CHAPTER XLVII.DOCTOR GRANT.
Morris had served out his time as surgeon in the army, had added to it an extra six months; and by his humanity, his skill, and Christian kindness, made for himself a name which would be long remembered by the living to whom he had ministered so carefully; while many a dying soldier had blessed him for pointing out the way which leadeth to the life everlasting; and in many a mourning family his name was a household word, for the good he had done to a dying son and brother. But Morris’s hospital work was over. He had gone a little too far, and incurredtoo much risk, until his own strength had failed; and now, in the month of June, when Linwood was bright with the early summer blossoms, he was coming back with health greatly impaired, and a dark cloud before his vision, so that he could not see how beautiful his home was looking, or gaze into the faces of those who waited so anxiously to welcome their beloved physician.Blindsome said he was; but the few lines sent to Helen, announcing the day of his arrival, contradicted that report. His eyes were very much diseased, his amanuensis wrote; but he trusted that the pure air of his native hills, and the influence of old scenes and associations would soon effect a cure. “If not too much trouble,” he added, “please see that the house is made comfortable, and have John meet me on Friday at the station.”
Helen was glad Morris was coming home, for he always did her good; he could comfort her better than any one else, unless it were Katy, whose loving, gentle words of hope were very soothing to her.
“Poor Morris!” she sighed, as she finished his letter, and then took it to the family, who were sitting upon the pleasant piazza, which, at Katy’s expense and her own, had been added to the house, and overlooked Fairy Pond and the pleasant hills beyond.
“Morris is coming home,” she said. “He will be here on Friday, and he wishes us to see that all things are in order at Linwood for his reception. His eyes are badly diseased, but he hopes that coming back to us will cure him,” she added, glancing at Katy, who sat upon a step of the piazza, her hands folded together upon her lap, and her blue eyes looking far off into the fading sunset.
When she heard Morris’s name, she turned her head a little, so that the ripple of her golden hair was more distinctly visible beneath the silken net she wore; but she made no comment nor showed by any sign that she heard what they were saying. Katy was very lovely and consistent in her young widowhood, and not a whisper of gossip had the Silvertonians coupled with her name since she came to them, leaving her husband in Greenwood. There had been no parading of her grief before the public, or assumption of greater sorrow than many others hadknown; but the soberness of her demeanor, and the calm, subdued expression of her face, attested to what she had suffered. Sixteen months had passed since Wilford died, and she still wore her deep mourning weeds, except the widow’s cap, which, at her mother’s and Aunt Betsy’s earnest solicitations, she had laid aside, substituting in its place a simple net, which confined her waving hair and kept it from breaking out in flowing curls, as it was disposed to do.
Katy had never been prettier than she was now, in her mature womanhood, and to the poor and sorrowful whose homes she cheered so often she was an angel of goodness.
Truly she had been purified by suffering; the dross had been burned out, and only the gold remained, shedding its brightness on all with which it came in contact.
They would miss her at the farm-house now more than they did when she first went away, for she made the sunshine of their home, filling Helen’s place when she was in New York, and when she came back proving to her a stay and comforter. Indeed, but for Katy’s presence Helen often felt that she could not endure the sickening suspense and doubt which hung so darkly over her husband’s fate.
“He is alive; hewillcome back,” Katy always said, and from her perfect faith Helen, too, caught a glimpse of hope.
Could they have forgotten Mark they would have been very happy at the farm-house now, for with the budding spring and blossoming summer Katy’s spirits had returned, and her old musical laugh rang through the house just as it used to do in the happy days of girlhood, while the same silvery voice which led the choir in the brick church, and sang with the little children their Sunday hymns, often broke forth into snatches of songs, which made even the robins listen, as they built their nests in the trees.
If Katy thought of Morris, she never spoke of him when she could help it. It was a morbid fancy to which she clung, that duty to Wilford’s memory required her to avoid the man who had so innocently come betweenthem; and when she heard he was coming home she felt more pain than pleasure, though for an instant the blood throbbed through her veins as she thought of Morris at Linwood, just as he used to be.
The day of his return was balmy and beautiful, and at an early hour Helen went over to Linwood to see that everything was in order for his arrival, while Katy followed at a later hour, wondering if Wilford would object if he knew she was going to welcome Morris, who might misconstrue her motives if she stayed away.
There was very little for her to do, Helen and Mrs. Hull having done all that was necessary, but she went from room to room, lingering longest in Morris’s own apartment, where she made some alterations in the arrangement of the furniture, putting one chair a little more to the right, and pushing a stand or table to the left, just as her artistic eye dictated. By some oversight no flowers had been put in there, but Katy gathered a bouquet and left it on the mantel, just where she remembered to have seen flowers when Morris was at home.
“He will be tired,” she said. “He will lie down after dinner,” and she laid a few sweet English violets upon his pillow, thinking their perfume might be grateful to him after the pent-up air of the hospital and cars. “He will think Helen put them there, or Mrs. Hull,” she thought, as she stole softly out and shut the door behind her, glancing next at the clock, and feeling a little impatient that a whole hour must elapse before they could expect him.
Poor Morris! he did not dream how anxiously he was waited for at home, nor of the crowd assembled at the depot to welcome back the loved physician, whose name they had so often heard coupled with praise as a true hero, even though his post was not in the front of the battle. Thousands had been cared for by him, their gaping wounds dressed skillfully, their aching heads soothed tenderly, and their last moments made happier by the words he spoke to them of the world to which they were going, where there is no more war or shedding of man’s blood. In the churchyard at Silverton there were three soldiers’ graves, whose pale occupants had died with Dr.Grant’s hand held tightly in theirs, as if afraid that he would leave them before the dark river was crossed, while in more than one Silverton home there was a wasted soldier, who never tired of telling Dr. Morris’s praise and dwelling on his goodness. But Dr. Morris was not thinking of this as, faint and sick, with the green shade before his eyes, he leaned against the pile of shawls his companion had placed for his back, and wondered if they were almost there.
“I smell the pond lilies; we must be near Silverton,” he said, and a sigh escaped him as he thought of coming home and not being able toseeit or the woods and fields around it. “Thy will be done,” he had said many times since the fear first crept into his heart that for him the light had faded.
But now, when home was almost reached, and he began to breathe the air from the New England hills and the perfume of the New England lilies, the flesh rebelled again, and he cried out within himself, “Oh, I cannot be blind! God will not deal thus by me!” while keen as the cut of a sharpened knife was the pang with which he thought of Katy, and wondered would she care if he were blind.
Just then the long train stopped at Silverton, and, led by his attendant, he stepped feebly into the crowd, which sent up deafening cheers for Dr. Grant come home again. At the sight of his helplessness, however; a feeling of awe fell upon them, and whispering to each other, “I did not suppose he was so bad,” they pressed around him, offering their hands and inquiring anxiously how he was.
“I have been sick, but I shall get better now. The very sound of your friendly voices does me good,” he said, as he went slowly to his carriage, led by Uncle Ephraim, who could not keep back his tears when he saw how weak Morris was, and how he panted for breath as he leaned back among the cushions.
It was very pleasant that afternoon, and Morris enjoyed the drive so much, assuring Uncle Ephraim, that he was growing better every moment. He did seem stronger when the carriage stopped at Linwood, and he went up thesteps where Helen, Katy, and Mrs. Hull were waiting for him. He could not by sight distinguish one from the other, but without the aid of her voice he would have known when Katy’s hand was put in his, it was so small, so soft, and trembled so as he held it. She forgot Wilford in her excitement. Pity was the strongest feeling of which she was conscious, and it manifested itself in various ways.
“Letmelead you, Cousin Morris,” she said, as she saw him groping his way to his room, and without waiting for his reply, she held his hand again in hers and led him to his room, where the English violets were.
“I used to leadyou,” Morris said, as he took his seat by the window, “and I little thought then that you would one day return the compliment. It is very hard to be blind.”
The tone of his voice was inexpressibly sad, but his smile was as cheerful as ever as his face turned towards Katy, who could not answer for her tears. It seemed so terrible to see a strong man so stricken, and that strong man Morris—terrible to watch him in his helplessness, trying to appear as of old, so as to cast on others no part of the shadow resting so darkly on himself. When dinner was over and the sun began to decline, many of his former friends came in; but he looked so pale and weary that they did not tarry long, and when the last one was gone, Morris was led back to his room, which he did not leave again until the summer was over, and the luscious fruits of September were ripening upon the trees.
Towards the middle of July, Helen, whose health was suffering from her anxiety concerning Mark, was taken by Mrs. Banker to Nahant, where Mark’s sister, Mrs. Ernst, was spending the summer, and thus on Katy fell the duty of paying to Morris those acts of sisterly attention such as no other member of the family knew how to pay. In the room where he lay so helpless Katy was not afraid of him, nor did she deem herself faithless to Wilford’s memory, because each day found her at Linwood, sometimes bathing Morris’s inflamed eyes, sometimes bringing him the cooling drink, and again reading to himby the hour, until, soothed by the music of her voice, he would fall away to sleep and dream he heard the angels sing.
“My eyes are getting better,” he said to her one day toward the latter part of August, when she came as usual to his room. “I knew last night that Mrs. Hull’s dress was blue, and I saw the sun shine through the shutters. Very soon, I hope to see you, Katy, and know if you have changed.”
She was standing close by him, and as he talked he raised his hand to rest it on her head, but, with a sudden movement, Katy eluded the touch, and stepped a little further from him.
When next she went to Linwood there was in her manner a shade of dignity, which both amused and interested Morris. He did not know for certain that Wilford had told Katy of the confession made that memorable night when her recovery seemed so doubtful, but he more than half suspected it from the shyness of her manner, and from the various excuses she began to make for not coming to Linwood as often as she had heretofore done.
In his great pity for Katy when she was first a widow, Morris had scarcely remembered that she was free, or if it did flash upon his mind, he thrust the thought aside as injustice to the dead; but as the months and the year went by, and he heard constantly from Helen of Katy’s increasing cheerfulness, it was not in his nature never to think of what might be, and more than once he had prayed, that if consistent with his Father’s will, the woman he had loved so well, should yet be his. If not, he could go his way alone, just as he had always done, knowing that it was right.
Such was the state of Morris’s mind when he returned from Washington, but now it was somewhat different. The weary weeks of sickness, during which Katy had ministered to him so kindly, had not been without their effect, and if Morris had loved the frolicsome, child-like Katy Lennox, he loved far more the gentle, beautiful woman, whose character had been so wonderfully developed by suffering, and who was more worthy of his love than in her early girlhood.
“I cannot lose her now,” was the thought constantly in Morris’s mind, as he experienced more and more how desolate were the days which did not bring her to him. “It is twenty months since Wilford died,” he said to himself one wet October afternoon, when he sat listening dreamily to the patter of the rain falling upon the windows, and looking occasionally across the fields to the farm-house, in the hope of spying in the distance the little airy form, which, in its water-proof and cloud, had braved worse storms than this at the time he was so ill.
But no such figure appeared. He hardly expected it would; but he watched the pathway just the same, and the smoke-wreaths rising so high above the farm-house. The deacon burned out his chimney that day, and Morris, whose sight had greatly improved of late, knew it by the dense, black volume of smoke, mingled with rings of fire, which rose above the roof, remembering so well another rainy day, twenty years ago, when the deacon’s chimney was cleaned, and a little toddling girl, in scarlet gown and white pinafore, had amused herself with throwing into the blazing fire upon the hearth a straw at a time, almost upsetting herself with standing so far back, and making such efforts to reach the flames. A great deal had passed since then. The little girl in the pinafore had been both wife and mother. She was a widow now, and Morris glanced across his hearth toward the empty chair he had never seen in imagination filled by any but herself.
“Surely, she would some day be his own,” and leaning his head upon the cane he carried, he prayed earnestly for the good he coveted, keeping his head down so long that, until it had left the strip of woods and emerged into the open fields, he did not see the figure wrapped in water-proof and hood, with a huge umbrella over its head and a basket upon its arm, which came picking its way daintily toward the house, stopping occasionally, and lifting up the little high-heeled Balmoral, which the mud was ruining so completely. Katy was coming to Linwood. It had been baking-day at the farm-house, and remembering how much Morris used to love her custards, Aunt Betsyhad prepared him some, and asked Katy to take them over, so he could have them for tea.
“The rain won’t hurt you an atom,” she said as Katy began to demur, and glance at the lowering sky. “You can wear your water-proof boots and my shaker, if you like, and I do so want Morris to have them to-night.”
Thus importuned, Katy consented to go, but declined the loan of Aunt Betsy’s shaker, which being large of the kind, and capeless, too, was not the most becoming head-gear a woman could wear. With the basket of custards, and cup of jelly, Katy finally started, Aunt Betsy saying to her, as she stopped to take up her dress, “It must be dretful lonesome for Morris to-day. S’posin’ you stay to supper with him, and when it’s growin’ dark I’ll come over for you. You’ll find the custards fust rate.”
Katy made no reply, and walked away, while Aunt Betsy went back to the coat she was patching for her brother, saying to herself,
“I’m bound to fetch that round. It’s a shame for two young folks, just fitted to each other, to live apart when they might be so happy, with Hannah, and Lucy, and me, close by, to see to ’em, and allus make their soap, and see to the butcherin’, besides savin’ peneryle and catnip for the children, if there was any.”
Aunt Betsy had turned match-maker in her old age, and day and night she planned how to bring about the match between Morris and Katy. That they were made for each other, she had no doubt. From something which Helen inadvertently let fall, she had guessed that Morris loved Katy prior to her marriage with Wilford. She had suspected as much before; she was sure of it now, and straightway put her wits to work “to make it go,” as she expressed it. But Katy was too shy to suit her, and since Morris’s convalescence, had stayed too much from Linwood. To-day, however, Aunt Betsy “felt it in her bones,” that if properly managed something would happen, and the custards were but the means to the desired end. With no suspicion whatever of the good dame’s intentions, Katy picked her way to Linwood, and leaving her damp garments in the hall, went at once into the library, where Morris was sitting near to a large chairkept sacred for her, his face looking unusually cheerful, and the room unusually pleasant, with the bright wood fire on the hearth.
“I have been so lonely, with no company but the rain,” he said, pushing the chair a little towards her, and bidding her sit near the fire, where she could dry her feet.
Katy obeyed, and sat down so near to him that had he chosen he might have touched the golden hair, fastened in heavy coils low on her neck, and giving to her a very girlish appearance, as Morris thought, for he could see her now, and while she dried her feet he looked at her eagerly, wondering that the fierce storm she had encountered had left so few traces upon her face. Just about the mouth there was a deep cut line, but this was all; the remainder of the face was fair and smooth as in her early girlhood, and far more beautiful, just as her character was lovelier, and more to be admired.
Morris had done well to wait if he could win her now. Perhaps he thought so, too, and this was why his spirits became so gay as he kept talking to her, suggesting at last that she should stay to tea. The rain was falling in torrents when he made the proposition. She could not go then, even had she wished it, and though it was earlier than his usual time, Morris at once rang for Mrs. Hull, and ordered that tea be served as soon as possible.
“I ought not to stay. It is not proper,” Katy kept thinking, as she fidgeted in her chair, and watched the girl setting the table for two, and occasionally deferring some debatable point to her as if she were mistress there.
“You can go now, Reekie,” Morris said, when the boiling water was poured into the silver kettle, and tea was on the table. “If we need you we will ring.”
With a vague wonder as to who would toast the doctor’s bread, and butter it, Reekie departed, and the two were left together. It was Katy who toasted the bread, kneeling upon the hearth, burning her face and scorching the bread in her nervousness at the novel position in which she so unexpectedly found herself. It was Katy, too, who prepared Morris’s tea, and tried to eat, but could not. She was not hungry, she said, and the custard was the only thing she tasted, besides the tea, which she sipped atfrequent intervals so as to make Morris think she was eating more than she was. But Morris was not deceived, nor disheartened. Possibly she suspected his intention, and if so, the sooner he reached the point the better. So when the tea equipage was put away, and she began again to speak of going home, he said,
“No, Katy, you can’t go yet, till I have said what’s in my mind to say,” and laying his hand upon her shoulder he made her sit down beside him and listen while he told her of the love he had borne for her long before she knew the meaning of that word as she knew it now—of the struggle to keep that love in bounds after its indulgence was a sin; of his temptations and victories, of his sincere regret for Wilford, and of his deep respect for her grief, which made her for a time as a sister to him. But that time had passed. She was not his sister now, nor ever could be again. She was Katy, dearer, more precious, more desired even than before another called her wife, and he asked her to be his, to come up there to Linwood and live with him, making the rainy days brighter, balmier, than the sunniest had ever been, and helping him in his work of caring for the poor and sick around them.
“Will Katy come? Will she be the wife of Cousin Morris?”
There was a world of pathos and pleading in the voice which asked this question, just as there was a world of tenderness in the manner with which Morris caressed and fondled the bowed head resting on the chair arm. And Katy felt it all, understanding what it was to be offered such a love as Morris offered, but only comprehending in part what it would be to refuse that love. For her blinded judgment said she must refuse it. Had there been no sad memories springing from that grave in Greenwood, no bitter reminiscences connected with her married life—had Wilford never heard of Morris’s love and taunted her with it, she might perhaps consent, for she craved the rest there would be with Morris to lean upon. But the happiness was too great for her to accept. It would seem too much like faithlessness to Wilford, too much as if he had been right, when he charged her with preferring Morris to himself.
“It cannot be;—oh, Morris, it cannot be,” she sobbed, when he pressed her for an answer. “Don’t ask me why—don’t ever mention it again, for I tell you it cannot be. My answer is final; it cannot be. I am sorry for you, so sorry! I wish you had never loved me, for it cannot be.”
She writhed herself from the arms which tried to detain her, and rising to her feet left the room suddenly, and throwing on her wrappings quitted the house without another word, leaving basket and umbrella behind, and never knowing she had left them, or how the rain was pouring down upon her unsheltered person, until, as she entered the narrow strip of woodland, she was met by Aunt Betsy, who exclaimed at seeing her, and asked,
“What has become of yourumberell? Your silk one too. It’s hopeful you haven’t lost it. What has happened you?” and coming closer to Katy, Aunt Betsy looked searchingly in her face. It was not so dark that she could not see the traces of recent tears, and instinctively suspecting their nature she continued, “Catherine, have you gin Morris the mitten?”
“Aunt Betsy, is it possible that you and Morris contrived this plan?” Katy asked, half indignantly, as she began in part to understand her aunt’s great anxiety for her to visit Linwood that afternoon.
“Morris had nothing to do with it,” Aunt Betsy replied. “It was my doin’s wholly, and this is the thanks I git. You quarrel with him and git mad at me, who thought only of your good. Catherine, you know you like Morris Grant, and if he asked you to have him why don’t you?”
“I can’t, Aunt Betsy. I can’t, after all that has passed. It would be unjust to Wilford.”
“Unjust to Wilford—fiddlesticks!” was Aunt Betsy’s expressive reply, as she started on toward Linwood, saying, “she was going after the umberell before it got lost, with nobody there to tend to things as they should be tended to. Have you any word to send?” she asked, hoping Katy had relented.
But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which shook the rain drops from her capeless shaker, Aunt Betsywent on her way, and was soon confronting Morris, sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking very pale and sad.
He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather be alone until such time as he could control himself and still his throbbing heart. But with his usual affability, he bade Aunt Betsy sit down, shivering a little when he saw her in the chair where Katy had sat, her thin, angular body presenting a striking contrast to the graceful, girlish figure which had sat there an hour since, and the huge india rubbers she held up to the fire, as unlike as possible to the boot of fairy dimensions he had admired so much when it was drying on the hearth.
“I met Catherine,” Aunt Betsy began, “and mistrusted at once that something was to pay, for a girl don’t leave her umberell in such a rain and go cryin’ home for nothin’.”
Morris colored, resenting for an instant this interference by a third party; but Aunt Betsy was so honest and simple-hearted, that he could not be angry long, and he listened calmly, while she continued,
“I have not lived sixty odd years for nothing, and I know the signs pretty well. I’ve been through the mill myself.”
Here Aunt Betsy’s voice grew lower in its tone, and Morris looked up with real interest, while she went on,
“There’s Joel Upham—you know Joel—keeps a tin-shop now, and seats the folks in meetin’. He asked me once for my company, and to be smart I told himno, when all the time I meantyes, thinkin’ he would ask agin; but he didn’t, and the next I knew he was keepin’ company with Patty Adams, now his wife. I remembered I sniveled a little at being taken at my word, but it served me right, for saying one thing when I meant another. However, it don’t matter now. Joel is as clever as the day is long, but he is a shiftless critter, never splits his kindlins till jest bedtime, and Patty is pestered to death for wood, while his snorin’ nights she says is awful, and that I never could abide; so, on the whole, I’m better off than Patty.”
Morris laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which emboldened his visitor to say more than she had intended saying.
“You just ask her agin. Once ain’t nothing at all, and she’ll come to. She likes you; ’taint that which made her say no. It’s some foolish idea about faithfulness to Wilford, as if he deserved that she should be faithful. They never orto have had one another,—never; and now that he is well in Heaven, as I do suppose he is, it ain’t I who hanker for him to come back. Neither does Katy, and all she needs is a little urging, to tell you yes. So ask her again, will you?”
“I think it very doubtful. Katy knew what she was doing, and meant what she said,” Morris replied; and with the consoling remark that if young folks would be fools it was none of her business to bother with them, Aunt Betsy pinned her shawl across her chest, and hunting up both basket and umbrella, bade Morris good night, and went back across the fields to the farm-house, hearing from Mrs. Lennox that Katy had gone to bed with a racking headache.