The Girls and I: A Veracious History

There were only three. Two were nothing particular – accounts or something. But the third was in a strange handwriting, and mums opened it quickly.

'It's from Lady Nearn,' she said. 'I think it was rather me to write to her. It's very kind of her, but – '

She began reading it, and her face got very grave.

'Do leave it till you've finished your breakfast, mums,' I said. 'You've not even finished the first course.'

But she scarcely listened to me.

'Oh, Jack!' she said, 'I'm afraid we haven't got to the end of the troubles caused by poor gran's diamonds yet. Oh dear, I shall be so uneasy for some days to come!'

I couldn't make out what she meant, and when she saw my puzzled face she went on to explain. Lady Nearn's letter was very kind, but she thought it right to tell mother that Anne and Serena had run into some risk by coming to her house the night before, for it was quite decided that three of her children had got whooping-cough. Not the two they had seen; at least she still hoped they – the twins – wouldn't get it, for they were very delicate, and they had been separated from the others. But still there was no telling how infection might be caught, and she advised mother to be prepared for her little girls having perhaps got the illness.

Mums did look worried.

'It's a most tiresome and trying thing,' she said; 'and neither Hebe nor Maud is very strong. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you, Jack. You must be sure not to speak of it to any of them.'

I promised, of course. And then poor mums, instead of having a nice rest, declared she must get up at once, and go off to catch the doctor before he went out. Wasn't it too bad? She wanted to know what to do – whether it was any good trying to separate Anne and Serry from the rest of us, and how soon it would show, and a lot of things like that. For mother was an only child herself, and she always says she isn't at all experienced about children. She's had to learn everything by us, you see.

Well, she did catch the doctor, and came back looking rather jollier. He had comforted her up. There were ten chances to one against the girls having got it, he said; and as for separating them, now they had been with us all, it would be nonsense.

Ah, well! doctors don't know everything. I'd have separated them fast enough, I know; and it would have been a good punishment for Anne and Serena to have been shut up for a day or two; perhaps it would have made them think twice before doing some wild, silly thing again.

So mums and I kept our own counsel. She told father, of course, but no one else, not even nurse – it would only have made her nervous. We sent round once or twice to ask how the little Nearns were – mums wrote notes, I think, as she didn't want the servants chattering. And we were very sorry to hear that the poor twins had got it after all, and rather badly.

'So you see, Jack,' said mother, 'it wasn't any good separating them. Dr. Marshall must know.'

I think this was rather a comfort to her. If the doctor had been right about one thing, there was more chance of his being right about another.

And for two or three days we all kept quite well, and mother began to breathe freely.

But, alas! I think it was about the fourth morning after that evening, when I ran into the nursery on my way down to prayers, I found mother there, talking to nurse. Mother looked very grave, much worse than nurse, who didn't seem particularly put out.

'It's only a cold, ma'am, I'm sure,' she was saying. 'A cold soon makes a child feverish and heavy. I don't think, indeed, there's any need for the doctor; but it's just as you like, of course.'

Then 'it' had come. Poor mums! I stole up to her and slipped my hand into hers. I understood, though nurse didn't. It was rather nice to feel that I was mother's sort of confi – I'm not sure of the word. But who was it that was ill? My heart did go down when I heard it was not Anne or Serry – really, I think I'd have said they deserved it – but poor old Maudie! Sensible, good little Maud, who never did naughty, silly things, or teased anybody. It did seem too bad.

'May I run in to see her?' I asked.

Nurse would have said, 'Yes, of course, Master Jack,' in a moment, but mother shook her head.

'Not till Dr. Marshall has been, dear,' she said; and she gave my hand a little squeeze. I'm afraid she began to wish she had separated the girls after all.

I could see that nurse thought mums very funny, as she went on asking ever so many questions about Maud – above all, was she coughing?

'A little,' said nurse; 'rather a croupy, odd-sounding sort of cough.' But she was too old for croup, of course. It was just cold.

'I must go down to prayers now,' said mother. 'I will come up immediately after breakfast, and I will send for Dr. Marshall. I am sure it will be best.'

Just then there came the sound of a cough from Maud's room – a queer, croaky sort of cough – and we heard the poor little thing call out —

'Oh, mums, is that you? Do come to see me. I does feel so funny.'

'Yes, darling, I will come very soon,' said mother. It was so queer to hear Maudie talking babyishly – she always did if she was at all ill. As we went downstairs I was sure mums was crying a little.

Well, that was the beginning of it all. When the doctor came, of course he looked very owly, and said he couldn't say for a day or two; and pretended to be jolly, and told mother she wasn't to be so silly, and all that kind of talk. But after his 'day or two' – no, indeed, before they were over – he had to allow there was some cause for grave looks. For by then they'd all got it – all except me! Just fancy, all four of them! The nursery was like a menagerie, for no sooner did one cough than all the others started too, and they all coughed different ways. If it hadn't been really horrid it would have been rather absurd – something like the mumps, you know. It's all you can do not to laugh at each other when you've got the mumps. I'll never forget Serry's face, – never, as long as I live, and she's the prettiest of us, I suppose. I saw my own once in the glass, but I wouldn't look again. And yet it's awfully horrid. It hurts – my goodness! doesn't it just?

There was no good separating me. I made mums see that, and I promised her I'd do my very best not to get the whooping-cough; and I didn't! That was something to be proud of, now, wasn't it? You mightn't think so, but it was; for I really believe I stopped myself having it. Ever so often, when I heard them all crowing and choking, and holding on to the table, and scolding – how Serry did scold sometimes – over it, I felt as if I was going to start coughing and whooping too – I did, I give you my word. But I just wouldn't. I said to myself it was all fancy and nonsense – though I don't a bit believe it was – and I drank some water, and got all right again. And after a week or two, the catchy feeling in my throat went off.

It was a good thing I kept well, for mums did need some comfort. The worst of it didn't come for a good while – that's the tiresome part of the whooping-cough, you never know where you are with it, it lasts such a time; and when you think it's about over, very often you find children have got some other illness from it – I mean something the matter with their chests or throats, or bothers like that.

It was Maud that got it first, and seemed the worst for a good while; but then she took a turn and got hungry again, and the doctor began to speak of our soon going away somewhere for change of air; and we were getting jollier, and mums looking less worried, when all at once Hebe got very bad indeed. It was partly her own fault, though she hadn't meant it. She had been feeling very ill indeed, but she didn't like to say so, for she thought most likely the others felt just as bad, and you know she's dreadfully unselfish. Often and often she'd get up in the middle of the night if Serry called out she was thirsty or anything – very often it was only that she fancied the clothes were slipping off, or some nonsense like that – and Hebe may have caught cold by that. Anyway, there came one morning that poor Hebe couldn't get up at all; indeed, she could scarcely speak. We all ran in to see what was the matter, and she just smiled a tiny little smile, and put out her poor little hand – it was burning hot – and whispered, 'I daresay I'll be better soon.'

Nurse was frightened; but she's very good and sensible. She just told me to go down to mother's room and ask her to come up, as Hebe had had a bad night, and perhaps we'd better send for the doctor to come early. And, of course, I knew how to do it without startling mums more than could be helped.

All the same, if she had been dreadfully startled it couldn't have been worse than had to be. For it was the beginning of Hebe's being awfully ill. I can't tell you properly what it was; it was something about her lungs, so bad that she was wrapped in blankets and carried down to a room beside mother's, where she could be perfectly quiet. And a strange nurse came – one with a cap and an apron, like you see in pictures of children in hospitals; she was rather pretty and not old at all, and she and mums took turns of watching Hebe; and the air of the room had to be kept exactly the same hotness, like a vinery, you know. And there was a queer, strange, solemn feeling all about, that I can't explain. We all felt it, even though they didn't tell us – not even me– how bad the poor little sweet was. The angel of death came very near us that time, mums told us afterwards, and I know it was true. One night I almost felt it myself. I woke all of a sudden, and sat bolt up in bed. I had thought I heard Hebe calling me – I was sure I did – and then I remembered I'd been dreaming about her. I thought we were walking in a wood. It was evening, or afternoon, and it seemed to be getting dark, and I fancied we were looking for the others – it was muddled up with their having gone out that night, you see – and I felt very worried and unhappy.

'Hebe,' I said, 'it's getting very dark.'

'Yes,' she said, 'it is, darker and darker, Jack'; and her voice sounded strange. 'Jack,' she went on, 'hold my hand, I'm rather frightened'; and I felt that she was shivering.

I think I was rather frightened myself, but I tried to comfort her up.

'Perhaps it'll get lighter again after a bit,' I said. 'I don't think the sun's set yet.'

'Hasn't it?' she said. 'I think it's just going to, though. Jack, can you say that verse about the shadows or the darkness? I can't remember it.'

But I couldn't remember it properly either; however I tried. I could only say, '"I will be with thee" – is it that, Hebe? – "I will be with thee."' And she squeezed my hand tighter, and I thought she said, 'Yes, that's it, Jack.'

And then again I fancied she pulled her hand out of mine, and ran on in front quite fast, calling joyfully, 'I see them, Jack. Come on quick – Jack, Jack.'

It was then I awoke, and I found I had been squeezing my own hand quite tight. But I felt sure Hebe had been calling me.

I sat up and listened, but there was no sound. I began to cry; I thought Hebe was dead, and then I remembered that the verse I couldn't get right in my dream was about the valley of the shadow of death, and at first that made me feel worse, till all of a sudden it came into my head that it wasn't 'the valley of death' but only 'the valley of the shadow of death,' And that seemed to mean that Hebe had been near it – near death, I mean, – 'near enough for the shadow of his wings to fall over her,' was the way mums said it when I told her my dream afterwards. That comforted me. I got out of bed very softly in the darkness and crept to the landing, where the balusters run round, and listened.

The gas lamp was burning faintly down below, and I heard a slight rustling as if people were moving about. And after a while the door of a room opened softly, and two men came out. It was father and the doctor. I couldn't have believed big men could have moved so quietly, and I listened as if I was all ears.

'I think, now – ' was the most I could catch of what Dr. Marshall said.

But then came much plainer – of course I know his voice so well – from father, 'Thank God.'

And I knew Hebe was better.

I shall always think of that night, always, even when I'm quite old, when I read that verse. Afterwards mother explained to me more about it. She said she thought that to good people – you know what I mean by 'good people' —Christians– it should always seem as if, after all, even when they really do have to die, it is only the shadow that they have to go through – 'the valley of the shadow of death'; that Death itself in any dreadful lasting way is not really there, because of the presence that is promised to us – 'I will be with thee.'

I can't say it anything like as nicely as mums did, but I do understand it pretty well all the same; and if ever I feel frightened of death in a wrong way, I think about it. Mother said we're meant to be afraid of death in one way, just as we would be afraid and are meant to be afraid of anything dark and unknown and very solemn. But that's different.

And dear little Hebe had really been some way into the valley of the shadow. When she got quite well, she told me about it – of the feelings and thoughts she had had that night when for some hours they thought she was going far away from us, out of this world altogether. For she had had all her senses. She thought about us all, and wished she could see us, and she wished she could hold my hand – 'your dear, rough, brown hand, Jack,' she said. (I'm not quite as particular to keep my hands very nice as I should be, I'm afraid!)