Part 12

"Better," she told herself--"better, better--can't you hear?"

Then she noticed Alan's face. It was deathly white, his lips were trembling and twitching, his eyes were wild.

"What?" she whispered.

"Meg has got it," he said with a great sob in his voice; and he brushed past her and went away.

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*LITTLE FAITHFUL MEG.*

"And shadow, and silence, and sadness Were hanging over all."

Pip had a time of unhappiness almost as great as that Nellie had gone through.

He was playing chess at the Courtneys to keep from thinking, when Alan came in with the news that Meg had the fever.

All the colour dropped from his brown, handsome face; he started up in his place, the queen he had just captured still in his hand; he went out of the room and out of the house without a word. Andrew caught him up when he had gone some hundred yards up the road.

"Here's your hat, old fellow," he said, and Pip took it without thanks and walked on.

Little faithful Meg, whose worst fault had been loving him too well to let him spoil his life! And he had shaken her aside time after time when she had tried to end the quarrel--he had told her he would never forgive her!

And now, perhaps, he would never have the chance.

He pulled back the gate at Misrule with fingers as nerveless as the veriest girl; he turned to go up to the house the short way, by the pittosporum hedge. There was a little dark heap of something on the wet grass in front of him; he touched it with his foot, and then bent down in horror.

It was his second little sister, sobbing as if her heart would break; she was face downwards, her arms spread out, her whole body convulsed.

So stunned and shaken with his grief had Alan been, he had utterly forgotten, when he left the poor child, that she was not at her proper place for the night; he had gone straight home to see if there had been a call for him, then off to a serious case of typhoid in Fivedock, for doctors cannot sit down and give themselves up to their grief, however great the cause.

Pip tried to raise the girl, but she stiffened herself and resisted him; when she had flung herself down she had prayed passionately that she might die, and here was some one come to disturb her.

But surely it could not be careless Pip who held her so tenderly, when at last he did manage to lift her,--Pip who stroked her hair, and rubbed his cheek against hers, and let her finish her bitter weeping on his shoulder.

When he felt how cold and damp she was, he stirred.

"You must come home, old girl," he said.

"Here," she said--"I must stay here! I shall nurse her, but she'll die--oh! I know she'll die."

Pip groaned: he knew it himself, he would not give himself the slightest hope; and the bitterness was as of death itself.

But he saw Nellie was totally unfit to go into an infected house that night.

"To-morrow," he said; "come down to the cottage now; there's the nurse there, and the servants; you'll be ill yourself next."

"I want to be--oh, why _can't_ I die?" she wailed. "It's all me, every bit of this, and God won't let me die."

Oh the young miserable face, so white and wet in the moonlight! A great lump came into Pip's throat, and in his heart a sudden knowledge of the dearness of his sisters.

"Oh, you poor little thing!" he said.

He put her on the old seat under the mulberry tree near, and went away.

When he came back he was leading one of the horses by the bridle over the grass.

"What are you going to do?" she asked miserably.

And "Ride you home," was his answer.

He led the horse out of the gate, carried her to it, and put her just on the saddle; then he got up himself behind, and held her with one hand and the reins with the other.

That is how they reached the cottage.

The children were in bed, and poor Bunty, weary of waiting, had fallen asleep sitting bolt upright in a chair.

Pip woke him, gently enough.

"Make up the fire," he said.

The boy fell to the task with all his heart, so dreadful was his sister's face. The clatter woke Poppet; she slipped out of bed and came in to them in her little nightgown, her eyes heavy with sleep and the struggle between forgetfulness and remembrance.

"Baby!" she said. Then her eyes flew open, and the colour died out of her little flushed cheeks. What made Nellie look so terrible?

"Better, much better--getting well," was Pip's hasty answer. He did not want another ill on his hands.

The child gasped with relief.

"Go and get something on," said Pip; "and bring Nell a big shawl or rug, and put something on your feet."

She came back with a great blanket for Nellie--she had pinned her little flannel petticoat round her own shoulders, and stuck her feet into goloshes.

Bunty made coffee--a great jugful. The grounds were floating on the top, certainly, but it was very hot. Pip made the girl drink two full cups and eat a big piece of bread and butter--he heard she had had neither dinner nor tea.

Then she crept close to him again. What a dear big brother he was, and how much less terrible things looked here in the firelight, with his arm round her, than when she lay prone on the wet grass under the white, far moon.

They dare not tell Poppet to-night, her eyes were far too bright, her cheeks too flushed. So Bunty, at a whisper from Nell, picked her up and carried her off to bed again.

"I'll stop with you till you go to sleep," he said, feeling her chest heave.

"I b'leeve they're 'ceiving me," said the poor little child. "I heard Nell whisper to you! Oh, Bunty, _tell_ me!--oh, Baby, Baby!"

He reassured her eagerly. The crisis was quite past; the doctor said she could not _help_ getting better now. Why, they would be playing with her again now in no time!

She cried a little from the relief, and then dropped off to sleep, holding tightly to his gentle, roughened hand.

In the sitting-room Pip was comforting Nellie as tenderly and pitifully as if he had been a woman and she a poor, little, hurt child. They had never known each other before--these two--and both were touched and surprised at the beauty of the new knowledge.

He agreed that she must go to Misrule and help to nurse, but thought they would wire up to Yarrahappini and ask Mrs. Hassal to come down to the cottage instead of getting any one strange. Nellie thought it an excellent suggestion, and made him draft a telegram immediately, so that it might be sent first thing in the morning.

When he thought she was calm again, and fit to be left he saw her into her own bedroom, and made her promise to go direct to bed and try her best to sleep, since so much depended on her now.

Such a poor, scratched, swollen face it was lifted to him for a good-night kiss, so different from the brilliant, beautiful, rebellious one that had defied him on the night of that trouble-causing dinner party.

He took the front door key with him, and went out, riding slowly back to Misrule, though he had no business there, as he knew. He put his father's horse back into the stable, and learnt from the man, who had just gone to bed, that Martha was with Essie and the nurse with Meg.

Then he went round into the garden, and to the side of the house where Meg's bedroom was.

There was a white, flat paling fence separating that part of the garden from the paddocks; he sat down on it and watched the light on her white blind with a despairing expression in his eyes.

He would have given all the world for a kiss from her, a smile of forgiveness; his love for Mabelle lay, a cold thing, almost dead, in his breast; he felt he could never breathe on it and warm it to life again.

To him, as to Nellie, this great white awful night brought back to memory the red red sunset and purple black shadows of the evening Judy had died. Like Nellie, he too fell on his knees, and prayed as he had only prayed that one other time in his life. And, like Nellie too, he prayed despairingly and without faith because that other prayer had not been answered. It was midnight when he had ridden back; he stopped there in the white, hushed garden till the moon began to fade out of the sky and a pale flush of rose crept up from the river. He was stiff and cold from his long watch; on the ill-kept strip of grass beneath the lighted window he had worn a path with his pacings, and his heart was heavier than ever.

When five o'clock came he still lingered; he was watching for the first opening door. To wait for her smile and forgiveness till she was better--to wait--to miss it for ever, perhaps--was more than he could bear to contemplate. He wrote her a little eager loving note on the back of an envelope from his pocket; his sister, his dear, sweet old Meg, would she ever forgive him?

He thought he would give it to Martha the minute there was a stir of life within the house, and he went softly round the verandah to the side door; it was always opened first, he knew. He stood there more than half an hour, listening for a footstep on the stairs, for the creak of a door or the sound of a voice.

On the weather-worn wall near there were a number of marks and names and dates; it was the measuring wall of the family. It carried his thoughts back a long, long time. It was nearly seven long years since the first marks were made: the little one, only a couple of feet off the ground, was marked "The General,"--Pip remembered Esther had to hold him there, for it was before he could walk. Then all the small steps above it--Baby, and Bunty, and Nell--such a little Nell; Judy, with a crossing out at her name and a mark lower down--he remembered finding out after he had measured her first, that she had tacked a bit of wood on to each heel of her shoes; then himself, and Meg topping them all.

The last marks were recent; they had measured merrily just before Esther went away, to see if any one could possibly grow in such a short time. He himself was at the top now, ten inches past Meg, and Nellie and Bunty were nearly up to Meg. How nearly the new little mark that meant Essie had never risen any higher! And Judy, dear, dear little Judy, so quick growing, so eager-eyed--her mark was no longer among them.

It forced itself upon Pip that perhaps never again would he put the flat book on Meg's bright head and crush down, ere he measured her, the fluffy hair that gave her an unlawful inch.

He turned on his heel from the wall; the mark seemed on his heart.

Some one opened a verandah door some distance away and stepped out into the garden. It was the nurse, heavy-eyed, pale-cheeked, come out for a breath of the quickening morning. She did not see the unhappy boy standing there, but went down the path towards the sun-touched river, and left the door open behind her.

Pip slipped in, on uncontrollable impulse. He stole through the quiet hall and up the staircase; he went softly down the upstairs passage--and Meg's door was open.

She was quite alone, lying among the pillows, with her bright hair loose, her cheeks a little flushed, but her eyes open and quite natural. The next second he was in the room kneeling by the bedside, and kissing the little hot hand on the counterpane.

"Just say you forgive me, Meg darling--darling!" he implored, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

She sat up in distress.

"Oh, go away!" she cried. "Oh, Pip, how mad of you--dear Pip, you'll catch it!"

But he would not loose her hand.

"Will you?" he said.

She moved to put her arm round his neck, then remembered and shrank back.

"Why, there is nothing," she said; "it was you to forgive me--if you do I am more than glad; now do go, old fellow."

"Lie down," he said, standing up again; it had only just struck him he might be doing her harm.

"There, lie so,--keep still, for heaven's sake. I only came to tell you you're the best sister on earth, and I've been a brute to you. Meg, I'll promise you faithfully never to think of Mabelle again--oh, good God! I haven't made you worse, have I?" For Meg put her hand up to her head with a sudden movement.

"Not an atom," she said, "the cloth was wetting my neck, that's all.--you've made me better indeed with that promise; now go, Pip dearest, this minute, and change everything--promise me; think of the children; get a suit out of your room and have a bath."

The nurse's step was on the stairs; he kissed her hand again and fled.

Afterwards he felt he had done a selfish thing, and made himself miserable over it. Perhaps he had excited and worried her, perhaps it would make her worse; and suppose he gave the infection to Peter or Poppet!

He took his evening clothes, they were the only ones left in his room, and he went down to the river with a slow and heavy step.

Then he undressed and swam about for nearly twenty minutes, so determined was he not to carry home a microbe. He even struck out into the middle, and braved any sharks that might be yet unbreakfasted. Then he made his toilet again, swallow-tail and all, carefully washed the clothes he had taken off, and laid them on the grass to dry.

A man he knew, coming down to the water with his towels over his shoulder, met him on the way to the cottage and stared amazedly.

"You're fairly late home, old chap," he said; "where in the world have you been?"

Pip only shook his head and pushed on. He was far too unhappy to stay and explain.

*CHAPTER XXIV.*

*"IN THE MIDNIGHT, IN THE SILENCE OF THE SLEEP TIME."*

"Have I not trodden a weary road Saint, my Saint? And where, at last, shall be my abode, Oh, my Saint?"

But Meg only had it very lightly, or those two poor human hearts could not have borne their misery. She was not half so ill as Essie had been; she was not delirious at all, and she never went near to the great wide sea whose cold waves had washed up to the little baby feet.

When she woke after a troubled sleep in the afternoon, there was Nellie standing by the bedside looking at her, with all her heart in her eyes.

"What about the children?" she said with instant anxiety. "You oughtn't to be here."

But Nell stooped and kissed her.

"It's just where I ought to be," she said, "and Esther's mother will be here this evening, to look after the children,--don't worry."

Meg turned over restfully; how good it was to feel there would be a sister near always instead of the strange hands and face of a nurse! What a relief, now the strain was over, to be able to give up and be taken care of instead of taking care!

In the morning, when she woke, her first question again, after hearing Essie was improving fast, was what about the children?

Mrs. Hassal had come, Nell said; Mr. Gillet had brought her, and they were both at the cottage. Mr. Gillet was much distressed to hear she was ill, and had sent kindest regards and hopes for a speedy recovery.

For a moment the long-unheard name brought no connection with it to Meg; then she saw the burnt grass paddocks, the dingy sheep, the homestead and clustering cottages of Yarrahappini.

She called to mind his little room as she had seen it when she went for the keys of the storeroom. She was surprised to still remember, after all these years, her astonishment at finding the keeper of the stores with the room of a gentleman.

She could remember the rows of books, the medallion of Shelley, the pictures, the little breakfast table--even the silver chased vase with the passion flowers in it.

She wondered if he had kept the blue ribbon she had given him; even now her cheeks coloured above their fever to think how intolerant she had been in those days. But perhaps she was just as bad now, or had other faults still worse; she tossed unhappily and thought upon all the mistakes she was for ever making. Then Nellie's cool fingers touched her forehead and replaced a wet, lavender-sweet handkerchief, and she dropped off into an uneasy slumber.

She thought they were binding her head round and round with ribbon, pale blue with creases in it; it held her down to the bed so that she could not move; and there in the dancing river little Essie was struggling, the grey look of death on her small sweet face.

Then that torture shifted, and it was Pip who was struggling, and he could not put out his arms to swim because he had a monstrous gold wedding-ring binding them to his body. And Peter was at the top of the forbidden tree, and Poppet shrieking to him to come down. And Bunty was in the hospital with scarlet fever, and they could not give him medicine because he would not tell his name.

For several days troubles of this kind lasted, with short unrefreshing waking intervals when her mouth was parched, her throat swollen, and her head throbbing.

On the sixth morning she opened her eyes about eleven o'clock. Nellie was mixing lemon drink at a small table, and Alan was standing by the bedside, Alan with a face grown quite haggard, and a look in his eyes that had never quite left them since she fell ill.

"Am I getting better or worse?" she said, for his look made her suddenly fearful for herself.

But he brightened instantly, for, in truth, the anxiety was almost over, only he could not shake it off at once.

"Much better," he said. "Do you know you have been asleep since nine last night?"

"How many hours is that?" she asked, with smiling languor; "my brain's asleep yet, I can't count." But neither could he. His lip trembled suddenly, and he put his face down on hers.

She slipped her thin hands round his neck.

"Poor old fellow!" she said, "dear old fellow! I'm going to get better immediately now."

"Try to go to sleep again," he whispered, putting a kiss on each eyelid to keep them shut. "Please, my little, pale daisy."

The eyelashes lay quite still, but the lips smiled up to him. Then, before she knew it, she was asleep again, her breathing regular, her skin cool. And when she woke she was far on the road to recovery. But down in the cottage, while Essie and Meg were struggling slowly up the beautiful tiring hill of convalescence, a terrible tragedy had happened.

In the middle of one night, Poppet, sleeping in a little made-up bed in the room with Mrs. Hassal, woke up hot and choking. One side of the room was in a sheet of fire; the curled, leaping tongues of flame came nearer every instant.

She sprang out of bed shrieking wildly, and pulled and shook poor little Mrs. Hassal, who, half suffocated with the smoke, lay motionless.

Pip slept at the Courtneys now, since the cottage was so taxed for room, Bunty and Peter across the passage, and Mr. Gillet had a camp bed in the sitting-room. No one had wakened till the little girl's wild shrieks rang through the house; the smoke had stupefied them all.

Then there was a terrible scene of confusion. The door of the bedroom was in a blaze--all the wall adjacent; the flames were licking at the long French window, and the curtains already burning.

Mr. Gillet went back one second for his thick coat, which he had not put on at first; then, shielding his face with his arm, he sprang into the room through the window, calling to Bunty to stand outside.

Poppet, mad with terror, was still pulling at Mrs. Hassal, and the mosquito nets of the bed had just caught.

He pushed the child aside, and bade her go into the one safe corner. Then he enveloped Mrs. Hassal in the blanket, carried her across the room, and hastily put her through the window to Bunty.

Then he went back for the little girl,--Meg's little sister.

He took off his coat to wrap her in, as the other bedclothes had caught, but as he did so Bunty threw back the big blanket, and he used it instead.

The flames at the window were growing worse, but he sprang through them, the child close in his arms. When they took the blanket off her not a hair of her head was hurt.

One breathless second they looked at the burning room together from the safe vantage ground of the grass plot at the side.

Then Mr. Gillet started forward again.

"I've left my coat," he said.

Mrs. Hassal held his arm. "As if that matters," she answered indignantly.

"But there's something I rather prize in it," he said; "there's no danger,--see, I'll have the blanket this time."

He flung it round his head and shoulders, and went through the window again.

"Catch!" he cried, and threw the rough serge coat far out to them.

They saw him in the burning window putting his arms up to dive out. But even as he did so there was a crash and fall--a great burning rafter had dropped from the ceiling.

Bunty was the hero now. He put his coat over his head and dashed into the room.

Mr. Gillet had fallen just inside, the blanket still around him.

With incredible strength and courage the boy seized him by the shoulders, dragged him out through the blazing gap and into safety, amid the shouts of the awakened neighbours, who had come too late to be of use.

But the man was dead.

The rafter had struck his temple, and he had no more days of life to ruin, no more with which to redeem past ruin.

They did not tell Meg until long after, not until Blue Mountain air had blown the last of the fever away, and all the seven were together for the last week before coming home.

Then they gave her the something he had "rather prized."

She sobbed and went away from them all when she had opened the little parcel and seen its pitifulness.

It was nothing but the length of ribbon, the blue faded, and still creased as it had tied her hair.

On the paper wrapping it he had written, "My soft-eyed girl St. Cecily."

*CHAPTER XXV.*

*HERE ENDETH.*

"God's in His heaven, All's right with the world."

Such a day! The spring of the year in the sky, and on the river, and on the land. September at its happiest, fresh and young, and gladdening as a maiden stepping with shining eyes and light feet into a world that she knows she is going to brighten.

Blue in the sky, blue deeper and sun-flecked in the river, a glory of roses in the garden, a yellow splendour of wattles in the bush.

Tea was spread on the lawn, not under a tree, but out in the sunshine that no one could get enough of. Even the cakes had a light-hearted look; and as for the shining kettle on the lamp, it was absolutely bubbling with good spirits. They were all there,--the seven and Mrs. Hassal, all mentally on tiptoe, physically in comfortable attitudes, sitting or lying round the cloth.

The Captain and Esther were expected every minute.

Peter wanted to begin on the little cakes that had such a fascinating bit of peel on the top of each.

"Leth go halveth in one, Nell," he said; "we ought to tathte them firtht,--prapth you forgot the thugar."

But Nellie assured him they were sweetness itself, and removed the plate into the middle of the cloth, where they could not lead his fingers into temptation.

She consoled him with two lumps of sugar, and he gave Poppet one and bet her he could suck his for a longer time than she could without it breaking.

Alan was hammering at a tipsy-looking erection of posts halfway down the drive, that said "Welcome" in pink and white roses, and threatened to fall and engulf any one passing underneath. Bunty had made it, Alan was only trying to ensure the safety of Esther's head.

Near the door was another arch; it was very low--both the Captain and Esther would have to go under it doubled up: it was done in ferns and red geraniums and blue flag lilies and yellow "bunny rabbits," and it said "Wellcome."

This was the architecture of Peter and Poppet; the choice of flowers and handing up had been Essie's work.