Boston Neighbours In Town and Out Part 17

"Yes, sir; he's upstairs; and Miss Fuller, and Mr. Talbot--_he's_ some use, and the boy wants him. I don't believe you'll ever get him to take the ether unless his papa's 'round; and I thought, if Miss Fuller would stay outside and look after _her_?"

"Certainly."

"Then, if Mrs. Wilson will take the others off, why, the sooner the better."

The doctor looked at his wife, who was quick to respond, though with her whole soul she longed to stay. She wanted to see Eugene; to know how he was taking it; to hear him say something to her, no matter what; to give him the comfort and support his wife was evidently past giving; and then, she wanted to see her husband as nearly as possible at the moment he had saved the child's life. She did not let the thought that he might fail enter her mind,--not in this case, the crowning case of his life!

For this alone he had toiled, and she had striven. She gave his hand one hard squeeze, as if to make him catch some of the pa.s.sionate longing of her heart, and then drew back with the fear that it might weaken rather than strengthen his nerve. He looked as immobile as ever; and she turned to take the children's little hands in hers.

"Oh, Lucy!" faltered out her successful rival, "how good of you! I can't tell you--it does not seem as if it could be true that my beautiful Eugene--" Here another burst of sobs shook her all over. Lucy's own tears, as she kissed the poor mother, were bright in her eyes, but they did not fail. She led the two older girls silently away, and young Dr.

Walker, who had been standing in the background, followed with the third in his arms, his cool business air, just tempered by a proper consideration for the parents' feelings, covering his inward excitement at this first chance of a.s.sisting the great physician at an operation.

As he helped the pretty Mrs. Wilson, adored of all her husband's pupils, into her handsome carriage, which had come for her, and settled his little charge on her lap, he was astonished, and even awe-struck, to see that she was crying. "I never thought," he said to himself, "that Mrs.

Wilson had so much feeling! but to be sure she has a boy just this little fellow's age!"

At nine o'clock, the Talbot children, weary of the delights of that earthly paradise, Harry Wilson's nursery, had been put to bed, and Lucy was waiting for her husband. She looked anxiously at his face when he came, but it told her nothing.

"How--is he?" she faltered out at last.

"Can't tell as yet."

"Was the operation successful?"

"Yes, that was all right enough."

"And how soon shall you know if he's likely to rally?"

"Impossible to say."

"Any bad signs?"

"No, nothing apparent as yet."

"You must be very tired," she said, with a tender, unnoticed touch of her hand to his forehead.

"Not very."

"Have you been there all this time?"

"No, I have made one or two other calls. I was there again just now."

"Do have some tea," said Lucy, striking a match and lighting the alcohol lamp under her little bra.s.s kettle, to prepare the cup of weak, sugarless, creamless tea, the only luxury of taste which the doctor, otherwise rigidly keeping to a special unvaried regimen, allowed himself; and while he sipped it languidly, she watched him intently. If only he would say anything without being asked! But she could not wait.

"How is Mabel?"

"Very much overcome."

"She has no self-control."

"She is fairly worn out."

"I am glad Julia is there."

"Yes, I should not feel easy unless she were. But Talbot himself behaved very well. He is more of a hand with the boy than the mother is. He seems bound up in him."

"Poor fellow!" said Lucy, sympathetically. Her husband did not respond.

"You had better go to bed, dear, and get some sleep," she went on. "You must need it."

"I told Julia I would be there before six," said Dr. Wilson, rising.

"She must get some rest then. So if you'll wake me at five--"

"Of course," said Lucy, who was as certain and much more agreeable than an alarm clock; "and now go to sleep, and forget it all. You have had a hard day, you poor fellow!"

The doctor threw his arm round his wife, as she nestled closer to him, and they turned with a common impulse to the next room, where there own only child lay sleeping. Father and mother stood long without a word, looking at the bright-haired boy, whose healthy breathing came and went without a sound or a quiver; but when the mother turned to go, the father lingered still. She did not wait for him, for her exquisite tact could allow for shyness in a husband as well as in anyone else, and she had no manner of jealousy of it. If he wanted to say his prayers, or shed a few tears, or go through any other such sentimental performance which he would feel ashamed to have her witness, why, by all means let him have the chance; and she kept on diligently brus.h.i.+ng her rich, dark hair, that he might not find her waiting.

There was no dramatic scene when little Eugene Talbot was declared out of danger; it came gradually as blessings are apt to do; but after Dr.

Wilson had informed his wife day after day for a week that the child was "no worse," he began to report him as "a little better," and finally somewhat grudgingly to allow that with care there was no reason why he should not recover. By early springtime the little fellow was playing about in the sun and air; his sisters had been sent home all well and blooming, with many a gift from Mrs. Wilson, and their wardrobes bearing everywhere traces of her dainty handiwork; the mother had overflowed in tearful thanks, and the father had struggled to speak his in vain.

"I wish I knew how small I could decently make Talbot's fee," said Dr.

Wilson, as he sat at his desk, in a half-soliloquising tone, but still designed to catch his wife's ear, and win her judicious advice.

But it was not till after he had repeated the words, that she said without raising her head from her work, while her fingers ran nervously on, "I will tell you what I should do."

"Well?" as she paused.

"I should make out my bill for the usual amount, and send it in receipted. Won't you, Henry? I wish you would, so very, very much!" she went on, surprised at the dawning of a look she had never seen before on his face.

"That would be hardly treating him like a gentleman," he began; and then suddenly, "Lucy, how can you keep up such a grudge against Eugene Talbot?"

Lucy's work dropped, and she sat looking full at him, her pretty face white as ashes, and her eyes dilated as if she had heard a voice from the grave.

"I know," he resumed, "that he has injured you on the tenderest point on which a man can injure a woman, but surely you should have got over thinking of that by this time. Is it n.o.ble, is it Christian to bear malice so long? Can't you be satisfied without crowding down the coals of fire so very hard upon his head? I never," went on Dr. Wilson, reflectively, "did like that pa.s.sage, though it is in the Bible."

"Oh, Henry!"

"Put it on a lower ground. Is it just to me? Do you owe me nothing? I don't forget how much I owe you. You have made the better part of what little reputation I have; you are proud of it; you would like to have me more so. But do you suppose I can feel pride in anything earthly, while another man has the power so to move my wife? You may think you do not love him now; but where you make a parade of forgiveness, resentment lingers; and where revenge is hot, love is still warm."

"Then you knew it all?" gasped Lucy; "but how--how could you ever want to marry me?"

"Because, my dear, I loved you--all the time--too well not to be thankful to get you on any terms. I gave you credit for too much good sense and high principle to let yourself care for him when you were once married; and--I am but a poor creature, G.o.d knows! but I hoped I could win your love in time. There, my dear, don't! I knew I could! I am very sure I did."

He raised her head from where she had buried it among the sofa pillows, and let her weep out a flood of the bitterest tears she had ever shed, on his shoulder. It was long before she could check them enough to murmur, "Forgive me--only forgive me!"

"Dearest, we will both of us forget it."