CHAPTER XIV
One day not very long after this Patty came into the nursery breathless and agitated.
‘Lord save us! Miss Carrie, what do you think? Master Phil hath near killed himself! I’m but just in from a message, and who should I meet but Mr. Peter, running like mad, and with never a hat to his head! ’Taint often as Mr. Peter passeth by me in the street, but he waved and passed on without one word, and up to the door of Dr. James and kicks till the door do near split across. When he’d given his message he found time to return to where I was a-standin’—for in troth I had such a terror at the sight of Mr. Peter flyin’ down the street that I stood as if I had the palsy, and must so stand there till he returned. “Well, Mr. Peter,” I said, “you seem pressed for time this day.” “Miss Patty,” saith he (and believe me he could scarce get out the words for agitation),—“Miss Patty, my young master’s near burned to death.” ’
Patty was breathless with agitation herself at this point, and to recover her breath and relieve her surcharged feelings she seized a brush and began to arrange Carrie’s locks with more energy than gentleness. Carrie, deeply stirred by this tale, listened in great anxiety for further details. Patty then proceeded—
‘Being dinner-time, all the house was still, and Master Phil slips from the nursery and into the master’s own room he do go, and commences playing with the log fire. He hath a great fancy for pilin’ on the logs, same as he seeth Mr. Peter a-doing, and he’d lifted one too heavy an’ overbalanced hisself into the fire. He’d on a silk suit with ruffles, and it fired direct, and the whole body of him was blazing in a moment. The master’s gentleman, as was in the dressing-room a-putting away of the master’s clothes, he came running in and pulled Master Phil out from the heart o’ the fire! They’d a business tearing off his clothes! and now there he do lie in the master’s own bed a-screamin’ in agony.’
Carrie was deeply impressed; it was not her nature to weep easily over anything, but she approached the nursery fire and stood gazing at the cruel element that had worked such sad havoc on her poor little playmate.
Patty, with hysteric exclamations, pulled her back and declared she would never have an easy moment again—never. But a few moments later she found it necessary to flounce off to the kitchen, to repeat her tale there with many sappy additions.
Carrie, thus deserted, quietly drew her little chair close to the fire, and looked at the flames with a very serious face. She even extended one of her fat little fingers towards the bars experimentally, withdrawing it, however, with less caution, and a moment later she said ‘Poor Phil!’ with heart-felt compassion.
Patty ran in then, and shook her roughly. ‘What did I say, Miss Carrie?—never beyond the rug, and there you do sit close in to the very blaze! How, Miss Carrie, mind you obey me better, and partickerly in this, never to say one word of Master Phil to the master or the mistress. And if so be you do, well, of this I’m sure as I stand in my shoes: you’ll never play again with Master Phil so long as you live.’
Carrie did not in the least understand the reason of all this mystery about Phil; but she reiterated once more her promise of secrecy.
That night as she curtseyed to her parents at bedtime, she said suddenly—
‘Doth burning hurt, dada?’
Sebastian laughed. ‘Are you going to the stake, Carrie?’ he said.
‘No, not me,’ said Carrie, with some congratulation in her tones.
One day, some three weeks after this, Patty said mysteriously to Carrie that they were going out that afternoon to pay a visit. ‘We are to see Master Phil,’ she said, when they were in the street; and Carrie jumped for joy.
‘O Patty, I am so glad! Is he better? Where are we to see him?’ she cried.
‘In his bed, miss, but mind if ever you do say a word——’
Carrie was quite impatient.
‘You are most strange about Phil, Patty,’ she said; ‘I am sure he is nicer far to speak about than any one else I know.’
‘Oh, well, Miss Carrie, we’ll be going home then; we’ll say no more about the visit,’ said Patty, making a feint of turning back.
‘No, no, ’tis all right, I shall say nothing,’ said Carrie. On the steps of the great house, which Carrie knew quite well now, she saw the familiar figure of Mr. Peter, evidently waiting for them.
‘I’ll trouble you to enter by the back way,’ he said, as he greeted them, and with that he conducted his visitors to the kitchen regions. Everything here was bustle and hurry, for up-stairs dinner was being served. They met a French cook in a white paper cap dashing out of the kitchen with a saucepan in his hand, and ran against another man-servant, as tall as Mr. Peter, who carried a silver dish. Then, leaving these regions, they began to climb long, long stairs, and came out at last on to a polished oak corridor hung with pictures.
‘Lor’, Mr. Peter, this be terrible fine!’ said Patty, quite overawed. Mr. Peter sniffed, and affected great unconsciousness.
‘Walk quiet, if you please,’ he said, ‘and on the carpet, missie; these floors do mark very easy with boot-marks.’
He opened a door very cautiously, and looked into a large fire-lit room. It was very still.
‘ ’Ere’s a visitor for you, Master Phil,’ said Mr. Peter, stepping on tiptoe towards a huge canopied bed which occupied the side of the room and faced the fire. With a sign to Carrie to follow him, Mr. Peter drew back one of the satin curtains, and then, followed by Patty, tiptoed away again into the adjoining room. Carrie crept up to the side of the bed and peered into its tent-like depths. There lay Phil, propped up with pillows, white and thin, his shining restless eyes moving ceaselessly round him.
‘Well,’ said Carrie, after the unemotional manner of children.
‘Hullo!’ said Phil. He started up in bed, and then fell back against the pillows with a cry.
Carrie was tremendously impressed by all she saw around her:—the size and grandeur of the room, the satin hangings of the bed, embroidered all over with crests and coats of arms, the silk coverlet under which Phil reposed, the solemn quiet of the room, and the weird whiteness of her little companion’s face.
It was all indelibly stamped upon her memory in a moment, a scene never to be forgotten.
She laid her little hand on the stiff silk cover and found nothing to say.
‘Oh, I’m glad to see you, Carrie,’ said Phil then, who was never at a loss for words. He tossed his head restlessly about as he spoke. ‘They do not let me play, or anything, since I have been ill.’
‘Do you hurt much?’ asked Carrie, to whom pain was an unknown mystery and dignity.
‘Yes, my hands hurt most terribly; see, each finger is tied up by itself in a little bag—that is why I cannot play with anything.’
‘Shall I whistle to you?’ asked Carrie, struck by a sudden inspiration. ‘A friend of my father’s has taught me to whistle, and he says I do it to admiration.’ She jumped on to the edge of the bed, flung back her head, and whistled off a gay little roulade.
Phil laughed delightedly. ‘O do that again; you look like the poodles I saw in Paris. They threw back their heads and howled in a chorus,’ he cried.
‘Well, you pretend you are the other poodle,’ said Carrie; ‘I find it difficult whistling alone. Mr. Tillet, who teaches me, always whistles with me.’
‘Who’s Tillet?’ asked Phil.
‘He’s a soldier—a man my father knows.’
‘A soldier! oh, I suppose he will be a general—they are all generals,’ said Phil.
‘I think he is a bugler—is that the same?—something, I suppose; they all fight.’
‘Well, never mind; do it again, Carrie, ’tis such fun to see you.’
‘My mother does not like me to whistle,’ said Carrie, ‘but my father is ever teaching me new tunes, and Mr. Tillet, so I have to learn, but, if you please, I had rather look round the room, Phil; I want to look into that long mirror.’ So Carrie slipped down off the bed and walked (by irresistible feminine instinct drawn) towards the long French mirror, the like of which she had never seen before, and then she played for a few minutes with the Dresden china dishes on the dressing-table.
‘You take care with my father’s razors,’ warned Phil; ‘but they are not there—I forgot he wasn’t sleeping here. I have this room all to myself, and oh! it’s gloomy at night. You see that big wardrobe over there—well, I think all manner of things come out of it through the night. You see sometimes Peter sits with me, and sometimes nurse, but they both often go asleep, and then——’
Moved by this recital of nightly terrors, Carrie came back to the side of Phil’s bed and took another compassionate look at him.
‘I am so tired of lying here,’ he said crossly. ‘And you know, though my father makes a lot of me when I am well sometimes, he never comes near me now that I am ill—just when I would like him. My father is rather amusing sometimes, you know.’
‘What would he amuse you with?’ asked Carrie.
‘Oh, he teaches me a number of things. He can swear beautifully. I have learnt some of that, but when I used one of his expressions the other day they all laughed at me; ’twas rather hard, I thought. My father said: “Bravely tried, Phil, but you scarce apply it rightly yet,” and they all laughed again. I shall not learn for him again in a hurry.’
Carrie was very sympathetic, and Phil continued—
‘Then I play sometimes with him—we have shilling points; ’tis good fun that, Carrie, but my father says just now I am too cross to play with.’
‘Oh, let me play with you,’ Carrie cried, ‘I have learnt that too.’
Phil rolled over uneasily on his pillows. ‘Peter,’ he called, in a very lordly fashion,—‘Peter, bring a pack of cards.’
Peter obeyed with some reluctance. ‘See you ain’t a-hurtin’ of your hands, Master Phil,’ he said. ‘You let missie shuffle an’ deal, like a good young gen’l’man.’
‘Oh, you be damned, Peter!’ said Phil hastily, and Peter disappeared into the other room, drawing up his shoulders to his ears in a very expressive fashion.
‘Now, you sit on the end of the bed, Carrie, and we’ll have a jolly time,’ said Phil, his ill-temper as quickly gone as it had come.
Carrie scrambled up on to the stiff yellow satin coverlet, and dealt out the cards across it, while Phil obligingly flattened out his poor little burnt knees to form an even table.
They were deep in their game, when Patty came to take Carrie home. Phil’s cheeks were pink with excitement, and he called out to Peter to go away and let them play on. But Peter, with great unconcern, swept together the cards that lay on the quilt and lifted Carrie to the ground.
‘Peter, you are a beast; leave these cards, I tell you!’ cried Phil.
‘Sorry, Master Phil, ’tis too late,’ said Peter, extending his hand towards the cards that Phil still held; ‘missie must be goin’ now.’
Carrie stood on tiptoe to wave a better adieu to her playmate, but Phil did not notice her; he was gathering together all his sick little strength to avenge himself on the inexorable Peter.
‘There, you devilled flunkey!’ he screamed, pitching the cards into Peter’s face and falling back against the pillows with a sharp cry of pain.
Peter covered the child gently with the bed-clothes, gathered up the cards in silence, and signed to Patty and Carrie to follow him out of the room.
‘That’s some of the master’s speech he’s pickin’ up,’ he said, with a shake of the head; ‘he don’t swear very skilful, as you may see, Miss Patty—no fear but he’ll get at that yet,’ he added, with a half smile, half sigh.
Carrie, rather awed at this scene, took tight hold of Patty’s hand and did not speak till they were well out in the street again.
‘I do not think Phil is very happy,’ she said then.
‘Not he, Miss Carrie—not for all his grand house an’ altogether, for he’s a bad boy he is,’ responded the moral Patty.