“When you’re not ill yourself, you’ll always take some one else’s illness on your shoulders,” grumbled the doctor. “I’ve never seen such a fellow! Where is she?”
“In my room.”
“And what’s happened?”
As best he could, Eric described Ivy’s sudden collapse. The doctor raised his eyebrows once and grunted to himself:
“Right. Then you can go out for a nice long walk. I shan’t have you in the room and I don’t want you fussing about outside. Come back after lunch, and I’ll give you a new set of orders then. It’s possible that we shan’t be able to move her for some time.”
“But is she bad? You haven’t seen her yet!,” Eric cried inconsequently.
“I can make a guess what the trouble may be. Now clear out, my son, and don’t pull a long face. It’s a thing that may happen to any one—any one who’s fool enough to be a woman, that is. I don’t propose to let her die, if I can help it, so you needn’t summon the relations. The less said to them—and to every one—the better for your young friend.”
He entered the bedroom, leaving Eric mystified and fidgetting with anxiety in the hall. There was a kindly, gruff, “Well, my dear?” and an inarticulate answer from Ivy. Eric hovered on tip-toe outside the door, waiting to be handed prescriptions or sent for brandy. He looked into the spare room to see whether the bed was yet made. “Miss Maitland’s a little faint,” he explained easily enough to the servants. Then he started and turned away, for across the hall and through an open and a closed door came an unmistakable moan. It was not repeated, and he lurked uneasily in the hall, trying to distinguish the mutter of voices. Then he went to his cellar and opened a bottle of brandy. Gaisford was a fool to keep him out of the room; he could not possibly know where anything was kept... Eric hurried into the library and wrote—“In the cupboard under my wash-hand-stand you’ll find sal volatile, eau-de-cologne and aspirin. Also bicarbonate of soda and bismuth. I’ve got brandy here. Let me know if there’s anything else you want.” He twisted the paper into a thin spill, pushed it under the door and knocked gently.
Half-an-hour later Dr. Gaisford came into the library with the paper crumpled in his hand and a smile puckering his eyes and mouth.
“I thought I said something about a nice walk,” he grunted.