"What shall I do? Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?"
He pressed the glass in Miss Vesta's hand. "There! there! a teaspoonful at once, please; but you will be better than medicine. Tell Miss Blyth—tell her I want very much to speak to her, please! Ask if she could come up here now, this moment, just for two or three minutes. And you'll go down yourself, won't you, Miss Vesta—dear Miss Vesta?"
He was so absorbed in listening he did not hear the creaking of Miss Phoebe's morocco shoes on the stairs; and when she appeared before him, flushed and slightly out of breath, he stared at the good lady as if he had never seen her before.
"You wished to see me, Doctor Strong?" Miss Phoebe began. She was half pleased, half ruffled, at being summoned in this imperious way.
"Yes—oh, yes," answered Geoffrey, vaguely. "Come in, please, Miss Blyth. Won't you sit down—no, I wouldn't sit near the window, it's damp to-day (it was not in the least damp). Sit here, in my chair. Did you know there was a secret pocket in this chair? Very curious thing!"
"I was aware of it," said Miss Phoebe, with dignity. "Was that what you wished to say to me, Doctor Strong?"
"No—oh, no (thank Heaven, she has stopped! that angel is with her). I—I am ashamed to trouble you, Miss Blyth, but you said you would be so very good as to look over my shirts some day, and see if they are worth putting on new collars and cuffs. It's really an imposition; any time will do, if you are busy now. I only thought, hearing your voice—"
"There is no time like the present," said Miss Phoebe, in her most gracious tone. "It will be a pleasure, I assure you, Doctor Strong, to look over any portions of your wardrobe, and give you such advice as I can. I always made my honoured father's shirts after my dear mother's death, so I am, perhaps, not wholly unfitted for this congenial task. Ah, machine-made!"
"Beg pardon!" said Geoffrey, who had been listening to something else.
"These shirts were made with the aid of the sewing-machine, I perceive," said Miss Phoebe. "No—oh, no, it is nothing unusual. Very few persons, I believe, make shirts entirely by hand in these days. I always set the same number of stitches in my father's shirts, five thousand and sixty. He always said that no machine larger than a cambric needle should touch his linen."
"Then—you don't think they are worth new collars?" said Geoffrey, abstractedly.
"Did I convey that impression?" said Miss Phoebe, with mild surprise. "I had no such intention, Doctor Strong. I think that a skilful person, with some knowledge of needlework, could make these garments (though machine-made) last some months yet. You see, Doctor Strong, if she takes this—"
It was a neat and well-sustained little oration that Miss Phoebe delivered, emphasising her remarks with the cuff of a shirt; but it was lost on Geoffrey Strong. He was listening to another voice that came quavering up from the garden below, a sweet high voice, like a wavering thread of silver. No more sobs; and Miss Vesta was singing; the sweetest song, Geoffrey thought, that he had ever heard.
The next day and the next Geoffrey avoided the garden as if it were a haunt of cobras. The dining-room, too, was a place of terror to him, and at each meal he paused before entering the room, nerving himself for what he might have to face. This was wholly unreasonable, he told himself repeatedly; it was ridiculous; it was—the young man was not one to spare himself—it was unprofessional.
"Oh, yes, I know all that," he replied; "but they shouldn't cry. There ought to be a law against their crying."
Here it occurred to him that he had seen his cousins cry many times, and had never minded it; but that was entirely different, he said.
However, he need not distress himself, it appeared; Vesta Blyth kept her room for several days. At first Geoffrey found it easier not to speak of her; but the third day he pounced on Miss Vesta when she was filling her lamp, and startled her so that she almost dropped her scissors.
"Excuse me, Miss Vesta," he said; "what funny scissors! I shouldn't think you could cut anything with them. I was going to ask—how is your niece to-day? I trust the hysterical condition is passing away?"
Miss Vesta sighed. "Yes, Doctor Strong," she said. "Vesta is quiet again, oh, yes, very quiet, and sleeping better; we are very grateful for your interest in her."
A few professional questions and answers followed. There were no acute or alarming symptoms. There was little to do for the girl, except to let her rest and "come round;" she would recover in time, but it might be a long time. Geoffrey felt somehow younger than he had; neurasthenia was a pretty word on paper, but he did not feel so sure about making a specialty of it.
Miss Vesta fluttered about her lamp; he became conscious that she wanted to say something to him. She began with sundry little plaintive murmurings, which might have been addressed to him or to the lamp.
"Pity! pity! yes, indeed. So bright and young, so full of hope and joy, and darkened so soon. Yes, indeed, very sad!"
Geoffrey helped her. "What is it, Miss Vesta?" he asked, tenderly. "You are going to tell me something."
Miss Vesta looked around her timidly. "Sister Phoebe did not wish me to mention it," she said, in a low tone. "She thinks it—indelicate. But—you are so kind, Doctor Strong, and you are a physician. Poor little Vesta has had a disappointment, a cruel disappointment."
Geoffrey murmured something, he hardly knew what. The little lady hurried on. "It is not that I have any sympathy with—I never liked the object—not at all, I assure you, Doctor Strong. But her heart was fixed, and she had had every reason to suppose herself—it has been a terrible blow to her. Renunciation—in youth—is a hard thing, my dear young friend, a very hard thing."
She pressed his hand, and hurried away with her scissors, giving one backward look to make sure that the lamp showed no aspect that did not shine with the last touch of brilliancy.
Geoffrey Strong went down into the garden—he had not been there since the day of the sobbing—and paced about, never thinking of the pipe in his pocket. He found himself talking to the blue larkspur. "Beast!" was what he called this beautiful plant. "Dolt! ass! inhuman brute! If I had the kicking of you—" here he recovered his silence; found pebbles to kick, and pursued them savagely up one path and down another. A mental flash-light showed him the ruffian who had wounded this bright creature; had led her on to love him, and then—either betrayed his brutal nature so that hers rose up in revolt, or—just as likely—that kind of man would do anything—gone off and left her. His picture revealed a smart-looking person with black hair and a waxed moustache, and complexion of feminine red and white (Geoffrey called it beef and suet).
"The extraordinary thing is, what women see in such a fellow!" he told the syringa. The syringa drooped, and looked sympathetic. The hammock was hanging there still—poor little thing! Geoffrey did not mean the hammock. He stood looking at the place, and winced as the sobs struck his ear again; memory's ear this time, but that was hardly less keen. How terribly she grieved! she must have cared for him; bang! went the pebbles again.
There was a rustle behind the syringa-bush. Geoffrey looked up and sawVesta Blyth standing before him.
He could not run away. He must not look at her professionally. Despair imparted to his countenance a look of stony vacuity which sat oddly on it.
The girl looked at him, and it seemed as if the shadow of a smile looked out of her shadowy eyes. "I thought you might be here, Doctor Strong," she said, quietly. "I am coming in to tea to-night. I am entirely myself again, I assure you—and first I wished—I want to apologise to you for my absurd behaviour the other day."
"Please don't!" said Geoffrey.
"I must; I have to. I am weak, you see, and—I lost hold of myself, that was all. It was purely hysterical, as you of course saw. I have had—a great trouble. Perhaps my aunts may have told you."
Good God! she wasn't going to talk about it? Geoffrey thought a subterranean dungeon would be a pleasant place.
"I—yes!" he admitted, feeling the red curling around his ears. "Miss Vesta did say something—it's an infernal shame! I wish I could tell you how sorry I am."
"Thank you!" said the girl; and a rich note thrilled in her voice. Yes—it certainly was like a 'cello. "I did not know how you would—you are very kind, Doctor Strong. Dear Aunt Vesta; she would try to make the best of it, I know. Aunt Phoebe will not speak of it, she is too much shocked, but Aunt Vesta is angelic."
"Indeed she is!" said the young doctor, heartily. "And she is so pretty, too, and so soft and creamy; I never saw any one like her."
There was a moment of dreadful silence. Geoffrey sought desperately for a subject of conversation, but the frivolous spirit of tragedy refused to suggest anything except boots, and women never understand boots.
The strange thing was, that the girl did not appear to find the silence dreadful. She stood absently curling and uncurling a syringa-leaf between her long white fingers. All the lines of her were long, except the curl of her upper lip, and there was not an ungraceful one among them. Her face was quietly sad, but there was no sign of confusion in it. Good heavens! what were women made of?
Presently she turned to him, and again the shadow of a smile crept into her eyes. "You don't ask whether I am better, Doctor Strong," she said; and there was even a faint suggestion of mischief in her voice.
"No!" said Geoffrey. "I shall never ask you that again."
The shadow turned to a spark. "You might help me!" she exclaimed. "At least you need not make it harder for me—" she checked herself, and went on in a carefully even tone. "I am so ashamed of myself!" she said. "I thought when I came here that I had quite got myself in hand; the other day taught me a lesson. I was abominably rude, and I beg your pardon."
She held out her hand frankly; Geoffrey took it, and was conscious that, though it was too cold, it had the same quality that Miss Vesta's hand had, a touch like rose-leaves, smooth and light and dry. She shook hands as if she meant it, too, instead of giving a limp flap, as some girls did. It was impossible to tell the colour of her eyes; but she was speaking again.
"And—I want to say this, too. There isn't anything to do for me, you know; I must just wait. But—I know how I should feel in your place; and if there seem to be any interesting or unusual symptoms, I will tell you—if you like?"
"Thank you!" said Geoffrey. "It would be very good of you, I'm sure."
She turned to the syringa-bush again, and breaking off a spray, fastened it in her white gown. "You think of studying nerves, I believe?" she said, presently. "As a specialty, I mean. Well, they are horrible things." She spoke abruptly, and as if half to herself. "To think of this network of treachery spreading through and through us, lying in wait for us, leading us on, buoying us up with false strength, sham elasticity—and then collapsing like a toy balloon, leaving nothing but a rag, a tatter of humanity. Oh, it is shameful! it is disgraceful! Look at me! what business have I with nerves?"
She stretched out her long arms and threw her head back. The gesture was powerful; one saw that strength was the natural order of life with this lithe, long-limbed creature. But the next instant she drooped together like a tired lily.
"I know that is nonsense!" she said, moodily. "I know it just as well as you do. I am tired; I think I'll go in now."
"Why not try the hammock?" Geoffrey suggested. "The garden is better than the house to-day. Or—do you like the water? My canoe came yesterday; why not come out for a short paddle?"
The girl looked at him doubtfully. "I—don't know!"
"Best thing in the world for you!" said Geoffrey, who had fully recovered his ease, and felt benevolently professional. "You ought to keep out-of-doors all you can. I'll get some shawls and a pillow."
Vesta looked longingly out at the water, then doubtfully again at the young doctor. "If you are sure—" she said; "if you really have time, Doctor Strong. Your patients—"
"Bother my patients!" said the young doctor.
An hour later, Miss Phoebe Blyth was confronting a flushed and panting matron at the front door.
"No, Mrs. Worrett, he has not come in yet. It is past his customary hour, but he has been detained, no doubt, by some urgent case. Doctor Strong never spares himself. I fear for him sometimes, I must confess. Will you step in and wait, or shall I—colic? oh! if that is all, it will hardly be necessary to send the doctor out. I shall take the liberty of giving you a bottle of my checkerberry cordial. I have made it for forty years, and Doctor Strong approves of it highly. Give the baby half a teaspoonful in a wine-glass of hot water, and repeat the dose in an hour if not relieved. Not at all, I beg of you, Mrs. Worrett. It is a pleasure to be able to relieve the babe, as well as to spare Doctor Strong a little. He comes in quite exhausted sometimes from these long trips. Good evening to you, ma'am."
The Ladies' Society was to meet at the Temple of Vesta; or, rather (since that name for the brick house was known only to the old and the young doctor), at the Blyth Girls'. The sisters always entertained the society once a year, and it was apt to be the favourite meeting of the season. It was the peaceful pastime of two weeks, for Miss Phoebe and Miss Vesta, to prepare for the annual festivity, by polishing the already shining house to a hardly imaginable point of brilliant cleanliness. In the kitchen of the Temple, Diploma Grotty ruled supreme, as she had ruled for twenty years. Miss Phoebe was occasionally permitted to trifle with a jelly or a cream, but even this was upon sufferance; while if Miss Vesta ever had any culinary aspirations, they were put down with a high hand, and an injunction not to meddle with them things, but see to her parlours and her chaney. This injunction, backed by her own spotless ideals, was faithfully carried out by Miss Vesta. Miss Phoebe, by right of her position as elder sister and martyr to rheumatism (though she sometimes forgot her martyrdom in these days), took charge of the upper class of preparation; examined the lace curtains in search of a possible stitch dropped in the net, "did up" the frilled linen bags that formed the decent clothing of the window-tassels, the tidies, and the entire stock of "laces" owned by her and her sister. One could never be sure beforehand which collar one would want to wear when the evening came, and while one was about it, it was as well to do them all; so for many days the sewing-room was adorned with solemn bottles swathed in white, on which collars, cuffs, and scarfs were delicately stitched. Miss Vesta—cleaned.
For some days the young doctor had been conscious of a stronger odour than usual of beeswax and rosin. Also, the tiny room by the front door, which was sacred as his office, began to shine with a kind of inward light. No one was ever there when he came in,—no one, that is, save the occasional patient,—but he always found that his papers had assembled themselves in orderly piles on the table where he was wont to throw them; that the table itself had become so glossy that things slipped about or fell off whenever he moved them; and that no matter where he left his pipes, he always found them ranged with exact symmetry on the mantel-shelf. (If he could have known the affectionate terror with which those delicate white old fingers touched the brown, fragrant, masculine things! There were four of the pipes, Zuleika, Haidee, Nourmahal, and Scheherezade; the fellows used to call them his harem, and him Haroun Alraschid.)
Geoffrey was always careful about wiping his feet when he came in; he was a well-brought-up lad, and never meant to leave a speck on the polished floor. Now, however, he was aware of fragrant, newly rubbed spots that appeared as if by magic every time he returned through the entry after passing along it. Several times he saw a gray gown flutter and disappear through a doorway; but it might have been Diploma.
One day, however,—it was the very day of the party,—he chanced to come into the parlour for a match or the like, and found Miss Vesta on her knees, apparently praying to one of the teak-wood chairs; and the girl Vesta, white as wax, standing beside another, rubbing it with even, practised strokes. The young doctor looked from one to the other.
"What does this mean?" he said. "What upon earth are you doing, you two?"
Miss Vesta looked up, pink and breathless.
"My dear Doctor Strong, I wish you would use your professional influence with Vesta. I am making a little preparation, as you see, for this evening. It—I take pleasure in it, and find the exercise beneficial. But Vesta is entirely unfit for it, as I have repeatedly pointed out to her. She persists—" the little lady paused for breath. The young doctor took the cloth from the girl's hand, and opened the door.
"You would better go and lie down, Miss Blyth," he said, abruptly."I'll see to this—" he said "tomfoolery," but not aloud.
The colour crept into Vesta's white cheeks, the first he had seen there. "I don't want to lie down, thank you!" she said, coldly. "Give me the cloth, please!"
Their eyes measured swords for an instant. Then—
"You can hardly stand now," said Geoffrey, quietly. "If you faint I shall have to carry you up-stairs, and that—"
She was gone, but he still saw her face like a white flame. He looked after her a moment, then turned to Miss Vesta, who was still on her knees. His look of annoyance changed to one of distress. "Dear Miss Vesta, will you please get up this moment? What can you be doing? Are you praying to Saint Beeswax?"
"Oh, no, Doctor Strong. We never—the Orthodox Church—but you are jesting, my dear young friend. I—a little healthful exercise—oh, please, Doctor Geoffrey!"
For two strong hands lifted her bodily, and set her down in her own particular armchair. "Exercise is recommended for me," said the little lady, piteously. "You yourself, Doctor Geoffrey, said I ought to take more exercise."
"So you shall. You shall dance all the evening, if you like. I'll play the fiddle, and you and the minister—no, no, I don't mean the minister! Don't look like that! you and Deacon Weight shall dance together. It will be the elephant and the fl—butterfly. But I am going to do this, Miss Vesta."
He in turn went down on his knees to the teak-wood chair, and examined it curiously. "Is this—supposed to need cleaning?" he asked; "or is it to be used as a looking-glass? Perhaps you had just finished this one?" He looked hopefully at Miss Vesta, and saw her face cloud with distress.
"I was about to polish it a little," she said. "It is already clean, in a measure, but a little extra polish on such occasions—"
Geoffrey did not wait for more, but rubbed away with might and main, talking the while.
"You see, Miss Vesta, it is very important for me to learn about these things. You and Miss Phoebe may turn me out some day, and then the lonely bachelor will have to set up his own establishment, and cook his own dinner, and polish his own chairs. Do you think I could cook a dinner? I'll tell you what we'll do, some day; we'll send Diploma off for a holiday, and I'll get the dinner."
"Oh, my dear young friend, I fear that would not be possible. Diploma is so set in her ways! She will hardly let me set foot in the kitchen, but Sister Phoebe goes in whenever she pleases. I—I think that chair is as bright as itcanbe, Doctor Strong. I am greatly obliged to you. It looks beautiful, and now I need not trouble you further; you are much occupied, I am sure. Oh, pray—pray give me back the cloth, Doctor Geoffrey."
But Geoffrey declared he had not had such fun for weeks. "Consider my biceps," he said. "You ought to consider my biceps, Miss Vesta."
He went from chair to chair, Miss Vesta following him with little plaintive murmurs, in which distress and admiration were equally blended; and rubbed, and rubbed again, till all the room was full of dark glory. There was one bad moment, when the weak leg of the three-cornered table threatened to give way under his vigorous attack, and protested with a sharp squeak of anguish; but though Geoffrey and Miss Vesta both examined it with searching scrutiny, no new crack was visible. He offered to bandage the old crack, warranting to make the ailing leg the strongest of the four; but, on the whole, it did not seem necessary.
"If only Deacon Weight does not lean on it!" said Miss Vesta. "Perhaps you could manage to stand near it yourself, Doctor Geoffrey, if you should see the deacon approaching it. He is apt, when engaged in conversation, to rest both elbows on a table; it is a great strain on any furniture."
Geoffrey looked a little blank. "Were you expecting me to join the party?" he asked; "I thought—I should be rather in the way, shouldn't I?" He read his answer in the piteous startled look of the little lady, and hastened on before she could speak. "I didn't suppose I was invited, Miss Vesta. Of course I shall come, if I may, with the greatest pleasure."
"Dear Doctor Strong," said Miss Vesta, with a happy sigh, "it would have been such a sad blow if we must have dispensed with your society."
It would indeed have been a tragic disappointment to both sisters if their lodger had not appeared on the great occasion. As it was, Miss Vesta was fluttered, and only restored to full composure when, at tea, Doctor Strong begged to know the exact hour at which the guests were expected, that he might be ready on time.
The pride of the good ladies knew no bounds when Doctor Strong entered the parlour in faultless evening dress, with a tiny blush-rose, from Miss Vesta's favourite tree, in his buttonhole. Evening dress was becoming to Geoffrey. The Ladies' Society fluttered at sight of him, and primmed itself, and shook out its skirts.
Geoffrey's face was radiant over his white tie. He had planned a cozy evening in his own room, with a new treatise on orthopaedics that had just come; but no one would have thought that he took delight in anything except Society meetings. He went from group to group, as if he were the son of the house, cheering the forlorn, lightening the heavy, smoothing down the prickly,—a medical Father O'Flynn. But it was the elderly and the middle-aged that he sought out; the matrons whose children he had tended, the spinsters whose neuralgia he had relieved. The few younger members of the Society bridled and simpered in vain; the young doctor never looked their way.
"Good evening, Mrs. Worrett; sorry I missed you the other day; but Miss Blyth prescribed for you, and she is as good a doctor as I am, any day. Howisthe baby now? quite well! Good; Yes; oh, yes, excellent. In simple cases these mild carminatives are just the thing. Keep his diet steady, though, while the warm weather lasts. I saw him with a doughnut the other day, and took it away from him; knew he got it by accident, of course. Yes, bread and milk, that kind of thing. Fine little fellow, and we want him to have the best chance there is.
"Miss Wax, I am glad to see you here. Headache all gone, eh? Hurrah! I'd keep on with those powders, though, if I were you, for a week or two. You're looking fine, as the Scotch say. Hope you won't want to see me again for a long time, and it's very good and unselfish of me to say that, for I haven't forgotten the plum-cake you gave me.
"How do you do, Deacon? glad to see you! yes, glorious weather." Here Geoffrey moved easily between Deacon Weight and the three-cornered table, which the deacon was approaching. "Suppose we stand here in the corner a moment! Men are always rather in the way, don't you think, at things of this kind? Mrs. Weight here to-night? ah! yes, I see her. How well she's looking! Not been well yourself, Deacon? I'm sorry to hear that. What's the—dyspepsia again? that's bad. Have you tried the light diet I recommended? Well, I would, if I were in your place. I'd knock off two or three pounds of your usual diet, and get a bicycle—yes, you could. A cousin of mine in New York weighed three hundred pounds before he got his bicycle; had one made to order, of course, special weight; now he weighs a hundred and seventy-five, and is as active as a cat. Great thing! ah, excuse me, Deacon!"
He crossed the room, and bowed low before a lady with white hair and an amazing cap, who had been gazing at him with twinkling eyes. This was Mrs. Tree, the Misses Blyths' aunt.
"Mrs. Tree, how do you do? why were you looking at me in that way? I've been trying to speak to you all the evening, but you have been surrounded. I think it's a shame for a women over twenty-five" (Mrs. Tree was ninety, and immensely proud of her age) "to monopolise all the attention. What do you think?"
"I think you're a sassy boy!" replied Mrs. Tree, with vivacity. "I think children should speak when they're spoken to; that's what I think."
She clicked some castanets in her throat, which was her way of laughing.
"But you didn't speak to me," said Geoffrey. "You wouldn't speak. Do you suppose I was going to wait all the evening? What a wonderful cap you've got, Mrs. Tree! I'm going to have one made exactly like it. Will you go in to supper with me? Do! I want to cut out the minister, and he is coming to ask you now. I am much more amusing than he is, you know I am."
Mrs. Tree did know it. The minister was waved off, and the oldest parishioner sailed in to supper on Doctor Strong's arm.
"Why don't you get married," she asked on the way, "instead of fooling around old folks this way? If I was your ma'am, I'd find a wife for ye, first thing I did. You're too sassy to stay unmarried."
"Miss Vesta won't have me," said Geoffrey; "and I won't have anybody else, unless you will relent, Mrs. Tree. Now, what do you want? lobster salad? Well, I shall not give you that. If you eat it you will be ill tomorrow, and then Direxia will send for me, and you will throw my medicine out of the window and get well without it, and then laugh in my face. I know you! have some escalloped oysters, there's a dear!"
"I wish't I'd come in with the minister now!" said Mrs. Tree.
"I don't believe a word of it!" said Geoffrey. "It's much less dangerous for you to flirt with me, you know it is; though even now Miss Phoebe is looking at us very seriously, Mrs. Tree, very seriously indeed."
"If I was Phoebe, I'd send you to bed!" said Mrs. Tree. "That's whatI'd do!"
It was a perfect evening. The water lay like rosy glass under the sinking sun. Not a breath of air was stirring, and even on the beach the ripple did not break, merely whispered itself away in foam. The canoe moved easily, when it did move, under a practised stroke, but much of the time it lay at ease, rocking a little now and then as a swell rose and melted under it. Vesta lay among her pillows at one end, and Geoffrey faced her. Her face was turned toward the west, and he wondered whether it was only the sunset glow that touched it, or whether the faint rosy flush belonged there. Certainly the waxen hue was gone; certainly the girl was wonderfully better. But he did not look at her much, because it got into his breathing somehow. He had not been paddling for a year, and he was "soft," of course; nothing surprising in that.
He was telling her about some of his patients. The thing that did surprise him was the interest she seemed to take; active, intelligent interest. Being sick herself, perhaps, gave her a natural sympathy; and she certainly had extraordinary intelligence, even insight. Singular thing for a girl to have!
"But what became of the poor little fellow? did he live? better not, I am sure. I hope he did not."
"Yes; almost a pity, but he did live. Got well, too, after a fashion, but he'll never be able to do anything."
The girl was silent. Presently—"I wonder whether it is worth while to get well after a fashion!" she said. "I wonder if it's worth while to go on living and never be able to do anything. I suppose I shall find out."
"You!" said the young doctor. "You will be entirely well in a year,Miss Blyth; I'd be willing to wager it."
Vesta shook her head.
"No!" she said. "The spring is broken. There is nothingrealthe matter with me, I know that well enough. It's nothing but nerves—and heart, and mind; nothing but the whole of my life broken and thrown aside."
She spoke bitterly, and Geoffrey felt a pang of compassion. She was so young, and so pretty—beautiful was the word, rather. It seemed too cruel. If only she would not say anything more about it! Howcouldshe? was it because he was a physician? He would go and be a costermonger if that—
"You see," she went on, slowly; "I cared so tremendously. I had thought of nothing else for years, dreamed of nothing else. All there was of me went into it. And then, then—when this came; when he told me—I—it was pretty hard."
The quiver in her voice was controlled instantly, but it was almost worse than the sobs. Geoffrey broke out, fiercely:
"I don't know whether this man is more a beast or a devil; but I know that he is not fit to live, and I wish I—"
Vesta looked up at him in surprise. His face was crimson; his angry eyes looked beyond her, above her, anywhere except at her.
"I don't know what you mean!" she said. "He was neither. He was kind, oh, very kind. He did it as tenderly as possible. I shall always be grateful—" the quiver came again, and she stopped.
"Oh!" cried Geoffrey. He drove his paddle savagely into the water, and the canoe leaped forward. What were women made of? why,whymust he be subjected to this?
The silence that followed was almost worse than the speech. Finally he stole a glance at his companion, and saw her face still faintly rosy—it must be mostly the light—and set in a sadness that had no touch of resentment in it.
"Perhaps you don't like my talking about it," she said, after awhile.
Geoffrey uttered an inarticulate murmur, but found no words.
"The aunties don't. Aunt Phoebe gets angry, and Aunt Vesta tearful and embarrassed. But—well, I could not stay at home. Everything there reminded me—I thought if I came here, where no such ideas ever entered, I might begin—not to forget, but to resign myself a little, after a time. But—I found you here. No, let me speak!" She raised her hand, as Geoffrey tried to interrupt.
"I have to make you understand—if I can—why I was rude and odious and ungrateful when I first came, for I was all those things, and I am not naturally so, I truly don't think I am. But, don't you see?—to come right upon some one who was having all that I had lost, enjoying all I had hoped to enjoy, and caring—well, perhaps as much as I cared, but still in a different way, a man's way, taking it all as a matter of course, where I would have taken it on my knees—"
"You must let me speak now, Miss Blyth," said Geoffrey Strong. He spoke loud and quickly, to drown the noise in his ears.
"I cannot let you—go on—under such a total misapprehension. I could not in a lifetime say how sorry I am for your cruel trouble. It makes me rage; I'd like to—never mind that now! but you are wholly mistaken in thinking that anything of the kind has ever come into my own life. I don't know how you received the impression, but you must believe me when I say I have never had any—any such affair, nor the shadow of one. It isn't my line. I not only never have had, but probably never shall have—" he was hurrying out word upon word, hoping to get it over and done with once and for ever. But letting his eyes drop for an instant to the girl's face, he saw on it a look of such unutterable amazement that he stopped short in his headlong speech.
They gazed at each other from alien worlds. At length—"Doctor Strong," said Vesta, and the words dropped slowly, one by one, "what do you mean?"
Geoffrey was silent. If she did not know what he meant, he certainly did not.
"What do you mean?" she repeated. "I do not understand one word of what you are saying."
Geoffrey tried hard to keep his temper. "You were speaking of your—disappointment," he said, stiffly. "You seemed to take it for granted that I—was engaged in some affair of a similar nature, and I felt bound to undeceive you. I have never been what is called in love in my life."
The bewilderment lingered in Vesta's eyes for an instant; then a light came into them. The sunset rushed in one crimson wave over face and neck and brow; she fell back on her pillows, quivering from head to foot. Was she going to cry again?
She was laughing! silently at first, trying hard to control herself; but now her laughter broke forth in spite of her, and peal after peal rang out, wild and sweet, helpless in its intensity.
Geoffrey sat paralysed a moment; then the professional instinct awoke."Hysteria! another manifestation, that is all. I must stop it."
He leaned forward.
"Miss Blyth!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "Oh, dear, oh, dear! what shall I do? ha, ha, ha, ha! oh, what shall I do?"
"Stop!" said Geoffrey Strong. "Do you hear me? stop!"
"Oh, yes, I hear you—but—it is so funny! oh, itisso funny! ha, ha, ha! what shall I do?"
"What shallIdo?" said Geoffrey to himself. "She'll have the canoe over in another minute." He crept toward the girl, and seized her wrists in a firm grip.
"Be still!" he said. "I shall hold you until you are quiet. Be—still! no more! be still!"
"You—hurt me!" whispered the girl. The wild laughter had died away, but she was still shaking, and the tears were running down her cheeks.
"I mean to hurt you. I shall hurt you more, if you are not quiet. As soon as you are quiet I will let you go. Be—still—still—there!"
He loosed her hands, and took up the paddle again. This kind of thing was very exhausting; he was quivering himself, quite perceptibly. Now why? nerves of sympathy?
He paddled on in silence; the sun went down, and the afterglow spread and brightened along the sky. He hardly thought of his companion, his whole mind bent on suppressing the turmoil that was going on in himself.
He started at the sound of her voice; it was faint, but perfectly controlled.
"Doctor Strong!"
"Miss Blyth!"
"You—thought—I had had a disappointment in love?"
"I did!"
"You are mistaken. You misunderstood my aunt, or me, or both. I have never, any more than you—"
Her voice grew stronger, and she sat upright.
"It was soveryfunny—no, I am not going off again—but I think there was some excuse for me this time. You certainly are having every opportunity of studying my case, Doctor Strong. The truth is—oh, I supposed it had been made clear to you; how could I suppose anything else? It was my career, my life, that I had to give up, not—not a man. You say you have never been what is called in love; Doctor Strong, no more have I!"
There was silence, and now it was in Geoffrey's face that the tide rose. Such a burning tide it was, he fancied he heard the blood hiss as it curled round the roots of his hair. He noted this as curious, and remembered that in hanging or drowning it was the trifles that stamped themselves upon the mind. Also, it appeared that he was hollow, with nothing but emptiness where should have been his vital parts.
"Shall I say anything?" he asked, presently. "There isn't anything to say, is there, except to beg your pardon? would you like to hear that I am a fool? But you know that already. Your aunt—things were said that were curiously misleading—not that that is any excuse—Do you want me to go into detail, or may I drown myself quietly?"
"Oh! don't," said Vesta, smiling. "I could not possibly paddle myself home, and I should infallibly upset the canoe in trying to rescue you."
"You would not try!" said Geoffrey, gloomily. "It would not be human if you tried."
"It would be professional," said Vesta. "Come, Doctor Strong, you see I can laugh about it, and you must laugh, too. Let us shake hands, and agree to forget all about it."
Geoffrey shook hands, and said she was very magnanimous; but he still felt hollow. The only further remark that his seething brain presented was a scrap of ancient doggerel:
"I wish I was dead,Or down at Owl's Head,Or anywhere else but here!"
This was manifestly inappropriate, so he kept silence, and paddled on doggedly.
"And aren't you going to ask what my disappointment really was?" inquired Vesta, presently. "But perhaps you have guessed?"
No, Geoffrey had not guessed.
"Don't you want to know? I should really—it would be a comfort to me to talk it over with you, if you don't mind."
Geoffrey would be delighted to hear anything that she chose to tell him.
"Yes, you seem delighted. Well—you see, you have not understood, not understood in the very least; and now in a moment you are going to know all about it." She paused for a moment, and there was an appeal in her clear, direct gaze; but Geoffrey did not want to be appealed to.
"I was at Johns Hopkins," said Vesta. "It was the beginning of my second year; I broke down, and had to give it up. I was studying medicine myself, Doctor Strong."
"Oh!" cried Geoffrey Strong.
The exclamation was a singular one; a long cry of amazement and reprobation. Every fibre of the man stiffened, and he sat rigid, a statue of Disapproval.
"I beg your pardon!" he said, after a moment. "I said it before, but I don't know that there is anything else to say. No doubt I was very stupid, yet I hardly know how I could have supposed just this to be the truth. I—no! I beg your pardon. That is all."
The girl looked keenly at him. "You are not sorry for me any more, are you?" she said.
Geoffrey was silent.
"You were sorry, very sorry!" she went on. "So long as you thought I had lost that precious possession, a lover; had lost the divine privilege of—what is the kind of thing they say? merging my life in another's, becoming the meek and gentle helpmeet of my God-given lord and master—you were very sorry. I could not make it out; it was so unlike what I expected from you. It was so human, so kind, so—yes, so womanlike. But the moment you find it is not a man, but only the aspiration of a lifetime, the same aspiration that in you is right and fitting and beautiful—you—you sit there like a—lamp-post—and disapprove of me."
"I am sorry!" said Geoffrey. He was trying hard to be reasonable, and said to himself that he would not be irritated, come what might. "I cannot approve of women studying medicine, but I am sorry for you, Miss Blyth."
Her face, which had been bitter enough in its set and scornful beauty, suddenly melted into a bewildering softness of light and laughter. She leaned forward. "But it was funny!" she said. "It was very, very funny, Doctor Strong, you must admit that. You were so compassionate, so kind, thinking me—"
"Do you think perhaps—but never mind! you certainly have the right to say whatever you choose," said Geoffrey, holding himself carefully.
"And all the time," she went on, "I utterly unconscious, and only fretting because I could not have my own life, my own will, my own way!"
"By Jove!" said Geoffrey, starting. "That—that's what I say myself!"
"Really!" said Vesta, dryly. "You see I also am human, after all"
"Do you see little Vesta anywhere, sister?" asked Miss Phoebe Blyth.
Miss Vesta had just lighted her lamp, and was standing with folded hands, in her usual peaceful attitude of content, gazing out upon the sunset sea. A black line lay out there on the rosy gold of the water; she had been watching it, watching the rhythmic flash of the paddle, and thinking happy, gentle thoughts, such as old ladies of tender heart often think. Miss Phoebe had no part in these thoughts, and Miss Vesta looked hurriedly round at the sound of her crisp utterance. Her breath fluttered a little, but she did not speak. Miss Phoebe came up behind her and peered out of the window. "I don't see where the child can be," she said, rather querulously. "I thought she was in the garden, but I don't—do you see her anywhere, Vesta?"
Miss Vesta had never read the "Pickwick Papers;" she considered Dickens vulgar; but her conduct at this moment resembled that of Samuel Weller on a certain noted occasion. Raising her eyes to the twilight sky, Miss Vesta said, gently, "No, Sister Phoebe, I do not!"
ELMERTON, June 20, 1900.
DEAR JIM:—It is rather curious that you should have written me this particular letter at this particular time. 'Give me a man's coincidences and I'll give you his life!' Who is it says that?
You want my opinion about women's studying medicine; you personally have reason to think that the career of medicine is not incompatible with true womanliness, exquisite refinement, perfect grace and breeding. I really cannot copy your whole letter. The symptoms are, alas, only too familiar! You have met your Fate again (and those foolish old Greeks used to believe there were only three of 'em!) and she is a doctor, or is going to be one. Well—it's curious, as I said, for it happens that I have been thinking more or less about the same matter. I used to feel very strongly about it—hang it, I still feel very strongly about it! A girl doesn't know what she is doing when she goes into medicine. I grant that she does it, in many cases, from the highest possible motives. I grant that she is far ahead of most men in her ideas of the profession, and what it means, or ought to mean. But, all the same, she doesn't know what she is going in for, and I cannot conceive of a man's letting any woman he cares for go on with it. She must lose something; she must, I tell you; she cannot help it. And even if it isn't the essential things, still it changes her. She is less woman, less—whatever you choose to call it. A coarser touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise intensely with all that part of it, and honour the purpose and the spirit, even though I cannot approve of the direction.
Oh, glancing at your letter again, I see that in your friend's case everything seems to be going on smoothly. Well, the principle remains the same. I suppose—I seem to have drifted away from your question, somehow—I suppose one woman in ten thousandmaymake a good physician. I suppose that this ten-thousandth woman—a woman who is all that you say—may be justified, perhaps, in becoming a physician; whether a woman physician canremainall that you say—ah! that is the question! Man alive, am I Phoebus Apollo, that I should know the answers to all the questions? I wish I could find the way to Delphi myself.
But don't get the idea that you bore me with your confidences, old man. Did I say so? on the contrary, tell me all you can; it interests me extremely. I am thinking about these matters—pathologically—a good deal. A physician has to, of course. Tell me how you feel, how it takes you. Do you find it gets into your breathing sometimes, like rarefied air? Curious sensation, rarefied air—I remember it on Mont Blanc.
What am I doing? Man, I am practising medicine! Cases at present, one typhoid, two tonsilitis, five measles, eight dyspepsia, six rheumatism,et id gen om., one cantankerousness (she calls it depression), one gluttony, one nerves. Pretty busy, but my wheel keeps me in good trim. I have been paddling more or less, too, to keep chest and arms up with the rest of the procession.
The old ladies are as dear as ever; if I am not wholly spoilt, it will not be their fault, bless their kind hearts! The niece is better, I think.
Good-bye, old man! write again soon, and tell me more about Amaryllis. How pretty the classical names are: Chloe, Lalage, Diana, Vesta. I was brought up on Fannies and Minnies and Lotties, with Eliza for a change. Horrible name, Eliza!
The young doctor had just posted the above letter, and was sauntering along the street on his way home. It lacked an hour of tea-time, and he was wondering which of several things he should do. There was hardly time for a paddle; besides, Vesta Blyth had gone for a drive with the minister's daughter. Geoffrey did not think driving half as good for her as being on the water. He must contrive to get through his afternoon calls earlier to-morrow. He might stop and see how Tommy Candy was,—no! there was Tommy, sitting by the roadside, pouring sand over his head from a tin cup. He was all right, then; the young doctor thought he would be if they stopped dosing him, and fed him like a Christian for a day or two. Well,—there was no one else who could not wait till morning. Why should he not go and call on Mrs. Tree? here he was at the house. It was the hour when in cities the sophisticated clustered about five o'clock tea-tables, and tested the comfort of various chairs, and indulged in talk as thin as the china and bread and butter. Five o'clock tea was unknown in Elmerton, but Mrs. Tree would be glad to see him, and he always enjoyed a crack with her.
He turned in at the neat gate. The house stood well back from the street, in the trimmest and primmest little garden that ever was seen. Most of the shrubs were as old as their owner, and had something of her wrinkled sprightliness; and the annuals felt their responsibilities, and tried to live up to the York and Lancaster rose and the strawberry bush.
The door was opened by a Brownie, disguised in a cap and apron. This was Direxia Hawkes, aunt to Diploma Grotty. In his mind Geoffrey had christened the little house the Aunt's Nest, but he never dared to tell anybody this.
"Well, Direxia, how is Mrs. Tree to-day? would she like to see me, do you think?"
"She ain't no need to see you!"
The young doctor looked grieved, and turned away.
"But I expect she'd be pleased to. Step in!"
This was Direxia's one joke, and she never tired of it; no more did Geoffrey. He entered the cool dim parlour, which smelt of red cedar; the walls were panelled with it. The floor was of polished oak, dark with age; the chairs and tables were of rare foreign woods, satin and leopard wood, violet-wood and ebony. The late Captain Tree had been a man of fancy, and, sailing on many seas, never forgot his name, but bought precious woods wherever he found them.
"Here's the doctor!" said Direxia. "I expect he'll keep right on coming till he finds you sick."
"That's what he will do!" said Geoffrey. "No chance for me to-day, though, I see. How do you do, Mrs. Tree? I think it is hardly respectable for you to look so well. Can't you give me one little symptom? not a tiny crick in your back? you ought to have one, sitting in that chair."
Mrs. Tree was sitting bolt upright in an ancient straight-backed chair of curious workmanship. It was too high for her, so her little feet, of which she was inordinately vain, rested on a hassock of crimson tapestry. She wore white silk stockings, and slippers of cinnamon-coloured satin to match her gown. A raffled black silk apron, a net kerchief pinned with a quaint diamond brooch, and a cap suggesting the Corinthian Order, completed her costume. Her face was netted close with fine wrinkles, but there was no sign of age in her bright dark eyes.
"Never you trouble yourself about my cheer!" said the old lady with some severity. "Sit down in one yourself—there are plenty of lolloping ones if your back's weak—and tell me what mischief you have been up to lately. I wouldn't trust you round the corner."
"You'll break my heart some day," said Geoffrey, with a heavy sigh; "and then you will be sorry, Mrs. Tree. Mischief? Let me see! I set Jim Arthur's collar-bone this morning; do you care about Jim Arthur? he fell off his bicycle against a stone wall."
"Serve him right, too!" said Mrs. Tree. "Riding that nasty thing, running folks down and scaring their horses. I'd put 'em all in the bonfire-pile if I was Town Council. Your turn will come some day, young man, for all you go spinning along like a spool of cotton. How's the girls?"
She rang the bell, and Direxia appeared.
"Bring the cake and sherry!" she said. "It's a shame to spoil boys, but when they're spoilt already, there's less harm done. How's the girls?"
Geoffrey reported a clean bill of health, so far as Miss Phoebe andMiss Vesta were concerned. "I really am proud of Miss Phoebe!" he said."She says she feels ten years younger than she did three months ago,and I think it's true."
"Phoebe has no call to feel ten years younger!" said Mrs. Tree, shortly. "She's a very suitable age as it is. I don't like to see a cat play kitten, any more than I like to see a kitten play cat. How's the child?"
"I should like to see Miss Phoebe playing kitten!" said Geoffrey, his eyes dancing. "It would be something to remember. What child, Mrs. Tree?"
"The little girl; little Vesta. Is she coming out of her tantrums, think?"
"She—is a great deal better, certainly," said Geoffrey. "I hope—I feel sure that she will recover entirely in time. But you must not call her trouble tantrums, Mrs. Tree, really. Neurasthenia is a recognised form of—"
"You must have looked quite pretty when you was short-coated!" said the old lady, irrelevantly. "Have some wine? the cake is too rich for you, but you may have just a crumb."
"You must have been the wickedest thing alive when you were eighteen!" said Geoffrey, pouring out the amber sherry into a wonderful gilt glass. "I wish Direxia would stay in the room and matronise me; I'm afraid, I tell you."
"If Direxia had nothing better to do, I'd send her packing," said Mrs.Tree. "Here!"
They touched glasses solemnly.
"Wishing you luck in a wife!" said the old lady.
"Good gracious!" cried Geoffrey.
"It's what you need, young man, and you'd better be looking out for one. There must be some one would have you, and any wife is better than none."
She looked up, though not at Geoffrey, and a twinkle came into her eyes. "Do you call little Vesta pretty, now?" she asked.
"Not pretty," said Geoffrey; "that is not the word. I—"
"Then you'd better not call her anything," said Mrs. Tree, "for she's in the door behind ye."
Geoffrey started violently, and turned around. Vesta was standing framed in the dark doorway. The clear whiteness of her beauty had never seemed more wonderful. The faint rose in her cheeks only made the white more radiant; her eyes were no longer agate-like, but soft and full of light; only her smile remained the same, shadowy, elusive, a smile in a dream.
When the young doctor remembered his manners and rose to his feet—after all, it was only a moment or two—he saw that Miss Vesta was standing behind her niece, a little gray figure melting into the gloom of the twilight hall. The two now entered the room together.
"Aunt Vesta wanted you to see my new hat, Aunt Tree," said the girl."Do you like it?"
"Yes!" said Miss Vesta, coming forward timidly. "Good evening, Aunt Marcia. Oh, good evening to you, Doctor Strong. The hat seemed to me so pretty, and you are always so kindly interested, Aunt Marcia! I ought to apologise to you, Doctor Strong, for introducing such a subject."
"Vesta, don't twitter!" said Mrs. Tree. "Is there anything improper about the hat? It's very well, child, very well. I always liked a scoop myself, but folks don't know much nowadays. What do you think of it, young man?"
Geoffrey thought it looked like a lunar halo, but he did not say so; he said something prim and conventional about its being very pretty and becoming.
"Are you going to sit down?" asked Mrs. Tree. "I can't abide to see folks standing round as if they was hat-poles."
Miss Vesta slipped into a seat, but the younger Vesta shook her head.
"I must go on!" she said. "Aunt Phoebe is expecting a letter, and I must tell her that there is none."
"Yes, dear, yes!" said Miss Vesta. "Your Aunt Phoebe will be impatient, doubtless; you are right. And perhaps it will be best for me, too—" she half rose, but Mrs. Tree pulled her down again without ceremony.
"You stay here, Vesta!" she commanded. "I want to see you. But you"—she turned to Geoffrey, who had remained standing—"can go along with the child, if you're a mind to. You'll get nothing more out of me, I tell ye."
"I am going to send you a measles bacillus to-morrow morning," said the young doctor. "You must take it in your coffee, and then you will want to see me every day. Good-bye, Mrs. Tree! some day you will be sorry for your cruelty. Miss Vesta—till tea-time!"
Aunt and niece watched the young couple in silence as they walked along the street. Both walked well; it was a pleasure to see them move. He was tall enough to justify the little courteous bend of the head, but not enough to make her anxious about the top of her hat—if she ever had such anxieties.
"Well!" said Mrs. Tree, suddenly.
Miss Vesta started. "Yes, dear Aunt Marcia!" she said. "Yes, certainly;I am here."
"They make a pretty couple, don't they?" said the old lady. "If she would come out of her tantrums,—hey, Vesta?"
"Oh, Aunt Marcia!" said Miss Vesta, softly. She blushed very pink, and looked round the room with a furtive, frightened glance.
"No, there's no one behind the sofa," said Mrs. Tree; "and there's no one under the big chair, and Phoebe is safe at home with her knitting, and the best place for her." (Mrs. Tree did not "get on" with her niece Phoebe.) "There's no use in looking like a scared pigeon, Vesta Blyth. I say they make a pretty couple, and I say they would make a pretty couple coming out of church together. I'd give her my Mechelin flounces; you'll never want 'em."
"Oh, Aunt Marcia!" said dear Miss Vesta, clasping her soft hands. "If it might be the Lord's will—"
"The Lord likes to be helped along once in a while!" said Mrs. Tree. "Don't tell me! I wasn't born yesterday." And this statement was not to be controverted.
"Deacon," said Mrs. Weight, "Mis' Tree is sick!"
"Now, reelly!" said the deacon. "Is that so?"
"It is so. She sent for Doctor Strong this morning. I saw Direxia go out, and she was gone just the len'th of time to go to the girls' and back. Pretty soon he came, riding like mad on that wheel thing of his. He stayed 'most an hour, and came out with a face a yard long. I expect it's her last sickness, don't you?"
"Mebbe so!" said the deacon, dubiously. "Mis' Tree has had a long life; she'd oughter be prepared; I trust she is. She has always loved the world's things, but I trust she is. Ain't this ruther a slim dinner, Viny? I was looking for a boiled dinner to-day, kind of."
"Fried apples and pork was good enough for my father," replied his wife, "and I guess they'll do for you, Ephraim Weight. Doctor Strong says you eat too much every day of your life, and that's why you run to flesh so. Not that I think much of what he says. I asked him how he accounted for me being so fleshy, and not the value of a great spoonful passing my lips some days; he made answer he couldn't say. I think less of that young man's knowledge every time I see him. 'Pears to me if I was the Blyth girls, I should be real unwilling to have my aunt pass away with no better care than she's likely to get from him. Billy, where's your push-piece? I don't want to see you push with your fingers again. It's real vulgar."
"I've eat it!" said Billy. "Mother, there's the young lady from MissBlythses going in to Mis' Tree's."
"I want to know—so she is! She's got a bag with her. She's going to stay. Well, I expect that settles it. I should think Phoebe and Vesta would feel kind o' bad, being passed over in that way, but it's pleasant to have young folks about a dying bed—Annie Lizzie, I'll slap you if you don't stop kicking under the table—and Nathaniel was always his aunt's favourite. Most likely she's left her property to him, or to this girl. I expect it'll be a handsome provision. Mis' Tree has lived handsome and close all her days. As you say, deacon, I hope she's prepared, but I never see any signs of active piety in her myself."
There was a pause, while all the family—except Annie Lizzie, who profited by the interlude to take two doughnuts beyond her usual allowance—gazed eagerly at the house opposite.
"She's questioning Direxia. She's shaking her head. Mebbe it's all over by now; I expect it is. I declare, there's a kind of solemn look comes over a house—you can't name it, but it's there. Deacon, I think you'd ought to step over. Elder Haskell is away, you know, and you senior deacon; I do certainly think you'd ought to step over and offer prayer, or do whatever's needful. They'll want you to break it to the girls, like as not; it's terrible to have no man in a family. All them lone women, and everything to see to; I declare, my heart warms to 'em, if Phoebeiscranky. Ain't you going, Deacon?"
The deacon hesitated. "I—ain't sure that I'd better, Viny!" he said. "I feel no assurance that Mis' Tree has passed away, and she is not one that welcomes inquiry as a rule. I've no objection to asking at the door—"
"Now, Deacon, if that isn't you all over! you are always so afraid of putting yourself forward. Where would you have been this day, I should like to know, if it hadn't been for me shoving behind? I tell you, when folks comes to their last end they suffer a great change. If you let that woman die—though it's my firm belief she's dead a'ready—without at least trying to bring her state before her, you'll have to answer for it; I won't be responsible. Here's your hat; now you go right over. There's no knowing—"
"There's Doctor Strong going in now!" pleaded the deacon. "Most likely he will see to—"
"Ephraim Weight! look me in the eye! We've lived opposite neighbours to Mis' Tree twenty years, and do you think I'm going to have it said that when her time came to die we stood back and let strangers, and next door to heathen, do for her? If you don't go over. I shall. Mebbe I'd better go, anyway. Wait till I get my bunnit—"
It ended with the deacon's going alone. Slowly and unwillingly he plodded across the street, and shuffled up the walk; timidly and half-heartedly he lifted the shining knocker and let it fall. Direxia Hawkes opened the door, and he passed in.
* * * * *
"Well?" said Mrs. Weight.
The deacon had not made a long stay at the opposite house. Returning faster than he came, his large white cheeks were slightly flushed; his pale blue eyes wore a startled look. He suffered his wife to take his hat and stick from him, and opened his mouth once or twice, but said nothing.
"Well?" said Mrs. Weight again. "Is she dead, Deacon? Ephraim, what has happened to you? have you lost the use of your speech? Oh! what will become of me, with these four innocent—"
"Woman, be still!" said Ephraim Weight; and his wife was still, gaping in utter bewilderment at this turning of her mammoth but patient worm.
"Mrs. Tree is not dead!" resumed the deacon. "I don't see as she's any more likely to die than I am. I don't see as there's any living thing the matter with her—except the devil!"
At this second outburst Mrs. Weight collapsed, and sat down, her hands on her knees, staring at her husband. The children whimpered and crept behind her ample back. "Pa" was transformed.
"I went to that house," Deacon Weight went on, "against my judgment, Viny; you know I did. I felt no call to go, quite the reverse, but you were so—
"I found Mis' Tree sitting up straight in her chair in the parlour. She had her nightcap on, and her feet in a footmuff, but that was all the sign of sickness I could see. She looked up at me as wicked as ever I saw her. 'Here's the deacon,' she says! 'he's heard I'm sick—Viny saw you come, doctor,—and he has come to pray over me. I'm past praying for, Deacon. Have some orange cordial!'
"There was glasses on the tray, and a decanter of that cordial Direxia makes; it's too strong for a temperance household. Doctor Strong and that young Blyth girl were sitting on two stools, and they was all three playing cards! I suppose I looked none too well pleased, for Mis' Tree said, 'I can't have you turning my cordial sour, Ephraim Weight. Remember when you stole oranges out of the schooner, and Cap'n Tree horsed you up and spanked you? here's your health, Ephraim!'
"She—she looked at me for a minute, sharp and quick—I was seeking for some word that might bring her to a sense of her state, and what was fitting at her age—and then she begun to laugh. 'You thought I was dead!' says she. 'You thought I was dead, I see it in your face; and Viny sent you to view the remains. You go home, and tell her I'll bury ye both, and do it handsome. Go 'long with ye! scat!'
"That was the expression she used, to a senior deacon of the congregation she sits in. I believe Satan has a strong hold on that old woman. I—I think I will go to my room, wife."
* * * * *
"Do you think there is really anything the matter with Aunt Tree?" asked Vesta. She had followed the young doctor out into the prim little garden, and was picking some late roses as she spoke.
"I can't make out anything," said Geoffrey. "She says she has a pain, and tells me to find out where it is, if I know anything; and then she laughs in my face, and refuses to answer questions. I think Mr. Tree must have had a lively time of it; she's perfectly delightful, though. Her pulse and temperature are all right; she looks well; of course at that age the slightest breath blows out the flame, but I cannot make out that anything is actually wrong. I suspect—"
"What?" said Vesta.
"I suspect she simply wanted you to come and stay with her, and made this an excuse."
"But I would have come; there was no need of any excuse. I would have come in a minute if she had asked me; I am so very much stronger, and I love to stay here."
"You won't stay long, though, will you? it can't be necessary, not in the least necessary. She is really perfectly well, and we—your aunts, that is—the house will be too forlorn without you."
Vesta laughed; she had a delightful laugh.
"You have charming manners!" she said. "I can't help knowing that you will really be glad to be rid of me, all but Aunt Vesta; dear Aunt Vesta."
"You don't know!" said Geoffrey. "It won't be the same place without you."
"Yes, I do know; Aunt Phoebe told me. You said the three of you made the perfect triangle, and you wouldn't let in the Czar of Russia or the Pope of Rome to spoil it."
"Oh! but that was before—that was when things were entirely different!" said Geoffrey. "I—to tell the truth, I think I was about twelve years old when I first came to the house. I am growing up a little, Miss Blyth, I truly am. And you are not in the least like the Czar or the Pope either, and—I wish you would come back. Mayn't I have a rose, please?"
"Oh! all you want, I am sure," said Vesta, heartily. "But they are not really so pretty as those at home."
"I thought perhaps you would give me one of those in your hand," saidGeoffrey, half-timidly. "Thank you! I don't suppose—"
He was about to suggest her pinning it on his coat, but caught sight ofMrs. Weight at the opposite window, and refrained.
"Do you know any Spanish?" he asked, abruptly.
"Spanish? no!" said Vesta, looking at him wide-eyed.
"Not even names of flowers?"
"No! how should I? Why do you ask?"
"Oh—nothing! I was thinking of learning it one of these days, but I don't believe I shall. Come and walk a little way, won't you? You look tired. I can't—you must not stay here if you are going to get tired, you know. Old people are very exacting sometimes."