Aikenside Part 5

Wonderingly Maddy looked at her, and then as a confused recollection of where they had met before crossed her mind, she smiled faintly, and said:

"Where am I now? Have I never come home, and is this Dr. Holbrook's office?"

"No, no; it's home, your home, and you are getting well," Jessie cried, bending over the bewildered girl. "Dr. Holbrook has cured you, and Guy is here, and I, and--"

"Hush, you disturb her," the doctor said, gently pulling Jessie away, and himself asking Maddy how she felt.

She did not recognize him. She only had a vague idea that he might be some doctor, but not Dr. Holbrook, sure; not the one who had so puzzled and tortured her on a day which seemed now so far behind. From the white-haired man kneeling by the bedside there was a burst of thanksgiving for the life restored, and then Grandpa Markham tottered from the room, out into the open air, which had never fallen so refreshingly on his tried frame as it fell now, when he first knew that Maddy would live. He did not care for his homestead; that might go, and he still be happy with Maddy left. But He who had marked that true disciple's every sigh, had another good in store, willing it so that both should come together, even as the two disappointments had come hand in hand.

From the soft cushions of his carriage, where he sat reclining, Guy Remington saw the old man as he came out, and alighting at once, he accosted him pleasantly, and then walked with him to the garden, where, on a rustic bench, built for Maddy beneath the cherry trees, Grandpa Markham sat down to rest. From speaking of Madeline it was easy to go back to the day when Guy had first met grandpa, whose application for money he had refused.

"I have thought better of it since," he said, "and am sorry I did not accede to your proposal. One object of my coming here to-day was to say that my purse is at your disposal. You can have as much as you wish, paying me whenever you like, and the house shall not be sold. Sloc.u.m, I understand, holds the mortgage. I will see him to-morrow and stop the whole proceeding."

Guy spoke rapidly, determined to make a clean breast of it, but grandpa understood him, and bowing his white head upon his bosom, the big tears dropped like rain upon the turf, while his lips quivered, first with thanks to the Providence who had truly done all things well, and next with thanks to his benefactor.

"Blessings on your head, young man, for making me so happy. You are worthy of your father, and he was the best of men."

"My father--did you know him?" Guy asked, in some surprise, and then the story came out, how, years before, when a city hotel was on fire, and one of its guests in imminent danger from the locality of his room, and his own nervous fear which made him powerless to act, another guest braved fearlessly the hissing flame, and scaling the tottering wall, dragged out to life and liberty one who, until that hour, was to him an utter stranger.

Pushing back his snowy hair, Grandfather Markham showed upon his temple a long, white scar, obtained the night when he periled his own life to save that of another. There was a doubly warm pressure now of the old man's hand, as Guy replied, "I've heard that story from father himself, but the name of his preserver had escaped me. Why didn't you tell me who you were?"

"I thought 'twould look too much like demanding it as a right--too much like begging, and I s'pose I felt too proud. Pride is my besetting sin--the one I pray most against."

Guy looked keenly now at the man whose besetting sin was pride, and as he marked the cheapness of his attire, his pantaloons faded and short, his coat worn threadbare and shabby, his shoes both patched at the toes, his cotton shirt minus a bosom, and then thought of the humble cottage, with its few rocky acres, he wondered of what he could be proud.

Meantime, for Maddy, Dr. Holbrook had prescribed perfect quiet, bidding them darken again the window from which the shade had been removed, and ordering all save the grandmother to leave the room and let the patient sleep, if possible. Even Jessie was not permitted to stay, though Maddy clung to her as to a dear friend. In a few whispered words Jessie had told her name, saying she came from Aikenside, and that her Brother Guy was there, too, outdoors, in the carriage. "He heard how sick you were at Devonshire, this morning, and drove right home for me to come to see you. I told him of you that day in the office, and that's why he brought me, I guess. You'll like Guy. I know all the girls do--he's so good."

Sick and weary as she was, and unable as yet to comprehend the entire meaning of all she heard, Maddy was conscious of a thrill of pride in knowing that Guy Remington, from Aikenside, was interested in her, and had brought his sister to see her. Winding her feeble arms around Jessie's neck, she kissed the soft, warm cheek, and said, "You'll come again, I hope."

"Yes, every day, if mamma will let me. I don't mind it a bit, if you are poor."

"Tut, tut, little tattler!" and Dr. Holbrook, who, unseen by the children, had all the while been standing near, took Jessie by the arm.

"What makes you think them poor?"

In the closely-shaded room Maddy could see nothing distinctly, but she heard Jessie's reply: "Because the plastering comes down so low, and Maddy's pillows are so teenty, not much bigger than my dolly's. But I love her; don't you doctor?"

Through the darkness the doctor caught the sudden flash of Maddy's eyes, and something impelled him to lay his cool, broad hand on her forehead, as he replied, "I love all my patients;" then, taking Jessie's arm, he led her out to where Guy was waiting for her.

CHAPTER VI. -- CONVALESCENCE.

Had it not been for the presence of Dr. Holbrook, who, accepting Guy's invitation to tea, rode back with him to Aikenside, Mrs. Agnes would have gone off into a pa.s.sion when told that Jessie had been "exposed to fever and mercy knows what."

"There's no telling what one will catch among the very poor," she said to Dr. Holbrook, as she clasped and unclasped the heavy gold bracelets flashing on her white, round arm.

"I'll be answerable for any disease Jessie caught at Mr. Markham's," the doctor replied.

"At Mr. Who's? What did you call him?" Agnes asked, the bright color on her cheek fading as the doctor replied:

"Markham--an old man who lives in Honedale. You never knew him, of course."

Involuntarily Agnes glanced at Guy, in whose eye there was, as she fancied, a peculiar expression. Could it be he knew the secret she guarded so carefully? Impossible, she said to herself; but still the white fingers trembled as she handled the china and silver, and for once she was glad when the doctor took his leave, and she was alone with Jessie.

"What was that girl's name?" she asked, "the one you went to see?"

"Maddy, mother--Madeline Clyde. She's so pretty. I'm going to see her again. May I?"

Agnes did not reply directly, but continued to question the child with regard to the cottage which Jessie thought so funny, slanting away back, she said, so that the roof on one side almost touched the ground. The window panes, too, were so very tiny, and the room where Maddy lay sick was small and low.

"Yes, yes, I know," Agnes said at last, impatiently, weary of hearing of the cottage whose humble exterior and interior she knew so much better than Jessie herself.

But this was not to be divulged; for surely the haughty Agnes Remington, who, in Boston, aspired to lead in society into which, as the wife of Dr. Remington, she had been admitted, and who, in Aikenside, was looked upon with envy, could have nothing in common with the red cottage or its inmates. So when Jessie asked again if she could not visit Maddy on the morrow, she answered decidedly: "No, daughter, no. I do not wish you to a.s.sociate with such people," and when Jessie insisted on knowing why she must not a.s.sociate with such people as Maddy Clyde, the answer was: "Because you are a Remington," and as if this of itself were of an unanswerable objection, Agnes sent her child from her, refusing to talk longer on a subject so disagreeable to her and so suggestive of the past. It was all in vain that Jessie, and even Guy himself, tried to revoke the decision. Jessie should not be permitted to come in contact with that kind of people, she said, or incur the risk of catching that dreadful fever.

So day after day, while life and health were slowly throbbing through her veins, Maddy waited and longed for the little girl whose one visit to her sick room seemed so much like a dream. From her grandfather she had heard the good news of Guy Remington's generosity, and that, quite as much as Dr. Holbrook's medicines, helped to bring the color back to the pallid cheek and the brightness to her eyes.

She was asleep the first time the doctor came after the occasion of Jessie's visit, and as sleep, he said, would do her more good than anything he might prescribe, he did not awaken her; but for a long time, as it seemed to Grandma Markham, who stood very little in awe of the Boston doctor, he watched her as she slept, now clasping the blue-veined wrist as he felt for the pulse, and now wiping from her forehead the drops of sweat, or pushing back her soft, damp hair. It would be three days before he could see her again, for a sick father in Cambridge needed his attention, and after numerous directions as to the administering of sundry powders and pills, he left her, feeling that the next three days would be long ones to him. Dr. Holbrook did not stop to a.n.a.lyze the nature of his interest in Maddy Clyde--an interest so different from any he had ever felt before for his patients; and even if he had sought to solve the riddle, he would have said that the knowing how he had wronged her was the sole cause of his thinking far more of her and of her case than of the thirty other patients on his list. Dr.

Holbrook was a handsome man, a thorough scholar, and a most skillful physician; but ladies who expected from him those little polite attentions which the s.e.x value so highly generally expected in vain, for he was no ladies' man, and his language and manners were oftentimes abrupt, even when both were prompted by the utmost kindness of heart. In his organization, too, there was not a quick perception of what would be exactly appropriate, and so, when, at last, he was about starting to visit Maddy again, he puzzled his brains until they fairly ached with wondering what he could do to give her a pleasant surprise and show that he was not as formidable a personage as her past experience might lead her to think.

"If I could only take her something," he said, glancing ruefully around his office. "Now, if she were Jessie, nuts and raisins might answer--but she must not eat such trash as that," and he set himself to think again, just as Guy Remington rode up, bearing in his hand a most exquisite bouquet, whose fragrance filled the medicine-odored office at once, and whose beauty elicited an exclamation of delight even from the matter-of-fact Dr. Holbrook.

"I thought you might be going down to Honedale, as I knew you returned last night, so I brought these flowers for your patient with my compliments, or if you prefer I give them to you, and you can thus present them as if coming from yourself."

"As if I would do that," the doctor answered, taking the bouquet in his hand the better to examine and admire it. "Did you arrange it, or your gardener?" he asked, and when Guy replied that the merit of arrangement, if merit there were, belonged to himself, he began to deprecate his own awkwardness and want of tact. "Here I have been cudgeling my head this half hour trying to think what I could take her as a peace offering, and could think of nothing, while you--Well, you and I are different entirely. You know just what is proper--just what to say, and when to say it--while I am a perfect bore, and without doubt shall make some ludicrous blunder in delivering the flowers. To-day will be the first time really that we meet, as she was sleeping when I was there last, while on all other occasions she has paid no attention whatever to me."

For a moment Guy regarded his friend attentively, noticing now that extra care had been bestowed upon his toilet, that the collar was fresh from the laundry, and the new cravat tied in a most unexceptionable manner, instead of being twisted into a hard knot, with the ends looking as if they had been chewed.

"Doc," he said, when his survey was completed, "how old are you--twenty-five or twenty-six?"

"Twenty-five--just your age--why?" and the doctor looked with an expression so wholly innocent of Guy's real meaning that the latter, instead of telling why, replied:

"Oh! nothing; only I was wondering if you would do to be my father.

Agnes, I verily believe, is more than half in love with you; but, on the whole, I would not like to be your son; so I guess you'd better take some one younger--say Jessie. You are only eighteen years her senior."

The doctor stared at him amazed, and when he had finished said with the utmost candor: "What has that to do with Madeline? I thought we were talking of her." "Innocent as the newly-born babe," was Guy's mental comment, as he congratulated himself on his larger and more varied experience.

And truly Dr. Holbrook was as simple-hearted as a child, never dreaming of Guy's meaning, or that any emotion save a perfectly proper one had a lodgment in his breast as he drove down to Honedale, guarding carefully Guy's bouquet, and wishing he knew just what he ought to say when he presented it.

Maddy had gained rapidly the last three days. Good nursing and the doctor's medicines were working miracles, and on the morning when the doctor, with Guy's bouquet, was riding rapidly toward Honedale, she was feeling so much better that in view of his coming she asked if she could not be permitted to receive him sitting in the rocking-chair, instead of lying there in bed, and when this plan was vetoed as utterly impossible, she asked, anxiously:

"And must I see him in this nightgown? Can't I have on my pink gingham wrapper?"

Hitherto Maddy had been too sick to care at all about her personal appearance, but it was different now. She did care, and thoughts of meeting again the handsome, stylish-looking man who had asked her to conjugate _amo_ and whom she fully believed to be Dr. Holbrook, made her rather nervous. Dim remembrances she had of some one gliding in and out, and when the pain and noise in her head was at its highest, a hand, large, and, oh! so cool had been laid upon her temples, quieting their throbbings and making the blood course less madly through the swollen veins. They had told her how kind, how attentive he had been, and to herself she had said: "He's sorry about that certificate. He wishes to show me that he did not mean to be unkind. Yes; I forgive him: for I really was very stupid that afternoon."

And so, in a most forgiving frame of mind, Maddy submitted to the snowy robe which grandma brought in place of the coveted gingham wrapper, and which became her well, with its daintily-crimped ruffles about the neck and wrists. Those wrists and hands! How white and small they had grown!

and Maddy sighed, as her grandmother b.u.t.toned together the wristbands, to see how loose it was.