Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

“Dreadful! Light-headed all yesterday—horrid pain! But not so bad as Armine. If something ain’t done soon—he’ll die.”

“Poor little Brownlow! You’ve come to the right shop. Medlicott is first rate. Did you know it was we?”

“No—only—an English doctor,” said John.

“Mother sent us abroad with him, because they said Fordham must have Swiss air; and poor old Granny still goes on in the same state,” said Cecil. “We got here on Tuesday evening, and saw your names; but then the fog came, and it snowed all yesterday, and the doctor said it would not do for Fordham to go so high. And the more I wanted them to come up with you, the more they would not. Were they out in that snow?”

Here came an order from the doctor not to make his friend talk, and Johnny was glad to obey, and reserve his breath for the explanation. He did not hear what passed between the other two, as they walked behind the carriage.

“A fine fellow that! Is he Cecil’s friend?”

“No, I wish he were. However, it can’t be helped now, in common humanity; and my mother will understand.”

“You mean that it was her wish that we should avoid them.”

“She thinks the influence has not been good for Cecil.”

“That was the reason you gave up the Gemmi so easily.”

“It was. But, as I say, it can’t be helped now, and no harm can be done by going to see whether they are really so ill.”

“Brownlow is the name. I wonder if they are any relation to a man I once knew—a lecturer at one of the hospitals?”

“Not likely. These are very rich people, with a great house in Hyde Park regions, and a place in the country. They are always asking Cecil there; only my mother does not fancy it. It is not a matter of charity after the first stress. They can easily have advice from England, or anywhere they like.”

By this time they reached the hotel, and John alighted briskly enough, and explained the state of affairs in a few words.

“My dear boy,” said Dr. Medlicott, “I’ll go up at once, as soon as I can get at our travelling medicine-chest. Luckily we have what is most likely to be useful.”

“Thank you,” said Johnny, and therewith he turned dizzy, and reeled against the wall.

“It is nothing—nothing,” he said, as the doctor having helped him into a sitting-room, laid his hand on his pulse. “Don’t delay about me! I shall be all right in a minute.”

“They are getting down the boxes. No time is lost,” said the doctor, quietly. “See whether they can let us have some soup, Cecil.”

“I couldn’t swallow anything,” said Johnny, imploringly.

“Have you had any breakfast this morning?”

“Yes, a bit of bread and a drink of milk. There was not time for more.”

“And you had been searching all one night, and nursing the next?”

“Most of it,” was the confession. “But I shall be all right—if there is any pony I could ride upon.”

“You shall by-and-by; but first, Reeves,” as a servant with grizzled hair and moustache brought in a neatly-fitted medicine-chest, “I give this young gentleman into your care. He is to lie down on my bed for half an hour, and Mr. Evelyn is not to go near him. Then, if he is awake—”

“If—” ejaculated John.

“Give him a basin of soup—Liebig, if you can’t get anything here.”

“Liebig!” broke out John. “Oh, please take some. There’s nothing up there but old goat, and nothing to drink but milk and lemonade, like beastly hair-oil; and Jock hates milk.”

“Never fear,” said Dr. Medlicott; “Liebig is going, and a packet of tea. Mrs. Evelyn does not send us out unprovided. If you eat your soup like a good boy, you may then ride up—not walk—unless you wish to be on your mother’s hands too.”

“She’s my aunt; but it is all the same. Tell her I’m coming.”

“I shall go with you, doctor,” said Cecil. “I must know about Brownlow.”

“Much good you’ll do him! But I’d rather leave this fellow in Fordham’s charge than yours.”

So Johnny had no choice but to obey, growling a little that it was all nonsense, and he should be all right in five minutes, but that expectation continued, without being realised, for longer than Johnny knew. He awoke with a start to find the Liebig awaiting him; and Lord Fordham’s eyes fixed on him, with (though neither understood it) the generous, though melancholy envy of an invalid youth for a young athlete.

“Have I been asleep?” he asked, looking at his watch. “Only ten minutes since I looked last? Well, now I am all right.”

“You will be when you have eaten this,” said Lord Fordham.

Johnny obeyed, and ate with relish.

“There!” said he; “now I am ready for anything.”

“Don’t get up yet. I’ll go and order a horse for you.”

When Lord Fordham came back from doing so, he found his patient really fast asleep, and with a little colour coming into the pale cheeks. He stole back, bade that the pony should wait, went on writing his letter, and waited till one hour, two, three hours had passed, and at last the sleeper woke, greatly disgusted, willing to accept the bath which Lord Fordham advised him to take, and which made him quite himself again.

“You’ll let me go now,” he said. “I can walk as well as ever.”

“You will be of more use now, if you ride,” said Lord Fordham. “There, I hear our luncheon coming in. You must eat while the pony is coming round.”

“If it won’t lose time—thank you,” said Johnny, recovered enough now to know how hungry he was, “But I ought not to have stayed away. My aunt has no one but me.”

“And you can really help her?” said Lord Fordham, with some experience of his brother’s uselessness.

“Not well, of course,” said Johnny; “but it is better than nobody; and Armine is so patient and so good, that I’m the more afraid. Is not it a very bad sign,” he added, confidentially; for he was quite won by the youth’s kind, considerate way, and evident liking and sympathy.

“I don’t know,” faltered Lord Fordham. “My brother Walter was like that! Is this the little fellow who is Cecil’s fag?”

“Yes; Jock asked him to take him, because he was sure never to bully him or lick him when he wouldn’t do things.”

This not very lucid description rejoiced Lord Fordham.

“I am glad of that,” he said. “But I hope the little boy will get over this. My mother had a very excellent account of Dr. Medlicott’s skill; and you know an illness from a misadventure is not like anything constitutional.”

“No; but Armine is always delicate, and my aunt has had to take care of him.”

“Do you live with them?”

“O no; I have lots of people at home. I only came with them because I had had these measles at Eton; and my aunt is—well, the very jolliest woman that ever was.”

Lord Fordham smiled.

“Yes, indeed she is. I don’t mean only kind and good-natured. But if you just knew her! The whole world and everything else have just been something new and glorious ever since I knew her. I seem to myself to have lived in a dark hole till she made it all light.”

“Ah! I understand that you would do anything for her.”

“That I would, if there was anything I could do,” said Johnny, hastily finishing his meal.

“Well, you’ve done something to-day.”

“That—oh, that was nothing. I shouldn’t have made such a fool of myself if I hadn’t been seedy before. I hear the pony,” he added. “Excuse me.” And, with a murmured grace, he rose. Then, recollecting himself, “No end of thanks. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“Don’t; I’ve done nothing,” said Lord Fordham, wringing his hand. “I only hope—”

The words stuck in his throat, and with a sigh he watched the lad ride off.

CHAPTER XXI. – AN ACT OF INDEPENDENCE

     Soldier now and servant true;     Earth behind and heaven in view.                            Isaac Williams.

Marmaduke Alwyn Evelyn, Viscount Fordham, was the fourth bearer of that title within ten years. His father had not lived to wear it, and his two elder brothers had both died in early youth. His precarious existence seemed to be only held on a tenure of constant precaution, and if his mother ventured to hope that it might be otherwise with the two youngest of the family, it was because they were of a shorter, sturdier, more compact form and less transparent complexion than their elders, and altogether seemed of a different constitution.

More delicate from the first than the two brothers who had gone before him, Lord Fordham had never been at school, had studied irregularly, and had never been from under his mother’s wing till this summer, when she was detained by the slow decay of his grandmother. Languor and listlessness had beset the youth, and he had been ordered mountain air, and thus it was that Mrs. Evelyn had despatched both her sons to Switzerland, under the attendance of a highly recommended physician, a young man bright and attractive, who had over-worked himself at an hospital, and needed thorough relaxation. Rightly considering Lucas Brownlow as the cause of most of Cecil’s Eton follies, she had given her eldest son a private hint to elude joining forces with the family, and he was the most docile and obedient of sons. Yet was it the perversity of human nature that made him infinitely more animated and interested in John Brownlow’s race and the distressed travellers on the Schwarenbach than he had been since—no one could tell when?

Perhaps it was the novelty of being left alone and comparatively unwatched. Certain it was that he ate enough to rejoice the heart of his devoted and tyrannical attendant Reeves; and that he walked about in much anxiety all the afternoon, continually using his telescope to look up the mountain wherever a bit of the track was visible through the pine woods.

In due time Cecil rode back the pony which John had taken up. The alacrity with which the long lank bending figure stepped to meet him was something unwonted, but the boy himself was downcast and depressed.

“I’m afraid you’ve nothing good to tell.”

Cecil shook his head, and after some more seconds broke out—

“It’s awful!”

“What is?”

“Brownlow’s pain. I never saw anything like it!”

“Rheumatism? If that is from the exposure, I hope it will not last long.”

“No. They’ve sent for some opiates to Leukerbad, and the doctor says that is sure to put him to sleep.”

“Medlicott stays there?”

“Yes. He says if little Armine is any way fit, he must move him away to-morrow at all risks from the night-cold up there, and he wants Reeves to see about men to carry him, that is if—if to-night does not—”

Cecil could not finish.

“Then it is as bad as we heard?”

“Quite,” said Cecil, “or worse. That dear little chap, just fancy!” and his eyes filled with tears. “He tried to thank me for having been good to him—as if I had.”

“He was your fag?”

“Yes; Skipjack asked me to choose him because he’s that sort of little fellow that won’t give into anything that goes against his conscience, and if one of those fellows had him that say lower boys have no business with consciences, he might be licked within an inch of his life and he’d never give in. He did let himself be put under a pump once at some beastly hole in the country, for not choosing to use bad language, and he has never been so strong since.”

“Mother would be glad that at least you allowed him the use of his conscience.”

“I’m glad I did now,” said Cecil, with a sigh, “though it was a great nuisance sometimes.”

“Was the Monk, as you call him, one of that set?”

“Bless you, no, he’s a regular sap, as steady as old time.”

“I wonder if he is the son of the doctor whom Medlicott talks of.”

“No; his father is alive. He is a colonel, living near their place. The other two are the doctor’s sons; their mother came into the property after his death. Their Maximus was in college at first, and between ourselves, he was a bit of a snob, who couldn’t bear to recollect it.”

“Not your friend?”

“No, indeed. The eldest one, who has left these two years, and is at Christchurch.”

“I am sure the one who came down here was a gentleman.”

“So they are, all three of them,” said Cecil, who had never found his brother so ready to hear anything about his Eton life, since in general accounts of the world, from which he was debarred, so jarred on his feelings that he silenced it with apparent indifference, contempt, or petulance. Now, however, Cecil, with his heart full of the Brownlows, could not say more of them than Fordham was willing to hear; nay, he even found an amused listener to some of his good stories of courageous pranks.

Fordham was not yet up the next morning when there was a knock at his door, and the doctor came in, answering his eager question with—

“Yes, he has got through this night, but another up in that place would be fatal. We must get them down to Leukerbad.”

“Over that long precipitous path?”

“It is the only chance. I came down to look up bearers, and rig up a couple of hammocks, as well as to see how you are getting on.”

“Oh! I’m very well,” said Lord Fordham, in a tone that meant it, sitting up in bed. “We might ride on to Leukerbad with Reeves, and get rooms ready.”

“The best thing you could do,” said Dr. Medlicott, joyfully. “When we are there we can consider what can be done next; and if you wish to go on, I could look up some one there in whose charge to leave them till they could get advice from home; but it is touch and go with that little fellow.”

“I’m in no particular hurry,” said Lord Fordham, answering the doctor’s tone rather than his words. “I would not do anything hasty or that might add to their distress. Are there likely to be good doctors at this place?”

“It is a great watering-place, chiefly for rheumatic complaints, and that is all very well for the elder boy. As to the little one, he is in as critical a state as I ever saw, and—His mother is an excellent linguist, that is one good thing.”

“Yes; it would be very trying for her to have a foreigner to attend the boy in such a state, however skilled he might be,” said Lord Fordham. “I think we might make up our minds to stay with them till they can get some one from England.”

Dr. Medlicott caught at the words.

“It rests with you,” he said. “Of course I am your property and Mrs. Evelyn’s, but I should like to tell you why this is more to me than a matter of common humanity. I went up to study in London, a simple, foolish lad, bred up by three good old aunts, more ignorant of the world than their own tabby cat. Of course I instantly fell in with the worst stamp of fellows, and was in a fair way of being done for, body and soul, if one of the lecturers, after taking us to task for some heartless, disgusting piece of levity, seeing perhaps that it was more than half bravado on my part and nearly made me sick, managed to get me alone. He talked it out with me, found out the innocent-hearted fool I was, cured me of my false shame at what the good old souls at home had taught me, showed me what manhood was, found a good friend and a better lodging for me, in short, was the saving of me. He died three months after I first knew him, but whatever is worth having in me is owing to him.”

“Was he the father of these boys?”

“Yes; I saw a likeness in the nephew who came down yesterday, and I see it in both the others.”

“Of course you would wish to do all that is possible for them?”

“I should feel it the greatest honour. Still my first duty is to you, and you have told me that your mother wished you to keep your brother out of the way of his schoolfellow.”

“My mother would not wish to deprive her worst enemy of your care in such need as this,” said Lord Fordham, smiling. “Besides if this friend of Cecil’s were ever so bad, he couldn’t do him much harm while he is ill, poor boy. We will at any rate stay to get them through the next few days, and then we can judge. I will settle it with my mother.”

“I knew you would say so,” rejoined the doctor. “Thank you. Then it seems to me that the right course will be to write to Mrs. Evelyn, inclosing a note to Dr. Lucas—who it seems is Mrs. Brownlow’s chief reliance—asking him to find someone to send out. She, can send it on to him if she disapproves of our remaining together longer than is absolutely necessary, or if Leukerbad disagrees with you. Meantime, I’ll go and see whether Reeves has found any men to carry the poor boys.”

Unfortunately it was too early in the season for the hotels to have marshalled their full establishment, and such careful and surefooted bearers as the sufferers needed could not be had in sufficient numbers, so that Dr. Medlicott was forced to decide on leaving the elder patient for a night at Schwarenbach. The move might be matter of life or death to Armine; but Jock was better, the pain could be somewhat allayed by anodynes, the fever was abating, and he would rather gain than lose by another day of rest, provided he would only accept his fate patiently, and also if he could be properly attended to. If Mr. Graham would stay with him—

So breakfast was eaten, bills were paid, horses hired, and the whole cavalcade started from Kandersteg in time to secure the best part of a bright hot day for the transit.

They met Mr. Graham, who had been glad to escape as soon as Mrs. Brownlow had found other assistance, so that the doctor was disappointed in his hope of a guardian for Jock. Lord Fordham offered to lend Reeves, but that functionary absolutely refused to separate himself from his charge, observing—

“I am responsible for your lordship to your mamma, and it does not lie within my province to leave you on any account.”

Reeves always called Mrs. Evelyn “your mamma” when he wished to be particularly authoritative with his young gentlemen. If they were especially troublesome he called her “your ma.”

“And after all,” said the doctor, “I don’t know what sort of preparations the young gentlemen would make if we let them go by themselves. A bare room, perhaps—with no bed-clothes, and nothing to eat till the table d’hote”

Reeves smiled. He had found the doctor much less of a rival than he had expected, and he was a kind-hearted man, so long as his young lord was made the first object; so he declared his willingness to do anything that lay in his power for the assistance of the poor lady and her sons. He would gladly sit up with them, if it were in the same house with his lordship.

No one came out to meet the party. John was found with Armine, who had been taken back at night to his own room; Mrs. Brownlow, as usual, with Jock, who would endure no presence but hers, and looked exceedingly injured when, sending Cecil in to sit with him, the doctor called her out of the room.

It was a sore stroke on her to hear that her charges must be separated; and there was the harrowing question whether she should stay with one or go with the other.

“Please, decide,” she said.

“I think you should be with the most serious case.”

“And that, I fear, means my little Armine. Yes, I will do as you tell me. But what can be done for Jock?—poor Jock who thinks he needs me most. And perhaps he does. You know best, though, Dr. Medlicott, and you shall settle it.”

“That is a wise nurse,” said he, kindly; “I wish I could take your place myself, but I must be with the little fellow myself; and I am afraid we can only leave his brother to your nephew for this one night. Should you be afraid to be sole nurse?” he added, as Johnny came to Armine’s door.

“I think I know what to do, if Jock can stand having me,” said Johnny, stoutly, as soon as he understood the question.

“Mother!” just then shouted Jock, and as Johnny obeyed the call, he began—“I want my head higher—no—I say not you—Mother Carey!”

“She is busy with the doctor.”

“Can’t she come and do this? No, I say,” and he threw the nearest thing at hand at him.

“Come,” said Cecil, “I’m glad you can do such things as that.”

But Jock gave a cry of pain, and protested that it was all John’s fault for making him hurt himself instead of fetching mother.

“You had better let me lift you,” said John, “you know she is tired, and I really am stronger.”

“No, you shan’t touch me—a great clumsy lout.”

In the midst of these amenities, the doctor appeared, and Jock looked slightly ashamed, especially when the doctor, instead of doing what was wanted, directed John where to put an arm, and how to give support, while moving the pillow, adding that he was a handy fellow, more so than many a pupil after half a year’s training at the hospital, and smiling down Jock’s growls and groans, which were as much from displeasure as from pain. They were followed by some despairing sighs at the horrors of the prospect of being moved.

“Ah! what will you give me for letting you off?” said the Doctor.

Jock uttered a sound of relief, then, rather distrustfully, asked—“Why?”

“We can only get bearers enough for one; and as it is most important to move your brother, while you will gain by a night’s rest, he must have the first turn.”

“And welcome,” said Jock; “my mother will stay with me.”

“That’s the very point,” said Dr. Medlicott. “I want you not only to give her up, but to do so cheerfully.”

“I’m sure mother wants to stay with me. Armine does not need her half so much.”

“He does not require the same kind of attention; but he is in so critical a state that I do not think I ought to separate her from him.”

“Why, what is the matter with him?” asked Jock, startled.

“Congestion of the right lung,” said the doctor, seeing that he was strong enough to bear the information, and feeling the need of rousing him from his monopolising self-absorption.

“People get over that, don’t they?” said Jock, with an awestruck interrogation in his voice.

“They do; and I hope much from getting him into a warmer atmosphere, but the child is so much reduced that the risk is great, and I should not dare not to have his mother with him.” Then, as Jock was silent, “I have told you because you can make a great difference to their comfort by not showing how much it costs you to let her go.”

Jock drew the bed clothes over his face, and an odd stifled sound was heard from under them. He remained thus perdu, while directions were being given to John for the night, but as the doctor was leaving the room, emerged and said—

“Bring him in before he goes.”

In a short time, for it was most important not to lose the fine weather, the doctor carried Armine in swathed in rugs and blankets, a pale, sunken, worn face, and great hollow eyes looking out at the top.

The mother said something cheerful about a live mummy, but the two poor boys gazed at one another with sad, earnest, wistful eyes, and wrung one another’s hands.

“Don’t forget,” gasped Armine, labouring for breath.

And Jock answered—

“All right, Armie; good-bye. I’m coming to morrow,” with a choking, quivering attempt at bravery.

“Yes, to-morrow,” said poor Mother Carey, bending over him. “My boy—my poor good boy, if I could but cut myself in two! I can’t tell you how thankful I am to you for being so good about it. That dear good Johnny will do all he can, and it is only till tomorrow. You’ll sleep most of the time.”

“All right, mother,” was again all that Jock could manage to utter, and the kisses that followed seemed to him the most precious he had known. He hid his face again, bearing his trouble the better because the lull of violent pain quelled by opiates, so that his senses were all as in a dream bound up. When he looked up again at the clink of glass, it was Cecil whom he saw measuring off his draught.

“You!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, Medlicott said I might stay till four, and give the Monk a chance of a sleep. That fellow can always snooze away off hand, and he is as sound as a top in the next room; but I was to give you this at two.”

“You’re sure it’s the right stuff?”

“I should think so. We’ve practice enough in the family to know how to measure off a dose by this time.”

“How is it you are out here still? This is Thursday, isn’t it? We meant to have been half way home, to be in time for the matches.”

“I’m not going back this half, worse luck. They were mortally afraid these measles would make me get tender in the chest, like all the rest of us, so I’ve got nothing to do but be dragged about with Fordham after churches and picture galleries and mountains,” said Cecil, in a tone of infinite disgust. “I declare it made me half mad to look at the Lake of Lucerne, and recollect that we might have been in the eight.”