His mother, to soothe him, told him the circumstances of her coming to him.
“As soon as I had that dear St. Arnaud’s letter, Madame Ziska and Count Kalenga got the money for my journey, and they insisted I should not start alone, and would have me take Freda, who is worth ten grown women for helpfulness. The Empress Queen herself sent me a message, saying you were at Zittau; and Prince Kaunitz gave me a letter enabling me to get post-horses anywhere on the road. So here we are, to stay until you can be moved to Vienna.”
The pain was no better for many days, but it was incomparably easier for Gavin to bear, with his mother’s tender ministrations and Freda’s untiring help, who was ever at hand to do, with the greatest intelligence, whatever was to be done. With all of Gavin’s youth and strength, it was yet six weeks before he could be moved to Vienna by easy stages. It was not an unhappy six weeks. The Austrians were in high spirits, and that was of great advantage in the convalescence of all the wounded. Gavin received early assurances of promotion and a good command as soon as the spring campaign opened. He, however, was not a conspicuously good patient, but rather the other way. He not only required to be nursed, but to be entertained, and in this last particular his mother’s natural gifts and accomplishments were invaluable. In return for all that she could do, however, Gavin would occasionally long for St. Arnaud’s charming society, and was far from polite in expressing his wishes. When he grew intolerable his mother would quietly withdraw, and let him get over his fit of ill humour as best he could. Little Freda, on the contrary, would be more tender and attentive the less he deserved it, and rewarded, rather than punished, his spells of diabolism.
When Gavin was able to sit up, he found diversion in keeping up the English lessons with Freda that Lady Hamilton had begun. The first sign of his return to his old self was one day when she discovered that he was teaching the innocent Freda the most outlandish pronunciation of English words, and laughing uproariously at her.
“I should think a young gentleman who calls his own name Ameeltone would try to mend his own pronunciation instead of imposing on Freda, who can say Hamilton quite well,” was Lady Hamilton’s comment.
In December, after a slow journey, Gavin found himself in his old quarters again, to the delight of his mother and his good friends. He was not yet able to attend the Empress Queen’s levee, but an aide-de-camp of the Emperor’s had come to make formal inquiry concerning him and to bring a kind message from the sovereigns.
In December was Gavin’s twenty-first birthday, and to his great delight he found that St. Arnaud, then in winter quarters at Olmutz, would come to Vienna for a short visit about that time. On the winter afternoon that St. Arnaud arrived Gavin threw aside his crutches. It was his twenty-first birthday.
Madame Ziska had arranged a little feast for them, and Lady Hamilton, who had taken the utmost interest in it, had gone out with Freda to attend to some of the preparations. St. Arnaud arrived at five o’clock, and a few minutes after Freda returned alone, with a letter. She ran upstairs, and with a pale, scared face handed it to Gavin. It ran thus:
“I have this moment heard that your father is ill with smallpox and deserted by all his servants. I am going to him. I forbid you to come to the house, from the danger of infection not only to yourself, but to the family of our friends. You may, however, come to-morrow morning and every morning at nine o’clock to the corner of the street, and if all goes well I will be at the middle window in the second story with a white handkerchief in my hand. If I should never see you again, be always a good man, and do not cease to love your devoted mother. M. Hamilton.”
Gavin, weakened by his illness, fell back in his chair, faint and overcome. St. Arnaud had to do the questioning of little Freda, who, though much frightened, could yet give a very intelligent account of what had happened.