The Young Step-Mother Part 27

It was 'a green Yule,' a Christmas like an April day, and even the lengthening days and strengthening cold of January attaining to nothing more than three slight h.o.a.r-frosts, each quickly melting into mud, and the last concluding in rain and fog.

'What would Willow Lawn have been without the drainage?' Albinia often thought when she paddled down the wet streets, and saw the fields flooded. The damp had such an effect upon Sophy's throat, temper, and whole nervous system, that her moods had few intervals, and Albinia wrote to the surgeon a detail of her symptoms, asking if she had not better be removed into a more favourable air. But he p.r.o.nounced that the injury of the transport would outbalance the casual evils of the bad weather, and as the rain and fog mitigated, she improved; but there were others on whom the heavy moist air had a more fatal effect.

One morning, Mr. Kendal saw his wife descending the picturesque rugged stone staircase that led outside the house to the upper stories of the old block of buildings under the hill, nearly opposite to Willow Lawn.

She came towards him with tears still in her eyes as she said, 'Poor Mrs. Simkins has just lost her little girl, and I am afraid the two boys are sickening.'

'What do you mean? Is the fever there again?' exclaimed Mr. Kendal in the utmost consternation.

'Did you not know it? Lucy has been very anxious about the child, who was in her cla.s.s.'

'You have not taken Lucy to a house with a fever!'

'No, I thought it safer not, though she wanted very much to go.'

'But you have been going yourself!'

'It was a low, lingering fever. I had not thought it infectious, and even now I believe it is only one of those that run through an over-crowded family. The only wonder is, that they are ever well in such a place. Dear Edmund, don't be angry; it is what I used to do continually at Fairmead. I never caught anything; and there is plenty of chloride of lime, and all that. I never imagined you would disapprove.'

'It is the very place where the fever began before!' said Mr. Kendal, almost under his breath.

Instead of going into the house, he made her turn into the garden, where little Maurice was being promenaded in the sun. He stretched out from his nurse's arms to go to them, and Albinia was going towards him, but her husband held her fast, and said, 'I beg you will not take the child till you have changed your dress.'

Albinia was quite subdued, alarmed at the effect on him.

'You must go away at once,' he said presently. 'How soon can you be ready? You had better take Lucy and Maurice at once to your brother's.

They will excuse the liberty when they know the cause.'

'And pray what is to become of poor Sophy?'

'Never going out, there may be the less risk for her. I will take care of her myself.'

'As if I was going to endure that!' cried Albinia. 'No, no, Edmund, I am not likely to run away from you and Sophy! You may send Lucy off, if you like, but certainly not me, or if you do I shall come back the same evening.'

'I should be much happier if you were gone.'

'Thank you, but what should I be? No, if it were to be caught here, which I don't believe, now the pond is gone, it would be of no use to send me away, after I have been into the house with it.'

Her resolution and Sophy's need prevailed, and most unwillingly Mr.

Kendal gave up the point. She was persuaded that he was acting on a panic, the less to be wondered at after all he had suffered. She thought the chief danger was from the effect of his fears, and would fain have persuaded him to remain at Fairmead with Lucy, but she was not prepared to hear him insist on likewise removing Maurice. She had promised not to enter the sick room again, and pleaded that the little boy need never be taken into the street--that the fever was not likely to come across the running stream--that the Fairmead nursery was full enough already.

Mr. Kendal was inexorable. 'I hope you may never see what I have seen,'

he said gravely, and Albinia was silenced.

A man who had lost so many children might be allowed to be morbidly jealous of the health of the rest. But it was a cruel stroke to her to be obliged to part with her n.o.ble little boy, just when his daily advances in walking and talking made him more charming than ever. Her eyes were full of tears, and she struggled to choke back some pettish rebellious words.

'You do not like to trust him with Susan,' said Mr. Kendal; 'you had better come with him.'

'No,' said Albinia, 'I ought to stay here, and if you judge it right, Maurice must go. I'll go and speak to Susan.'

And away she ran, for she had no power just then to speak in a wifely manner. It was not easy to respect a man in a panic so extremely inconvenient.

He was resolved on an immediate start, and the next few hours were spent in busy preparation, and in watching lest the excited Lucy should frighten her sister. Albinia tried to persuade Mr. Kendal at least to sleep at Fairmead that night, and after watching him drive off, she hurried, das.h.i.+ng away the tears that would gather again and again in her eyes, to hold council with the Dusautoys on the best means of stopping the course of the malady, by depriving it of its victims.

She had a quiet snug evening with Sophy, whom she had so much interested in the dest.i.tution of the sick children as to set her to work at some night-gear for them, and she afterwards sat long over the fire trying to read to silence the longing after the little soft cheek that had never yet been laid to rest without her caress, and foreboding that Mr. Kendal would return from his dark solitary drive with his spirits at the lowest ebb.

So late that she had begun to hope that Winifred had obeyed her behest and detained him, she heard his step, and before she could run to meet him, he had already shut himself into the study.

She was at the door in a moment; she feared he had thought her self-willed in the morning, and she was the more bent on rousing him. She knocked--she opened the door. He had thrown himself into his arm-chair, and was bending over the dreary, smouldering, sulky log and white ashes, and his face, as he raised his head, was as if the whole load of care and sorrow had suddenly descended again.

'I am sorry you sat up,' was of course his beginning, conveying anything but welcome; but she knew that this only meant that he was in a state of depression. She took hold of his hand, chilled with holding the reins, told him of the good fire in the morning-room, and fairly drew him up-stairs.

There the lamp burnt brightly, and the red fire cast a merry glow over the s.h.i.+ning chintz curtains, and the two chairs drawn so cosily towards the fire, the kettle puffing on the hearth, and Albinia's choice little bed-room set of tea-china ready on the small table. The cheerfulness seemed visibly to diffuse itself over his face, but he still struggled to cherish his gloom, 'Thank you, but I would not have had you take all this trouble, my dear.'

'It would be a great deal more trouble if you caught a bad cold. I meant you to sleep at Fairmead.'

'Yes, they pressed me very kindly, but I could not bear not to come home.'

'And how did Maurice comport himself?'

'He talked to the horse and then went to sleep, and he was not at all shy with his aunt after the first. He watched the children, but had not begun to play with them. Still I think he will be quite happy with Lucy there, and I hope it will not be for long.'

It was a favourable sign that Mr. Kendal communicated all these particulars without being plied with questions, and Albinia went on with the more spirit.

'No, I hope it may not be for long. We have been holding a great council against the enemy, and I do hope that we have really done something. No, you need not be afraid, I have not been there again, but we have been routing out the nucleus, and hope we may starve out the fever for want of victims. You never saw such a swarm as we had to turn out. There were twenty-three people to be considered for.'

'Twenty-three! Have you turned out the whole block?'

'No, I wish we had; but that would have been seventy-five. This is only from those two tenements with one door!'

'Impossible!'

'I should have thought so; but the lawful inhabitants make up sixteen, and there were seven lodgers.'

Mr. Kendal gave a kind of groan, and asked what she had done; she detailed the measures.

'Twenty-three people in those two houses, and seventy-five in the whole block of building?'

'Too true. And if you could only see the rooms! The windows that wont open; the roofs that open too much; the dirt on the staircases, and, oh!

the horrible smells!'

'It shall not go on,' said Mr. Kendal. 'I will look over the place.'

'Not till the fever is out of it,' hastily interposed Albinia.

He made a sign of a.s.sent, and went on: 'I will certainly talk to Pettilove, and have the place repaired, if it be at my own expense.'