that’s why Lady Lucy may call him worse; but it is in the nature of gout to be painful.”
“Lucy, tell me the truth. I ask you in your father’s name. I see that he is worse, and they are keeping it from me. How much worse?”
Lucy stood in distress, not knowing what to do; blaming herself for her incaution. The eyes of fear are quick, and Lady Oakburn saw her dilemma.
“Child,” she continued, her emotion rising, “you remember the day, three months ago, when your papa was thrown from his horse in the park, and they sent on here an obscure account of the accident, so that we could not tell whether he was much or little hurt, whether he was alive or dead? Do you recollect that hour?—the dreadful suspense?—how we prayed to know the worst, rather than to be kept in it?”
“Oh, mamma,” interrupted Lucy, placing her hand on her eyes, as if she would shut out some unwelcome sight, “do not talk of it. I never could bear to think of it, but that papa came home, after all, only a little bruised. That was suspense!”
“Lucy, dear child, you are keeping me in the same now,” spoke the countess. “I cannot bear it; I can bear the certain evil, but not the suspense. Now tell me the truth.”
Lucy thought she saw her way plain before her; anything was better than suspense, now that fear had been alarmed.
“I will tell you all I know, mamma. Papa is worse, but I do not think he is so much worse as to cause uneasiness. I have often known him in as much pain as this, before—before”—Lucy in her delicacy of feeling scarcely knew how to word the phrase—“before you came here.”
“Lucy, should your papa become worse, and danger supervene, you will let me know. Mind! I rely upon you. No”—for Lucy was drawing away her hand—“you cannot go until you have promised.”
“I do promise, mamma,” was Lucy’s honest answer. And Lady Oakburn heaved a relieved sigh.
Of course the nurse had now to plot and plan to counteract this promise, and she sought Miss Snow. For Miss Snow was in the house still, Lucy’s governess. Lord Oakburn had not allowed his wife to take the full charge of Lucy’s education, so Miss Snow was retained: but the countess superintended all.
“My Lady Lucy must not be let know that his lordship’s in danger, miss,” grumbled the nurse. “She comes tattling everything to my lady, and it won’t do. A pretty thing to have her worried!” she concluded, indignantly.
“Is the earl in danger?” quickly asked Miss Snow.
“He’s in awful pain, if that’s danger,” was the answer. “I’m not a sick nurse, miss; only a monthly: but if ever I saw gout in the stomach, he has got it.”
“Why that is certain death,” uttered Miss Snow, in an accent of alarm.
“Oh, no, it’s not; not always. The worst sign, they say, is that all my lord’s snappishness is gone out of him!”
“Who says so? Who says it is?”
“The attendants. That black fellow does nothing but stand behind the bed and cry and sob. He’d like his master to rave at him as is customary. But you’ll keep things dark from Lady Lucy, please. I’ll speak to the servants.”
Miss Snow nodded, and the nurse warned the rest of the house, and took her way back to Lady Oakburn’s chamber.
The day closed; the night drew on, and the earl’s state was an ominous one. Agonies of pain, awful pain, lasted him throughout it: and but for the well built walls and floors, Lady Oakburn must have heard the groans.
With the morning he was calmer, easier; nevertheless, three physicians went in to him. The two in regular attendance had sent for another.
“The ship’s sinking,” said the earl to them. “No more splicing of the timbers; they are rotten, and won’t bear it.”
The earl was right, and the doctors knew it; but they would not admit to him, in so many words, that he was dying. The earl, in his blunt way, blunt still, told them of their crafthood.
“It’s all in your day’s work to go about deceiving people,” cried he; “telling them they are getting their sea-legs on again, while all the while you know that before the next eight bells strike they’ll be gone down to Davy Jones’s locker. It may be the right sort of steering for some patients, delicate women and children, perhaps, but it’s not for me, and you are a long way out of your reckoning.”
The earl’s voice grew faint. They administered some drops in a glass, and wiped his brow.
“I am an old sailor, sirs,” he continued, “and I have turned into my hammock night after night for the best part of my life, knowing there was but a plank between me and eternity. D’ye think, then, I have not learnt to face death—that you should be afraid to acknowledge it to me, now it’s come? If I had not made up my accounts for my Maker before,