East Angels Part 81

As they approached the town, Dr. Kirby, who, with Winthrop, was accompanying the litter on horseback, a little in advance, saw a number of people in the road.

"They have come out to meet him," said the Doctor, angrily. "How senseless! how wicked! In his present state the excitement will kill him; I shall ride forward and tell them to go back."

"No, don't," said Winthrop; "I think you're mistaken, I think it will do him good. He has never in the least understood how much they care for him; he has been kept both mentally and physically too low. What he needs now is a richer diet."

"Are you turning into a doctor yourself?" inquired Kirby, with impatience, yet struck, too, by the suggestion. "It is true that I have always said he'd be twice the man he was if he had a gla.s.s of port with his dinner."

"This will be the gla.s.s of port."

Mr. Moore's litter had curtains, which were down, he had not yet seen the a.s.semblage. His improvised couch was swung carefully across a large wagon, which was drawn by Winthrop's horses on a walk, a man leading them; Penelope followed in another carriage, which Winthrop had also provided.

"I declare--it's all Gracias!" exclaimed the Doctor, as they came near the a.s.sembled groups. "Not only our own people, but Our Lady of the Angels' people have come too--there's Father Florencio at the head."

Penelope had now discovered the a.s.semblage, and had bidden her coachman hasten forward. Descending with her weak step, she herself fastened back the curtains of the litter; "Dear," she said, tenderly, "they have come out to meet you--the Gracias people. I know you will be glad."

She kissed him, and rearranged his pillows; then she let Winthrop help her back into her carriage, which fell behind again. Penelope agreed with him, evidently, in thinking that excitement would do the injured man good.

Winthrop, who had dismounted, gave his horse to Tom, and walked himself beside the litter; the Doctor rode on the other side, and thus they went on their way again towards the waiting people.

These people were showing more sense than the Doctor had given them credit for; they had drawn themselves up in two lines, one on each side of the narrow pine barren road, on the right the congregation of St.

Philip and St. James, with their senior warden at the end of the line; and, opposite, the flock of Our Lady of the Angels, led by their benign, handsome old priest, Father Florencio. Then, farther on, at a little distance, came the negroes, drawn up also in two lines.

The whites were very still; they did not cheer, they bowed and waved their hands. Mr. Moore looked from one side to the other, turning his head a little, and peering from his half-closed eyes, as his litter pa.s.sed on between the ranks of friends. It had been agreed that nothing should be said--he was too weak to bear it; but all the people smiled, though many of them felt their tears starting at the same moment, as they saw his helpless form; they smiled determinedly, and winked back the moisture, he should see none but cheerful faces as he pa.s.sed. At the end of the line the senior warden, in their name, stepped forward and pressed the rector's hand. And then from the other side came Father Florencio, who heartily did the same.

Penelope, looking from the open carriage behind, was crying. But Mr.

Moore himself was not excited. He thought it very beautiful that they should all have come out in this way to meet him, it was the sign of a great kindness.

It did not occur to him that it was the sign of a great admiration as well.

When the litter came abreast of the two long lines of blacks, they could not keep back their demonstrations of welcome quite so completely as the whites had done; the Baptist minister of their own race, who was the pastor of most of them, stood, in his Sunday clothes, with his hand up warningly, in order to check their exuberance. One broad gleam of white teeth extended down the entire line, and, "He's come back fum de gold'n gate!" "_Bless_ de pa.s.son!" were murmured in undertones as the litter pa.s.sed. And then, behind it, there were noiseless leaps, and hats (most of them battered) in the air; next, they all ran forward over the barren in a body, in order to precede the procession into Gracias.

"Don't shout--do you hear me?--no shouting," said Dr. Kirby, imperatively. He had been obliged to leave his place beside the litter, there was no room for his horse between the close-pressing ranks; now he rode forward in order to keep a control, if possible, over the joyous throng. "If you shout, it will be very bad for him," he went on, threateningly. He had stopped his horse and was addressing them from the saddle; the litter was some distance behind.

"But we gotter do _sumpen_, ma.r.s.e," said one of the men, protestingly.

"Dance, then! But make no noise about it; when he's safely in his own house again, _then_ go down to the pier, if you like, and shout as much as you please."

This was done. The negroes preceded the litter through the streets of Gracias, and waited in sympathetic silence until Mr. Moore had been carried into the rectory, and the door was closed behind him; then they adjourned to the pier, and danced and shouted there as if, old Mrs.

Kirby declared, with her hand over her little ears--"as if they meant to raise the dead."

"No, ma, no; they mean to raise the living if they can," said her son, when he came in.

He had been more affected than he would confess by that welcome out on the barren. He had not known himself how much attached he was to the mild-voiced clergyman until it had become probable that soon they should hear that voice no more. The danger of death was now averted, he hoped, though the illness might be a long one; in his own mind he registered a vow never to call any one "limp" again;--he had called Mr. Moore that about once a week for years. "There's a kind of limpness that's strength"--thus he lectured himself. "And you, Reginald Kirby, for all your talk, might not, in an emergency, be able even to _approach_ it.

And turning out your toes, and sticking out your chest won't save you, my boy; not a whit!"

Fond as Aunt Katrina was of the position of patroness, she was not altogether pleased with some steps that were taken, later. "A proper acknowledgment, of course, is all very well," she said. "But you and Margaret, between you, have really given Mr. Moore a comfortable little fortune. And you have put it in his own hands, too--to do what he likes with!"

"Whose hands would _you_ have put it into?" Winthrop asked.

"A lawyer's, of course," Aunt Katrina answered.

"I am afraid Margaret and I are not always as judicious as you are, Aunt Kate."

Aunt Kate was not quick (it was one of the explanations of the preservation of her beauty). "No, you're not; but I wish you were," she responded.

Mr. Moore knew nothing of the increase of his income; it was Penelope who had been won over by Winthrop's earnest logic--earnest in regard to the comfort of the poor sufferer lying blinded, voiceless, helpless, in the next room. What Winthrop was urging was simply that money should not be considered in providing for him every possible alleviation and luxury. His illness might be a long one (at that stage--it was while Mr.

Moore was still in the river hotel--no one spoke of death, though all knew that it was very near); everything, therefore, should be done to lighten it. If the rectory was gloomy, another house in Gracias should be taken--one with a large garden; two good nurses should be sent for immediately; and, later, there must be a horse, and some sort of a low, easy vehicle, made on purpose to carry a person in a rec.u.mbent posture.

Many other things would be required, these he mentioned now were but a beginning; Mrs. Moore must see that neither his aunt, Mrs. Harold, nor himself could take a moment's rest until everything was done that could be done, they should all feel extremely unhappy, miserable--if she should refuse them. If she would but stop to think of it, she must realize that.

Penelope agreed to this.

She had cried so much that she was the picture of living despair, she was thinking of nothing but her husband and his pain; but she forced a momentary attention towards Winthrop, who was talking so earnestly to her, trying to make some impression.

He could see that he did not make much.

"Your husband gave his life--it amounted to that--to save Margaret's; she was nothing to him--that is, no relative, not even a near friend, yet he faced for her the most horrible of deaths. If it had not been for him, that would have been _her_ death, and think, then, Mrs. Moore, think what _we_ should be feeling now." He had meant to say this steadily, but he could not. His voice became choked, he got up quickly and went to the window.

Penelope, who, tired as she was, and with one hand pressed constantly against her weak back, was yet sitting on the edge of a hard wooden chair, ready to jump up and run into the next room at an instant's notice, tried again to detach her mind from her husband long enough to think of what it was this man was saying to her; she liked Margaret, and therefore she succeeded sufficiently well to answer, "It would have been _terrible_." Then her thoughts went back to Middleton again.

"Don't you see, then," said Winthrop, returning, "that, standing as we do almost beside her grave, your husband has become the most precious person in the world to us? How _can_ you hesitate?" he said, breaking off, "how can you deny us the pleasure of doing everything possible--so little at best--to help him in his great suffering?"

"Oh yes--his suffering! his suffering!" moaned the wife, the tears dropping down her white cheeks without any distortion of feature. Her eyes looked large; singularly enough, though she was so exhausted, her countenance appeared younger than he had ever seen it; under the all-absorbing influence of her grief its usual expressions had gone and one could trace again the outlines of youth; her girlhood face--almost her little-girl face--had come strangely back, as it does sometimes after death, when grandchildren see, with startled, loving surprise, what "grandma" was when she too was only sixteen.

Winthrop took her thin worn hand and carried it to his lips; her sorrow was very sacred to him. "For you too," he urged--"you who are so tired and ill--let us help you all we can. Do not refuse us, Mrs. Moore; _do_ not."

The door into the next room now opened softly, and Dr. Kirby entered, closing it behind him. "No--sit still," he said, as Mrs. Moore started up. "There's nothing to be done for him just now; he's asleep." He called it "sleep," to pacify her. "I came in to say," he went on--"I knew you were here, Mr. Winthrop--that there must _not_ be so much noise on this floor; I have no doubt the people of the house are as careful as they can be, in fact, I know they are; but there are others here."

Winthrop turned to Penelope. "_Now_ will you consent?" he said.

(She looked at him; she was thinking only of the blessed fact that Middleton was asleep.)

"You hear what Dr. Kirby says?--the house must be kept more quiet. I can clear it immediately of every person in it. The noise is bad for your husband--don't you understand? It will make a difference in his--in his recovery."

"Oh! do anything, anything!" said the wife, wringing her hands.

He pursued his advantage. "You are willing, then, that I should do everything possible--for his sake, you know? You consent."

"Yes, yes," she answered.

"By--all--means," said Dr. Kirby, impressively. "Consent? Of course you consent, Penelope." He had never called her Penelope before in his life.

After that he never called her by any other name.

It seemed to Reginald Kirby a natural thing (and a small one too) that these northerners should wish to do everything they could for the dying hero in there; at that time the Doctor thought that the clergyman must die.

Twelve hours later, with the exception of the proprietors and their servants, there was no one save Mr. Moore and his friends in the river hotel. And the house was held empty as long as he remained there. Aunt Katrina never could find out how much those weeks cost her nephew.

But she did find out that her nephew and Margaret together had given the Moores that "comfortable little fortune," though it was not in Mr.

Moore's hands, as she supposed; it was in Penelope's.