Elster's Folly Part 86

"Answer me one question, Mr. Brook," said Lady Hartledon, in her earnestness. "Would you apply these leeches were you treating the case alone?"

"No, madam, I would not."

Anne appealed to her husband. When the medical men differed, she thought the decision lay with him.

"I'm sure I don't know," returned Val, who felt perfectly helpless to advise. "Can't you decide, Anne? You know more about children and illness than I do."

"I would do so without hesitating a moment were it my own child," she replied. "I would not allow them to be put on."

"No, you would rather see him die," interrupted the dowager, who overheard the words, and most intemperately and unjustifiably answered them.

Anne coloured with shame for the old woman, but the words silenced her: how was it possible to press her own opinion after that? Sir Alexander had it all his own way, and the leeches were applied on either side the throat, Mr. Brook emphatically a.s.serting in Lady Hartledon's private ear that he "washed his hands" of the measure. Before they came off the consequences were apparent; the throat was swollen outwardly, on both sides; within, it appeared to be closing.

The dowager, rather beside herself on the whole, had insisted on the leeches. Any one, seeing her conduct now, might have thought the invalid boy was really dear to her. Nothing of the sort. A hazy idea had been looming through her mind for years that Val was not strong; she had been mistaking mental disease for bodily illness; and a project to have full control of her grandchild, should he come into the succession prematurely, had coloured her dreams. This charming prospect would be ignominiously cut short if the boy went first.

Sir Alexander saw his error. There must be something peculiar in Lord Elster's const.i.tution, he blandly said; it would not have happened in another. Of course, anything that turns out a mistake always is in the const.i.tution--never in the treatment. Whether he lived or died now was just the turn of a straw: the chances were that he would die. All that could be done now was to endeavour to counteract the mischief by external applications.

"I wish you would let me try a remedy," said Lady Hartledon, wistfully.

"A compress of cold water round the throat with oilsilk over it. I have seen it do so much good in cases of inward inflammation."

Mr. Brook smiled: if anything would do good that might, he said, speaking as if he had little faith in remedies now. Sir Alexander intimated that her ladys.h.i.+p might try it; graciously observing that it would do no harm.

The application was used, and the evening went on. The child had fallen into a sort of stupor, and Mr. Brook came in again before he had been away an hour, and leaned anxiously over the patient. He lay with his eyes half-closed, and breathed with difficulty.

"I think," he exclaimed softly, "there's the slightest shade of improvement."

"In the fever, or the throat?" whispered Lady Hartledon, who had not quitted the boy's bedside.

"In the throat. If so, it is due to your remedy, Lady Hartledon."

"Is he in danger?"

"In great danger. Still, I see a gleam of hope."

After the surgeon's departure, she went down to her husband, meeting Hedges on the stairs, who was coming to inquire after the patient for his master, for about the fiftieth time. Hartledon was in the library, pacing about incessantly in the darkness, for the room was only lighted by the fire. Anne closed the door and approached him.

"Percival, I do not bring you very good tidings," she said; "and yet they might be worse. Mr. Brook tells me he is in great danger, but thinks he sees a gleam of hope."

Lord Hartledon took her hand within his arm and resumed his pacing; his eyes were fixed on the carpet, and he said nothing.

"Don't grieve as those without hope," she continued, her eyes filling with tears. "He may yet recover. I have been praying that it may be so."

"Don't pray for it," he cried, his tone one of painful entreaty. "I have been daring to pray that it might please G.o.d to take him."

"Percival!" she exclaimed, starting away from him.

"I am not mad, Anne. Death would be a more merciful fate for my boy than life. Death now, whilst he is innocent, safe in Christ's love!--death, in Heaven's mercy!"

And Anne crept back to the upper chamber, sick with terror; for she did think that the trouble of his child's state was affecting her husband's brain.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

A PAINFUL SCENE.

Lord and Lady Hartledon were entertaining a family group. The everlasting dowager kept to them unpleasantly; making things unbearable, and wearing out her welcome in no slight degree, if she had only been wise enough to see it. She had escaped scarlet-fever and other dreaded ills; and was alive still. For that matter, the little Lord Elster had come out of it also: _not_ unscathed; for the boy remained a sickly wreck, and there was very little hope that he would really recover. The final close might be delayed, but it was not to be averted. Before Easter they had left London for Hartledon, that he might have country air. Lord Hartledon's eldest sister, Lady Margaret Cooper, came there with her husband; and on this day the other sister, Lady Laura Level, had arrived from India. Lady Margaret was an invalid, and not an agreeable woman besides; but to Laura and Anne the meeting, after so many years' separation, was one of intense pleasure. They had been close friends from childhood.

They were all gathered together in the large drawing-room after luncheon.

The day was a wet one, and no one had ventured out except Sir James Cooper. Accustomed to the Scotch mists, this rain seemed a genial shower, and Sir James was enjoying it accordingly. It was a warm, close day, in spite of the rain; and the large fire in the grate made the room oppressive, so that they were glad to throw the windows open.

Lying on a sofa near the fire was the invalid boy. By merely looking at him you might see that he would never rally, though he fluctuated much.

To-day he was, comparatively speaking, well. Little Maude was threading beads; and the two others, much younger, stood looking on--Reginald and Anne. Lady Margaret Cooper, having a fellow-feeling for an invalid, sat near the sick boy. Lord Hartledon sat apart at a table reading, and making occasional notes. The dowager, more c.u.mbersome than ever, dozed on the other side of the hearth. She was falling into the habit of taking a nap after luncheon as well as after dinner. Lady Laura was in danger of convulsions every time she looked at the dowager. Never in all her life had she seen so queer an old figure. She and Anne stood together at an open window, the one eagerly asking questions, the other answering, all in undertones. Lady Laura had been away from her own home and kindred some twelve years, and it seemed to her half a lifetime.

"Anne, how _was_ it?" she exclaimed. "It was a thing that always puzzled me, and I never came to the bottom of it. My husband said at the time I used to talk of it in my sleep."

"What do you mean?"

"About you and Val. You were engaged to each other; you loved him, and he loved you. How came that other marriage about?"

"Well, I can hardly tell you. I was at Cannes with mamma, and he fell into the meshes. We knew nothing about it until they were married. Never mind all that now; I don't care to recall it, and it is a very sore point with Val. The blame, I believe, lay chiefly with _her_."

Anne glanced at the dowager, to indicate whom she meant. Lady Laura's eyes followed the same direction, and she laughed.

"A painted old guy! She looks like one who would do it. Why doesn't some one put her under a gla.s.s case and take her to the British Museum? When news of the marriage came out to India I was thunderstruck. I wrote off at once to Val, asking all sorts of questions, and received quite a savage reply, telling me to mind my own business. That letter alone would have told me how Val repented; it was so unlike him. Do you know what I did?"

"What did you do?"

"Sent him another letter by return mail with only two words in it--'Elster's Folly.' Poor Val! She died of heart-disease, did she not?"

"Yes. But she seemed to have been ailing for some time. She was greatly changed."

"Val is changed. There are threads of silver in his hair; and he is so much quieter than I thought he ever would be. I wonder you took him, Anne, after all; and I wonder still more that Dr. Ashton allowed it."

A blush tinged Lady Hartledon's face as she looked out at the soft rain, and a half-smile parted her lips.

"I see, Anne. Love once, love ever; and I suppose it was the same with Val, in spite of his folly. I should have taken out my revenge by marrying the first eligible man that offered himself. Talking of that--is poor Mr. Graves married yet?"

"Yes, at last," said Anne, laughing. "A grand match too for him, poor timid man: his wife's a lord's daughter, and as tall as a house."

"If ever man wors.h.i.+pped woman he wors.h.i.+pped you, though you were only a girl."

"Nonsense, Laura."

"Anne, you knew it quite well; and so did Val. Did he ever screw his courage up to the point of proposing?"

Anne laughed. "If he ever did, I was too vexed to answer him. He will be very happy, Laura. His wife is a meek, amiable woman, in spite of her formidable height."