Rutledge Part 16

"He is in the hall at this moment, sir," she answered, with preciseness of manner, and a peculiar sweetness of voice.

Again the door opened, and again I heard the cat-like step, and felt the velvet touch that sent a s.h.i.+ver through me; and then succeeded a throbbing pain in my temples, dull aching in every limb, a high fever coursing through every vein, and I lived over again in delirium the scenes from which I had just escaped. Again I was lying beneath the roaring forest trees; again the sharp throes of mortal terror wrung from me the cry that I had uttered then, this time to be soothed by a tender and familiar voice; then restless with pain, and burning with fever, only pacified from that dream to be hurried off into another, wilder and more terrible. With glaring eyes and demoniac faces, the crowd of men, with Michael at their head, were in mad pursuit of a flying horse and rider; with hideous jeers and yells they urge them on, and closing round the frantic steed, they tear me, clinging round her, from Madge's neck, and holding me down upon the ground, wrench from my arm the bracelet, that resists, at first, their strongest efforts, till the warm blood flows, and the torn flesh quivers, as staggering back, a ruffian lifts the b.l.o.o.d.y prize, and with a wild cry I wake, only to drop into another broken slumber, and to dream another hideous dream.

This time it is Mrs. Roberts, who, with rigid, cruel face, holds me down, and binding my powerless hands, thrusts me, struggling and frantic, into the dread, mysterious darkness of _that room_. And choking with terror, the agony is dispelled by the low voice that says, "What is it now, poor child?" and panting with fright, I cling to the hand that soothes me, and only from its steady grasp gain anything like peace. And so the night wears on. How much of these wild dreams revealed themselves in speech I know not, and how much of the history of that night belongs to fact, and how much to fancy, it is beyond me to decide.

CHAPTER XI.

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!"

SCOTT.

Emerging from this sea of dreams tumultuous, I seemed, on a certain cold, grey morning, to be stranded on the sh.o.r.es of reality by an ebbing tide of water gruel and weak tea. Having, from my extreme youth, entertained undisguised aversion to these articles of food, I had steadily refused to let a spoonful pa.s.s my lips; consequently, my nurse and doctor not having relinquished a hope that in time I would come to terms, many separate editions of these invigorating compounds stood upon the table by my bed, in bowls of larger growth, in teacups and saucers, and every variety of earthen and china vessels, all covered and arranged with consummate care and skill.

These observations I made with great interest, as after a long period of dreamy stupor, the "keen demands of appet.i.te," or some indignant protest of nature against such indolent inactivity, roused me; and raising myself upon my elbow, I looked around with much curiosity and some bewilderment. The room was entirely unfamiliar, long and old-fas.h.i.+oned looking. The bed and the one window were curtained with white dimity; the walls and ceiling were white-washed to a painful whiteness; the counterpane, the pillows, the sheets, were one drift of snow. Indeed, so forcible was this impression, that for a moment it was a question with me whether I had not just waked up from a nap in one of those snow-houses, so called, which it had been the delight of my childhood to construct, being excavations in some adjacent snow-bank, achieved with the help of a friendly spade, in which I would lie and dream of icy palaces, and frosty fairy fabrics. The idea that I had been napping it in one of these juvenile architectural devices, was favored by the lowness of the white ceiling, which seemed almost within touch, and the long, narrow shape of the room, terminating in a small, white-curtained window, through which I caught a glimpse of cold grey sky, that suggested snow and chill.

A tiny fire, however, in a tiny grate, and a woman sewing by what I had conceived to be the mouth of the cave, but which, I was obliged to confess, was unmistakably a window, quite dispelled the illusion, and I had nothing left me but to come down to cold reality again, after a sojourn in dream-land so long as to render me a little uncertain and bewildered on all mundane matters. I looked quite attentively for some time at the woman by the window, then startled her very considerably by saying suddenly:

"Are you the one they call Mrs. Arnold?"

She dropped her work, started up, and approached the bed, saying, in her precise manner and sweet voice:

"That is my name, Miss. Can I do anything for you?"

"No," I said slowly, looking at her, "I don't think of anything, thank you."

And while Mrs. Arnold, after arranging the pillows, and in a neat, quick-handed way, straightening and tidying everything on the table and around the bed, returned to her work, I watched her very attentively, and I am afraid very rudely, from the slight color that arose in her pale cheek as she caught my eye again and again fixed on her inquiringly. She was a middle-aged woman, about middle-size, with nothing peculiar in dress or manner, except a scrupulous precision and neatness. Her hair was very grey, but her face was a younger one than you would have expected to see, after looking at her slightly-stooping figure and white hair. Her skin was unwrinkled and clear, her eyes soft and brown, and the sweetest possible smile sometimes stirred her lips.

But it died very quickly always, and never seemed to come voluntarily; only "when called for," and then to cheer or comfort some one else--never because of any happy emotion within, that found that expression for itself. She conveyed the idea of a woman who had been a very high-spirited and impetuous one, but who was now a very broken and sad one; a soul

----"By nature pitched too high, By sufferings plunged too low,"

but now past struggle and rebellion, subdued and desolated, waiting patiently for the end. This much I read, or thought I read, in her quiet face, as still leaning on my elbow, I watched her movements. I was irresistibly attracted to her, and essayed to continue our brief conversation, by saying:

"Hasn't 'that Kitty,' as Mrs. Roberts calls her, been here since I have been sick?"

"She has been here, and went away only half an hour ago, to get some of your things. I expect her back every minute."

"I thought I'd seen her," I rejoined, meditatively. "And how about Mrs.

Roberts, has she been here?"

"She has; she was here all yesterday afternoon."

I lay quite still for a little while, then said, rather abruptly:

"I can't exactly make it out--where am I, and whose house is this?"

Mrs. Arnold smiled kindly, and turning toward me, said:

"You have been too sick to know much about anything; you are at the Parsonage, and this is Mr. Shenstone's house, and I am Mr. Shenstone's housekeeper. And now do not puzzle your head with any more thinking; ask me any questions you want to know, and then try to lie quiet."

"I think I've been quiet long enough in all conscience!" I said, with energy. "I feel a great deal better, Mrs. Arnold."

"I am very glad to hear it, Miss. Will you have something to eat?"

"What can I have?"

"Some very nice gruel, Miss, or some"----

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Arnold," I said, rising up and speaking very impressively; "there is no use, indeed there is no use, in asking me to take such things; I never can, and you will only have to give it up at last. Miss Crowen had to; I stood it out till she thought I was going to die on her hands, I believe, and had to give me something decent at last. People are always trying to make me eat gruel, and farina, and arrowroot, and beef-tea, and such miseries, just as soon as I'm in the least bit sick, and begin to care what I eat. Now don't you be so unkind, will you, dear Mrs. Arnold?"

Mrs. Arnold smiled; it was the doctor, she said, who had prescribed the gruel; if he was willing to give me something nicer, she should be very happy to prepare it for me.

"Do you know," I said, mysteriously, "that as a general thing, I don't think much of doctors? Country doctors least of all. One's common sense is the best guide in most cases. Why, it stands to reason, that I know better what I ought to have to eat, when I'm not well, than a great strong man does, who never lost his appet.i.te in his life, and doesn't in the least care what he has to eat, as long as there's enough of it! I am the best judge, you must see plainly, Mrs. Arnold."

Mrs. Arnold shook her head; doctors mightn't know what we would like, she said, always, but it was just possible they might know what was best for us, being disinterested judges. Didn't I think so?

"By no means," I exclaimed, "unless they are peculiarly intelligent men, and not like that odious Dr. Sartain, who nearly frightened me to death, and nearly killed Mr. Rutledge, by setting his arm badly. Mr.

Rutledge himself is ten times better a doctor. He can tell what's the matter with people by just looking at them; and," I continued, coming abruptly back to the point of interest, and hoping to carry it by the suddenness of the attack, "he would never make any one eat water-gruel if they hated it. I'm positive, if you asked him, he'd say, 'let her have what she wants, of course, it cannot do her any harm.'"

Mrs. Arnold shook her head again, and said:

"Ah, Miss, it's very hard to say 'no;' but it must be, till the doctor comes, whom I am expecting every minute."

"What's the doctor's name?"

"His name is Hugh, Miss; a very fine young man they say; he is just settled in the village, and every one is very much pleased with him; he is getting all the practice away from Dr. Sartain, who, though he lives so far away, has been for a long time the nearest physician. But here's his gig at the door now," continued she, coming up to the bed. "Are you ready to see him?"

"Yes, quite," I answered; and she hurried down to usher up the doctor.

Now I had my own views regarding this gentleman, and all Mrs. Arnold's commendation could not change the current of my feelings toward him; so when he approached my bedside, it was a very slight and stiff recognition that his arrival elicited from me. He did not seem a whit annoyed by it, however, and with unruffled blandness, laid down his hat and gloves, and seated himself, while Mrs. Arnold stood at the foot of the bed, un.o.btrusively attentive.

The new doctor was a good-sized, good-looking man, with reddish hair and whiskers, and very white teeth and very light eyes. That he "hailed"

from New England no one could doubt after five minutes spent in his society; equality and fraternity, go-a-head-i-tiveness and go-to-the-deuce-if-you-get-in-my-way-itiveness were still visible to an impartial eye, under all the layers of suavity, professional decorum and good breeding, with which his educational residence in the metropolis had plastered over the native roughnesses of his rustic breeding. If the chill penury that usually represses the n.o.ble rage of the New England youth, had not been defeated of its cruel purpose by a "little annuity"

from his maternal grandfather, elevating him from the plough to the practice of medicine, one could not help thinking how fine a specimen of the genuine Yankee he would have been. How he would have risen from a boyhood devoted to whittling, swapping, and carting lumber, to a youth engaged in itinerant mercantile transactions, and an early manhood consecrate to science and literature, in the onerous post of common-school teacher. The hero he would have been at quiltings and at singing-schools! The bargains he would have driven in tin and garden-seeds, exchanged for feathers and rags! The matchless cuteness, the inherent cunning, that would have marked his career!

"But whither would conjecture stray?"

The little annuity ($150) had intervened, and Dr. Hugh stood before the public a professional gentleman in the midst of a growing practice, a rising man in a country where, once started, it is easier to rise than to sit still. He was, at the moment when I was making these reflections on his character, suavely regarding me, and had softly laid two fingers upon my wrist, and, with head slightly inclined, was counting my pulse.

The result gratified him; for looking up with a complacency that indicated very plainly the source to which he attributed the improvement, he said, addressing Mrs. Arnold:

"A marked change for the better, madam--a marked change."

It was an involuntary thing for me to pull my hand impatiently from his continued touch, and to turn my head away, so disagreeably did his manner impress me. No change of tone, however, indicated any resentment as he said, in apology for me, as it appeared:

"A little restless and feverish yet, I am afraid."