The Story Book Girls Part 45

Mrs. Leighton looked for instructions to the nurse.

"She'd better know now, Mrs. Leighton," she said, "now that she begins to ask for ham sandwiches."

"You've had typhoid fever, Elma," said her mother.

Elma sighed gently.

"Dear me," she said, "how grand. But you don't know how hungry I am or you would give me a ham sandwich. You ought to be rather glad that I'm so much better that I want to eat."

Then an expression of great cunning came into her eyes.

"I ought to be fed up if I've had a fever," she informed them.

"We shall get the doctor to see to that," said the nurse.

She came to her and held her hand firmly.

"Do you know," she said, "you have been very ill and you are ever so much better, but nothing you've gone through will worry you so much as what you've got to do now. You've got to be starved for ten days, when you are longing to eat. You will lie dreaming of food--and----"

"Ham sandwiches?" asked Elma.

"And we shall not be allowed to give them to you," said Nurse.

"Isn't she nice, mummy, she's quite sorry. And people say that nurses are hard-hearted," said Elma.

"I've had typhoid myself," said Nurse briefly.

Elma looked at her, her own eyelids heavy with sleep still to be made up.

"Well, barring the sandwich, what about lemon cheese cakes," she asked.

Mrs. Leighton let her hands fall.

"Oh, Elma," she said, "what a thing to choose at this stage."

"Or sausages," remarked Elma. "I'm simply longing for sausages."

She endeavoured to throw an appealing look towards Nurse.

"This isn't humour on my part, mummy dear," she said. "I just can't help it. I can't get sausages out of my mind," she said.

"If you would think of a little steamed fish or a soaked rusk, you'd be a little nearer it," said Nurse, "you'll have that in ten days."

Elma looked at her in a determined way.

"I've always been told that a simple lunch, a very simple lunch might be made out of a ham sandwich. Why should it be denied to me now?"

"Elma," said Mrs. Leighton, "I never knew you were so obstinate."

"You know, mummy," said Elma, "I'm not dreaming now. I'm wide awake, and I'm awfully hungry. I'm sorry I ever thought of sausages, because ham sandwiches were just about as much as I could bear. Now I've both to think of, and Nurse won't bring me either."

"Don't mind her, Mrs. Leighton," said the nurse. "It's always the same, and, without nurses, generally a relapse to follow. You aren't going to have a relapse," she said to Elma.

She gave her some milk in a methodical manner, and the down-dropping of Elma's eyelids continued till she fell asleep once more.

So she had slept since the fever had begun to go down. Probably she had had the best of the intervening weeks.

There was the slow stupor of a fever gaining ground. It began with the headache of the Turberville's dance, a headache which never lifted until Elma returned to her own again, weak and prostrate in bed. The stupor gradually cut her off from common affairs. It sent her to bed first because she could no longer stand up, and it crowded back her ideas and her memory till at last she was in the full swing of a delirium. What this illness cost Mr. and Mrs. Leighton in anxiety, probably no one knew. Elma had always covered up her claims to sympathy and petting, always been moderately well. Here she was with blazing cheeks and wandering eyes talking largely and at random about anything or every one.

Mr. Leighton used to sit by her and stroke her hair. Long years afterwards, she was to feel the touch of his fingers, hear the tones of his voice as he said, "Poor little Elma."

She faded gradually into the delirium which seemed to have cut her illness in two, the one illness where she lay with dry mouth and an everlasting headache, the other where she was merely hungry.

Mrs. Leighton was appalled by the worrying of Elma's mind. She went through some of her wild dreams with her, calling her back at places by the mere sound of her voice to a kind of sub-consciousness in which Elma grew infinitely relieved.

"Oh, is that you, mummy? Have I really been dreaming?"

She dreamt of Mabel and she dreamt of Adelaide Maud. But more than any one, she dreamt of Mr. Symington. Here is where the deceptiveness of a fever comes in. Elma pleaded so piteously with her mother to bring back Mr. Symington that Mrs. Leighton awoke to an entirely new and wrong idea of the state of Elma's affections.

"It's quite ridiculous, John," said she, "but that child, she was only a child, seems to have filled her head with notions of Mr. Symington."

"What! More of it?" asked poor Mr. Leighton.

"She begs and begs to have him back," said Mrs. Leighton.

"I've never made out why he left as he did," said Mr. Leighton. "There was always the idea with me that he cleared out for a reason. But this small child, why, she hadn't her hair up."

"She will soon be eighteen," said Mrs. Leighton.

He went into her room a little later. Elma lay with unseeing eyes staring at him. He could hardly bear it.

"Elma," he said vaguely, trying to recall her.

"Oh," she answered promptly, but still staring, "is that you, Sym--Sym--Symington!"

Her father choked down what he could of the lump that gathered, and moved quietly away.

These were dark days for every one. Elma had the best of it. She left the Symington groove after a day or so, and worked on to Isobel. Isobel invaded her mind. It was a blessing that Isobel was barred by real distaste to the business from going in to help with the nursing of Elma.

What she said of her pointed to more than a mere dislike. It revolved into fear as the delirium progressed. Then a second nurse arrived, and between them the two began really to decrease the temperature. The first good news came, "Asleep for ten minutes," and after that there was no backward turn in the illness for Elma.

Throughout this time there had been the keenest inquiries made as to what had caused the illness. Cuthbert was down and "made things hum" in the matter of wakening up the sanitary authorities and so on. But no flaw in the arrangement of the White House or anything near it could be discovered. Then Dr. Merryweather called one day.

"I have another patient in Miss Annie," he said.

Miss Annie! This gave a clue.

"Typhoid at her age is unusual," he said, "but she has not developed the power of resisting disease like ordinary people. She has been in a good condition for harbouring every germ that happened to be about. I'm afraid we cannot save her." He turned to Mrs. Leighton. His kind old face twitched suddenly.

"Oh, dear, dear," she exclaimed. "What will Miss Grace do? What will little Elma do?"