Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns Page A

hurts now I’m having a baby.”
    When Emma went to bed that night she could see fireworks in the distance, and she watched them for a few moments until she remembered the dreadful burning of Old Toby’s cottage. She hurried to bed, and was just drifting into sleep when she heard Dennis calling her. She stumbled out into the darkness, ran to his room and found him crying that he couldn’t sleep and that his insides were on fire. She tried to soothe him before she went down to the deserted kitchens and warmed him milk over an oil stove; but it was almost cold before she could get him to drink it. All through the night the little boy tossed and turned and cried about the burning pains inside him. And then the sheets became dirty, and Emma had to change them and hide the dirty ones so that her grandmother would not be angry. When at last it was dawn and the birds began to sing, they hoped the terrible night was over; but it was hardly four o’clock and there were several more frightful hours to be lived through.
    At last Emma heard one of the maids wrestling with the kitchen range, and she went down to find a grey-faced Norah wearing a coat over her flannel nightgown.
    “Excuse me being like this, Miss, but I’m so worried about my sister. She’s been ill all night with burning pains and no sleep at all. Oh, it’s been so dreadful to watch her suffering so, and there is little I can do to ease her. It is the bread poisoning, I know it is!”
    “Norah, that is just how Dennis has been. I’ve been with him all the night; but he’s no better. Do come and look at him and tell me what you think.”
    The two girls went to Dennis’s room and examined the little boy, who certainly looked extremely ill in the bright morning light. His face was grey, and he was bathed in perspiration and seemed hardly conscious; and, although his eyes were open, they did not appear to focus properly. Norah was shocked at the change in the child and said the doctor should be sent for immediately.
    “But Norah, I’m sure my grandmother will be angry if I call in the doctor without her permission; and if I wake her up she will be even more angry. I’m so tired, I can’t bear one of her scenes. Do you think Father would come and look at Dennis? And then he might send for the doctor or even go for him himself. Norah, do go and tell him how ill Dennis is. He will believe it more serious if it comes from you.”
    So Norah called Ebin Willoweed, and after a considerable amount of grumbling he consented to come and look at his son. When he did he could hardly believe that wan little figure was Dennis. Even as he watched the boy suddenly doubled up in the bed and cried in a weak, small voice that he was burning, and in his pain he tried to sit up, but fell back fainting.
    “Good God!” his father cried, “Dennis are you alright, Dennis?” and he caught one clammy little arm and almost shook him. As soon as he showed a sign of consciousness, Ebin dressed and rushed from the house to fetch Doctor Hatt. On the way there he kept remembering the many times he had been impatient and, worse still, so bullying with Dennis. He always regretted it later and would determine to be kinder to the boy; but it never lasted. He remembered with shame how he used to lose his temper when he was teaching him to swim and how he had banged his hands with a paddle when he tried to hold on to the boat. He could almost see the hands now, small and shaking and blue with cold, clutching the varnished wood of the boat. “I expect the boy almost hates me,” he thought dejectedly, as he rang the brass bell with “Day” engraved on it.
    Doctor Hatt came to Willoweed House unshaven and hollow-eyed. He pronounced Dennis and Eunice both to be suffering from ergot poisoning; but with Dennis the attack was more severe. He suggested that a nurse should be sent for immediately; and, before night came again, a Nurse Fenwick with a black moustache was installed and the whole house