The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

"You'll give Mr. Stobart my love," she said, "and please tell him I was very unhappy after he went to America. It was very kind of you to come to me; but then you like visiting sick people. I don't. Mr. Stobart used to tell me I was no Dorcas."

She lingered for a day and a night after this return of consciousness; but her last hours were passed in a stupor, and she died in her sleep, so quietly that the nurse who kept watch by her bed knew not the moment of her last sigh.

CHAPTER XVII.

SWORD AND BIBLE

Lady Kilrush wrote to Lady Lanigan at the Circus, Bath, to inform her of her daughter-in-law's death. She had written some days before to acquaint that lady with poor Lucy's sad condition; but there had been as yet no reply to the first letter, and there was no time to wait for an answer to the second, so she made all arrangements for the funeral, and chose Lucy's last resting-place in the rural churchyard at Mortlake, not very far from the cottage where she had first seen the Methodist and his young wife. She was suffering from a chill and a touch of fever on the morning of the funeral, but bore up long enough to see George Stobart's wife laid in earth, since there was no one else but the doctor and the nurse to perform that last office. She engaged the old woman whom she had found on the premises to remain in the house as caretaker, till Mr. Stobart's return.

She had hardly strength to drag her aching limbs upstairs when her task was over; and, as the evening wore on, her illness increased, and although she made light of her symptoms to Sophy, she could hardly doubt their dire significance.

She stood in front of her glass for some minutes before she took to her bed. Her head ached, and her throat was parched and swollen, but she was in full beauty still. A hectic crimson burned on her cheeks, and her eyes were bright with fever. Her hair, dark as midnight, fell in natural curls over the marble whiteness of a throat and bust that had been sung by a score of modish rhymesters, and declared to excel the charms of every Venus in the Vatican. Would she ever see that face again, she wondered, after she lay down on yonder bed? Would some strange disfigured image look at her from that familiar glass – the long cheval glass before which she had stood so often in her trivial moods to study the set of a mantua, the hang of a petticoat, a dazzling figure in a splendour of gold and silver, and colour that mocked the glory of an autumn sunset, or for a whim, perhaps, in back velvet, sable from head to foot, a sombre background for her tiara and rivière of diamonds, and her famous pearl necklace.

She burst into a wild laugh as she thought of those gems. Would she ever again wear pearls or diamonds on her neck? Disfigured – blind, perhaps, a creature upon whose hideous form fine clothes and flashing jewels would seem more appalling than a shroud!

"Good-bye, beautiful Lady Kilrush," she said, making a low curtsey to the figure in the glass; and then all grew dim, and she could only totter to the bell-pull and ring for help.

Sophy came to her. The French maid had been banished after her mistress's first visit to Mrs. Stobart, Antonia having taken pains to lessen the risk of contagion for her household. Sophy had waited upon her, and had been her only means of communication with the servants.

Dr. Heberden saw her next morning, and recognized the tokens of a disease not much less terrible than the plague. He was careful not to alarm the patient, but gave his instructions to Miss Potter, and promised to send a capable nurse.

"If I am going to be ill let me have the little Lambeth apothecary to attend me," Antonia said to the physician. "I have seen him by the sick-beds of the poor, and I know what a kind soul it is."

"Let it be so, dear lady. He will make a good watch-dog. I shall see you every day till you are well."

"That will not be for a long time, sir. I know what I have to expect," she answered calmly. "But if I am likely to be hideous, for pity's sake, don't try to save my life."

"I protest, your ladyship takes alarm too soon. Your sickness may be no more than a chill, with a touch of fever."

"Oh, I know, I know," she answered, her eyes searching his countenance. "You cannot deceive me, sir. I was prepared for this. I did not think it would come. I thought I was too strong. I hardly feared it; but I knew it was possible. I did what I had to do without counting the cost."

She was in a high fever, but still in her right senses. She lay in a half stupor for the rest of the day, and her nurses, a comfortable looking middle-aged woman sent by Dr. Heberden, and Sophy Potter, had nothing to do but watch her and give her a cooling drink from time to time.

It was growing dusk, and Sophy and Mrs. Ball, the nurse, were taking tea in the dressing-room, when the door was opened and a lady appeared, struggling with a sheet steeped in vinegar that had been hung over the door by Mr. Morton's order. The intruder was Mrs. Granger, modishly dressed in a chintz silk tucked up over a black satin petticoat.

"Drat your vinegar," she cried. "I'll wager my new silk is done for."

"Oh, madam, you oughtn't to have come here," cried Sophy, starting up in a fright. "Her ladyship is taken with – "

"Yes, I know. I've had it, Miss Potter – had it rather bad when I was a child. You might have seen some marks on my forehead and chin if you'd ever looked close at me. I should have been marked much worse, and I should never have been Mrs. General Granger, if mother hadn't sat by the bed and held my hands day and night to stop me doing myself a mischief. And I'm going to keep watch over Antonia, and save her beauty, if it's in human power to do it."

"I am the nurse engaged for the case," said Mrs. Ball, rising from the tea-board with a stately air, "and your ladyship's services will not be required."

"That's for my ladyship to judge, not you. Lady Kilrush and me was close friends before we married; and I'm not going to leave her at the mercy of any nurse in London, not if she was nurse to the Princess of Wales."

"I think Dr. Heberden's favourite nurse may be trusted, madam," said Mrs. Ball, with growing indignation.

Sophy had gone back to the sick-room.

"I wonder her ladyship's hall porter should have let you come upstairs, madam, when he had positive orders to admit nobody," continued Mrs. Ball.

"I didn't wait for his permission when I had got the truth out of him. Lions and tigers wouldn't have kept me from my friend, much less hired nurses and hall porters."

She took off her hat and flung it on the sofa, and went into the next room with so resolute an air that Mrs. Ball could only stand staring at her.

Antonia looked up as she approached the bed, and held out her hand to her.

"Oh, Patty, how glad I am to see you. Your face always brings back my youth. But no, no, no, don't come near me. Tell her, Sophy – tell her! Oh, what a racking headache."

Her head fell back upon the pillow. It was impossible to hold it up with that insufferable pain.

Patty reminded her friend of the pock marks on her temple and chin, and that she ran no risk in being with her; and from that moment till the peril was past, through a fortnight of keen anxiety, General Granger's wife remained at Antonia's bedside, watching over her with a devotion that never wearied. It was useless for Mrs. Ball to protest, or for Sophy Potter to show signs of jealousy.

"I'm going to save her beautiful face for her," Patty declared. "She shan't get up from her sick-bed to find herself a fright. She's the handsomest woman in London, and beauty like hers is worth fighting for."

Dr. Heberden heard her, and approved. He had seen her clever management, her tender care of Antonia, when the fever was raging, and the delirious sufferer would have done herself mischief in an agony of irritation. The famous doctor was vastly polite to this volunteer nurse, and complimented her on her skill and courage.

"As for my courage, sir, 'tis nothing to boast of," Patty answered frankly. "Poor as my face is, I wouldn't have risked spoiling it, and shouldn't be here if I had not had the distemper when I was a child."

Lady Kilrush passed safely through the malady that had been fatal to Lucy Stobart; but her convalescence was very slow, and she suffered a depression of spirits from which neither her devoted Sophy Potter nor her lively friend Patty could rouse her. She came back to life unwillingly, and felt as if she had nothing to live for.

On the very first day that she was able to leave her bed for an hour or two, Patty led her to the great cheval glass.

"There!" she cried, "look at yourself as close as you please. You are not pitted as much as I am even. Why, Lord bless the woman! Aren't you pleased with yourself, Tonia? You stare as if you saw a ghost."

"'Tis a ghost I am looking at, Patty, the ghost of my old self. Oh, you have been an angel of goodness, dear; and it is a mercy not to be loathsome; but the past is past, and I shall never be the beautiful Lady Kilrush again. I hope I was not too proud of my kingdom while I had it. 'Tis gone from me for ever."

"Why, you simpleton! All this fuss because you are hollow-cheeked and pale – and your beautiful hair has been cut off."

"A wreck, Patty! A haggard ghost! Don't think I am going to weep for the loss of a complexion. I had grown tired of the world before I fell ill. It will give me little pain to leave it altogether – only there is nothing else – nothing left but to sit by the fire with a book, and wait for the slow years to roll by. And the years are so slow. It seems a century since I came into this house for the first time, and found the man I loved lying on his death-bed."

"Oh, how foolish this sadness is! If I was a peeress, with such jewels as yours, a young widow, my own mistress, free to do what I liked for the rest of my days, or to pick and choose a new tyrant if I liked – I should jump for joy. You will be as handsome as ever you was after six weeks at the Wells. And you ought to marry a duke, like your friend Miss Gunning that was, who would never have been thought your equal for looks if there had not been two of her."

"Dear Patty, I have done with vanities. But never doubt my gratitude for the kindness that saved me from being a hideous spectacle."

"Nay, 'tis but the lion and the mouse over again. You took me in hand and made a lady of me, and how could I do less than jump at the first chance of making a return? I used to be a little bit envious of your handsome face once, Tonia, when you used to come to my lodgings in the piazza, in your shabby clothes, so careless and so lovely."

Lady Kilrush would see no one after her illness, putting off all visitors with polite little notes of apology, protesting that she was not yet in health to receive visits, and must defer the pleasures of friendship till she was stronger. On this the rumour went about that the disease had disfigured her beyond recognition, and all the envious women of her acquaintance were loud in their compassion.

"'Tis vastly sad to think she is too ugly to let anybody see her," said one. "I'm told she wears a thick veil even in her own house, for fear of frightening her footmen."

"They say she offered a thousand pounds to any one who would invent a wash that would hide the spots," said another.

"Spots, my dear! 'Tis vastly fine to talk of spots. The poor wretch has holes in her face as deep as your thimble."

"And is as blind as Samson Agonistes," said a fourth.

"And oh, dear, we are all so sorry for her," said the chorus, with sighs and uplifted hands; and then the fiddles began a country dance, and everybody was curtseying and simpering and setting to partners, down the long perspective of fine clothes and powdered heads, and Lady Kilrush was forgotten.