Barbara Ladd Part 19

"Barbara's right, I think," she said, with an air of having weighed the question quite dispa.s.sionately. "You should not leave your patients, on any account. There are so many men who can destroy life, so few who can save it. Physicians have no right to go soldiering."

"That's just it, honey!" cried Barbara, flashing radiant eyes through her tears. "Oh, what a wise little Aunt Hitty you are! What would we ever do without you!" And her apprehensions laid themselves obediently to rest.

"Well, well!" cried Doctor Jim. "What are two graceless old dogs like us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their s.e.x should shed tears on our account? We should go and kick each other up and down the length of Second Westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such precious tears,--eh, what, John Pigeon?"

"'Tis the least we can do, Jim!" said Doctor John. "But now I come to think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war to go to, after all."

"And when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you belong!" decreed Barbara, holding the question well settled.

"Who knows what may happen?" cried Doctor Jim. "You stiff-necked rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?"

"Barbara, sweet baggage," said Doctor John, wagging his forefinger at her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "I cannot let this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit. Set your heart at rest.

If there be war, Jim Pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of holes as a colander, and I'll do my duty by staying at home and looking after his patients. There'll be a chance of some of them getting well, then! I've never yet had a fair chance to save Jim Pigeon's patients.

_I_ won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth!"

"How can you lie so shamelessly, John Pigeon?" demanded Doctor Jim.

"I'll lay you a barrel of Madeira you'll be leaning against the b.u.t.t of a musket before I am!"

"Done!" said Doctor John.

"I think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried Barbara.

CHAPTER XXIII.

That day of the news was a boundary day. It set sharp limit to Barbara's years of calm. From that day events came quickly, change pressed hard on change, and no day, for her, was quite like its predecessor. A veering of the current had s.n.a.t.c.hed her from her shining eddy, and swept her forth into the tide of life.

On the morning following the dinner, while still alive to a sense of menace in the air, Barbara received a letter from her uncle. As she read it, her eyes sparkled, her heart bounded. Then, as she pa.s.sed it to Mistress Mehitable, and Mistress Mehitable took it with cheerful interest, her heart sank. She felt a pang of self-reproach, because she found herself willing to go away and leave her aunt uncompanioned in the solitude of Westings House. Glenowen had undertaken certain business, in the way of searching records and examining t.i.tles, which was driving him at once to New York, and bade fair, he said, to keep him there for upwards of a year. He wanted Barbara to go with him.

And Barbara's pulses bounded. There, she thought, were the lights and the dances, the maskings and the music, the crossing of swords and wits, the gallants and the compliments and the triumphs, which she was longing to taste. Mistress Mehitable's face grew grave as she read the letter. It grew pale as she looked up and saw by Barbara's face the hunger in her heart. Mistress Mehitable had a vision of what Westings House would be, emptied of the wilful, flashing, vivid, restless spirit which for the past few years had been its life. But she was unselfish.

She would not say a word to lessen Barbara's delight.

"It will be lovely for you, dear!" said she, with hearty sympathy.

"You are just at the age, too, when it will mean most to you, and be of most value to you. I am so glad, dear!"

But Barbara had seen the look in her face, and gave no heed to her brave words.

"I _can't_ go, honey, and leave you here alone!" she cried, impetuously, jumping up and hugging the little lady with a vehemence born of the effort to convince herself that what she said was true.

She felt that she could and must go; but that the joy of going would be more than damped--drenched, indeed, with tears--at the thought of how much Mistress Mehitable would miss her, of how empty Westings House would be without her, of the scar her absence would leave in their little world. With her intense individuality, her lively self-concentration, it almost seemed to her as if their little world could not even attempt to go on without her, but must sleep dully through her absence.

"Of course you will go, Barbara dear!" said Mistress Mehitable, decidedly. "It is only natural and right you should want to go, and go. I cannot pretend that it makes me very happy to think of doing without you for a whole year. No words can tell you how I shall miss you, dear child. But I should be a thousand times more unhappy if I were to feel myself standing in the way of your happiness. No, no, indeed, don't talk any nonsense about not going. Besides, your Uncle Bob has the right to have you with him for a while."

"Oh, I wish you could go, too!" sighed Barbara. "_Can't_ you? _Then_ it _would_ be lovely!"

Mistress Mehitable laughed softly. "Not very well just now, child!"

she answered, a.s.suming a gaiety. "Perhaps some other time it might be managed. Now, we'll have to plan about getting you ready,--and your uncle has only left us a wretched little week to do it in!"

So it was settled, without any stress or argument whatever, that Barbara should go to New York with Uncle Bob just eight days from that day; and so was decreed, with such effort as it might take to order a breakfast, nothing less than a revolution in Barbara's life.

While the two women were discussing weighty problems of dressmaking, lingerie, and equipment various,--what should be made at Second Westings, and what should be left to New York shops and the tried taste of Uncle Bob,--Doctor Jim came in, less robustious and breezy than his wont, his eyes big with momentous tidings. He kissed the ladies'

hands, and sat down thoughtfully opposite, scanning their faces from under bushy, drawn brows. They both looked at him with expectant inquiry.

"You were most intent on whatever you were talking about!" said he, presently. "I hope I don't interrupt! May I hear all about it? Or should I run away, eh, what?"

"You never interrupt,--or if you do, you are forgiven beforehand, Jim!"

said Mistress Mehitable.

"What we were talking about will interest _you_, Doctor Jim, you naughty old thing!" cried Barbara, saucily. "It was petticoats, bodices, and silk stockings, and such like feminine frivolities! But what have _you_ got to tell _us_? You are just _bursting_, you know you are. Tell us, and we'll tell you something!"

"John Pigeon's going away to-morrow!" said Doctor Jim, and then shut his mouth hard.

"What? Going away?" cried both women at once, scarce crediting their ears.

"Going away to Hartford, to-morrow, to take a hand in organising some of their rebellious militia!" continued Doctor Jim. "I'm ashamed to tell you. But he was ashamed to tell you himself, thinking you would not like it, so he sent me ahead to make his peace for him. It doesn't mean anything, you know. Just a sort of bragging counterblast to those four regiments of ours at Boston. I wouldn't be down on John for it, eh, what, Mehitable?"

"When will he return?" asked Mehitable, feeling that her world was being emptied.

"Down on him!" exclaimed Barbara. "Why, it's _n.o.ble_ of him. Think how it will encourage all the patriots of our township!" Since she was going away herself, Doctor John's going was easy enough to bear.

"I wasn't talking to you, you saucy rebel!" retorted Doctor Jim.

"We'll have that crazy little black head of yours chopped off for high treason, one of these days, if you don't mend your naughty manners.

'Patriots,' indeed! Addle-pated b.u.mpkins! But"--and he turned to Mistress Mehitable, "you asked me, dear lady, when John Pigeon would return. Within a month, I think. He will tell you more precisely for himself!"

"Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, gravely, "we are going to be lonely for awhile, you and I."

"Lonely!" exclaimed Doctor Jim. "That's not what bothers me. It's the pestilent, low, vulgar business that's taking him!"

"Yes, of course," a.s.sented Mistress Mehitable, "but 'tis not Doctor John only that purposes to forsake us, Jim. Barbara is going to New York, to stay a year."

Doctor Jim's face fell. He glared at Barbara for half a minute, his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows working.

"Nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous. "What c.o.c.k-and-bull story's this? I won't have my feelings worked upon!"

"It's true, Doctor Jim. I'm to go with Uncle Bob, next week!" said Barbara, very soberly.

"But you sha'n't go! We can't spare our bad little girl. You're too young, Barby, for that wicked city down there. We _need_ you here, to keep us from getting too _good_. You sha'n't go, that's all! You see what John Pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?"

"I must, Doctor Jim!" answered Barbara. "Aunt Hitty and Uncle Bob have both decided on that. I feel homesick, sort of, already, at the thought of it. And I know I shall miss you all just horribly. But, oh, I do want to go, after all. It's all so gay and mysterious to me, and I know I'll have such fun. And it will be so lovely, when I'm tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it! Won't it?"

"Well! Well! I suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed Doctor Jim.

"Thank Heaven, _you're_ not going, Mehitable, dear lady!"

"I'm glad _you're_ not going, Jim,--either to New York or to Hartford!"

said Mistress Mehitable, with a little laugh. Then she held out her hand to him, flushing softly.

"It would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, Mehitable, were you to bid me stay!" said Doctor Jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had held out. Then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily turned again to Barbara, saying:

"By the way, sweetheart, Bobby Gault is in New York, is he not,--eh, what? He will be glad to see you again, perhaps! It is possible he may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?"