Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 23

As the days went on, and the pain grew no better, but worse, and the patient more heavy, it dawned into the surgeon's mind that he possibly did not understand the case, and it might be as well to have the advice of a physician. The most clever the city afforded was summoned, and he did not appear to understand it either. That there was some internal injury to the head, both agreed; but what it might be, it was not so easy to state. And thus more days crept on, and the doctors paid their regular visits, and the pain still grew worse; and then the half-shadowed doubt glided into a certainty which had little shadow about it, but stern substance--that the injury was rapidly running on to a fatal issue.

He did not take to his bed: he would sit at his chamber window in an easy chair, his poor aching-head resting on a pillow. "You would be better in bed," everybody said to him. "No, he thought he was best up,"

he answered; "it was more change: when he was tired of the chair and the pillow, he could lie down outside the bed." "It is unaccountable his liking to be so much at the window," Mrs. Peter Arkell remarked to Lucy.

To them it might be; for how could they know that a sight of _one_ who might pa.s.s and cast a glance up to him, made his day's happiness?

That considerable commotion was excited by the opinion of the doctors, however cautiously intimated, was only to be expected. Mr. Arkell heard of it, and brought another physician, without saying anything beforehand at Peter's. But it would seem that this gentleman's opinion did not differ in any material degree from that of his brethren.

The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce sat at the head of his dinner-table, eating his own dinner and carving for his pupils. His face looked hot and angry, and his spectacles were pushed to the top of his brow, for if there was one thing more than another that excited the ire of the master, it was that of the boys being unpunctual at meals, and Cookesley had this day chosen to be absent. The second serving of boiled beef was going round when he made his appearance.

"What sort of behaviour do you call this, sir?" was the master's salutation. "Do you expect to get any dinner?"

"I am very sorry to be so late, sir," replied Cookesley, eyeing the boiled beef wishfully, but not daring to take his seat. "I went to see Arkell, and----"

"And who is Arkell, pray, or you either, that you must upset the regulations of my house?" retorted the master. "You should choose your visiting times better, Mr. Cookesley."

"Yes, sir. I heard he was worse; that's the reason I went; and when I got there the dean was with him. I waited, and waited, but I had to come away without seeing Arkell, after all."

"The dean with Arkell!" echoed Mr. Wilberforce, in a disbelieving tone.

"He is there still, sir. Arkell is a great deal worse. They say he will never come to school or college again."

"Who says so, pray?"

"Everybody's saying it now," returned Cookesley. "There's something wrong with his head, sir; some internal injury caused by the fall; but they don't know whether it's an abscess, or what it is. It will kill him, they think."

The master's wrath had faded: truth to say, his anger was generally more fierce in show than in reality. "You may take your seat for this once, Cookesley, but if ever you transgress again----Hallo!" broke off the master, as he cast his eyes on another of his pupils, "what's the matter with you, Lewis junior? Are you choking, sir?"

Lewis junior was choking, or gasping, or something of the sort, for his face was distorted, and his eyes were round with seeming fright. "What is it?" angrily repeated the master.

"It was the piece of meat, sir," gasped Lewis. A ready excuse.

"No it wasn't," put in Vaughan the bright, who sat next to Lewis junior.

"Here's the piece of meat you were going to eat; it dropped off the fork on to your plate again; it couldn't be the meat. He's choking at nothing, sir."

"Then, if you must choke, you had better go and choke outside, and come back when it's over," said the master to Lewis. And away Lewis went; none guessing at the fear and horror which had taken possession of him.

The a.s.size week had pa.s.sed, and the week following it, and still Henry Arkell had not made his appearance in the cathedral or the school. The master could not make it out. Was it likely that the effects of a fall, which broke no bones, bruised no limbs, only told somewhat heavily upon his head, should last all this while, and incapacitate him from his duties? Had it been any other of the king's scholars, no matter which of the whole thirty-nine Mr. Wilberforce would have said that he was skulking, and sent a sharp mandate for him to appear in his place; but he thought he knew better things of Henry Arkell. He did not much like what Cookesley said now--that Arkell might never come out again, though he received the information with disbelief.

Mr. St. John was a daily visitor to the invalid. On the day before this, when he entered, Henry was at his usual post, the window, but standing up, his head resting against the frame, and his eyes strained after some distant object outside. So absorbed was he, that Mr. St. John had to touch his arm to draw his attention, and Henry drew back with a start.

"How are you to-day, Harry? Better?"

"No, thank you. This curious pain in my head gets worse."

"Why do you call it curious?"

"It is not like an ordinary pain. And I cannot tell exactly where it is.

I cannot put my hand on any part of my head and say it is here or it is there. It seems to be in the centre of the inside--as if it could not be got at."

"What were you watching so eagerly?"

"I was looking outside," was Henry's evasive reply. "They had Dr. Ware to me this morning; did you know it?"

"I am glad of that!" exclaimed Mr. St. John. "What does he say?"

"I did not hear him say much. He asked me where my head was struck when I fell, but I could not tell him--I did not know at the time, you remember. He and Mr.----"

Henry's voice faltered. A sudden, almost imperceptible, movement of the head nearer the window, and a wild accession of colour to his feverish cheek, betrayed to Mr. St. John that something was pa.s.sing which bore for him a deep interest. He raised his own head and caught a sufficient glimpse: _Georgina Beauclerc_.

It told Mr. St. John all: though he had not needed to be told; and Miss Beauclerc's mysterious words, and Henry's past conduct became clear to him. So! the boy's heart had been thus early awakened--and crushed.

"The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers Is always the first to be touched by the thorns,"

whistled Mr. St. John to himself.

Ay, crushing is as sure to follow that _early_ awaking, as that thorns grow on certain rose-trees. But Mr. St. John said nothing more that day.

On the following day, upon going in, he found Henry in bed.

"Like a sensible man as you are," quoth Mr. St. John, by way of salutation. "Now don't rise from it again until you are better."

Henry looked at him, an expression in his eyes that Mr. St. John did not like, and did not understand. "Did they tell you anything downstairs, Mr. St. John?" he inquired.

"I did not see anyone but the servant. I came straight up."

"Mamma is lying down, I dare say; she has been sitting with me part of the night. Then I will tell it you. I shall not be here many days," he whispered, putting his hand within Mr. St. John's.

Mr. St. John did not take the meaning: that the case would have a fatal termination had not yet crossed his mind. "Where shall you be?" cried he, gaily, "up in the moon?"

Henry sighed. "Up somewhere. I am going to die."

"Going to what?" was the angry response.

"I am dying, Mr. St. John."

Mr. St. John's pulses stood still. "Who has been putting that rubbish in your head?" cried he, when he recovered them sufficiently to speak.

"The doctors told my father yesterday evening, that as I went on, like this, from bad to worse, without their being able to discover the true nature of the case, they saw that it must terminate fatally. He knew that they had feared it before. Afterwards mamma came and broke it to me."

"Why did she do so?" involuntarily uttered Mr. St. John, in an accent of reproach. "Though their opinion may be unfavourable--which I don't believe, mind--they had no right to frighten you with it."

"It does not frighten me. Just at first I shrank from the news, but I am quite reconciled to it now. A faint idea that this might be the ending, has been running through my own mind for some days past, though I would not dwell on it sufficiently to give it a form."

"I am _astonished_ that Mrs. Arkell should have imparted it to you!"

emphatically repeated Mr. St. John. "What could she have been thinking of?"

"Oh, Mr. St. John! mamma has striven to bring us up not to fear death.

What would have been the use of her lessons, had she thought I should run in terror from it when it came?"