Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches Part 13

Looking closely at Hightower, Chichester could see that his face was colorless. His eyes were sunken, but shone with a peculiar brilliancy, and great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. His whole appearance was that of a man distraught. Here was another tragedy!

Seeking a momentary escape from the confusion and perplexity into which he had been plunged by the horrible events of the night, Chichester pa.s.sed out into the yard, and stood bareheaded in the cool wind that was faintly stirring among the trees. The stars shone remote and tranquil, and the serenity of the mountain, the awful silence that seemed to be, not the absence of sound, but the presence of some spiritual ent.i.ty, gave a.s.surance of peace. Out there, in the cold air, or in the wide skies, or in the vast gulf of night, there was nothing to suggest either pity or compa.s.sion--only the mysterious tranquillity of nature.

This was the end, so far as Chichester knew. He never entered the Hightower house again. Something prompted him to saddle his horse and ride down the mountain. The tragedy and its attendant troubles were never reported in the newspapers. The peace of the mountain remained undisturbed, its silence unbroken.

But should Chichester, who at last accounts was surveying a line of railway in Mexico, ever return to Lost Mountain, he would find Tuck Peevy a gaunt and shrunken creature, working on the Hightower farm, and managing such of its small affairs as call for management. Sometimes, when the day's work is over, and Peevy sits at the fireside saying nothing, Abe Hightower will raise a paralytic hand, and cry out as loud as he can that it's almost time for Babe to quit playing 'possum. At such times we may be sure that, so far as Peevy is concerned, there is still trouble on Lost Mountain.

AZALIA

I

MISS HELEN OSBORNE EUSTIS of Boston was very much astonished one day in the early fall of 1873 to receive a professional visit from Dr. Ephraim Buxton, who for many years had been her father's family physician. The astonishment was mutual; for Dr. Buxton had expected to find Miss Eustis in bed, or at least in the att.i.tude of a patient, whereas she was seated in an easy chair, before a glowing grate--which the peculiarities of the Boston climate sometimes render necessary, even in the early fall--and appeared to be about as comfortable as a human being could well be.

Perhaps the appearance of comfort was heightened by the general air of subdued luxury that pervaded the apartment into which Dr. Buxton had been ushered. The draperies, the arrangement of the little affairs that answer to the name of bric-a-brac, the adjustment of the furniture--everything--conveyed the impression of peace and repose; and the chief element of this perfect harmony was Miss Eustis herself, who rose to greet the doctor as he entered. She regarded the physician with eyes that somehow seemed to be wise and kind, and with a smile that was at once sincere and humorous.

"Why, how is this, Helen?" Dr. Buxton exclaimed, taking off his spectacles, and staring at the young lady. "I fully expected to find you in bed. I hope you are not imprudent."

"Why should I be ill, Dr. Buxton? You know what Mr. Tom Appleton says: 'In Boston, those who are sick do injustice to the air they breathe and to their cooks.' I think that is a patriotic sentiment, and I try to live up to it. My health is no worse than usual, and usually it is very good," said Miss Eustis.

"You certainly seem to be well," said Dr. Buxton, regarding the young lady with a professional frown; "but appearances are sometimes deceitful. I met Harriet yesterday--"

"Ah, my aunt!" exclaimed Helen, in a tone calculated to imply that this explained everything.

"I met Harriet yesterday, and she insisted on my coming to see you at once, certainly not later than to-day."

Miss Eustis shrugged her shoulders, and laughed, but her face showed that she appreciated this manifestation of solicitude.

"Let me see," she said reflectively; "what was my complaint yesterday?

We must do justice to Aunt Harriet's discrimination. She would never forgive you if you went away without leaving a prescription. My health is so good that I think you may leave me a mild one."

Unconsciously the young lady made a charming picture as she sat with her head drooping a little to one side in a half-serious, half-smiling effort to recall to mind some of the symptoms that had excited her aunt's alarm. Dr. Buxton, prescription book in hand, gazed at her quizzically over his old-fashioned spectacles; seeing which, Helen laughed heartily. At that moment her aunt entered the room--a pleasant-faced but rather prim old lady, of whom it had been said by some one competent to judge, that her inquisitiveness was so overwhelming and so important that it took the shape of pity in one direction, patriotism in another, and benevolence in another, giving to her life not the semblance but the very essence of usefulness and activity.

"Do you hear that, Dr. Buxton?" cried the pleasant-faced old lady somewhat sharply. "Do you hear her wheeze when she laughs? Do you remember that she was threatened with pneumonia last winter? and now she is wheezing before the winter begins!"

"This is the trouble I was trying to think of," exclaimed Helen, sinking back in her chair with a gesture of mock despair.

"Don't make yourself ridiculous, dear," said the aunt, giving the little cl.u.s.ters of gray curls that hung about her ears an emphatic shake.

"Serious matters should be taken seriously." Whereat Helen pressed her cheek gently against the thin white hand that had been laid caressingly on her shoulder.

"Aunt Harriet has probably heard me say that there is still some hope for the country, even though it is governed entirely by men," said Helen, with an air of apology. "The men can not deprive us of the winter climate of Boston, and I enjoy that above all things."

Aunt Harriet smiled reproachfully at her niece, and pulled her ear gently.

"But indeed, Dr. Buxton," Helen went on more seriously, "the winter climate of Boston, fine as it is, is beginning to pinch us harder than it used to do. The air is thinner, and the cold is keener. When I was younger--very much younger--than I am now, I remember that I used to run in and out, and fall and roll in the snow with perfect impunity. But now I try to profit by Aunt Harriet's example. When I go out, I go bundled up to the point of suffocation; and if the wind is from the east, as it usually is, I wear wraps and shawls indoors."

Helen smiled brightly at her aunt and at Dr. Buxton; but her aunt seemed to be distressed, and the physician shook his head dubiously.

"You will have to take great care of yourself," said Dr. Buxton. "You must be prudent. The slightest change in the temperature may send you to bed for the rest of the winter."

"Dr. Buxton is complimenting you, Aunt Harriet," said Helen. "You should drop him a courtesy."

Whereupon the amiable physician, seeing that there was no remedy for the humorous view which Miss Eustis took of her condition, went further, and informed her that there was every reason why she should be serious. He told her, with some degree of bluntness, that her symptoms, while not alarming, were not at all rea.s.suring.

"It is always the way, Dr. Buxton," said Helen, smiling tenderly at her aunt; "I believe you would confess to serious symptoms yourself if Aunt Harriet insisted on it. What an extraordinary politician she would make!

My sympathy with the woman-suffrage movement is in the nature of an investment. When we women succeed to the control of affairs, I count on achieving distinction as Aunt Harriet's niece."

Laughing, she seized her aunt's hand. Dr. Buxton, watching her, laughed too, and then proceeded to write out a prescription. He seemed to hesitate a little over this; seeing which, Helen remonstrated:

"Pray, Dr. Buxton, don't humor Aunt Harriet too much in this. Save your physic for those who are strong in body and mind. A dozen of your pellets ought to be a year's supply." The physician wrote out his prescription, and took his leave, laughing heartily at the amiable confusion in which Helen's drollery had left her aunt.

It is not to be supposed, however, that Miss Eustis was simply droll.

She was unconventional at all times, and sometimes wilful--inheriting that native strength of mind and mother wit which are generally admitted to be a part of the equipment of the typical American woman. If she was not the ideal young woman, at least she possessed some of the attractive qualities that one tries--sometimes unsuccessfully--to discover in one's dearest friends. From her infancy, until near the close of the war, she had had the advantage of her father's companionship, so that her ideas were womanly rather than merely feminine. She had never been permitted to regard the world from the dormer-windows of a young ladies' seminary, in consequence of which her views of life in general, and of mankind in particular, were orderly and rational. Such indulgence as her father had given her had served to strengthen her individuality rather than to confirm her temper; and, though she had a strong and stubborn will of her own, her tact was such that her wilfulness appeared to be the most natural as well as the most charming thing in the world. Moreover, she possessed in a remarkable degree that buoyancy of mind that is more engaging than mere geniality.

Her father was no less a person than Charles...o...b..rne Eustis, the noted philanthropist and abolitionist, whose death in 1867 was the occasion of quite a controversy in New England--a controversy based on the fact that he had opposed some of the most virulent schemes of his coworkers at a time when abolitionism had not yet gathered its full strength. Mr.

Eustis, in his day, was in the habit of boasting that his daughter had a great deal of genuine American spirit--the spirit that one set of circ.u.mstances drives to provinciality, another to patriotism, and another to originality.

Helen had spent two long winters in Europe without parting with the fine flavor of her originality. She was exceedingly modest in her designs, too, for she went neither as a missionary nor as a repentant. She found no foreign social shrines that she thought worthy of worshiping at. She admired what was genuine, and tolerated such shams as obtruded themselves on her attention. Her father's connections had enabled her to see something of the real home-life of England; and she was delighted, but not greatly surprised, to find that at its best it was not greatly different from the home life to which she had been accustomed.

The discovery delighted her because it confirmed her own broad views; but she no more thought it necessary to set about aping the social peculiarities to be found in London drawing-rooms than she thought of denying her name or her nativity. She made many interesting studies and comparisons, but she was not disposed to be critical. She admired many things in Europe which she would not have considered admirable in America, and whatever she found displeasing she tolerated as the natural outcome of social or climatic conditions. Certainly the idea never occurred to her that her own country was a barren waste because time had not set the seal of antiquity on its inst.i.tutions. On the other hand, this admirable young woman was quick to perceive that much information as well as satisfaction was to be obtained by regarding various European peculiarities from a strictly European point of view.

But Miss Eustis's reminiscences of the Old World were sad as well as pleasant. Her journey thither had been undertaken in the hope of restoring her father's failing health, and her stay there had been prolonged for the same purpose. For a time he grew stronger and better, but the improvement was only temporary. He came home to die, and to Helen this result seemed to be the end of all things. She had devoted herself to looking after his comfort with a zeal and an intelligence that left nothing undone. This had been her mission in life. Her mother had died when Helen was a little child, leaving herself and her brother, who was some years older, to the care of the father. Helen remembered her mother only as a pale, beautiful lady in a trailing robe, who fell asleep one day, and was mysteriously carried away--the lady of a dream.

The boy--the brother--rode forth to the war in 1862, and never rode back any more. To the father and sister waiting at home, it seemed as if he had been seized and swept from the earth on the bosom of the storm that broke over the country in that period of dire confusion. Even Rumor, with her thousand tongues, had little to say of the fate of this poor youth. It was known that he led a squad of troopers detailed for special service, and that his command, with small knowledge of the country, fell into an ambush from which not more than two or three extricated themselves. Beyond this all was mystery, for those who survived that desperate skirmish could say nothing of the fate of their companions.

The loss of his son gave Mr. Eustis additional interest in his daughter, if that were possible; and the common sorrow of the two so strengthened and sweetened their lives that their affection for each other was in the nature of a perpetual memorial of the pale lady who had pa.s.sed away, and of the boy who had perished in Virginia.

When Helen's father died, in 1867, her mother's sister, Miss Harriet Tewksbury, a spinster of fifty or thereabouts, who, for the lack of something substantial to interest her, had been halting between woman's rights and Spiritualism, suddenly discovered that Helen's cause was the real woman's cause; whereupon she went to the lonely and grief-stricken girl, and with that fine efficiency which the New England woman acquires from the air, and inherits from history, proceeded to minister to her comfort. Miss Tewksbury was not at all vexed to find her niece capable of taking care of herself. She did not allow that fact to prevent her from a.s.suming a motherly control that was most gracious in its manifestations, and peculiarly gratifying to Helen, who found great consolation in the all but masculine energy of her aunt.

A day or two after Dr. Buxton's visit, the result of which has already been chronicled, Miss Tewksbury's keen eye detected an increase of the symptoms that had given her anxiety, and their development was of such a character that Helen made no objection when her aunt proposed to call in the physician again. Dr. Buxton came, and agreed with Miss Tewksbury as to the gravity of the symptoms; but his prescription was oral.

"You must keep Helen indoors until she is a little stronger," he said to Miss Tewksbury, "and then take her to a milder climate."

"Oh, not to Florida!" exclaimed Helen promptly.

"Not necessarily," said the doctor.

"Please don't twist your language, Dr. Buxton. You should say necessarily not."

"And why not to Florida, young lady?" the doctor inquired.

"Ah, I have seen people that came from there," said Helen: "they were too tired to talk much about the country, but something in their att.i.tude and appearance seemed to suggest that they had seen the sea-serpent. Dear doctor, I have no desire to see the sea-serpent."

"Well, then, my dear child," said Dr. Buxton soothingly, "not to Florida, but to nature's own sanitarium, the pine woods of Georgia.

Yes," the doctor went on, smiling as he rubbed the gla.s.ses of his spectacles with his silk handkerchief, "nature's own sanitarium. I tested the piny woods of Georgia thoroughly years ago. I drifted there in my young days. I lived there, and taught school there. I grew strong there, and I have always wanted to go back there."

"And now," said Helen, with a charmingly demure glance at the enthusiastic physician, "you want to send Aunt Harriet and poor Me forward as a skirmish-line. There is no antidote in your books for the Ku-Klux."