lamp. His coming in aroused her, and she stood up, curtseying after her peculiar fashion.
“You don’t remember me, sir.”
“Why, bless my heart!—if I don’t think it’s mother Pepperfly!” he exclaimed, after a minute’s doubtful stare. “What have you been doing with yourself? You have grown into two.”
“Growed into six, Mr. Stephen, if I’m to be reckoned by breadth. Hope you are well, sir, and your good lady!”
“All well. And now, what do you want with me? To recommend you to a mill that grinds people slender again?”
Mrs. Pepperfly shook her head dolefully, intimating that no such mill could have any effect upon her, and proceeded to explain her business. Which she persisted in doing at full length, in spite of the lateness of the hour and Sir Stephen’s fatigue.
It appeared—rather to Mrs. Pepperfly’s own discomfiture—that Mrs. Smith was not able to invite her to a bed, owing to the only spare one being occupied by the servant maid; but she was treated to a refreshing tea and profuse supper, and enjoyed her evening very much; the Widow Gould’s presence adding to the general sociability. The widow loft early; she kept good hours; but Mrs. Pepperfly was in no hurry to depart. She really did make herself useful in attending to the child, and sat by him for some time after he was carried up-stairs to his room. She offered to stop with him for the night, but Mrs. Smith entirely declined: it had not come yet to sitting up nights with him.
In the course of the evening, the news which had been spreading through South Wennock reached Tupper’s cottage. Mr. Carlton’s boy, who had carried up some medicine, imparted it. The great London doctor, Sir Stephen Grey, had come down by telegraph to Lady Lucy, and was now paying visits to the sick throughout the town. Mrs. Smith seized upon the news, as a parched traveller seizes upon water. She loved the child passionately, hard and cold as were her outward manners; and it seemed that this whispered a faint hope for his life. Not that she had reason to be dissatisfied with Mr. Carlton; she acknowledged that gentleman’s skill, and was sure he did his best; but the very name of a great physician brings some magic with it. She asked Mrs. Pepperfly to find out where Sir Stephen was staying, as she went home, and to call and beg him to step up in the morning, and to be sure and say he would be paid his fee, whatever amount it might be, lest he might think it was but a poor cottage, and decline the visit. Upon this last clause in the message, the nurse laid great stress when telling it to Sir Stephen.
But not one word did she say, or hint impart, that this Mrs. Smith was the same person who had played a part in the drama which had driven Stephen Grey from his former home. Mrs. Pepperfly was a shrewd woman; she did not want for common sense; and she judged that that past reminiscence could not be pleasant to Sir Stephen; at any rate she would not be the one to recall it to him. She simply spoke of Mrs. Smith as a “party” who had settled lately at South Wennock, and reiterated the prayer for Sir Stephen to go up.
“But I have no time,” cried Sir Stephen. “What’s the matter with the boy? The fever?”
“Bless you, no, sir,” replied Mrs. Pepperfly. “He haven’t got enough of fever in him, poor little wan object! He’s going off as fast as he can go in a decline and a white swelling in his knee.”
“Then I can do no good.”
“Don’t say that, Mr. Stephen, sir. If you only knowed the good a doctor does, just in looking at ’em, you wouldn’t say it. But in course you do know it, sir, just as well as me. He mayn’t save their lives by an hour, and mostly don’t in them hopeless cases; but think of the comfort it brings to the cowed-down mind, sir! If you could step up for a minute in the morning, sir, she’d be everlasting grateful.”
Telling her he must leave it until the morning to decide, though he gave a sort of promise to find the time if possible, Sir Stephen dismissed Mrs. Pepperfly. He had a good laugh afterwards with his brother John at her size. “What about the old failing?” he asked.
“Well, it’s not quite cured,” was the reply, “but it’s certainly no worse. She keeps within bounds.”
With the morning, Sir Stephen was up and out early. Many were still calling for him. Indeed everybody in the town would fain have had a visit from him, could they have invented the least shadow of an excuse. His first care was Lucy Chesney, who was decidedly better: skin cool, intellects collected; in short, Lucy was out of danger.
“And now for this cottage of Tupper’s, if I must go up,” he exclaimed to his son, who had walked with him to Mr. Carlton’s but had not entered. “I declare it is unreasonable of people! What good can I do to a dying boy?”
One thing must be mentioned. That Frederick Grey had not the remotest idea there was any suspicion, anything singular, attaching to this woman and child. That suspicion was