On Miss Farlow the news that Tom was ill acted like a tonic. She did indeed burst into tears, and say that she would never dare to look dear Lady Wychwood in the face again, but this threatened relapse into gloom was not of long duration. An opportunity to prove herself to be of real value had presented itself, and she seized it. She cast off her shawls, dressed herself, and emerged from her bedchamber, rather shakily, but determined to share with Nurse the task of keeping Tom quiescent. Nurse accepted her services graciously. “For there is no denying, Miss Jurby,” said Nurse, “that though she may be a hubble-bubble female with a tongue that runs like a fiddlestick, she does know how to handle children, and will sit for hours telling them fairy-tales, and the like, which makes it possible for me to get a bit of rest.”
It began to seem as though Jurby’s bleak prophecy was going to be falsified, but two days later Betty, the young housemaid who had waited on Miss Farlow throughout her indisposition, also took to her bed, a circumstance of which Jurby informed her mistress with somewhat heartless satisfaction. “Which all goes to show how right I was, miss!” she said, opening the doors of the big wardrobe which housed Miss Wychwood’s dresses. “I told you troubles come in threes, and if it’s only Betty who’s got this dratted influenza there’s no harm done. Now, will you wear your blue cambric today, or shall I put out the French muslin, with the striped spencer?”
“Jurby,” said Miss Wychwood, in an uncertain voice, “I think—I am afraid—that I too have the influenza!”
Jurby turned quickly. Miss Wychwood was sitting on the edge of her bed, still wearing her nightgown, and although the rainy spell had given way to a hot, sunny day she was shivering so violently that the teeth chattered in her head. Jurby took one look at her, and then cast the French muslin aside, and hurried towards her, muttering: “Oh, my goodness me! I might have known this would happen!” She grasped Miss Wychwood’s hands, and instantly thrust her back into bed. “And there you’ll stay, Miss Annis!” she said, in a threatening tone. “It’s to be hoped you’ve nothing worse the matter with you than influenza!”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so!” Annis said faintly. “It came on me during the night. I woke up, feeling as though I had been beaten all over with cudgels, and with such a headache—! I hoped it would pass off, if I kept my eyes shut, but it didn’t, and I feel quite dreadfully ill. Don’t tell her ladyship!”
“Now, don’t start fretting and fussing, Miss Annis!” said Jurby, laying a hand on Miss Wychwood’s brow. “I’m bound to tell her ladyship that you’re out of curl today, and mean to stay in bed, but I won’t let her come into the room, I promise you!”
“Don’t let Miss Lucilla come near me either!”
“The only person who’ll come into this room is the doctor!” said Jurby grimly, stumping over to the window and drawing the blinds across it. “Do you lie quiet now till I come back, and don’t get into the high fidgets, fancying the house will fall down just because you’re knocked up with all the trouble you’ve had, and mean to recruit your strength by staying in bed today, because it won’t!” She sprinkled lavender-water lavishly over the pillow, drenched a handkerchief with it, which she tenderly wiped across Miss Wychwood’s burning forehead, assured her that she would be as right as a trivet before the cat had time to lick her ear, and hurried away, first to send the page-boy scurrying down the hill with an urgent message for Dr Tidmarsh, and then to inform Lady Wychwood, who had not yet left her room, that Miss Annis was laid up, and that she had sent for the doctor. “I don’t doubt it’s nothing worse than the influenza, my lady, but she’s in a raging fever!” she said bluntly.
Lady Wychwood started up instinctively, saying: “I’ll come at once!”
“No, that you won’t, my lady!” said Jurby, barring her passage to the door. “There’s nothing you can do for her, and you’ve got the baby to consider. Miss Annis has laid it on me not to let you, or Miss Lucilla, come near her. Very agitated she is, for fear you should insist on seeing her and get ill in consequence. If you don’t want her to get into a stew, which I’m sure you don’t, you’ll do as she asks you.”
“Alas, I must!” said Lady Wychwood, much distressed. “Why, oh, why didn’t I send the children home with Nurse the instant Miss Farlow took ill? Why didn’t I persuade Miss Annis to go to bed yesterday, and send for Dr Tidmarsh immediately? I could see she wasn’t quite well, but I never dreamed she was sickening for anything, because she is so very rarely ill! I might have guessed, though! Fool that I was!”
“Well, my lady, I don’t see that it would have done a bit of good if the doctor had come to see her yesterday, because if she had the influenza on her there was nothing he nor anyone else could have done to drive it off. And as for not guessing she was ill, I don’t see that you’ve any call to blame yourself, for I didn’t guess it, and—if you’ll pardon me for saying so, my lady!—there’s no one who knows her as well as I do! I knew she wasn’t in very plump currant but I thought she was out of sorts, on account of having to dance attendance on Miss Farlow, on top of—” She checked herself, and ended her sentence by saying, at her most forbidding: “Other things!”
They looked at one another. After a moment, Lady Wychwood said simply: “I know.” She then turned away to pick up her rings from the dressing-table, and said, as she slid them on to her fingers: “Give her my dear love, Jurby, and tell her that she mustn’t worry about the house, or about Miss Lucilla, because she knows she can trust me to see that everything goes on just as it ought. And tell her that I shan’t attempt to see her until Dr Tidmarsh says it is safe for me to do so.”
“Thank you, my lady! You can be sure I will! It will do her good to have that worry at least taken off her mind!” said Jurby, with real gratitude. She lingered, on the pretext of picking up a hairpin, and said: “I shall take the liberty of saying, my lady—being as I have been Miss Annis’s personal maid since she came out of the nursery—that I can’t help hoping that Mr Carleton will make some other arrangement for Miss Lucilla. Not that I have anything against her, for I am sure she is a sweetly behaved young lady, but I have always felt that Miss Annis was taking too much on her shoulders when she adopted her, as one might say. Particularly now, when Miss Annis is ill, and will be in a tender state, I daresay, for some weeks. I suppose you don’t know when Mr Carleton means to return to Bath? Or if he has gone away for good?”
“No,” answered Lady Wychwood. “I am afraid I don’t know, Jurby.”
Nothing more was said between them, but much that was unspoken was understood.
Dr Tidmarsh, when he arrived less than an hour later, spent much longer with Miss Wychwood than he had found it necessary to spend either with Miss Farlow or with Tom, and when he came downstairs again, he told Lady Wychwood that while Miss Wychwood was suffering from no more serious disorder than influenza the attack was a severe one. He had found her pulse tumultuous; she was extremely feverish; and although he was confident that the medicine he had prescribed for her would soon reduce the fever, he warned her ladyship that it was possible—even, he was sorry to say, probable—that she might become a trifle delirious as the day wore on. “I tell you this, my lady, because I don’t wish you to be alarmed if she should wander a little in her mind. I assure you there is no cause for alarm! I hope that she will sleep, but if she should be restless you may give her a few drops of laudanum. Rather, I should say, her maid may do so, for you will, I trust, abide by your wise determination to stay out of the way of infection. I must add that the fear that you, or Miss Carleton, should run the slightest risk of taking influenza from her is preying on her mind, which is very undesirable, as I am persuaded you must recognize. In short, I consider it to be of the first importance that she should be kept as quiet as may be possible. The fewer people to enter her room the better it will be for her, while she is so feverish.”