The Flight of the Shadow

“It’s me!” I cried, no louder than she could just hear; “it’s me, Martha! Come down and let me in.”

Without a word of reply, she left the window, and after some fumbling with the lock, opened the door, and came out to me, looking gray with scare, but none the less with all her wits to her hand.

“How is my uncle, Martha?” I said.

“Much better,” she answered.

“Then I must see him at once!”

“He’s fast asleep, child! It would be a world’s pity to wake him!”

“It would be a worse pity not!” I returned.

“Very well: must-be must!” she answered.

I made Zoe fast to the lamp-post: the night was warm, and hot as she was, she would take no hurt. Then I followed Martha up the stair.

But my uncle was awake. He had heard a little of our motions and whisperings, and lay in expectation of something.

“I thought I should hear from you soon!” he said. “I wrote to Mr. Day on Thursday, but have had no reply. What has happened? Nothing serious, I hope?”

“I hardly know, uncle. John Day is lying at our house, unable to move or speak.”

My uncle started up as if to spring from his bed, but fell back again with a groan.

“Don’t be alarmed, uncle!” I said. “He is, I hope, safe for the moment, with Penny to watch him; but I am very anxious Dr. Southwell should see him.”

“How did it come about, little one?”

“There has been no accident that I know of. But I scarcely know more than you,” I replied—and told him all that had taken place within my ken.

He lay silent a moment, thinking.

“I can’t say I like his lying there with only Penny to protect him!” he said. “He must have come seeking refuge! I don’t like the thing at all! He is in some danger we do not know!”

“I will go back at once, uncle,” I replied, and rose from the bedside, where I had seated myself a little tired.

“You must, if we cannot do better. But I think we can. Martha shall go, and you will stay with me. Run at once and wake Dr. Southwell. Ask him to come directly.”

I ran all the way—it was not far—and pulled the doctor’s night-bell. He answered it himself. I gave him my uncle’s message, and he was at the inn a few minutes after me. My uncle told him what had happened, and begged him to go and see the patient, carrying Martha with him in his gig.

The doctor said he would start at once. My uncle begged him to give strictest orders that no one was to see Mr. Day, whoever it might be. Martha heard, and grew like a colonel of dragoons ordered to charge with his regiment.

In less than half an hour they started—at a pace that delighted me.

When Zoe was put up and attended to, and I was alone with my uncle, I got him some breakfast to make up for the loss of his sleep. He told me it was better than sleep to have me near him.

What I went through that night and the following day, I need not recount. Whoever has loved one in danger and out of her reach, will know what it was like. The doctor did not make his appearance until five o’clock, having seen several patients on his way back. The young man, he reported, was certainly in for a fever of some kind–he could not yet pronounce which. He would see him again on the morrow, he said, and by that time it would have declared itself. Some one in the neighbourhood must watch the case; it was impossible for him to give it sufficient attention. My uncle told him he was now quite equal to the task himself, and we would all go together the next day. My delight at the proposal was almost equalled by my satisfaction that the doctor made no objection to it.

For joy I scarcely slept that night: I was going to nurse John! But I was anxious about my uncle. He assured me, however, that in one day more he would in any case have insisted on returning. If it had not been for a little lingering fever, he said, he would have gone much sooner.

“That was because of me, uncle!” I answered with contrition.

“Perhaps,” he replied; “but I had a blow on the head, you know!”

“There is one good thing,” I said: “you will know John the sooner from seeing him ill! But perhaps you will count that only a mood, uncle, and not to be trusted!”

He smiled. I think he was not very anxious about the result of a nearer acquaintance with John Day. I believe he had some faith in my spiritual instinct.

Uncle went with the doctor in his brougham, and I rode Zoe. The back of the house came first in sight, and I saw the window-blinds of my room still down. The doctor had pronounced it the fittest for the invalid, and would not have him moved to the guest-chamber Penny had prepared for him.

In the only room I had ever occupied as my own, I nursed John for a space of three weeks.

From the moment he saw me, he began to improve. My uncle noted this, and I fancy liked John the better for it. Nor did he fail to note the gentleness and gratitude of the invalid.

CHAPTER XXI. A FOILED ATTEMPT

The morning after my uncle’s return, came a messenger from Rising with his lady’s compliments, asking if Mr. Whichcote could tell her anything of her son: he had left the house unseen, during a feverish attack, and as she could get no tidings of him, she was in great anxiety. She had accidentally heard that he had made Mr. Whichcote’s acquaintance, and therefore took the liberty of extending to him the inquiry she had already made everywhere else among his friends. My uncle wrote in answer, that her son had come to his house in a high fever; that he had been under medical care ever since; and that he hoped in a day or two he might be able to return. If he expressed a desire to see his mother, he would immediately let her know, but in the meantime it was imperative he should be kept quiet.

From this letter, Lady Cairnedge might surmise that her relations with her son were at least suspected. Within two hours came another message—that she would send a close carriage to bring him home the next day. Then indeed were my uncle and I glad that we had come. For though Martha would certainly have defended the citadel to her utmost, she might have been sorely put to it if his mother proceeded to carry him away by force. My uncle, in reply, begged her not to give herself the useless trouble of sending to fetch him: in the state he was in at present, it would be tantamount to murder to remove him, and he would not be a party to it.

When I yielded my place in the sick-room to Martha and went to bed, my heart was not only at ease for the night, but I feared nothing for the next day with my uncle on my side—or rather on John’s side.

We were just rising from our early dinner, for we were old-fashioned people, when up drove a grand carriage, with two strong footmen behind, and a servant in plain clothes on the box by the coachman. It pulled up at the door, and the man on the box got down and rang the bell, while his fellows behind got down also, and stood together a little way behind him. My uncle at once went to the hall, but no more than in time, for there was Penny already on her way to open the door. He opened it himself, and stood on the threshold.

“If you please, sir,” said the man, not without arrogance, “we’re come to take Mr. Day home.”

“Tell your mistress,” returned my uncle, “that Mr. Day has expressed no desire to return, and is much too unwell to be informed of her ladyship’s wish.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the man, “we have her ladyship’s orders to bring him. We’ll take every possible care of him. The carriage is an extra-easy one, and I’ll sit inside with the young gentleman myself. If he ain’t right in his head, he’ll never know nothink till he comes to himself in his own bed.”

My uncle had let the man talk, but his anger was fast rising.

“I cannot let him go. I would not send a beggar to the hospital in the state he is in.”

“But, indeed, sir, you must! We have our orders.”

“If you fancy I will dismiss a guest of mine at the order of any human being, were it the queen’s own majesty,” said my uncle—I heard the words, and with my mind’s eyes saw the blue flash of his as he said them—“you will find yourself mistaken.”

“I’m sorry,” said the man quietly, “but I have my orders! Let me pass, please. It is my business to find the young gentleman, and take him home. No one can have the right to keep him against his mother’s will, especially when he’s not in a fit state to judge for himself.”

“Happily I am in a fit state to judge for him,” said my uncle, coldly.

“I dare not go back without him. Let me pass,” he returned, raising his voice a little, and approaching the door as if he would force his way.

I ought to have mentioned that, as my uncle went to the door, he took from a rack in the hall a whip with a bamboo stock, which he generally carried when he rode. His answer to the man was a smart, though left-handed blow with the stock across his face: they were too near for the thong. He staggered back, and stood holding his hand to his face. His fellow-servants, who, during the colloquy, had looked on with gentlemanlike imperturbability, made a simultaneous step forward. My uncle sent the thong with a hiss about their ears. They sprang toward him in a fury, but halted immediately and recoiled. He had drawn a small swordlike weapon, which I did not know to be there, from the stock of the whip. He gave one swift glance behind him. I was in the hall at his back.

“Shut the door, Orba,” he cried.