“Yes, I’ll keep away from her,” Hugh muttered, and the doctor said, “All right, my boy, I trust you. We will see what your mother says to sending you to Blankshire.”
And Mrs. Chichester said “Yes.” Perhaps those little snatches of fireside talk, for which big bearded sons on the other side of the world grow homesick, had made her understand her boy with that absolute understanding sympathy which only mothers have the power to give.
“Yes, you must go, my Hugh,” she said, “for you will be able to help those poor people, and I know that you will be my unselfish son, as you have always been, and make it easy for Sydney.”
“I will, mother,” Hugh said, and so packed his things and offered his services to Dr. Lorry.
The old doctor met him at Dacreshaw Station; he was looking older and his cheery utterances came out with an effort.
“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Chichester, extremely glad; for I can’t deny that this fever is a very serious one, and the condition of the cottages is so much against the poor people’s chances of recovery. Still, I have no doubt, no, none at all, that, with your able assistance, we shall soon see a marked improvement.”
“They haven’t got it at the Castle, have they?” Hugh asked anxiously as he climbed up into the high dog-cart by the old doctor’s side, and was driven rapidly along the muddy country roads towards Lislehurst.
“No! no!” Dr. Lorry said, “and I see no real reason why they should. Lady Frederica is extremely anxious to carry off Miss Lisle to town, but I have endeavoured to dissuade her. Miss Lisle has been so much about among the cottages of late, that I am anxious—not about her, oh dear no! but anxious, I repeat, to have her under my own eye for a day or two longer. And it is not as though she ran any risk in remaining, as I have assured Lord St. Quentin. These low fevers cannot well be called infectious.” He relapsed into silence,—an unusual state with him—which lasted till they reached Lislehurst, and his own gate. They got down and a man took the cob’s head. “Now we are at my house, my dear—er, Chichester,” he said, rousing himself, “and perhaps, when you have lunched, you would not mind coming round with me to see the little boy at the Vicarage, who is, I fear, in a rather critical condition.” Hugh started. “Little Paul ill! I will come at once, if you don’t mind, sir.”
“You will come at once? Well, if you are not fatigued, I own it would be a relief. His condition is decidedly critical, and your science is a good deal fresher than mine. Not that I take at all a hopeless view of his case, far from it!” the old doctor said, blowing his nose rather fiercely; “but he’s his father’s only child, sir, and—motherless.”