Mrs. Vincy sprang to the window and opened it in an instant, thinking
only of Fred and not of medical etiquette. Lydgate was only two yards
off on the other side of some iron palisading, and turned round at the
sudden sound of the sash, before she called to him. In two minutes he
was in the room, and Rosamond went out, after waiting just long enough
to show a pretty anxiety conflicting with her sense of what was
becoming.
Lydgate had to hear a narrative in which Mrs. Vincy's mind insisted
with remarkable instinct on every point of minor importance, especially
on what Mr. Wrench had said and had not said about coming again. That
there might be an awkward affair with Wrench, Lydgate saw at once; but
the case was serious enough to make him dismiss that consideration: he
was convinced that Fred was in the pink-skinned stage of typhoid fever,
and that he had taken just the wrong medicines. He must go to bed
immediately, must have a regular nurse, and various appliances and
precautions must be used, about which Lydgate was particular. Poor
Mrs. Vincy's terror at these indications of danger found vent in such
words as came most easily. She thought it "very ill usage on the part
of Mr. Wrench, who had attended their house so many years in preference
to Mr. Peacock, though Mr. Peacock was equally a friend. Why Mr.
Wrench should neglect her children more than others, she could not for
the life of her understand. He had not neglected Mrs. Larcher's when
they had the measles, nor indeed would Mrs. Vincy have wished that he
should. And if anything should happen--"
Here poor Mrs. Vincy's spirit quite broke down, and her Niobe throat
and good-humored face were sadly convulsed. This was in the hall out
of Fred's hearing, but Rosamond had opened the drawing-room door, and
now came forward anxiously. Lydgate apologized for Mr. Wrench, said
that the symptoms yesterday might have been disguising, and that this
form of fever was very equivocal in its beginnings: he would go
immediately to the druggist's and have a prescription made up in order
to lose no time, but he would write to Mr. Wrench and tell him what had
been done.
"But you must come again--you must go on attending Fred. I can't have
my boy left to anybody who may come or not. I bear nobody ill-will,
thank God, and Mr. Wrench saved me in the pleurisy, but he'd better
have let me die--if--if--"
"I will meet Mr. Wrench here, then, shall I?" said Lydgate, really
believing that Wrench was not well prepared to deal wisely with a case
of this kind.