for nearly a mile beyond all souls’ rectory, as you went out of prior’s ash, there were scattered houses and cottages. in one of them lived lady sarah grame. we receive our ideas from association; and, in speaking of the residence of lady sarah grame, or lady sarah anyone, imagination might conjure up some fine old mansion with all its appurtenances, grounds, servants, carriages and grandeur: or, at the very least, a “villa with two turrets and some cows,” as rose hastings expressed it.
far more like a humble cottage than a mansion was the abode of lady sarah grame. it was a small, pretty, detached white house, containing eight or nine rooms in all; and, they, not very large ones. a plot of ground before it was crowded with flowers: far too crowded for good taste, as david jekyl would point out to lady sarah. but lady sarah loved flowers, and would not part with one of them.
the daughter of one soldier, and the wife of another, lady sarah had scrambled through life amidst bustle, perplexity, and poverty. sometimes quartered in barracks, sometimes following the army abroad; out of one place into another; never settled anywhere for long together. it was an existence not to be envied; although it is the lot of many. she was mrs. grame then, and her husband, the captain, was not a very good husband to her. he was rather too fond of[34] amusing himself, and threw all care upon her shoulders. she passed her days nursing her sickly children, and endeavouring to make one sovereign go as far as two. one morning, to her unspeakable embarrassment, she found herself converted from plain, private mrs. grame into the lady sarah. her father boasted a peer in a very remote relative, and came unexpectedly into the title.
had he come into money with it, it would have been more welcome; but, of that, there was only a small supply. it was a very poor scotch peerage, with limited estates; and, they, encumbered. lady sarah wished she could drop the honour which had fallen to her share, unless she could live a little more in accordance with it. she had much sorrow. she had lost one child after another, until she had only two left, sarah anne and ethel. then she lost her husband; and, next, her father. chance drove her to prior’s ash, which was near her husband’s native place; and she settled there, upon her limited income. all she possessed was her pension as a captain’s widow, and the interest of the sum her father had been enabled to leave her; the whole not exceeding five hundred a year. she took the white cottage, then just built, and dignified it with the name of “grame house:” and the mansions in the neighbourhood of prior’s ash were content not to laugh, but to pay respect to her as an earl’s daughter.
lady sarah was a partial woman. she had only these two daughters, and her love for them was as different as light is from darkness. sarah anne she loved with an inordinate affection, almost amounting to passion; for ethel, she did not care. what could be the reason of this? what is the reason why parents (many of them may be found) will love some of their children, and dislike others? they cannot tell you, any more than lady sarah could have told. ask them, and they will be unable to give you an answer. it does not lie in the children: it often happens that those obtaining the least love will be the most worthy of it. such was the case here. sarah anne grame was a pale, sickly, fretful girl; full of whims, full of complaints, giving trouble to every one about her. ethel, with her sweet countenance and her merry heart, made the sunshine of the home. she bore with her sister’s exacting moods, bore with her mother’s want of love. she loved them both, and waited on them, and carolled forth her snatches of song as she moved about the house, and was as happy as the day was long. the servants—they kept only two—would tell you that miss grame was cross and selfish; but that miss ethel was worth her weight in gold. the gold was soon to be appropriated; transplanted to a home where it would be appreciated and cherished: for ethel was the affianced wife of thomas godolphin.
on the morning already mentioned, when you heard it said that fever had broken out again, sarah anne grame awoke, ill. in her fretful, impatient way, she called to ethel, who slept in an adjoining room. ethel was asleep: but she was accustomed to be roused at unseasonable hours by sarah anne, and she threw on her dressing-gown and hastened to her.
“i want some tea,” began sarah anne. “i am as ill and thirsty as i can be.”
sarah anne was really of a sickly constitution, and to hear her com[35] plain of being ill and thirsty was nothing unusual. ethel, in her loving nature, her sweet patience, received the information with as much concern as though she had never heard it before. she bent over sarah anne, inquiring tenderly where she felt pain.
“i tell you that i am ill and thirsty, and that’s enough,” peevishly answered sarah anne. “go and get me some tea.”
“as soon as i possibly can,” said ethel soothingly. “there is no fire at present. the maids are not up. i do not think it can be later than six, by the look of the morning.”
“very well!” sobbed sarah anne—sobs of temper, not of pain. “you can’t call the maids, i suppose! and you can’t put yourself the least out of the way to alleviate my suffering! you want to go to bed again and sleep till eight o’clock. when i am dead, you’ll wish you had been more like a sister to me. you possess rude health yourself, and you can feel no compassion for any one who does not.”
an assertion unjust and untrue: as was many another, made by sarah anne grame. ethel did not possess “rude health,” though she was not, like her sister, always ailing; and she felt far more compassion than sarah anne deserved.
“i will see what i can do,” she gently said. “you shall soon have some tea.”
passing into her own room, ethel hastily dressed herself. when sarah anne was in one of her exacting moods, there could be no more sleep or rest for ethel. “i wonder,” she thought to herself, “whether i could not light a fire, without calling the servants? they had so hard a day’s work yesterday, for mamma kept them both cleaning from morning till night. yes: if i can only find some wood, i’ll try to light one.”
she went down to the kitchen, hunted up what was required, laid the fire, and lighted it. it did not burn up well. she thought the wood must be damp, and found the bellows. she was on her knees, blowing away at the wood, and sending the blaze up into the coal, when some one came into the kitchen.
“miss ethel!”
it was one of the servants: elizabeth. she had heard movement in the house, and had risen. ethel explained that her sister felt ill, and tea was wanted.
“why did you not call us, miss ethel?”
“you went to rest late, elizabeth. see how i have made the fire burn!”
“it is not ladies’ work, miss.”
“i certainly think ladies should put on gloves when they attempt it,” merrily laughed ethel. “look at my black hands.”
the tea ready, ethel carried a cup of it to her sister, with some dry toast that they had made. sarah anne drank the tea, but turned with a shiver from the toast. she seemed to be shivering much.
“who was so stupid as to make that? you might know i should not eat it. i am too ill.”
ethel began to think that she did look unusually ill. her face was flushed, shivering though she was, her lips were dry, her heavy eyes[36] were unnaturally bright. she gently laid her hands, washed now, upon her sister’s brow. it felt burning, and sarah anne screamed.
“do keep your hands away! my head is splitting with pain.”
involuntarily ethel thought of the fever; the danger from which they had been reckoning had passed away. it was a low sort of typhus which had prevailed; not very extensively, and chiefly amidst the poor: the great fear had been, lest it should turn to a more malignant type. about half a dozen deaths had taken place altogether.
“would you like me to bathe your forehead with water, sarah anne?” asked ethel kindly. “or to get you some eau-de-cologne?”
“i should like you to wait until things are asked for, and not to worry me,” retorted sarah anne.
ethel sighed. not for the temper: sarah anne was always fractious in illness: but for the suffering she thought she saw, and the half doubt, half dread, which had arisen within her. “i think i had better call mamma,” she deliberated to herself. “though, if she sees nothing unusually the matter with sarah anne, she will only be angry with me.”
proceeding to her mother’s chamber, ethel knocked softly. lady sarah slept still, but the entrance aroused her.
“mamma, i do not like to disturb you; i was unwilling to do so: but sarah anne is ill.”
“ill again! and only last week she was in bed three days! poor dear sufferer! is it her chest again?”
“mamma, she seems unusually ill. otherwise i should not have disturbed you. i feared—i thought—you will be angry with me if i say, perhaps?”
“say what? don’t stand like a statue, ethel.”
ethel dropped her voice. “dear mamma, suppose it should be the fever?”
for one startling moment, lady sarah felt as if a dagger had pierced her: the next, she turned upon ethel. fever for sarah anne! how dared she prophesy it? a low, common fever, confined to the poor of the town, and which had subsided; or, all but subsided! was it likely to return again and come up here to attack her darling child? what did ethel mean by it?
ethel, the tears in her eyes, said she hoped it would prove to be only an ordinary headache; it was her love for sarah anne which awoke her fears. lady sarah proceeded to the sick-room; and ethel followed. her ladyship was not in the habit of observing caution, and spoke freely of the “fever” before sarah anne; apparently for the purpose of casting blame at ethel.
sarah anne did not imbibe the fear; she ridiculed ethel as her mother had done. for some hours lady sarah did not admit it either. she would have summoned medical advice at first, but that sarah anne, in her peevishness, protested she would not have a doctor. later on she grew worse, and mr. snow was sent for. you saw him in his gig hastening to the house.
lady sarah came forward to receive him; ethel, full of anxiety, near her. she was a thin woman, with a shrivelled face and a sharp red nose, her grey hair banded plainly under a close white net cap.
[37]she grasped mr. snow’s arm. “you must save my child!”
“higher aid permitting me,” the surgeon answered. “why do you assume it to be fever? for the last six weeks i have been summoned by timid parents to a score of ‘fever’ cases; and when i have arrived in hot haste, they have turned out to be no fever at all.”
“this is the fever,” replied lady sarah. “had i been more willing to admit that it was, you would have been sent for hours ago. it was ethel’s fault. she suggested at daylight that it might be fever; and it made my darling girl so angry that she forbid my sending for advice. but she is worse now. come and see her.”
mr. snow laid his hand upon ethel’s head with a fond gesture, ere he turned to lady sarah. all prior’s ash loved ethel grame.
tossing upon her uneasy bed, her face flushed, her hair floating untidily about it, lay sarah anne, shivering still. the doctor gave one glance at her: it was quite enough to satisfy him that lady sarah was not mistaken.
“is it the fever?” impatiently asked sarah anne, unclosing her hot eyelids.
“if it is, we must drive it away again,” said the doctor cheerily.
“why should the fever have come to me?” she rejoined, her tone rebellious.
“why was i thrown from my horse last year, and broke my arm?” returned mr. snow. “these things come to all of us.”
“to break an arm is nothing—people always recover from that,” irritably answered sarah anne.
“and you will recover from the fever, if you will be quiet and reasonable.”
“i am so hot! my head is so heavy!”
mr. snow, who had called for water and a glass, was mixing a white powder which he had produced from his pocket. she took it without opposition, and then he lessened the weight of bed-clothes, and afterwards turned his attention to the chamber. it was close and hot; the sun, which had just burst forth brightly from the grey skies, shone full upon it.
“you have that chimney stuffed up!” he exclaimed.
“sarah anne will not allow it to be open,” said lady sarah. “she is sensitive to cold, dear child, and feels the slightest draught.”
mr. snow walked to the chimney, turned up his coat cuff and wristband, and pulled down a bag filled with shavings. soot came with it, and covered his hand; but he did not mind that. he was as little given to ceremony as lady sarah to caution, and he went leisurely up to the wash-hand-stand to remove it.
“now, if i catch that bag, or any other bag up there again, obstructing the air, i shall attack the bricks next time, and make a good big hole that the sky can be seen through. of that i give you notice, my lady.”
he next pulled down the window at the top, behind the blind; but the room, at its best, did not find favour with him. “it is not airy; it is not cool,” he said. “is there not a better ventilated room in the house? if so, she should be moved into it.”
“my room is cool,” interposed ethel eagerly. “the sun never shines into it, mr. snow.”
[38]it would appear that ethel’s thus speaking must have reminded mr. snow that she was present. in the unceremonious manner that he had laid hands upon the chimney bag, he now laid them upon her shoulders, and marshalled her outside the door.
“you go downstairs, miss ethel. and do not come within a mile of this chamber again, until i give you leave to do so.”
“i will not be moved into ethel’s room!” interposed sarah anne, imperiously and fretfully. “it is not furnished with half the comforts of mine. and it has only a bit of bedside carpet! i will not go there, mr. snow.”
“now look you here, miss sarah anne!” said the surgeon firmly. “i am responsible for bringing you well out of this illness; and i shall take my own way to do it. if not; if i am to be contradicted at every suggestion; lady sarah may summon some one else to attend you: i will not undertake it.”
“my darling, you shall not be moved to ethel’s room,” cried my lady coaxingly: “you shall be moved into mine. it is larger than this, you know, mr. snow, with a thorough draught through it, if you choose to put the windows and door open.”
“very well,” said mr. snow. “let me find her in it when i come up again this evening. and if there’s a carpet on the floor, take it up. carpets were never intended for bedrooms.”
he passed into one of the sitting-rooms with lady sarah when he descended. “what do you think of the case?” she eagerly asked.
“there will be some difficulty with it,” was the candid reply. “lady sarah, her hair must come off.”
“her hair come off!” uttered lady sarah, aghast. “that it never shall! she has the loveliest hair! what is ethel’s hair, compared with hers?”
“you heard the determination i expressed, lady sarah,” he quietly said.
“but sarah anne will never allow it to be done,” she returned, shifting the ground of remonstrance from her own shoulders. “and to do it in opposition to her would be enough to kill her.”
“it will not be done in opposition to her,” he answered. “she will be unconscious before it is attempted.”
lady sarah’s heart sank. “you anticipate that she will be dangerously ill?”
“in these cases there is always danger, lady sarah. but worse cases than—- as i believe—hers will be, have recovered from it.”
“if i lose her, i shall die myself!” she passionately uttered. “and, if she is to have it badly, she will die! remember, mr. snow, how weak she has always been!”
“we sometimes find that weak constitutions battle best with an epidemic,” he replied. “many a sound one has it struck down and taken off; many a sickly one has struggled through it, and been the stronger for it afterwards.”
“everything shall be done as you wish,” said lady sarah, speaking meekly in her great fear.
“very well. there is one caution i would earnestly impress upon you: that of keeping ethel from the sick-room.”
[39]“but there is no one to whom sarah anne is so accustomed, as a nurse,” objected lady sarah.
“madam!” burst forth the doctor in his heat, “would you subject ethel to the risk of taking the infection, in deference to sarah anne’s selfishness, or to yours? better lose all your house contains than lose ethel! she is its greatest treasure.”
“i know how remarkably prejudiced you have always been in ethel’s favour!” resentfully spoke lady sarah.
“if i disliked her as much as i like her, i should be equally solicitous to guard her from the danger of infection,” said mr. snow. “if you choose to put ethel out of consideration, you cannot put thomas godolphin. in justice to him, she must be taken care of.”
lady sarah opened her mouth to reply; but closed it again. strange words had been hovering upon her lips: “if thomas godolphin were not blind, his choice would have fallen upon sarah anne; not upon ethel.” in her heart that was a sore topic of resentment: for she was quite alive to the advantages of a union with a godolphin. those words were suppressed; to give place to others.
“ethel is in the house; and therefore must be liable to infection, whether she visits the room or not. i cannot fence her round with a wall, so that not a breath of tainted atmosphere shall touch her. i would if i could; but i cannot.”
“i would send her from the house, lady sarah. at any rate, i forbid her to go near her sister. i don’t want two patients on my hands, instead of one,” he added in his quaint fashion, as he took his departure.
he was about to get into his gig, when he saw mr. godolphin advancing with a quick step. “which of them is it who is seized?” inquired the latter, as he came up.
“not ethel, thank goodness!” responded the surgeon. “it is sarah anne. i have been recommending my lady to send ethel from home. i should send her, were she a daughter of mine.”
“is sarah anne likely to have it dangerously?”
“i think so. is there any necessity for you going to the house just now, mr. godolphin?”
thomas godolphin smiled. “there is no necessity for my keeping away. i do not fear the fever any more than you do.”
he passed into the garden as he spoke, and mr. snow drove away. ethel saw him, and came out to him.
“oh, thomas, do not come in! do not come!”
his only answer was to take her on his arm and enter. he threw open the drawing-room window, that as much air might circulate through the house as possible, and stood there with her, holding her before him.
“ethel! what am i to do with you?”
“to do with me! what should you do with me, thomas?”
“do you know, my darling, that i cannot afford to let this danger touch you?”
“i am not afraid,” she gently whispered.
he knew that: she had a brave, unselfish heart. but he was afraid for her, for he loved her with a jealous love; jealous of any evil that might come too near her.
[40]“i should like to take you out of the house with me now, ethel. i should like to take you far from this fever-tainted town. will you come?”
she looked up at him with a smile, the colour rising to her face. “how could i, thomas!”
anxious thoughts were passing through the mind of thomas godolphin. we cannot put aside the convenances of life; though there are times when they press upon us with an iron weight. he would have given almost his own life to take ethel from that house: but how was he to do it? no friend would be likely to receive her: not even his own sisters: they would have too much dread of the infection she might bring with her. he would fain have carried her off to some sea-breezed town, and watch over her and guard her there, until the danger should be over. none would have protected her more honourably than thomas godolphin. but—those convenances that the world has to bow down to! how would the step have agreed with them? another thought, little less available for common use, passed through his mind.
“listen, ethel!” he whispered. “it would be only to procure a license, and half an hour spent at all souls with mr. hastings. it could be all done, and you away with me before nightfall.”
she scarcely understood his meaning. then, as it dawned upon her, she bent her head and her blushing face, laughing at the wild improbability.
“oh, thomas! thomas! you are only joking. what would people say?”
“would it make any difference to us what they said?”
“it could not be, thomas,” she whispered seriously; “it is as an impossible vision. were all other things meet, how could i run away from my sister, on her bed of sickness, to marry you?”
ethel was right: and thomas godolphin felt that she was so. punctilios must be observed, no matter at what cost. he held her fondly to his heart.
“if aught of ill should arise to you from your remaining here, i shall blame myself as long as life shall last. my love! my love!”
mr. godolphin could not linger. he must be at the bank, for saturday was their most busy day of all the week: it was market-day at prior’s ash: though he had stolen a moment to leave it when the imperfect news reached him. george was in the private room alone when he entered. “shall you be going to lady godolphin’s folly this evening, george?” he inquired.
“the fates permitting,” replied mr. george, who was buried five fathoms deep in business; though he would have preferred to be five fathoms deep in pleasure. “why?”
“you can tell my father that i am sorry not to be able to spend an hour with him, as i had promised. lady godolphin will not thank me to be running from lady sarah’s house to hers just now.”
“thomas,” warmly spoke george, in an impulse of kindly feeling: “i do hope it will not extend itself to ethel!”
“i hope not,” fervently breathed thomas godolphin.[41]
