XIII
IT was midnight and storming hard when Dr. Cheyney stopped at Caleb’s door. Trench heard the wheels and opened it as the old man climbed down from his high buggy.
“Caleb, I’ve come for brandy; got any?� the doctor said briefly, coming in with his head bent in the rain; his rubber coat was drawn up to his ears, and the tails of it flapped against his thin legs.
Trench had been reading late, and there was a fire in the stove in the kitchen. “Go in and get dry a moment, Doctor,� he said, “while I get brandy. It’s no night for you, and at this hour too; your friends must remonstrate.�
“Damn it, sir, am I not the doctor?� said the old man, lowering.
“You’re that and something more, I take it,� Caleb replied, smiling.
“More?� Dr. Cheyney was out of temper. “Nay, nay, I’m just a plain doctor, and I can take care of both your big toes. These new-fangled ones can’t, sir, that’s all! It’s the fashion now to have a doctor for your nose and another for your toes and a third for your stomach. Very good, let ’em! I do it all and don’t get paid for it; that’s the difference.�
“They do,� said Caleb, producing a flask of brandy.
The doctor took it and thrust it deep into his big outside pocket. “I’ll pay you when I get ready,� he said dryly.
Trench laughed. He heard the swirl of the rain against the window-panes; it was nearly as bad as the day he had sheltered Diana. He looked keenly at the worn little old man and saw the streams of water that had streaked his coat. “I have a great mind to shut you up and keep you all night,� he remarked.
“For a ransom?� said the doctor grimly; “you wouldn’t get it. Caleb, that poor girl, Jean Bartlett, is dying.�
Trench was startled. “I didn’t know she was ill,� he replied; “Zeb came here and whined for money when the grandmother died so suddenly, but he said nothing of Jean.�
“He never does,� said Dr. Cheyney, “the young brute!�
“Are you going there now?� Caleb asked.
“Yep,� replied the doctor briefly; “I wanted more brandy, for I’m like to catch my death, but I must be about,—she’s dying. She may pull through until morning. Pneumonia—a cold that last bad storm. She lay out in the field half the night. She’s done it a hundred times when they harried her; this time it’s killed her. She’s not twenty.�
Caleb reached for his hat. “I’m going with you,� he said simply.
Dr. Cheyney threw him one of his shrewd looks. “Afraid to trust me alone in the wet?� he asked dryly.
Caleb smiled. “To tell you the truth I was thinking of Sammy. The poor little dirty beggar appeals to me, he’s thoroughly boy, in spite of his curious clothes, and Zeb is a drunken brute.�
The doctor grunted and went out, making room for Caleb at his side in the buggy. “I’m going to send Sammy to St. Vincent’s,� he said.
“Poor Sammy!� said Caleb.
The doctor clucked, and old Henk moved off, splashing through muddy water up to his fetlocks. The road was dark, and the doctor had swung a lantern between the back-wheels, a custom dear to rural communities; it swung there, casting a dismal flare under the buggy, which looked like a huge lightning-bug, with fire at its tail.
“Good enough for him!� continued the doctor bluntly, referring to Sammy and the foundling asylum.
“Plenty,� assented Caleb, unmoved.
This angered the doctor, as Caleb knew it would.
“Little brat!� growled William Cheyney fiercely, “what was he born for? Foundling asylum, of course!�
“Of course,� agreed Caleb, and smiled in the darkness.
“Damn!� said the doctor.
They traveled on through the night; the windswept the boughs down, and the rain drove in their faces even under the hood.
“I can’t take him, drat it!� the old man broke out again fiercely. “I’ve boarded for sixty years; women are varmints, good women, I mean, and the Colfaxes wouldn’t take Sammy for a day to save his soul; he’s a child of shame.�
Caleb laughed silently; he felt the doctor’s towering wrath. “After all, wouldn’t it be a purgatory for a small boy to live with the Colfaxes?� he asked.
“Yep,� said the doctor, “it would. Miss Maria pins papers over the cracks in the parlor blinds to keep the carpet from fading, and Miss Lucinda dusts my office twice a day, for which she ought to be hung! I reckon they’d make divided skirts for Sammy and a frilled nightgown.�
“There are the Children’s Guardians in the city,� suggested Caleb thoughtfully.
“There’s the Reform School,� retorted the doctor bitingly.
Meanwhile old Henk traveled on, gaining in speed, for part of the road was on his way home and he coveted the flesh-pots of Egypt. The splashing of his feet in the mire kept time with the sob of the gale. Nearer and nearer drew the light in Jean Bartlett’s window.
“I told the Royalls she was dying,� Dr. Cheyney said, “and to-day Diana was there. She sat with her an hour and tried to quiet her. Jean was raving and, at last, I ordered the girl away; she’d no businessworrying in such a scene as that; then she told me she would take Sammy! She—Diana!� the old man flung out his free hand and beat the air, “that girl! I wanted to shake her. Yet, it’s like her; she’s got heart.�
Caleb Trench, sitting back in his corner, summoned up a picture of the old man and Diana, and could not quite reconcile it with the Diana he knew. “You did not shake her,� he said; “what did you do?�
“Sent her home,� said the doctor bluntly, “drat it! Do you think a girl of her age ought to start a foundling asylum for charity’s sake? I told her her father would have her ears boxed, and she laughed in my face. David Royall worships her, but, Lordy, not even David would tolerate that!�
A low bough scraped the top of the carriage and they jogged on. Presently, old Henk stopped unwillingly and they got down, a little wet and stiff, and went silently into the house. It was stricken silent, too, except for the ticking of a clock in the kitchen, and that sounded to Caleb like a minute gun; it seemed to tick all through the house,—the three small rooms below, the rickety stairs and the attic above. There was a light in the kitchen, and there, on top of some old quilts in a packing box, lay Sammy asleep.
In the room beyond the kitchen, in the middle of the great, old-fashioned four-poster, that was worn and scratched and without a valance, lay Jean Bartlett. Her fair hair streamed across the pillow, herthin arms lay extended on either side, her chin was up, she lay as if on a cross, and she was dead.
From the far corner rose the woman whom the doctor had left to watch her. “She’s just gone, doctor,� she said laconically, without emotion.
Dr. Cheyney shot a look at her from under his eyebrows, and went over to look at Jean. The light from the poor little lamp fell full on her thin small-featured face and showed it calm; she was as pretty as a child and quite happy looking.
“Thank God!� said the doctor, “that’s over. Where’s Zeb?�
“Up-stairs, drunk,� said the woman; “if it warn’t raining so hard I’d go.�
The doctor looked over his spectacles. “Then you’ll take the child along,� he said gravely.
“That I won’t!� said she, “I’ve children of my own. I won’t have none such as him.�
“Oh, you won’t?� exclaimed the old man.
“I thought you’d take him,� said she, reddening.
“There are two women folks up at the house,� said the doctor dryly; “being a nameless child—out he goes!�
“Well, I don’t care,� said the nurse fiercely, “I feel so myself; there’s the foundling asylum.�
“He’ll fall on the stove here in the morning,� remarked the doctor.
The woman shut her mouth.
“Zeb’s drunk,� the old man added.
“I won’t take him,� she said flatly; “if I do, nobody’lltake him away. It’s the same with a baby as it is with a stray kitten, once you take it you keep it. I ain’t goin’ to take Jean Bartlett’s brat.�
“Don’t!� snapped the doctor, “for of such is the kingdom of heaven!�
Then he went out, turning his collar up again to his ears. “I’m going for the undertaker, Caleb.�
They stopped as he spoke and looked down at Jean’s boy. He lay with his arm across his face; he had not been undressed and one foot hung pendent in a forlorn and heelless shoe.
“The end of the drama,� commented the doctor dryly, “the sufferer.�
Caleb stooped down and gently lifted the sleeping child; he wrapped the old quilt about him, and bore him to the door. The doctor followed, then he reached over and put his hand on the latch.
“What are you doing?� he asked sharply.
“I’ve taken him,� said Trench calmly; “open the door.�
“You’ve no one to care for him.� Dr. Cheyney eyed him keenly.
“No,� he replied; “so much the better, the place is lonely.�
“You know what they’ll say?�
The young man’s face stiffened. “What?�
“That he’s your child,� said the doctor.
“Open the door,� said Caleb Trench.
The doctor opened it, then Trench stood straight, Sammy’s tousled head on his shoulder.
“Dr. Cheyney,� he said sternly, “if every stone in Paradise Ridge rose up to accuse me, I’d still do as I pleased.�
William Cheyney smiled grimly. “I believe you would,� he said, “but let me tell you, Caleb, you’ve got your fate by the forelock now!�
Yet he helped Trench put the sleeping child into the carriage, and as they did it a new sound gurgled into the night, the voice of the tippler in the attic, who had been shut up there alone and frightened, but was sipping and sipping to keep up his spirits. Now he sang, one kind of spirits rising as the other kind went down. And the song that followed them through the night, as they drove away from the house of death, with the nameless child between them, was “After the Ball.�
“The Lord forgive us!� said the doctor musingly; “it’s ‘after the ball’ with most of us, and then the straight house! G’long with you, Henk!�