She ran to the door, but before she had more than opened it her mother had overtaken her.
“Let me pass,” she whispered, in a hoarse, breathless voice—“let me go first, Mary. I know what it is. It is the study bell. Mary, your father—”
They rushed across the hall and down the study passage together. Which first reached the door Mary never knew. But between them it was thrown open and—ah, yes!—Mrs Western’s instinct was correct; the blow that for so long had threatened them had fallen at last—the Rector lay unconscious on the floor, and at the first glance Mary thought her mother was right when in agony she wailed out—“He is dead! Oh, Mary, he is dead!”
But he was not dead. They did what in their ignorance they could, poor things! and then, a quarter of an hour or so after the first alarm, Mary came rushing into the school-room, where the frightened children were all collected together.
“George, where is George?” she said. “He must go, or find some one to go, for the doctor. Simmons is out—it is always the way. But where is George? Can none of you tell me?”
“Oh, Mary, I am so sorry,” said poor Alexa. “I am afraid George has gone to bed. Have you forgotten about his sore knee? I don’t think he could go for the doctor. Couldn’t Josey and I go? Oh, dear! what shall we do?”
Mary for an instant wrung her hands in perplexity. It all came back to her memory about George’s having hurt his knee by a fall from a tree the day before, hurt it badly too. What was to be done? The nearest possibility of a man and horse was a mile off, and even then only a possibility, hardly worth wasting precious time on the chance of. Simmons, their own factotum, was out for the evening—what was to be done? Mary’s quick mind glanced it all over and decided.
“Get my cloak and hat, quick, Josey—any of you,” she said. “I know what I’ll do. I’ll run myself to the Edge and get Wills to go. He has a good horse, and has often had to bring Dr Brandreth when Al—Miss Cheviott was there. Yes, that will be best, better than running a mile the other way on the mere chance of Giles Swanwick being able to go.”
She was off before any one could stop her. But indeed it was the best thing to do. It was terrible to have to leave her mother alone with the silent, already in a strange sense, unfamiliar figure that Mary found it hard to believe could be “papa,” but what might not delay or a bungled message result in? She only glanced in again to impress upon Martha, a fairly intelligent woman of her class, on no account to leave her mistress alone; if anything were wanted to call to Miss Alexa, or Miss Josephine, who would remain within ear-shot.
At the front door Mary was stopped by Alexa, trembling and pale with repressed anxiety, yet, Mary was glad to see, crying but little.