“I can’t think why John should be so feverish,” Lady Whitney would remark. His hands would be hot, and his cheeks scarlet, and he did not eat. Featherstone failed to alter the state of things; so one day Sir John took him into Worcester to Mr. Carden.
Mr. Carden did not seem to think much of it—as we heard over at Dyke Manor. There was nothing wrong with the lungs or any other vital part. He changed the medicine that Featherstone had been giving, and said he saw no present reason why John should not go back to school. Sir John, standing by in his old spectacles, listening and looking, caught up the words “at present” and asked Mr. Carden whether he had any particular meaning in saying it. But Mr. Carden would not say. Sending his pleasant blue eyes straight into Sir John’s, he assured him that he did not anticipate mischief, or see reason to fear it. He thought, he hoped, that, once John was back with his studies and his companions, he would recover tone and be as well as ever.
And Mr. Carden’s physic did good; for when Whitney came back after the holidays, he seemed himself again. Lady Whitney gave five hundred directions to Mrs. Frost about the extras he was to eat and drink, Hall being had in to assist at the conference. The rest of us rather wished for fevers ourselves, if they entailed beaten-up eggs and wine and jelly between meals. He did his lessons; and he came out in the playground, though he did not often join in play, especially rough play: and he went for walks with us or stayed in as inclination led him, for he was allowed liberty in all things. By Easter he had grown thinner and weaker: and yet there was no specific disease. Mr. Carden came over to Whitney Hall and brought Dr. Hastings, and they could not discover any: but they said he was not strong and wanted care. It was left to John to decide whether he would go back to school after Easter, or not: and he said he should like to go. And so the weeks went on again.
We could not see any change at all in him. It was too gradual, I suppose. He seemed very quiet, strangely thoughtful always, as though he were inwardly puzzling over some knotty question hard to solve. Any quarrel or fight would put him out beyond belief: he’d come up with his gentle voice, and stretch out his hands to part the disputants, and did not rest until he had made peace. Wolfe Barrington, with one of his sneers, said Whitney’s nerves were out of joint. Once or twice we saw him reading a pocket-Bible. It’s quite true. And there was something in his calm face and in his blue-grey eyes that hushed those who would have ridiculed.
“I say, Whitney, have you heard?” I asked. “The Doctor means to have the playground enlarged for next half. Part of the field is to be taken in.”
“Does he?” returned Whitney. It was the twenty-ninth of May, and a half-holiday. The rest had gone in for Hare-and-Hounds. I stayed with Whitney, because he’d be dull alone. We were leaning over the playground gate.
“Blair let it out this morning at mathematics. By the way, Whitney, you did not come in to them.”
“I did not feel quite up to mathematics to-day, Johnny.”
“I am glad it’s going to be done, though. Are not you?”
“It won’t make much difference to me, I expect. I shall not be here.”