“He might ha’ got better, if he’d had things to make him better! Wine and meat, and all the rest of it. He hadn’t got ’em; and he’s dead.”
Now a subscription had been entered into for the relief of the poor sufferers from the fever, Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin having been amongst its most liberal contributors; and to Thomas Godolphin’s certain knowledge, a full share, and a very good share, had been handed to the Bonds. Quite sufficient to furnish proper nourishment for John Bond for some time to come. He did not say to the woman, “You have had enough: where has it gone to? it has been wasted in riot.” That it had been wasted in riot and improvidence, there was no doubt, for it was in the nature of the Bonds so to waste it; but to cast reproach in the hour of affliction was not the religion of everyday life practised by Thomas Godolphin.
“Yes, they turned me back,” she resumed, swaying herself nose and knees together, as before. “They wouldn’t give me as much as a bit o’ bread. I wasn’t going home without taking something to my famished children; and I wasn’t going to beg like a common tramp. So I just sat myself down here; and I shan’t care if I’m found stark and stiff in the morning!”
“Get up, get up,” said Thomas Godolphin. “I will give you something for bread for your children to-night.”
In the midst of his own sorrow he could feel for her, improvident old sinner though she was, and though he knew her to be so. He coaxed and soothed, and finally prevailed upon her to rise, but she was in a reckless, sullen mood, and it took him a little effort before it was effected. She burst into tears when she thanked him, and turned off in the direction of the Pollard cottages.
The reflection of Mr. Snow’s bald head was conspicuous on the surgery blind: he was standing between the window and the lamp. Thomas Godolphin observed it as he passed. He turned to the surgery door, which was at the side of the house, opened it, and saw that Mr. Snow was alone.
The surgeon turned his head at the interruption, put down a glass jar which he held, and grasped his visitor’s hand in silence.
“Snow! why did you not write for me?”
Mr. Snow brought down his hand on a pair of tiny scales, causing them to jangle and rattle. He had been bottling up his anger against Lady Sarah for some days now, and this was his first explosion.
“Because I understood that she had done so. I was present when that poor child asked her to do it. I found her on the floor in Sarah Anne’s chamber. On the floor, if you’ll believe me! Lying there, because she could not hold her aching head up. My lady had dragged her out of bed in the morning, ill as she was, and forced her to attend as usual upon Sarah Anne. I got it all out of Elizabeth. ‘Mamma,’ she said, when I pronounced it to be fever, though she was almost beyond speaking then, ‘you will write to Thomas Godolphin.’ I never supposed but that my lady did it. Your sister, Miss Godolphin, inquired if you had been written for, and I told her yes.”