood had asked for her, and as for Jurby’s back having been turned, Jurby had been in the room and was still there. This sent Miss Farlow scurrying away in search of Lady Wychwood, demanding hysterically to know why Lucilla had been permitted to see Miss Wychwood while she,her own cousin, was kept out. The end of it was that Lady Wychwood, feeling that there was a certain amount of justification for Miss Farlow’s threatened attack of the vapours, had said that no one was trying to keep her away from Annis: of course she might visit her! She added that she knew Maria might be trusted not to stay with her too long, or to talk too much. Miss Farlow, still convulsively sobbing, had replied that she hoped she knew better than to talk too much to persons in dear Annis’s tender condition. So too did Lady Wychwood, but she doubted it, and put an end to the visit twenty minutes after Miss Farlow had entered the room, by which time Annis looked as if she was in danger of suffering a relapse.

“I think I must turn you out now, Maria,” Lady Wychwood said, smiling kindly. “The doctor said only a quarter of an hour, you know!”

“Oh, yes, indeed! So right of him! Poor Annis is sadly pulled! I declare I was quite shocked to find her so pale and unlike herself, but, as I have been telling her, we shall soon have her to rights again. Now I shall leave her, and she must try to go to sleep, must she not? I will just draw the blinds across the window, for nothing is more disagreeable than having the light glaring at one. Not that it is not very pleasant to see the sun again after so many dull days, and they say that it is very beneficial, though I myself rather doubt that. I remember my dear mama saying that it was injurious to the female complexion, and she never went out into the open air without a veil over her face. Well, I must leave you now, dear Annis, but you may be sure I shall be always popping in to see how you go on!”

“Amabel,” said Miss Wychwood faintly, as Miss Farlow at last got herself out of the room, “if you love me, murder our dear cousin! The first thing she said when she came in was that she wasn’t going to talk to me, and she hasn’t ceased talking from that moment to this.”

“I am so sorry, dearest, but there was no way of keeping her out without giving grave offence,” responded Lady Wychwood, drawing the blinds back. “I shan’t let her visit you again today, so you may be easy.”

Miss Farlow succeeded in exasperating Sir Geoffrey at the dinnertable, first by uttering a series of singularly foolish observations, and then by trying to argue with Lady Wychwood. As dinner came to an end, she got up, saying: “Now you must excuse me, if you please! I am going up to sit with our dear invalid for a little while.”

“No, Maria,” said Lady Wychwood, “Annis is extremely tired, and must have no more visitors today.”

“Oh,” said Miss Farlow, with an angry little titter, “I do not rank myself as a visitor, Lady Wychwood! You have several times gone into Annis’s room, and some might think I had a better claim to do so, being a blood relation! Not that I mean to say that you are not a welcome visitor, for I am sure she must always be pleased to see you!”

Sir Geoffrey took instant umbrage at this, told her sharply that Lady Wychwood must be the only judge of who should, and who should not be permitted to visit Annis; and added, for good measure, that if she took his advice she would not allow her to go near Annis again, since he had no doubt that it was her ceaseless bibble-babbling that had tired her.

Realizing that she had gone too far, Miss Farlow hastened to say that she had no intention of casting the least slight on dear Lady Wychwood, but she was unable to resist the temptation to add, with another of her irritating titters: “But as for my visit having tired dear Annis, I venture to suggest that it was Lucilla who did the mischief! A great mistake, if I may say so, to have permitted her to visit—”

“Shall we go up to the drawing-room?” interposed Lady Wychwood, in a voice of quiet authority. “I think you are rather tired yourself, Maria. Perhaps you would prefer to retire to bed. We must not forget that it is only a very few days since you too were ill.”

Finally quelled, Miss Farlow did retire, but in so reluctant and lingering a way that she was still within tongue-shot when Sir Geoffrey said: “Well done, Amabel! Lord, what a gabster! Ay, and worse! The idea of her having the brass to say that it was Lucilla who exhausted Annis! A bigger piece of spite I never heard! More likely your visit did my sister a great deal of good, my dear!”

“Of course it did,” said Lady Wychwood. “Don’t look so downcast, child! You must surely be aware that poor Maria is eaten up with jealousy. And allowances must be made for people who are convalescent from the influenza: it often makes them cantankersome! Pray let us put her out of our minds! I was wondering whether it would entertain you to play a game of backgammon with Sir Geoffrey until Limbury brings in the tea-tray?”

But hardly had the board been set out than it had to be put away again, for a late caller arrived, in the person of Lord Beckenham. He had come to enquire after Miss Wychwood. He had only that very afternoon heard of her indisposition, for he had been obliged to visit the Metropolis at the beginning of the week. He explained at somewhat tedious length that he had stopped to eat his dinner at the Ship before continuing his journey, why he had done so, how he had come by the distressing news, and how he had been unable to wait until the next day before coming to discover how Miss Wychwood was going on. He did not know what she, and her ladyship, must have been thinking of him for not having called days ago.

He stayed to drink tea with them, and by the time he left Sir Geoffrey was heartily sick of him, and, having seen him off the premises, informed his wife that if he had to listen to any more forty-jawed persons that day he would go straight off to bed.