blood on his hand. He went to the sink to wash it away, although he felt it was not right to do so when he had so much death on him already. On the window-sill he saw the sun streaming purple through a bottle of carbolic. He held the hand with the smear of blood upon it in the purple ray, and then he took the bottle and uncorked it, and the fierce, clean smell came out.
The baker knelt on the stone floor and whispered, “Please God, forgive me; but let me suffer for ever and ever.” Then he emptied as much of the contents of the bottle as he could before he fell choking to the ground, consumed by burning pains more terrible than any that had been suffered in that village.
During the afternoon Ives went to Grandmother Willoweed, who was sunning herself in a basket chair on the top path.
“Baker’s dead, ma’m,” he shouted down her trumpet, “and Mrs. Fig’s got the madness or else it’s the D.T.’s, and the little old peacock’s dead too; we haven’t got one now. But my ducks is alright,” and he turned away towards the river to make sure this was still so.
- CHAPTER XIV -
D ENNIS CRIED that he was hot, and then said cold waves were coming over him, and Emma sat by his bed and almost cried too. Late in the afternoon she asked her grandmother to send for the doctor; but the old lady said she was sure he was being tiresome. She did consent to take his temperature and clumped off to her bedroom to find the thermometer, an object seldom used in Willoweed House. It was eventually discovered in a shoe box with Dennis’s birth certificate and a receipt for calves’ feet jelly. The grandmother was not quite sure how it worked and shook it about franticly for about five minutes before putting it in Dennis’s mouth. He asked, “Will it hurt dreadfully?” and, when at last it was in his mouth, was surprised that nothing happened except that it tasted of dust. After about ten minutes it was taken out with great ceremony; but then there was the difficulty of reading it. “There is a mark for normal somewhere, but I can’t see it. If the boy’s really ill the quicksilver shows above that!” They both peered at the thermometer and at last Emma discovered the silver line ended at 96.8, well below normal, and they were both reassured; he really must be in very good health to have a temperature as low as that.
“I think you are just pretending,” Grandmother Willoweed said rather crossly as she swept from the room, holding the thermometer before her like a wand and looking very like the bad fairy in a pantomime. Dennis felt he was in disgrace for feigning illness, and as he lay shivering in bed said, “All the same, Emma, if being extra well feels like this, it isn’t very pleasant. I’d rather be ill any day.”
In the scullery Norah was preparing the vegetables for the evening meal, and Eunice sat huddled up on a three-legged stool by the copper.
“Do you know what day it is, Norah?” she asked in a depressed voice.
“I can’t say I do,” her sister replied as she cut an overlarge new potato in half.
“Well, it’s the 22 nd of June, and there is a great Coronation going on all over England except here, where we are so downhearted. King George will be wearing his crown today and the flags will be waving in the wind and people drinking out of their Coronation mugs. Don’t you remember we were going to drive in the village in decorated carts?”
“I can’t remember anyone asking me to go in a decorated cart; but they may have wanted you because you’re so pretty. But fancy forgetting all about it. Fig was telling me that some people from the village were going all the way to Evesham to celebrate and they were going into the gardens there to make merry under a great arch which is really the jaw bone of a whale. Oh, I would have liked to have gone; but Fig’s mother is ill now and things are so sad.”
“Yes, that’s true,” her sister replied dolefully, “and you can’t think how my stomach
The baker knelt on the stone floor and whispered, “Please God, forgive me; but let me suffer for ever and ever.” Then he emptied as much of the contents of the bottle as he could before he fell choking to the ground, consumed by burning pains more terrible than any that had been suffered in that village.
During the afternoon Ives went to Grandmother Willoweed, who was sunning herself in a basket chair on the top path.
“Baker’s dead, ma’m,” he shouted down her trumpet, “and Mrs. Fig’s got the madness or else it’s the D.T.’s, and the little old peacock’s dead too; we haven’t got one now. But my ducks is alright,” and he turned away towards the river to make sure this was still so.
- CHAPTER XIV -
D ENNIS CRIED that he was hot, and then said cold waves were coming over him, and Emma sat by his bed and almost cried too. Late in the afternoon she asked her grandmother to send for the doctor; but the old lady said she was sure he was being tiresome. She did consent to take his temperature and clumped off to her bedroom to find the thermometer, an object seldom used in Willoweed House. It was eventually discovered in a shoe box with Dennis’s birth certificate and a receipt for calves’ feet jelly. The grandmother was not quite sure how it worked and shook it about franticly for about five minutes before putting it in Dennis’s mouth. He asked, “Will it hurt dreadfully?” and, when at last it was in his mouth, was surprised that nothing happened except that it tasted of dust. After about ten minutes it was taken out with great ceremony; but then there was the difficulty of reading it. “There is a mark for normal somewhere, but I can’t see it. If the boy’s really ill the quicksilver shows above that!” They both peered at the thermometer and at last Emma discovered the silver line ended at 96.8, well below normal, and they were both reassured; he really must be in very good health to have a temperature as low as that.
“I think you are just pretending,” Grandmother Willoweed said rather crossly as she swept from the room, holding the thermometer before her like a wand and looking very like the bad fairy in a pantomime. Dennis felt he was in disgrace for feigning illness, and as he lay shivering in bed said, “All the same, Emma, if being extra well feels like this, it isn’t very pleasant. I’d rather be ill any day.”
In the scullery Norah was preparing the vegetables for the evening meal, and Eunice sat huddled up on a three-legged stool by the copper.
“Do you know what day it is, Norah?” she asked in a depressed voice.
“I can’t say I do,” her sister replied as she cut an overlarge new potato in half.
“Well, it’s the 22 nd of June, and there is a great Coronation going on all over England except here, where we are so downhearted. King George will be wearing his crown today and the flags will be waving in the wind and people drinking out of their Coronation mugs. Don’t you remember we were going to drive in the village in decorated carts?”
“I can’t remember anyone asking me to go in a decorated cart; but they may have wanted you because you’re so pretty. But fancy forgetting all about it. Fig was telling me that some people from the village were going all the way to Evesham to celebrate and they were going into the gardens there to make merry under a great arch which is really the jaw bone of a whale. Oh, I would have liked to have gone; but Fig’s mother is ill now and things are so sad.”
“Yes, that’s true,” her sister replied dolefully, “and you can’t think how my stomach