Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 20

"It's of no consequence," muttered the doctor; but he entered the address in his note-book, like a man of business as he was.

"Shan't I be well to-morrow, sir?" asked Mattie, anxiously.

"Humph!--scarcely to-morrow, I think."

"Why don't you say what it is?--do you think I'm likely to be frightened at it, even if it's death, sir? Why, I've lived down all fright at anything long ago."

"It's a little attack of scarlatina, I think," he answered, thus adjured.

"You only think?"

"Well, then, I'm sure."

"She's had it afore, you know," Ann Packet suggested, "when she was a child. I thought people couldn't have these nasty things twice."

"Oh! yes."

"That's enough, then," said Ann Packet, taking off her bonnet and shawl, and putting them on the table as centre ornaments; "here I sticks till you're better."

"Ann--Ann Packet!" cried Mattie.

"Ah! you may say what you like, I shan't move. When this gentleman's gone, we'll quarrel about it--not afore."

The gentleman alluded to took his departure, promising to send round some medicine in a few minutes. Mattie looked imploringly at the obdurate Ann.

"You _must_ go home, Ann."

"Not a bit of it, my dear," said Ann; "I have knowed you for too long a time to leave you in the lurch like this, for all the places in the world. And it isn't that I haven't knowed the Hinchfords long enough, to think they'll mind."

Mattie sighed.

"But you keep quiet, my dear, and fancy I'm your mother taking care on you--which I wish I was. And I'll send a boy to Camberwell to tell 'em why I ain't a coming back just yet."

"Let me write a----"

"Let you keep yourself quiet, and don't worry me. I'm going to manage you through this."

"You're very good, Ann," said Mattie; "but if you catch the fever of me!"

"Lor bless you! I shan't catch no fever--I'm too old for changing colour, my dear. You might as well expect buff-leather to catch fevers.

But don't you remember how skeered I was once when you came in piping hot with it from Kent Street? Ah! I was vain of my good looks then, and afraid they might be spiled."

Ann Packet had been a girl with a bat-catching-against-wall kind of countenance all her life, but distance lent enchantment to the view of the merry days when she was young. And Ann Packet's will was absolute, and carried all before it. Mattie was bowed down by it; she felt weaker than usual, and too ill to a.s.sert supremacy in her own house. Giving up, she thought that it was comfortable to have a friend at her side, and to feel that the loneliness of a few hours since was hers no longer.

Ann Packet went down-stairs, and found a boy prepared--for twopence down and twopence when he came back--to deliver any message within a radius of fifty miles from Tenchester Street. The messenger departed, returning, in due course, with a favourable, even a kind reply. Ann Packet was to take her own time, and a girl would be found to a.s.sist until Mattie was better. Mattie read the note to Ann.

"There, didn't I say so?"

"It's in Mr. Sidney's handwriting," said Mattie, putting the letter under her pillow; "he's always kind and thoughtful."

"Ah! he is."

"As kind and thoughtful as ever, I suppose, Ann?"

"Lor bless you!--yes."

"What a long while it seems since----"

"Since you've held _your_ tongue," added Ann. "Yes, it does. I'd keep quiet a bit now, if I was you."

Thus adjured, Mattie relapsed into silence, and Ann Packet, thinking her charge was asleep, stole out of the room a short while afterwards, and went into the streets marketing. In the night the fever gained apace with our heroine; the next day the doctor p.r.o.nounced her worse--enjoined strict quietness and care.

"He seems afraid of me," said Mattie, after he had gone, "as if there were anything to be alarmed at, even if I did die. Why, what could be better for me, Ann?"

"Oh! don't--oh! don't."

"Not that I am going to die--I don't feel like it," said Mattie. "I can see myself getting strong again, and fighting," she added, with a little shudder, "my battles again. There, Ann, you need not look so scared; I won't die to please you."

It was a forced air of cheerfulness, put on to raise the spirits of her nurse; and succeeded to a certain extent in its object, although Ann told her not to go on like that--it wasn't proper.

Mattie lay and thought of the chances for and against her that day; what if that burning fever and increasing restlessness gained the mastery, who would be the worse for her loss, and might not she, with G.o.d's help, be the better? She was scarcely a religious woman; but the elements of true religion were within her, and only biding their time. She was honest, pure-minded, anxious to do good for others, bore no one malice, and forgave all trespa.s.ses against her--she went to chapel every Sunday--and she did not feel so far off from heaven on that sick bed.

She thought once or twice that she would be glad to die, if she were sure of the future happiness of those for whom she had lived. She would like to know the end of the story, and then--_rest_. She could not die without seeing the old faces, though, and therefore she must make an effort to exist for her own sake.

In the evening, Ann Packet, looking a little scared, said--

"Here's a gentleman come to see you. It's not quite right for him to come up, I'm thinking."

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Hinchford."

"_Old_ Mr. Hinchford?"

"No, the young one."

Mattie, even with the scarlatina, could blush more vividly.

"Mr.--Mr. Sidney!" she gasped. "Oh! he mustn't come in here."

"Mustn't he, though!" said the deep voice of Sidney, from the other side of the room. "Oh! he's not at all bashful, Mattie."

Sidney Hinchford came into the room and walked straight to the bed where Mattie was lying--where Mattie was crying just then.

"Why, Mattie!--in tears!"

"Only for a moment, Mr. Sidney. It is very kind of you to come and see me--and you have taken me by surprise, that's all."

"She's to be kept quiet, sir," said Ann.