“Little Jimmie has a crib, white iron and brass,” Hill struck in, quite carried away by poetic possibilities. “We’ll have to have something for our young one to sleep in. And toys, you know. I could write my sister for some of little Jimmie’s—”
“Hill,” broke in Fitzhugh, “cut it out. You’re losing your mind. Thought you wanted to be businesslike. This infant isn’t going to live in luxury. It’s going to live, we hope, but that’s all. Leave your sister’s kid lay.”
Duncan, tactful as always, put in his word. “Anyway, there’s no use settling things till we hear from Mrs. St. Winifred. First, we’ll mail Georgy’s letter. Then, if they’ll let us have the kid, we’ll call in Wipes and plan our campaign with that breadth of foresight which has before led our banners to victory.”
Five days later saw Fitzhugh a widowed sojourner in his room, with silence across the hall where Hill’s and Carruthers’s steps were wont to echo. Scarlet fever had broken out in the academy, and the three, Jack Duncan, Carruthers, and Hill, were among the first to be sent to the infirmary. The cases were light, but the disease broke up the gay partnership, and Fitzhugh was low-spirited.
As he came into his room there were letters on his table. He took them up half-heartedly and slipped them through his hands. Two bills, a letter from his mother and—he glanced at the printed words in the corner of the other envelope. “St. Winifred’s Orphan Asylum.” His blood ran cold. In the worry of his friends’ illness he had entirely forgotten that letter of Georgy Carruthers’s, mailed the morning after the council of war. He held the long envelope by two fingers, and stared at it as if afraid to open it. Then he took courage, cut the flap, and drew out a page or more of handwriting. This is what he read:
“Misses Letitia and Mary Bellingham.
“Dear Madams: Your letter of the seventh was received and we are happy to look forward to placing one of our little ones in your care. We wrote to the chaplain, as suggested, and the response was gratifying. Therefore, as we are satisfied with the home offered, we shall not wait to hear further from you, but send by four o’clock train on Friday, in charge of an attendant, little Marcus.”
The paper dropped from the boy’s hand as if a bullet had struck it, and his lips moved in wordless anathema. He sat for a moment stunned by the blow, then picked up the letter and read on.
“We send him, as advised, to your nephew, Cadet Theodore Fitzhugh.”