Jupiter Lights Part 19

Cicely had fallen back; and this time she had lost consciousness.

"You can leave her to me now," Eve went on. "Of course what she said last means that he is not dead!" she added, with a long breath.

"Dead?" said Paul Tennant. "Poor Ferdie dead? Never!"

Eve had knelt down; she was chafing Cicely's temples. "Then you care for him very much?" she asked, looking at him for a moment over her shoulder.

"I care for him more than for anything else in the world," said the brother, shortly.

XIII.

It was the afternoon of the same day.

"I shall go, grandpa," said Cicely; "I shall go to-night. There's a boat, somebody said."

"But, my dear child, listen to reason; Sabrina does not say that he is in danger."

"And she does not say that he is out of it."

The judge took up the letter again, and, putting on his gla.s.ses, he read aloud, with a frown of attention: "'For the first two days Dr. Daniels came over twice a day'"--

"You see?--twice a day," said Cicely.

--"'But as he is beginning to feel his age, the crossing so often in the row-boat tired him; so now he sends us his partner, Dr. Knox, a new man here, and a very intelligent person, I should judge. Dr. Knox comes over every afternoon and spends the night'"--

"You see?--spends the night," said Cicely.

--"'Going back early the following morning. He has brought us a nurse, an excellent and skilful young man, and now we can have the satisfaction of feeling that our poor Ferdie has every possible attention. As I write, the fever is going down, and the nurse tells me that by to-morrow, or day after to-morrow, he will probably be able to speak to us, to talk.'"

"I don't know exactly how many days it will take me to get there," said Cicely, beginning to count upon her fingers. "Four days--or is it three?--to Cleveland, where I take the train; then how many hours from there to Washington? You will have to make it out for me, grandpa; or rather Paul will; Paul knows everything."

"My poor little girl, you haven't had any rest; even now you have only just come out of a fainting-fit. Sabrina will write every day; wait at least until her next letter comes to-morrow morning."

"You are all so strange! Wouldn't you wish me to see him if he were dying?" Cicely demanded, her voice growing hard.

"Of course, of course," replied the old man, hastily. "But there is no mention of dying, Sabrina says nothing that looks like it; Daniels, our old friend--why, Daniels would cross twenty times a day if he thought there was danger."

"I can't argue, grandpa. But I shall go; I shall go to-night," Cicely responded.

She was seated on a sofa in Paul Tennant's parlor, a large room, furnished with what the furniture dealer of Port aux Pins called a "drawing-room set." The sofa of this set was of the pattern named tete-a-tete, very hard and slippery, upholstered in hideous green damask. Cicely was sitting on the edge of this unreposeful couch, her feet close together on a footstool, her arms tight to her sides and folded from the elbows in a horizontal position across the front of her waist. She looked very rigid and very small.

"But supposing, when you get there, that you find him up,--well?"

suggested the judge.

"Shouldn't I be glad?" answered Cicely, defiantly. "What questions you ask!"

"But _we_ couldn't be glad. Can't you think a little of us?--you are all we have left now."

"Aunt Sabrina doesn't feel as you do--if you mean Aunt Sabrina; she would be delighted to have me come back. _She_ likes Ferdie; it is only you who are so hard about him."

"Sabrina doesn't know. But supposing it were only I, is my wish nothing to you?" And the old man put out his hand in appeal.

"No," answered Cicely, inflexibly. "I am sorry, grandpa; but for the moment it isn't, nothing is anything to me now but Ferdie. And what is it that Aunt Sabrina doesn't know, pray? There's nothing to know; Ferdie had one of his attacks--he has had them before--and I came away with Jack; that is all. Eve has exaggerated everything. I told her I would come here, come to Paul, because Ferdie likes Paul; but I never intended to stay forever, and now that Ferdie is ill, do you suppose that I will wait one moment longer than I must? Of course not."

The door opened and Eve came in. Cicely glanced at her; then she turned her eyes away, looking indifferently at the whitewashed wall.

"She is going to take the steamer back to-night," said the judge, helplessly.

"Oh no, Cicely; surely not to-night," Eve began. In spite of the fatigues of the journey, Eve had been a changed creature since morning; there was in her eyes an expression of deep happiness, which was almost exaltation.

"There is no use in explaining anything to Eve, and I shall not try,"

replied Cicely. She unfolded her arms and rose, still standing, a rigid little figure, close to the sofa. "I love my husband, and I shall go to him; what Eve says is of no consequence, because she knows nothing about such things; but I suppose _you_ cared for grandma once, didn't you, grandpa, when she was young? and if she had been shot, wouldn't you have gone to her?"

"Cicely, you are cruel," said Eve.

"When grandpa thinks so, it will be time enough for me to trouble myself. But grandpa doesn't think so."

"No, no," said the old man; "never." And for the moment he and his grandchild made common cause against the intruder.

Eve felt this, she stood looking at them in silence. Then she said, "And Jack?"

"I shall take him with me, of course. That reminds me that I must speak to Porley about his frocks; Porley is so stupid." And Cicely turned towards the door.

Eve followed her. "Another long journey so soon will be bad for Jack."

"There you go again! But I shall not leave him with you, no matter what you say; useless, your constant asking." She opened the door. On the threshold she met Paul Tennant coming in.

He took her hand and led her back. "I was looking for you; I have found a little bed for Jack; but I don't know that it will do."

"You are very good, Paul, but Jack will not need it. I am going away to-night; I have only just learned that there is a boat."

"We don't want to hear any talk of boats," Paul answered. He drew her towards the sofa and placed her upon it. "Sit down; you look so tired!"

"I'm not tired; at least I do not feel it. And I have a great deal to do, Paul; I must see about Jack's frocks."

"Jack's frocks can wait. There's to be no journey to-night."

"Yes, there is," said Cicely, with a mutinous little smile. Her glance turned towards her grandfather and Eve; then it came back to Paul, who was standing before her. "None of you shall keep me," she announced.

"You will obey your grandfather, won't you?" Paul began, seriously.

The judge got up, rubbing his hands round each other.

"No," Cicely answered; "not about this. Grandpa knows it; we have already talked it over."