CHAPTER XVIIREX AND SAM
It was three o’clock, and the heat, instead of growing less, seemed to increase. There were a few thunder-heads in the western sky and some mutterings in the distance, but the sun poured down in a blaze like noonday and the heat seemed unbearable to Rex, as he walked slowly along, his feet dragging heavily, his umbrella seeming fifty pounds weight and the plantain leaves pressing upon his head.
“I feel badly and no mistake,” he thought, as he came in sight of the grove which looked so cool and inviting that, although it took him out of his way, he turned aside and soon came near the well, at which he glanced with a shudder, while the one eye seen on half of the face began to dance before him and beckon him on—not to the well, he made quite a detour to avoid it—and came to the bench under a pine tree, starting as a figure reclining upon it began to stir and sit upright.
Sam Walker had been across the fields to a distant farmhouse and on returning had sought theshelter of the grove, where for a moment he had fallen asleep.
“Hello!” he said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s you, Mr. Travers. I’m just resting and trying to keep cool. Isn’t the heat a corker? Sit down, you seem tuckered out.”
He moved along and Rex sat down, admitting that he was tuckered out and the day a corker, while Sam continued:
“If there was anything here to draw water with, I’d get some for you to bathe your face and hands. You look kinder queer.”
It does not make one feel better to be told that he looks queer, and Rex was not an exception. He felt queer. The hornets were in full play, and he put up his hand to brush away one which seemed buzzing in his face, while the eye was staring at him from the stone near the well where it had first appeared to him.
“I’m tired and warm, that’s all,” he said, while Sam remarked that he guessed a shower must be coming up, as he felt like thunder and had all day.
Rex laughed at the odd speech and replied that he believed he, too, felt like thunder, or something worse.
“I wish I could get some water,” Sam said. “There used to be a bucket here but it is gone,and the nonsense about played out. I was kinder glad when I heard the glass go into the well. Was you much scared when she looked over your shoulder? I thought you was goin’ to tumble in, and you would if she hadn’t catched you.”
“Who looked over my shoulder? What do you mean?” Rex asked, and Sam replied:
“Why, she, Miss Burdick, you know, when you looked into the well yesterday. Don’t you remember?”
“Yesterday,” Rex repeated, with a feeling that yesterday was a great way off. “Were you here?”
“Why, yes,” Sam answered. “You see, I’d been to Bemis’ about some hayseed, just as I have to-day, and on my way back I was so hot and dead tired that I lay down under that tree behind that clump of bushes and fell asleep. When I waked up you was lookin’ in the well for all you was worth, and she was goin’ up to you careful-like, just as I went up to Lottie when I catched her at it and looked over her shoulder before she knew I was there. My, how she screeched—Lottie, I mean—not you. I didn’t mean to peek, only I happened to be here and watched Miss Burdick and see you jump when she bent over you and the glass fell into the well as if you was scared.”
“But—but—Miss Burdick was sitting where weare,” Rex stammered, and Sam, who suspected nothing, continued:
“Maybe she was at first, but when I seen her she was tip-toe-in’ up to you, who couldn’t hear her, the ground is so soft and the pine-needles so thick, and I s’pose you was thinkin’ of something else.”
“And looked over my shoulder?” Rex asked next, every faculty now on the alert as he began to see the trick played upon him.
“Why, yes,” Sam said, thinking Mr. Travers rather forgetful. “You saw her, didn’t you? and that’s what made you drop the glass, while she jumped back and put on her hat, which she had took off, and, when you reeled as if you was goin’ to fall she sprang forward again and grabbed you, don’t you know?”
“Yes, yes,” Rex said. “I know, but I didn’t see you.”
“Of course not,” Sam replied. “I didn’t want you to think I was spyin’ on you, because I wasn’t, and I kep’ still and you and she sat on the bench awhile, and you seemed kinder upset and faint.”
“Yes, and I—I think I am now, the day is so hot and my head so bad,” Rex said. “Tell me again just what you saw.”
Sam looked at him in some surprise, wondering if he were a little off, but he repeated the story again,apologizing profusely because he was there a spectator of the scene, which he described very fully, interspersing his remarks with “Don’t you remember?” and “Don’t you know?” while Rex kept saying, “Yes, yes, go on,” till he had a very lucid idea of what had taken place in the grove the previous day. It was not a phantom he saw in the glass, the half face whose one eye had left the stone by the well and was dancing up and down before him with a persistency which made him dizzy. It was Irene herself playing a trick upon him and offering no explanation when she saw how it had affected him. What was her object? Not a mere joke, or she would have confessed it, and if it were a joke it certainly was not worthy of her, he thought, and there began to creep over him a great revulsion of feeling toward her and he was glad he had not sent the letter. He must wait a while and think it over. He was very tired and very warm and very sick, he said to himself at last, as he sat half blinded with the pain in his head and the nausea at his stomach. He knew Sam was still talking to him, but he did not comprehend all he was saying. He had not, however, lost a word where Irene was concerned, and could see her stealing up behind him, while he was too absorbed to hear her. He could see, too, the half face in the mirror and the eye looking at him withsomething like a mocking smile in its blue depths, but aside from that he did not pay much attention to Sam’s talk till he spoke of taking Irene to the station and how badly she felt about her brother.
“I s’posed she lived in New York, but she got a ticket for Claremont,” he said.
For a moment Rex looked at him inquiringly.
“Claremont? Where is that?” he asked.
“Dunno,” Sam replied. “Maybe her brother lives there and not in New York with her.”
“Yes, that’s it, thank you,” Rex said, as if Sam had solved a question which was puzzling him a little.
The brother and Claremont were new to him, and in his hazy state of mind he could not quite comprehend them. But Sam had made it plain. The brother lived in Claremont and Irene had gone there.
“Yes, thank you,” he said again, while Sam looked curiously at him a moment, and then remembering the fever which had broken out in the village he spoke of it and how rapidly it was spreading.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you was comin’ down with it,” he said, as he noticed Rex’s flushed face and saw him shiver occasionally as if he were cold. “Be you real sick?” he asked, at last, and Rex replied:
“No—no; a little shaky, that’s all. I was startled at the well, that’s a fact, and the weather is so warm.I think, however, I’ll go home. That is the best place; yes, the best place, and I must lie down.”
He didn’t quite know what he was saying, as he rose slowly, swaying to one side, and putting out his hand to steady himself. Certainly there was something the matter, Sam thought, and he walked with him as far as the gate and offered to go the rest of the way if Rex would like to have him. But Rex declined his escort, and bidding him good afternoon went on toward home very slowly, with a feeling that something had happened to him or was going to happen, he did not know which. One fact, however, stood out distinctly in his mind. He had not sent the letter and he was glad. Irene had deceived him, and he must wait till he saw her, and then—He did not know what then. He was only conscious of a sense of great relief as if he had escaped a danger, but by the time he reached home the pain in his head overmastered every other feeling, and Colin found him sitting in the hall where he had dropped into a chair, very white and uncertain as to where he was or what was the matter.
“My head is pretty bad and dizzy,” he said. “I think it is the heat. I shall be better when I get to my room but I guess you will have to go with me. I don’t quite remember the way and am weak as water. I wish Tom were here.”
Colin looked at him in some alarm. He knew of the fever in the village, which was causing dismay among the inhabitants. As yet it had been confined to the poorer class in the narrow streets where there was filth with poverty and squalor. None of the better class had it and it hardly seemed possible to Colin that a guest in his house, where there was extreme cleanliness and every possible luxury, could fall a victim to the malarious disease. But there was certainly something wrong with Rex, whose speech became every moment more incoherent, and Colin went with him to his room and summoned the housekeeper, Mrs. Frye, and sent for the doctor, whom Nixon fortunately met near the house on his way from visiting a patient further up the road.
“He hasn’t the fever, of course?” Colin said, anxiously, as he watched the doctor examining Rex and taking his temperature. “He couldn’t get it in this house, where everything is spick and span clean, cellar whitewashed twice this year, drains clean as a whistle, traps all right, water filtered, and all that. He can’t have the fever!”
The doctor made no reply for a few moments, while he was dealing out medicine, with directions how to give it.
“I am very sorry,” he said, at last, “very sorry to tell you that in spite of your cellar and drain andtraps and filtered water, Mr. Travers has the fever, and I think it has been coming on for some days. It bids fair to be the crazy kind, as he is already out of his head. Keep him as quiet as you can; better have a trained nurse at once. Good afternoon. I’ll look in again to-night. I have a good many more patients to see. The fever is spreading.”