Dr. Sevier Part 26

There was a shadow of triumph in her faint smile.

"She is."

"I should like to see her."

Mrs. Riley hoisted her chin. "I dunno if she's a-seein' comp'ny to-day."

The voice was amiably important. "Wont ye walk in? Take a seat and sit down, sur, and I'll go and infarm the laydie."

"Thank you," said the Doctor, but continued to stand.

Mrs. Riley started and stopped again.

"Ye forgot to give me yer kyaird, sur." She drew her chin in again austerely.

"Just say Dr. Sevier."

"Certainly, sur; yes, that'll be sufficiend. And dispinse with the kyaird." She went majestically.

The Doctor, left alone, cast his uninterested glance around the smart little bare-floored parlor, upon its new, jig-sawed, gray hair-cloth furniture, and up upon a picture of the Pope. When Mrs. Riley, in a moment, returned he stood looking out the door.

"Mrs. Richling consints to see ye, sur. She'll be in turreckly. Take a seat and sit down." She readjusted the infant on her arm and lifted and swung a hair-cloth arm-chair toward him without visible exertion.

"There's no use o' having chayers if ye don't sit on um," she added affably.

The Doctor sat down, and Mrs. Riley occupied the exact centre of the small, wide-eared, brittle-looking sofa, where she filled in the silent moments that followed by pulling down the skirts of the infant's apparel, oppressed with the necessity of keeping up a conversation and with the want of subject-matter. The child stared at the Doctor, and suddenly plunged toward him with a loud and very watery coo.

"Ah-h!" said Mrs. Riley, in ostentatious rebuke. "Mike!" she cried, laughingly, as the action was repeated. "Ye rowdy, air ye go-un to fight the gintleman?"

She laughed sincerely, and the Doctor could but notice how neat and good-looking she was. He condescended to crook his finger at the babe.

This seemed to exasperate the so-called rowdy. He planted his pink feet on his mother's thigh and gave a mighty lunge and whoop.

"He's go-un to be a wicked bruiser," said proud Mrs. Riley. "He"--the p.r.o.noun stood, this time, for her husband--"he never sah the child. He was kilt with an explosion before the child was barn."

She held the infant on her strong arm as he struggled to throw himself, with wide-stretched jaws, upon her bosom; and might have been devoured by the wicked bruiser had not his attention been diverted by the entrance of Mary, who came in at last, all in fragrant white, with apologies for keeping the Doctor waiting.

He looked down into her uplifted eyes. What a riddle is woman! Had he not just seen this one in sabots? Did she not certainly know, through Mrs. Riley, that he must have seen her so? Were not her skirts but just now hitched up with an under-tuck, and fastened with a string? Had she not just laid off, in hot haste, a suds-bespattered ap.r.o.n and the garments of toil beneath it? Had not a towel been but now unbound from the hair shining here under his glance in luxuriant brown coils? This brightness of eye, that seemed all exhilaration, was it not trepidation instead? And this rosiness, so like redundant vigor, was it not the flush of her hot task? He fancied he saw--in truth he may have seen--a defiance in the eyes as he glanced upon, and tardily dropped, the little water-soaked hand with a bow.

Mary turned to present Mrs. Riley, who bowed and said, trying to hold herself with majesty while Mike drew her head into his mouth: "Sur,"

then turned with great ceremony to Mary, and adding, "I'll withdrah,"

withdrew with the head and step of a d.u.c.h.ess.

"How is your husband, madam?"

"John?--is not well at all, Doctor; though he would say he was if he were here. He doesn't shake off his chills. He is out, though, looking for work. He'd go as long as he could stand."

She smiled; she almost laughed; but half an eye could see it was only to avoid the other thing.

"Where does he go?"

"Everywhere!" She laughed this time audibly.

"If he went everywhere I should see him," said Dr. Sevier.

"Ah! naturally," responded Mary, playfully. "But he does go wherever he thinks there's work to be found. He doesn't wander clear out among the plantations, of course, where everybody has slaves, and there's no work but slaves' work. And he says it's useless to think of a clerkship this time of year. It must be, isn't it?"

The Doctor made no answer.

There was a footstep in the alley.

"He's coming now," said Mary,--"that's he. He must have got work to-day.

He has an acquaintance, an Italian, who promised to have something for him to do very soon. Doctor,"--she began to put together the split fractions of a palm-leaf fan, smiling diffidently at it the while,--"I can't see how it is any discredit to a man not to have a _knack_ for making money?"

She lifted her peculiar look of radiant inquiry.

"It is not, madam."

Mary laughed for joy. The light of her face seemed to spread clear into her locks.

"Well, I knew you'd say so! John blames himself; he can make money, you know, Doctor, but he blames himself because he hasn't that natural gift for it that Mr. Ristofalo has. Why, Mr. Ristofalo is simply wonderful!"

She smiled upon her fan in amused reminiscence. "John is always wishing he had his gift."

"My dear madam, don't covet it! At least don't exchange it for anything else."

The Doctor was still in this mood of disapprobation when John entered.

The radiancy of the young husband's greeting hid for a moment, but only so long, the marks of illness and adversity. Mary followed him with her smiling eyes as the two men shook hands, and John drew a chair near to her and sat down with a sigh of mingled pleasure and fatigue.

She told him of whom she and their visitor had just been speaking.

"Raphael Ristofalo!" said John, kindling afresh. "Yes; I've been with him all day. It humiliates me to think of him."

Dr. Sevier responded quietly:--

"You've no right to let it humiliate you, sir."

Mary turned to John with dancing eyes, but he pa.s.sed the utterance as a mere compliment, and said, through his smiles:--

"Just see how it is to-day. I have been overseeing the unloading of a little schooner from Ruatan island loaded with bananas, cocoanuts, and pine-apples. I've made two dollars; he has made a hundred."

Richling went on eagerly to tell about the plain, l.u.s.treless man whose one homely gift had fascinated him. The Doctor was entertained. The narrator sparkled and glowed as he told of Ristofalo's appearance, and reproduced his speeches and manner.

"Tell about the apples and eggs," said the delighted Mary.

He did so, sitting on the front edge of his chair-seat, and sprawling his legs now in front and now behind him as he swung now around to his wife and now to the Doctor. Mary laughed softly at every period, and watched the Doctor, to see his slight smile at each detail of the story.

Richling enjoyed telling it; he had worked; his earnings were in his pocket; gladness was easy.

"Why, I'm learning more from Raphael Ristofalo than I ever learned from my school-masters: I'm learning the art of livelihood."

He ran on from Ristofalo to the men among whom he had been mingling all day. He mimicked the strange, long swing of their Sicilian speech; told of their swarthy faces and black beards, their rich instinct for color in costume; their fierce conversation and violent gestures; the energy of their movements when they worked, and the profoundness of their repose when they rested; the picturesqueness and grotesqueness of the negroes, too; the huge, flat, round baskets of fruit which the black men carried on their heads, and which the Sicilians bore on their shoulders or the nape of the neck. The "captain" of the schooner was a central figure.

"Doctor," asked Richling, suddenly, "do you know anything about the island of Cozumel?"