After a Shadow and Other Stories Part 10

"Just so weak," was the free-spoken answer. "You fas.h.i.+onable people are all afraid of each other. You haven't a spark of individuality or true independence. No, not a spark. You are quite strong enough to ride out in your own elegant carriage but with the doctor!--O, dear, no! If you were certain of not meeting Mrs. McFlimsey, perhaps the experiment might be adventured. But she is always out on fine days."

"Doctor, for shame! How can you say that?"

And a ghost of color crept into the face of Mrs. Carleton, while her eyes grew brighter--almost flashed.

The maid came in with shawl and bonnet. Dr. Farleigh, as we have intimated, understood his patient, and said just two or three words more, in a tone half contemptuous.

"Afraid of Mrs. McFlimsey!"

"Not I; nor of forty Mrs. McFlimseys!"

It was not the ghost of color that warmed Mrs. Carleton's face now, but the crimson of a quicker and stronger heart-beat. She actually arose from her chair without reaching for her maid's hand and stood firmly while the shawl was adjusted and the bonnet-strings tied.

"We shall have a charming ride," said the doctor, as he crowded in beside his fas.h.i.+onable lady companion, and took up the loose reins.

He noticed that she sat up erectly, and with scarcely a sign of the languor that but a few minutes before had so oppressed her. "Lean back when you see Mrs. McFlimsey's carriage, and draw your veil closely. She'll never dream that it's you."

"I'll get angry if you play on that string much longer!" exclaimed Mrs. Carleton; "what do I care for Mrs. McFlimsey?"

How charmingly the rose tints flushed her cheeks! How the light rippled in her dark sweet eyes, that were leaden a little while before!

Away from the noisy streets, out upon the smoothly-beaten road, and amid green field and woodlands, gardens and flower-decked orchards, the doctor bore his patient, holding her all the while in pleasant talk. How different this from the listless, companionless drives taken by the lady in her own carriage--a kind of easy, vibrating machine, that quickened the sluggish blood no more than a cus.h.i.+oned rocking chair!

Closely the doctor observed his patient. He saw how erectly she continued to sit; how the color deepened in her face, which actually seemed rounder and fuller; how the sense of enjoyment fairly danced in her eyes.

Returning to the city by a different road, the doctor, after driving through streets entirely unfamiliar to his companion, drew up his horse before a row of mean-looking dwellings, and dropping the reins, threw open the carriage door, and stepped upon the pavement--at the same time reaching out his hand to Mrs. Carleton.

But she drew back, saying,--

"What is the meaning of this, doctor?"

"I have a patient here, and I want you to see her."

"O, no; excuse me, doctor. I've no taste for such things," answered the lady.

"Come--I can't leave you alone in the carriage. Ned might take a fancy to walk off with you."

Mrs. Carleton glanced at the patient old horse, whom the doctor was slandering, with a slightly alarmed manner.

"Don't you think he'll stand, doctor?" she asked, uneasily.

"He likes to get home, like others of his tribe. Come;" and the doctor held out his hand in a persistent way.

Mrs. Carleton looked at the poor tenements before which the doctor's carriage had stopped with something of disgust and something of apprehension.

"I can never go in there, doctor."

"Why not?"

"I might take some disease."

"Never fear. More likely to find a panacea there."

The last sentence was in an undertone.

Mrs. Carleton left the carriage, and crossing the pavement, entered one of the houses, and pa.s.sed up with the doctor to the second story. To his light tap at a chamber door a woman's voice said,--

"Come in."

The door was pushed open, and the doctor and Mrs. Carleton went in.

The room was small, and furnished in the humblest manner, but the air was pure, and everything looked clean and tidy. In a chair, with a pillow pressed in at her back for a support, sat a pale, emaciated woman, whose large, bright eyes looked up eagerly, and in a kind of hopeful surprise, at so unexpected a visitor as the lady who came in with the doctor. On her lap a baby was sleeping, as sweet, and pure, and beautiful a baby as ever Mrs. Carleton had looked upon. The first impulse of her true woman's heart, had she yielded to it, would have prompted her to take it in her arms and cover it with kisses.

The woman was too weak to rise from her chair, but she asked Mrs.

Carleton to be seated in a tone of lady-like self-possession that did not escape the visitor's observation.

"How did you pa.s.s the night, Mrs. Leslie?" asked the doctor.

"About as usual," was answered, in a calm, patient way; and she even smiled as she spoke.

"How about the pain through your side and shoulder?"

"It may have been a little easier."

"You slept?"

"Yes, sir."

"What of the night sweats?"

"I don't think they have diminished any."

The doctor beat his eyes to the floor, and sat in silence for some time. The heart of Mrs. Carleton was opening towards--the baby and it was a baby to make its way into any heart. She had forgotten her own weakness--forgotten, in the presence of this wan and wasted mother, with a sleeping cherub on her lap, all about her own invalid state.

"I will send you a new medicine," said the doctor, looking up; then speaking to Mrs. Carleton, he added,--

"Will you sit here until I visit two or three patients in the block?"

"O, certainly," and she reached out her arms for the baby, and removed it so gently from its mother's lap that its soft slumber was not broken. When the doctor returned he noticed that there had been tears in Mrs. Carleton's eyes. She was still holding the baby, but now resigned the quiet sleeper to its mother, kissing it as she did so. He saw her look with a tender, meaning interest at the white, patient face of the sick woman, and heard her say, as she spoke a word or two in parting,--

"I shall not forget you."

"That's a sad case, doctor," remarked the lady, as she took her place in the carriage.

"It is. But she is sweet and patient."

"I saw that, and it filled me with surprise. She tells me that her husband died a year ago."

"Yes."

"And that she has supported herself by s.h.i.+rt-making."