"She have had a nasty attack of--what was it?--neuralgy, I think she called it, and been obliged to go to a doctor," answered Hester Reed.
"That"s why they gave her the holiday. She was very well while she was here."
I had stood at the door, talking to the little ones with their watering-pot. As the mater was taking her final word with Mrs. Reed, I went on to open the gate for her, when some woman whisked round the corner from Piefinch Lane, and in at the gate.
"Thank ye, sir," said she to me: as if I had been holding it open for her especial benefit.
It was Ann Dovey, the blacksmith"s wife down Piefinch Cut: a smart young woman, fond of fine gowns and caps. Mrs. Todhetley came away, and Ann Dovey went in. And this is what pa.s.sed at Reed"s--as it leaked out to the world afterwards.
The baby in the basket began to cry, and Ann Dovey lifted it out and took it on her lap. She understood all about children, having been the eldest of a numerous flock at home, and was no doubt all the fonder of them because she had none of her own. Mrs. Dovey was moreover a great gossip, liking to have as many fingers in her neighbours" pies as she could conveniently get in.
"And now what"s amiss with these two twins?" asked she in confidential tones, bending her face forward till it nearly touched Mrs. Reed"s, who had sat down opposite to her with the other baby. "Sarah Tanken, pa.s.sing our shop just now, telled me they warn"t the thing at all, so I thought I"d run round."
"Sarah Tanken looked in while I was a-washing up after dinner, and saw "em both," a.s.sented Mrs. Reed. "Hetty"s the worst of the two; more peeky like."
"Which _is_ Hetty?" demanded Ann Dovey; who, with all her neighbourly visits, had not learnt to distinguish the two apart.
"The one that you be a-nursing."
"Did the mistress of the Manor look at "em?"
"Yes; and she thinks I"d better give "em both some mild physic.
Leastways, I said a dose might bring "em round," added Hester Reed, correcting herself, "and she said it might."
"It"s the very thing for "em, Hester Reed," p.r.o.nounced Mrs. Dovey, decisively. "There"s nothing like a dose of physic for little ones; it often stops a bout of illness. You give it to the two; and don"t lose no time. Grey powder"s best."
"I"ve not got any grey powder by me," said Mrs. Reed. "It crossed my mind to try "em with one o" them pills I had from Abel Crew."
"What pills be they?"
"I had "em from him for myself the beginning o" the year, when I was getting the headache so much. They"re as mild as mild can be; but they did me good. The box is upstairs."
"How do you know they"d be the right pills to give to babies?" sensibly questioned Mrs. Dovey.
"Oh, they be right enough for that! When little Georgy was poorly two or three weeks back, I ran out to Abel Crew, chancing to see him go by the gate, and asked whether one of his pills would do the child harm. He said no, it would do him good."
"And did it get him round?"
"I never gave it. Georgy seemed to be so much pearter afore night came, that I thought I"d wait till the morrow. He"s a rare bad one to take physic, he is. You may cover a powder in treacle that thick, Ann Dovey, but the boy scents it out somehow, and can"t be got to touch it. His father always has to make him; I can"t. He got well that time without the pill."
"Well, I should try the pills on the little twins," advised Ann Dovey.
"I"m sure they want something o" the sort. Look at this one! lying like a lamb in my arms, staring up at me with its poor eyes, and never moving. You may always know when a child"s ill by its quietness. Nothing ailing "em, they worry the life out of you."
"Both of them were cross enough this morning," remarked Hester Reed, "and for that reason I know they be worse now. I"ll try the pill to-night."
Now, whether it was that Ann Dovey had any especial love for presiding at the ceremony of administering pills to children, or whether she only looked in again incidentally in pa.s.sing, certain it was that in the evening she was for the second time at George Reed"s cottage. Mrs. Reed had put the three elder ones to bed; or, as she expressed it, "got "em out o" the way;" and was undressing the twins by firelight, when Ann Dovey tripped into the kitchen. George Reed was at work in the front garden, digging; though it was getting almost too dark to see where he inserted the spade.
"Have ye give "em their physic yet?" was Mrs. Dovey"s salutation.
"No; but I"m a-going to," answered Hester Reed. "You be just come in time to hold "em for me, Ann Dovey, while I go upstairs for the box."
Ann Dovey received the pair of babies, and sat down in the low chair.
Taking the candle, Mrs. Reed ran up to the room where the elder children slept. The house was better furnished than cottages generally are, and the rooms were of a fairly good size. Opposite the bed stood a high deal press with a flat top to it, which Mrs. Reed made a shelf of, for keeping things that must be out of the children"s reach. Stepping on a chair, she put her hand out for the box of pills, which stood in its usual place near the corner, and went downstairs with it.
It was an ordinary pasteboard pill-box, containing a few pills--six or seven, perhaps. Mrs. Dovey, curious in all matters, lifted the lid and sniffed at the pills. Hester Reed was getting the moist sugar they were to be administered in.
"What did you have these here pills for?" questioned Ann Dovey, as Mrs.
Reed came back with the sugar. "They bain"t over big."
"For headache and pain in the side. I asked old Abel Crew if he could give me something for it, and he gave me these pills."
Mrs. Reed was moistening a teaspoonful of the sugar, as she spoke, with warm water. Taking out one of the pills she proceeded to crush it into small bits, and then mixed it with the sugar. It formed a sort of paste.
Dose the first.
"That ain"t moist enough, Hester Reed," p.r.o.nounced Mrs. Dovey, critically.
"No? I"ll put a drop more warm water."
The water was added, and one of the children was fed with the delectable compound--Hetty. Mrs. Dovey spoke again.
"Is it all for her? Won"t a whole pill be too much for one, d"ye think?"
"Not a bit. When I asked old Abel whether one pill would be too much for Georgy, he said, No--two wouldn"t hurt him. I tell ye, Ann Dovey, the pills be as mild as milk."
Hetty took in the whole dose by degrees. Susy had a similar one made ready, and swallowed it in her turn. Then the two babies were conveyed upstairs and put to bed side by side in their mother"s room.
Mrs. Dovey, the ceremony being over, took her departure. George Reed came in to his early supper, and soon afterwards he and his wife went up to bed. Men who have to be up at five in the morning must go to rest betimes. The fire and candle were put out, the doors locked, and the cottage was steeped in quietness at a time when in larger houses the evening was not much more than beginning.
How long she slept, Mrs. Reed could not tell. Whether it might be the first part of the night, early or late, or whether morning might be close upon the dawn, she knew not; but she was startled out of her sleep by the cries of the babies. Awful cries, they seemed, coming from children so young; and there could be no mistaking that each was in terrible agony.
"Why, it"s convulsions!" exclaimed George Reed, when he had lighted a candle. "Both of them, too!"
Going downstairs as he was, he hastily lighted the kitchen fire and put a kettle of water on. Then, dressing himself, he ran out for Mr.
Duffham. The doctor came in soon after George Reed had got back again.
Duffham was accustomed to scenes, and he entered on one now. Mrs. Reed, in a state of distress, had put the babies in blankets and brought them down to the kitchen fire; the three elder children, aroused by the cries, had come down too, and were standing about in their night-clothes, crying with fright. One of the babies was dead--Hetty.
She had just expired in her father"s arms. The other was dying.
"What on earth have you been giving to these children?" exclaimed Duffham, after taking a good look at the two.
"Oh, sir, what is it, please?" sobbed Mrs. Reed, in her terror.
"Convulsions?"
"Convulsions--no," said the doctor, in a fume. "It is something else, as I believe--poison."
At which she set up a shriek that might have been heard out of doors.
"Well, Hetty was dead, I say;" and Duffham could not do anything to save the other. It died whilst he stood there. Duffham repeated his conjecture as to poison; and Mrs. Reed, all topsy-turvy though she was, three-parts bereft of her senses, resented the implication almost angrily.