“I trust not, mother, but I really think Jack is ill, and I am afraid it is more than a headache that ails him.”
“What do you know about illness, child?”
“Well, mother dear, go up yourself and see.” My mother went softly out of the room. Her light footsteps ascended the creaking stairs. I heard her open Jack’s bedroom door and shut it behind her. In about five minutes she had rejoined me in the drawing-room.
“Rose, will you put on your hat, and go round to Mr Ray, and ask him to call at once.”
My mother now spoke as if the idea of fetching the doctor had originated with herself.
“Jack is very ill, Rose,” she said, looking at me, pathetically.
“Yes, mother, I fear he is. Now, listen to me, please; if you are going to nurse him, you are not to be tired in any way; you are to have no anxieties down-stairs. When I go out, mother, I am going to fetch in Jane Fleming as well as Mr Ray.”
Jane Fleming was a very capable woman who lived in the village; she could take the part of housekeeper, nurse, cook, dressmaker, as occasion offered. She was quiet and taciturn, and kept herself, as the neighbours said, “to herself.” I felt that Jane would be a safe person to listen to Jack’s wanderings, and that my mother might safely sleep while Jane watched by the sick man’s side.
Accordingly I said, “I will fetch in Jane Fleming,” and I turned a deaf ear when my mother murmured the word expense.
“If the worst comes I will sell the ruby ring,” I thought to myself, “but I won’t sell it unless all other resources fail me.”