“What comfort can it be? I’ve not been the smallest use all this time. When he was ill, I left him to Ernescliffe, and lay on the floor like an ass; and if he were to ask me to touch his arm, I should be as bad again. A fine thing for me to have talked all that arrogant stuff about Richard! I hate the thought of it; and, as if to make arrows and barbs of it, here’s Richard making as much of this as if it was a double first class! He afraid to be compared with me, indeed!”
“Norman, indeed, this is going too far. We can’t be as useful as the elder ones; and when you know how papa was vexed about Richard, you must be glad to have pleased him.”
“If I were he, it would only make me miss her more. I believe he only makes much of me that he may not disappoint me.”
“I don’t think so. He is really glad, and the more because she would have been so pleased. He said it would have been a happy day for her, and there was more of the glad look than the sorry one. It was the glistening look that comes when he is watching baby, or hearing Margaret say pretty things to her. You see it is the first bright morning we have had.”
“Yes,” said Norman; “perhaps it was, but I don’t know. I thought half of it was din.”
“Oh, Norman!”
“And another thing, Ethel, I don’t feel as if I had fairly earned it. Forder or Cheviot ought to have had it. They are both more really good scholars than I am, and have always been above me. There was nothing I really knew better, except those historical questions that no one reckoned on; and not living at home with their sisters and books, they had no such chance, and it is very hard on them, and I don’t like it.”
“Well, but you really and truly beat them in everything.”
“Ay, by chance. There were lots of places in construing, where I should have broken down if I had happened to be set on in them; it was only a wonder I did not in that chorus, for I had only looked at it twice; but Everard asked me nothing but what I knew; and now and then I get into a funny state, when nothing is too hard for me, and that was how it was yesterday evening. Generally, I feel as dull as a post,” said Norman, yawning and stretching; “I could not make a nonsense hexameter this minute, if I was to die for it.”
“A sort of Berserkar fury!” said Ethel, “like that night you did the coral-worm verses. It’s very odd. Are you sure you are well, dear Norman?”
To which he answered, with displeasure, that he was as well as possible, ordered her not to go and make any more fuss, and left her hastily. She was unhappy, and far from satisfied; she had never known his temper so much affected, and was much puzzled; but she was too much afraid of vexing him, to impart her perplexity even to Margaret. However, the next day, Sunday, as she was reading to Margaret after church, her father came in, and the first thing he said was, “I want to know what you think of Norman.”
“How do you mean?” said Margaret; “in health or spirits?”
“Both,” said Dr. May. “Poor boy! he has never held up his head since October, and, at his age, that is hardly natural. He goes moping about, has lost flesh and appetite, and looks altogether out of order, shooting up like a Maypole too.”
“Mind and body,” said Margaret, while Ethel gazed intently at her father, wondering whether she ought to speak, for Margaret did not know half what she did; nothing about the bad nights, nor what he called the “funny state.”
“Yes, both. I fancied it was only his rapid growth, and the excitement of this examination, and that it would go off, but I think there’s more amiss. He was lounging about doing nothing, when the girls were gone to school after dinner, and I asked him to walk down with me to the Almshouses. He did not seem very willing, but he went, and presently, as I had hold of his arm, I felt him shivering, and saw him turn as pale as a sheet. As soon as I noticed it, he flushed crimson, and would not hear of turning back, stoutly protesting he was quite well, but I saw his hand was quivering even when I got into church. Why, Ethel, you have turned as red as he did.”
“Then he has done it!” exclaimed Ethel, in a smothered voice.
“What do you mean? Speak, Ethel.”
“He has gone past it—the place,” whispered she.
The doctor made a sound of sorrowful assent, as if much struck; then said, “you don’t mean he has never been there since?”
“Yes,” said Ethel, “he has always gone round Randall’s alley or the garden; he has said nothing, but has contrived to avoid it.”
“Well,” said Dr. May, after a pause, “I hoped none of us knew the exact spot.”
“We don’t; he never told us, but he was there.”
“Was he?” exclaimed her father; “I had no notion of that. How came he there?”
“He went on with Mr. Ernescliffe, and saw it all,” said Ethel, as her father drew out her words, apparently with his eye; “and then came up to my room so faint that he was obliged to lie on the floor ever so long.”
“Faint—how long did it last?” said her father, examining her without apparent emotion, as if it had been an indifferent patient.
“I don’t know, things seemed so long that evening. Till after dark at least, and it came on in the morning—no, the Monday. I believe it was your arm—for talking of going to see you always brought it on, till Mr. Ward gave him a dose of brandy-and-water, and that stopped it.”
“I wish I had known this before. Derangement of the nervous system, no doubt—a susceptible boy like that—I wonder what sort of nights he has been having.”
“Terrible ones,” said Ethel; “I don’t think he ever sleeps quietly till morning; he has dreams, and he groans and talks in his sleep; Harry can tell you all that.”
“Bless me!” cried Dr. May, in some anger; “what have you all been thinking about to keep this to yourselves all this time?”
“He could not bear to have it mentioned,” said Ethel timidly; “and I didn’t know that it signified so much; does it?”
“It signifies so much, that I had rather have given a thousand pounds than have let him go on all this time, to be overworked at school, and wound up to that examination!”
“Oh, dear! I am sorry!” said Ethel, in great dismay. “If you had but been at home when Cheviot wanted Harry to have sent for you—because he did not think him fit for it!” And Ethel was much relieved by pouring out all she knew, though her alarm was by no means lessened by the effect it produced on her father, especially when he heard of the “funny state.”
“A fine state of things,” he said; “I wonder it has not brought on a tremendous illness by this time. A boy of that sensitive temperament meeting with such a shock—never looked after—the quietest and most knocked down of all, and therefore the most neglected—his whole system disordered—and then driven to school to be harassed and overworked; if we had wanted to occasion brain fever we could not have gone a better way to set about it. I should not wonder if health and nerves were damaged for life!”
“Oh! papa, papa!” cried Ethel, in extreme distress, “what shall I do! I wish I had told you, but—”
“I’m not blaming you, Ethel, you knew no better, but it has been grievous neglect. It is plain enough there is no one to see after you,” said the doctor, with a low groan.
“We may be taking it in time,” said Margaret’s soft voice—“it is very well it has gone on no longer.”
“Three months is long enough,” said Dr. May.
“I suppose,” continued Margaret, “it will