CHAPTER XXIX.
POOR MAGDA.
Nobody paid any attention to her on the morning following her visit to the library, except Celine, and Frank and Roger. The latter had sent her a bouquet which he arranged himself, while Frank, remembering that this was the day when she was to give him her answer, had asked if she would see him, and Celine, through whom the message was sent, had brought him word that “Miss Lennox was too sick to see any one.” Then Frank had begged his mother to go to her and ascertain if she were seriously ill, and that lady had said she would, but afterward found it convenient to be so busy with other matters, that nursing a sick girl who was nothing to her now except a person whom she must if possible remove from her son’s way, was out of the question. She did not care to see Magdalen just then, and she left her to the care of Celine, who carried her toast and tea about nine o’clock and urged her to eat it. But Magdalen was not hungry, and bade the girl leave her alone, as she wanted rest more than anything. At eleven Celine went to her again and found her sleeping heavily, with a flush on her cheeks, and her head occasionally moving uneasily on the pillow. Celine was not accustomed to sickness, and if her young mistress was sleeping she believed she was doing well, and stole softly from the room. At one she went again, finding Magdalen still asleep, but her whole face was crimson, and she was talking to herself and rolling her head from side to side, as if suffering great pain. Then Celine went for Mrs. Walter Scott, who, alarmed by the girl’s representations, went at once to Magdalen. She was awake now, but she did not recognize any one, and kept moaning and talking about her head, which she said was between two planks in the garret, where she could not get it out. Mrs. Walter Scott saw she was very sick, and though she did not pet or caress or kiss the feverish, restless girl, she did her best to soothe and quiet her, and sent Celine for the family physician, who came and went before either Roger or Frank knew that danger threatened Magdalen.
“Typhoid fever, aggravated by excitement and some sudden exposure to cold,” was the doctor’s verdict. “Typhoid in its most violent form, judging from present symptoms;” and then Mrs. Walter Scott, who affected a mortal terror of that kind of fever, declared her unwillingness to risk her life by staying in the sick-room, and sent for Hester Floyd.
The old woman’s animosity against Magdalen had cooled a little, and when she heard how sick she was she started for her at once.
“She nussed me through a fever, and I’d be a heathen to neglect her now, let her be ever so big a piece of trumpery,” she said to herself as she went along the passage to Magdalen’s room.
But when she reached it, and saw the moaning, tossing girl, and heard her sad complaints of her head wedged in between the boards, and her pleadings for some one to get it out, her old love for the child came surging back, and she bent over her lovingly, saying to her softly, “Poor Maggie, old Hester will get your head out, she will, she will—there—there—isn’t it a bit easier now?” and she rubbed and bathed the burning head, and gave the cooling drink, and administered the little globules in which she had no faith, giving eight instead of six and sometimes even ten. And still there was no change for the better in Magdalen, who talked of the will, which she was trying to burn, and then of Roger, but not a word of Frank, who was beside her now, his face pale with fear and anxiety as he saw the great change in Magdalen, and how fast her fever increased.
Roger was the last to hear of it, for he had been busy in the library ever since Lawyer Schofield’s departure, and did not know what was passing in the house until Hester went to him, and said:
“She thinks her head is jammed in between them boards in the garret floor, and nobody but you can pry it out. I guess you had better see her. Mr. Frank is there, of course, as he or’ to be after what I seen in the hall yesterday.”
“What did you see?” Roger asked, and Hester replied: