Featherston smiled cheerily. “I’ll try,” said he. “Some of my patients say the same when I am first called in to them; but they change their tone after I have brought back their roses. So will you; never fear. I’ll come in this afternoon and have a professional chat with you.”
That settled, they went on with Buttermead again; David Preen giving scraps and revelations of the Preen and Selby families; Featherston telling choice items of the rural public in general. Mrs. Fennel’s spirits went up to animation.
“Shall you be able to do anything for her, sir?” I asked the doctor as we came away and went through the entry to the Place Ronde.
“I cannot tell,” he answered gravely. “She has a look on her face that I do not like to see there.”
Betrayed into confidence, I suppose, by the presence of the old friend of her girlhood, Ann Fennel related everything to Mr. Featherston that afternoon, as they sat on the sofa side by side, her hand occasionally held soothingly in his own. He assured her plainly that what she was chiefly suffering from was a disorder of the nerves, and that she must state to him explicitly the circumstances which brought it on before he could decide how to treat her for it.
Nancy obeyed him. She yearned to get well, though a latent impression lay within her that she should not do so. She told him the particulars of Lavinia’s unexpected death just when on the point of leaving Sainteville; and she went on to declare, glancing over her shoulders with frightened eyes, that she (Lavinia) had several times since then appeared in the house.
“What did Lavinia die of?” inquired the doctor at this juncture.
“We could not tell,” answered Mrs. Fennel. “It puzzled us. At first Monsieur Dupuis thought it must be inflammation brought on by a chill; but Monsieur Podevin quite put that opinion aside, saying it was nothing of the sort. He is a younger and more energetic practitioner than Monsieur Dupuis.”
“Was it never suggested that she might, in one way or another, have taken something which poisoned her?”