CHAPTER XVII

Tarrant had got scarlet-fever, and very badly too.

He was removed to the fever hospital on Friday, and by Sunday morning it looked as though things would go hardly with Tarrant. There were complications, and the boy seemed to have no power, either mental or physical, to resist the disease.

So ill was he that the Principal went to see him after morning chapel. Tarrant was quite conscious, and made whispered, suitable answers to Dr. Wentworth's kind and serious remarks.

"Keep your heart up," said the Principal just before he left; "remember that we are all thinking about you and praying that you may get well."

"Did they pray for me in chapel?" Tarrant asked.

On being assured that this was so, the boy turned his face to the wall, feeling that all was over for him. Like a good many older folk who ought to know better, Tarrant thought that to be prayed for in public proved that the case was indeed desperate.

He had been prayed for in chapel!

Only people who were very ill, who were going to die, were ever prayed for in chapel. Chaps had told him so.

There was a chap died in the Easter term, and he'd been prayed for in chapel for a fortnight.

Tarrant was too weak to be much upset. It was a footling thing to do, to die in one's first term, but it couldn't be helped. Rotten luck though! Old Bruiser would be awfully cut up. Fellows had told him how cut up old Nick was when that chap died in his house, and Bruiser was a jolly sight decenter than old Nick.

What ought a chap to think about when he was dying? Religion and that, he supposed. He tried to remember a hymn, but the only hymns that really appealed to Tarrant were those with "ff." against several of the verses, when the Coll. all sang at the tops of their voices and nearly lifted the roof off the chapel. And somehow he didn't feel very jubilant just then.

Again he tried to think of something soothing and suitable, but the only thing he could remember was a bit of a French exercise--"The nature of Frederick William was harsh and bad." And this he found himself saying over and over again.

The kind nurse bent down to hear what he was muttering, but all she could catch was "harsh and bad," and she wondered if he had been bullied in B. House.

From the nature of Frederick William, Tarrant's wandering thoughts turned to Germs.

What a stew old Germs would be in!

She was kind though; he remembered that with dreamy gratitude. She hated chaps to be ill, and did her level best to make them comfortable. All the house said that. But my aunt! she was afraid of infection, and fever was awfully infectious. Now Dr. Wentworth wasn't afraid, and he had kids. Bruiser wasn't afraid either; but you wouldn't expect Bruiser to be afraid of things. He had a comfortable big hand, had Bruiser. Tarrant wasn't capable of wishing for much, but he rather wished Bruiser could have stayed. He felt less like floating away into space when Bruiser held him.

What was it Bruiser had said?

"You must buck up, you know. Think of your father and mother in India, how worried they'll be."

Poor mater, it would be a bad knock for her. The pater, too, he'd been at the good old Coll.--his name was up in the big Modern.

Tarrant supposed the chaps would subscribe for a wreath. They did for that other chap. Briggs minor told him. He wondered what sort of a wreath it would be; he hoped it would be nice and large.

What was that hymn they had in chapel last Sunday evening? Ah, he had thought of a hymn at last--

    "Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go;
    Thy word into our minds instil,
    And make our luke-warm hearts to glow
    With lowly love and fervent will...."

He wished his heart would have glowed, but somehow it refused to do anything of the kind.

It had a nice cheerful tune, that hymn, especially the last two lines--

    "Through life's long day and death's dark night,
    O gentle Jesus, be our light."

Would it be very dark? he wondered. Perhaps for him, seeing his life had been so short, the gentle Jesus of the hymn might see to it that it was not so dark as to be frightening...

*      *      *      *      *

When Tony Bevan got back from the hospital that afternoon Miss Foster was waiting for him in the hall. She wore a long travelling-cloak and a most imposing hat, and she appeared very much upset. Tony's sad, worn face did nothing to reassure her.

"He is just slipping away," he said sadly, as he followed her into the drawing-room. "There seems no real reason why he should die, but he seems to have no stamina, and they give very little hope. Everything has been done. The nurses are most devoted, the doctors have tried everything. The next few hours will decide it."

"You will have to manage without me for a day or two," Miss Foster said abruptly; "I'm going to that boy. It's just providential that Miss Clonmell is out of the house. I've put on a cotton dress, which can be burnt before I leave the hospital, so can everything I wear in his room, but I'm going. My cab will be here directly. I could never forgive myself or rest easy another hour if I don't go and see after that boy myself. I have no faith in trained nurses, nor much in doctors for the matter of that. I believe they carry about all sort of horrid microbes in their clothes. They never change or disinfect or anything. I've no doubt Tarrant rubbed up against some doctor when he was watching football and caught it from him. I wish all those doctors were forbidden the field; that I do."

Miss Foster spoke very crossly, but there was something underlying her irascible manner suspiciously like tears, and Tony held out his hand to her, saying in an almost inaudible mumble:

"It's very good of you. It's particularly hard for us--the little chap's first term, and his people so far away. It will be an inexpressible comfort to me to think that some kind woman----"

Tony's voice gave out, and he turned away just as Ford came in to announce that Miss Foster's cab was at the door.

Tarrant dozed and dreamed and then came back to realities with a start; and the queer light feeling of being suspended in space became so acute that he plucked at the sheet to assure himself that there was a bed and that he was lying in it.

A very firm hand closed over his; a smooth hand and soft, but yet with a purposeful quality about it that seemed to send a little intangible current of some kind through his arm right to his very brain, so that he was seized by a quite definite curiosity as to the personality belonging to the hand.

Lazily he opened his tired eyes and looked along the sheet at the hand covering his own.

It was white, with particularly well-tended nails: surely, too, the rings were familiar. He was certain he had seen those rings before, and had noticed them in the sub-conscious way one does observe such things.

It seemed far too great an effort to raise his eyes so that he could take in the entire figure that sat beside his bed, so he contented himself with looking along the sleeve that belonged to the hand--a grey linen sleeve, and the nurses wore pale blue. Who could this be? With a mighty effort Tarrant lifted his eyes and at the same moment gasped out "Germs!"

It was a very faint little gasp, and Miss Foster, being unaware of her nickname among the boys, thought he said something about "terms," and concluded that he was worrying about his work, which was indeed the very last thing that Tarrant was ever concerned about.

She was about to take her hand away, when the hot little hand within it clutched at it feverishly.

"It's all right, my dear boy, I'm not going away," she said gently.

Tarrant opened his eyes wider. If Germs was here he certainly couldn't have fever, couldn't be infectious. No one was so afraid of infection as old Germs--it was a mania with her. Could the doctors and everybody have been mistaken? Perhaps he had only a common throat after all. But it was nasty to feel so queer and light. Yes; Germs was still holding his hand. Back again came that beastly old sentence about the nature of Frederick William; he was in French form, and the master said sharply, "Next word, Tarrant," and he awoke with a start, staring with large frightened eyes at Miss Foster, who said:

"Can you hear me, dear boy?"

He made a little inarticulate sound.

"You must rouse yourself," said Miss Foster. "You mustn't give in. You keep a firm hold of me, and never mind French exercises or anything else. You've been dreaming about a French lesson. Now I forbid you to dream about anything of the kind. You're to dream about being strong and well, if you dream at all. But you'd much better just sleep and get rested."

Miss Foster spoke with immense decision, and sat there looking so portly, and solid, and rational that Tarrant began to wonder if he had dreamt of the Principal's visit.

"Was I prayed for in chapel?" he whispered.

"Of course you were," Miss Foster answered briskly; "that's why you are going to get well. Don't you think about yourself at all, leave that to us."

"Haven't I got fever?" Tarrant persisted in his faint husky whisper.

"Of course you have. But that's no reason to give in. Lots of boys have had scarlet fever and are running about now, not a jot the worse for it. But I'm not going to allow you to talk."

"But why," gasped Tarrant, "are you here?"

"Because I choose," Miss Foster replied; "and that's every single question I'm going to answer. Be quiet, like a good boy, and think--if you think at all, but you'd really better not--what you'd like to do when you're allowed to sit up."

"Aren't you afraid you'll catch it?" he insisted.

"Good gracious, no! What does the boy take me for? I'm terrified of infection for the HOUSE--but not for myself. Dear, dear, to think you could imagine that! Now, not another word."

There was a sturdy conclusiveness about Miss Foster that was very reassuring. It was impossible to reflect upon wreaths and funeral services in College chapel while she sat there looking so robust, and capable, and determined. It is probable that no one else could have had quite the same effect upon Tarrant.

It really seemed as though the grip of her firm, capable hand literally held his frail little barque of life to the shore, in spite of the strong backward tide that was drawing it out to sea.

He submitted to this new view of his case. He was too weak to argue with any one. If Germs said he was going to get well he supposed he must be. Besides, he couldn't be so awfully infectious, else she wouldn't be there.

*      *      *      *      *

At midnight Miss Foster called Tony up on the telephone.

"We think he is going to pull through," was the message. "He needed cheering up, so it's just as well I came."