Aikenside Part 6

"I have been very sick," she said. "Are my cheeks as thin as my arms?"

They were not, though they had lost some of their symmetrical roundness.

Still there was much of childish beauty in the young, eager face, and the hair had lost comparatively none of its glossy brightness.

"That's him," grandma said, as the sound of a horse's gallop was heard, and in a moment the doctor reined up before the gate.

From Mrs. Markham, who met him in the door, he learned how much better she was; also how "she has been reckoning on this visit, making herself all a-sweat about it."

Suddenly the doctor felt returning all his old dread of Maddy Clyde.

Why should she wrong herself into a sweat? What was there in that visit different from any other? Nothing, he said to himself, nothing; and yet he, too, had been more anxious about it than any he had ever paid.

Depositing his hat and gloves upon the table, he followed Mrs. Markham up the stairs, vaguely conscious of wishing she would stay down, and very conscious of feeling glad; when just at Maddy's door and opposite a little window, she espied the hens busily engaged in devouring the yeast cakes, with which she had taken so much pains, and which she had placed in the hot sun to dry. Finding that they paid no heed to her loud "Shoo, shoos," she started herself to drive them away, telling the doctor to go right on and to help himself.

The perspiration was standing under Maddy's hair by this time, and when the doctor stepped across the threshold, and she knew he really was coming near her, it oozed out upon her forehead in big, round drops, while her cheeks glowed with a feverish heat. Thinking he should get along with it better if he treated her just as he would Jessie, the doctor confronted her at once, and asked:

"How is my little patient to-day?"

A faint scream broke from Maddy's lips, and she involuntarily raised her hands to thrust the stranger away. This black-eyed, black-haired, thick-set man was not Dr. Holbrook, for he was taller, and more slight, while she had not been deceived in the dark brown eyes which, even while they seemed to be mocking her, had worn a strange fascination for the maiden of fourteen and a half. The doctor fancied her delirious again, and this rea.s.sured him at once. Dropping the bouquet upon the bed, he clasped one of her hands in his, and without the slightest idea that she comprehended him, said, soothingly:

"Poor child, are you afraid of me--the doctor, Dr. Holbrook?" Maddy did not try to withdraw her hand, but raising her eyes, swimming in tears, to his face, she stammered out:

"What does it mean, and where is he--the one who--asked me--those dreadful questions? I thought that was Dr. Holbrook."

Here was a dilemma--something for which the doctor was not prepared, and with a feeling that he would not betray Guy, he said:

"No; that was some one else--a friend of mine--but I was there in the back office. Don't you remember me? Please don't grow excited. Compose yourself, and I will explain all by and by. This is wrong. 'Twill never do," and talking thus rapidly he wiped away the sweat, about which grandma had told him.

Maddy was disappointed, and it took her some time to rally sufficiently to convince the doctor that she was not flighty, as he termed it; but composing herself at last, she answered all his questions, and then, as he saw her eyes wandering toward the bouquet, he suddenly remembered that it was not yet presented, and placing it in her hands, he said:

"You like flowers, I know, and these are for you. I----"

"Oh! thank you, thank you, doctor; I am so glad. I love them so much, and you are so kind. What made you think to bring them? I've wanted flowers so badly; but I could not have them, because I was sick and did not work in the garden. It was so good in you," and in her delight Maddy's tears dropped upon the fair blossoms.

For a moment the doctor was sorely tempted to keep the credit thus enthusiastically given; but he was too truthful for that, and so watching her as her eyes glistened with pleased excitement, he said:

"I am glad you like them, Miss Clyde, and so will Mr. Remington be. He sent them to you from his conservatory."

"Not Mr. Remington from Aikenside--not Jessie's brother?" and Maddy's eyes now fairly danced as they sought the doctor's face.

"Yes Jessie's brother. He came here with her. He is interested in you, and brought these down this morning."

"It was Jessie, I guess, who sent them," Maddy suggested, but the doctor persisted that it was Guy.

"He wished me to present them with his compliments. He thought they might please you."

"Oh! they do, they do!" Maddy replied. "They almost make me well. Tell him how much I thank him, and like him too, though I never saw him."

The doctor opened his lips to tell her she had seen him, but changed his mind ere the words were uttered. She might not think as well of Guy, he thought, and there was no harm in keeping it back.

So Maddy had no suspicion that the face she thought of so much belonged to Guy Remington. She had never seen him, of course; but she hoped she would some time, so as to thank him for his generosity to her grandfather and his kindness to herself. Then, as she remembered the message she had sent him, she began to think that it sounded too familiar, and said to the doctor:

"If you please, don't tell Mr. Remington that I said I liked him--only that I thank him. He would think it queer for a poor girl like me to send such word to him. He is very rich, and handsome, and splendid, isn't he?"

"Yes, Guy's rich and handsome, and everybody likes him. We were in college together."

"You were?" Maddy exclaimed. "Then you know him well, and Jessie, and you've been to Aikenside often? There's nothing in the world I want so much as to go to Aikenside. They say it is so beautiful."

"Maybe I'll carry you up there some day when you are strong enough to ride," the doctor answered, thinking of his light buggy at home, and wondering he had not used it more, instead of always riding on horseback.

Dr. Holbrook looked much older than he was, and to Maddy he seemed quite fatherly, so that the idea of riding with him, aside from the honor it might be to her, struck her much as riding with Farmer Green would have done. The doctor, too, imagined that his proposition was prompted solely from disinterested motives, but he found himself wondering how long it would be before Maddy would be able to ride a little distance, just over the hill and back. He was tiring her all out talking to her; but somehow it was very delightful there in that sick room, with the summer sunshine stealing through the window and falling upon the soft reddish-brown head resting on the pillows. Once he fixed those pillows, arranging them so nicely that grandma, who had come in from her hens and yeast cakes, declared "he was as handy as a woman," and after receiving a few general directions with regard to the future, "guessed, if he wasn't in a hurry, she'd leave him with Maddy a spell, as there were a few ch.o.r.es she must do."

The doctor knew that at least a dozen individuals were waiting for him that moment; but still he was in no hurry, he said, and so for half an hour longer he sat there talking of Guy, and Jessie, and Aikenside, and wondering he had never before observed how very becoming a white wrapper was to sick girls like Maddy Clyde. Had he been asked the question, he could not have told whether his other patients were habited in buff, or brown, or tan color; but he knew all about Maddy's garb, and thought the dainty frill around her slender throat the prettiest "puckered piece"

that he had ever seen. How, then, was Dr. Holbrook losing his heart to that little girl of fourteen and a half? He did not think so. Indeed, he did not think anything about his heart, though thoughts of Maddy Clyde were pretty constantly with him, as after leaving her he paid his round of visits.

The Aikenside carriage was standing at Mrs. Conner's gate when he returned, and Jessie came running out to meet him, followed by Guy, while Agnes, in the most becoming riding habit, sat by the window looking as unconcerned at his arrival as if it were not the very event for which she had been impatiently waiting, Jessie was a great pet with the doctor, and, lifting her lightly in his arms, he kissed her forehead where the golden curls were cl.u.s.tering and said to her:

"I have seen Maddy Clyde. She asked for you, and why you do not come to see her, as you promised."

"Mother won't let me," Jessie answered. "She says they are not fit a.s.sociates for a Remington."

There was a sudden flash of contempt on the doctor's face, and a gleam of wrath in Agnes' eyes as she motioned Jessie to be silent, and then gracefully received the doctor, who by this time was in the room. As if determined to monopolize the conversation, and keep it from turning on the Markhams, Agnes rattled on for nearly fifteen minutes, scarcely allowing Guy a chance for uttering a word. But Guy bided his time, and seized the first favorable opportunity to inquire after Madeline.

She was improving rapidly, the doctor said, adding: "You ought to have seen her delight when I gave her your bouquet."

"Indeed," and Agnes bridled haughtily; "I did not know that Guy was in the habit of sending bouquets to such as this Clyde girl. I really must report him to Miss Atherstone."

Guy's seat was very near to Agnes, and while a cloud overspread his fine features, he said to her in an aside:

"Please say in your report that the worst thing about this Clyde girl is that she aspires to be a teacher, and possibly a governess."

There was an emphasis on the last word which silenced Agnes and set her to beating her French gaiter on the carpet; while Guy, turning back to the doctor, replied to his remark:

"She was pleased, then?"

"Yes; she must be vastly fond of flowers, though I sometimes fancied the fact of being noticed by you afforded almost as much satisfaction as the bouquet itself. She evidently regards you as a superior being, and Aikenside as a second Paradise, and asking innumerable questions about you and Jessie, too."

"Did she honor me with an inquiry?" Agnes asked, her tone indicative of sarcasm, though she was greatly interested as well as relieved by the reply:

"Yes; she said she heard that Jessie's mother was a beautiful woman, and asked if you were not born in England."

"She's mixed me up with Lucy. Guy, you must go down and enlighten her,"

Agnes said, laughing merrily and appearing more at ease than she had before since Maddy Clyde had been the subject of conversation.

Guy did not go down to Honedale--but fruit and flowers, and once a bottle of rare old wine, found their way to the old red cottage, always brought by Guy's man, Duncan, and always accompanied with Mr.

Remington's compliments. Once, hidden among the rosebuds, was a childish note from Jessie, some of it printed and some in the uneven hand of a child just commencing to write.

It was as follows:

"DEAD MADDY: I think that is such a pretty name, and so does Guy, and so does the doctor, too. I want to come see you, but mamma won't let me.

I think of you ever so much, and so does Guy, I guess, for he sends you lots of things. Guy is a nice brother, and is most as old as mamma.