Part 10

He was keenly disappointed, and stood for a moment undecided what to do or which way to go, until the doctor and his wife spoke to him. They were almost the last of the home-going procession at that end of the village; and the young man joined them in the lingering hope that the girlish figure in white, fluttering ahead, might be overtaken, since he now saw that it was not, after all, so very far in advance. Mrs. Alexander undoubtedly would present him, so he thought; she could hardly do anything else; and, so hoping, he walked on up the big road, listening as best he could to what she was saying. But the slender young shape in white went rapidly on and did not linger, and never once looked back. Sidney turned at the gate and nodded to her neighbors; but Doris passed through it without pausing, and disappeared under the low arch of silver leaves.

Again Lynn went back to his grandmother's house, thinking of Doris, but again he refrained from speaking of her, although he hardly knew why, unless it was because he shrank from the harshness of his grandmother's cynical comments. Old lady Gordon asked about many of the people whom he had seen at church, but it did not occur to her to mention the daughter of Sidney Wendall. Nevertheless, the girl clung to Lynn's thoughts through all the warm idle afternoon hours of the perfect spring day. Talking half-heartedly, absently, of other things, he still thought of her, even until the evening, coming little by little to think of her as the most beautiful girl whom he had ever seen. He knew, upon reflection, that meeting her was merely a question of a short time in a place so small as Oldfield; and he was not quite sure that, after all, he really wished to make her acquaintance. It would be best, perhaps, considering the career which he had laid out for himself, that he should know as few young women as possible. Moreover, it seemed most unlikely, from all that he had heard of Doris Wendall and of her family and training and environment, that she could possess any charm other than a beautiful face. Yet at the same time he ardently admitted that merely to look upon such rare beauty was a delight to such a worshipper of beauty as he knew himself to be.

He smiled at his own weakness and folly, when he found himself going toward the tall poplars at the close of the long day. The supple tops of the great trees bent white against the darkening sky. But although the leaves no longer dazzled as when they turned their silver lining to the noonday sunlight, they were still too restless and too thick to be seen through, and, smiling again at his foolish craving for another glimpse of beauty, the young man went on, hoping for better luck as he came back. Going beyond the eastern hills which rimmed the village, he paused and looked down and far out over the wide lowlands; at the emerald seas of wheat flowing with waves of purple shadows; at the springing vivid lines of young corn, stretching to the dim distant horizon; at the rich, dark green of the vast tobacco fields already beginning to be dotted by the small, thick-leaved plants; at the red herds, and at the white flocks dimly visible through the fleecy mists trailing above the meadows. He stood still, leaning on a fence and listening to the gentle lowing of far-off cattle, and the homely barking of distant dogs, which were the most distinct sounds. Then, as he listened, lingering, the music of the woods and fields grew fainter--fainter, till it became hushed with the falling of the twilight. Only the whip-poor-will's lonesome cry--the vesper bell of the birds--rang out at long intervals from the dark willows fringing a far-away stream.

The dusk falls very slowly and very softly over the Pennyroyal Region, settling like the exquisite gray down from some wonderful brown wings. It was falling, but still lingering between daylight and darkness, when Lynn Gordon turned at last toward the village. He could not see the people sitting in Sunday quiet and peace on their vine-wreathed porches; but he heard them talking in low tones of the humble little things that make the sweetness of home. A feeling of longing came over him such as he had never known before; a yearning for the home which had never been his, for the loved ones whom he could not remember. The fireside smell of smoking tobacco mingled with the scent of the homely flowers blooming in the yards and gardens. Great white moths fluttered back and forth across the deserted highway, seeking the sweetest of those shy blossoms which yield their beauty and fragrance only to the gloaming.

As the young man approached the poplars, sombre now as cypress trees in the deepened twilight, a sudden breeze stirred the leaves and swayed the branches. But the fleeting glimpse of white at which he started forward so eagerly, proved to be nothing more than a bunch of pale roses drooping beside the window. There was not a glimmer of light behind the curtain, and as he strolled on along the big road the lights in all the houses went out one by one, as the simple people, drowsy from the day's unaccustomed idleness, sought their early rest. Tom Watson's lamp alone shone afar, throwing its beams a long way down the big road, and the sight of it suddenly touched the young man's softened heart with keenest pity, reminding him, almost reproachfully, of the promise which he had quite forgotten.

At his grandmother's house all was dark and still; the dogs leaping to meet him knew him well enough not to bark, and he sat down on the porch to smoke a cigar. He could always think more clearly when smoking, and he wished now to think as clearly as possible. For the past two days his thoughts had been wandering, as he rarely allowed them to wander, far away from his life plans. Firmly he now bent them back; intently he surveyed every up-hill step in the direction of his high ambition; calmly he faced the full length and difficulty of the struggle between him and his goal, without thought of faltering or fear of failure. He said to himself, as the young who have never measured their strength against their weakness often say to themselves:--

"I will not do any of those things which I firmly set on that side; I will do all these things which I calmly range on this side: the shaping of a man's life lies in his own hand; it has but to be powerful enough to grasp and firm enough to hold."

It is easy to be calm and common to be sure on starting in life's race. And, indeed, this young fellow was better trained and equipped for the running of it than most young men are. Feeling this intelligently, but without undue conceit, he now threw back his broad shoulders and lifted his proud head. The arrogance of youth takes no heed of the slight chances that defeat great plans, no heed even of the divinity that shapes mortal hewing. He looked absently at the red rim of the climbing moon, and scarcely noting that, as its disk grew larger and its beams grew brighter, a mocking-bird, at home with his beloved in one of the giant elms, began a murmuring melody, as though he were wooing his mate in dreams. Yet, as the paling, brightening moon arose higher and higher, till it hung a great shield of burnished silver on night's starry wall, the mocking-bird's song grew clearer and sweeter, till, soaring to the moonlit heavens, it arose to a very pean of love triumphant.

XI

BODY OR SOUL

Lynn set out on his errand of mercy very early the next morning. The eternal freshness of dawn seemed still to be lingering amid the cool shadows of the wooded hillsides. The woods and fields alike were still bubbling with matin song. Heavy drops of dew still hung on the blue-eyed grass, sparkling in the sunlight like happy tears.

The doctor, however, was ready and waiting. The day's work began with the sunrise in Oldfield, and no one in all the region round had more to do between the rising and the setting of the sun, or indeed between its setting and rising again, than John Alexander always had. Ah, those village doctors of the old time! It is known in a way to all who think, how large a part they must have had in the making of these far-off corners of our great country, and yet the greater part can never be known. A doctor's memory is the greatest catholic confessional of humanity--and forever sacred. It is only the trivial, the whimsical outer edges of the deep experiences of these old-time country doctors that history may ever touch. Being human, they growled aloud sometimes over these trifles, as the doctor was growling when Lynn Gordon found him on that May morning.

A patient, a sufferer from chills and fever, which were still the scourge of the Ohio lowlands, had come to him on the day before for quinine. The doctor had given it to him in solution, the only form in which it was then known to country practitioners. Quinine was a costly medicine in those days, under the heavy tax which was removed long afterwards through the most earnest and even impassioned efforts of a Kentucky statesman, who, in a memorable speech, eloquently implored Congress to keep, if it would, its tax on silks and laces and precious stones but--for humanity's sake--to allow his constituency to have all the free quinine that they wanted.

"I gave this chap a big bottle of quinine," the doctor said. "He paid a stiff price for it, too, and I saw him put it in his saddle-bags with great care. Nevertheless, he managed somehow to crack the bottle, and, when only a part of the way home he found that it was leaking. He couldn't think of losing the quinine,--it had cost too much,--and he saved it by drinking that whole bottleful at a gulp. Well, he certainly had the benefit of it, none of it was wasted; but I feel a little tired from being up most of the night and having had pretty brisk work to keep him alive. What fools these mortals be;" the doctor yawned, as he struck his pipe musingly on the porch railing, thus ranging his thoughts while clearing his pipe of ashes. "And here's this other hard job, that's quite as unnecessary, on hand for to-day, and no more to be shirked or put off than the other was. Well, come along," he said, reluctantly laying down his pipe, the sole luxury that he allowed himself. "We may as well be going; ''twere well it were done quickly,'" he quoted again, for this rugged country doctor knew his Shakespeare as a man may know a book when he reads only one.

They went down the porch steps, talking of indifferent matters, pausing a moment at the gate, long enough for Lynn to speak a few words in return for the greeting which the doctor's wife gave him from the window. The Watson house was near by,--only a few paces down the big road,--and they were almost immediately standing before its open door. There the doctor halted with the look of one who musters his forces after having set his thoughts in order. He drew himself up and threw back his shoulders as if settling to a firm purpose with a new determination, and he finally buttoned his coat. That poor old shabby coat! Ah! that dear old coat! So eloquent in its faded shabbiness of the many fierce storms and the many merciless suns which had beaten upon his tireless ministrations to suffering humanity! And the buttoning of the doctor's old coat was always as the girding of a warrior's armor for battle.

The young man standing beside him on the steps gave him a careless side glance. He did not understand the meaning of what he saw, and he merely smiled at its apparent absurdity. A moment later he followed the doctor into the house, all unafraid, as youth often enters upon the most appalling of the mysteries of living.

It was Anne who met them and gave them an impassive good-morning, and silently led them into the room in which her husband was sitting. The sick man, propped up in his usual seat by the window, looked round when they came in, and murmured some indistinct greeting. But his miserable, restless eyes went back almost at once to their ceaseless quest of the deserted big road, stretching dully toward the dim, distant horizon.

"How are you to-day, Tom?" asked the doctor, perfunctorily, and then he continued without waiting for a reply to his inquiry, "We are not going to let you mope like this, old boy. I've been trying to think of something to help you--to fill the time. It's after a man gets out of bed that the worst tug comes--while he is still tied to the house and yet not actually ill. We mustn't let him mope, must we, Anne?" he said.

He turned to the silent, motionless woman who sat by without so much as the natural feminine rustle of garments.

Anne looked at him through the white light of her clear eyes, but she did not speak. She had been well called a "still-tongued woman."

The doctor, glancing away, went on uneasily, yet determinedly:--

"But I am not sure what Tom would like. I don't think he cares for backgammon or checkers or dominoes or any of those milk-and-water games. You don't know anything about chess, do you, Tom?" he asked.

The stricken man made no reply; he could utter but few words and those only with indistinctness and difficulty. He did not even turn his head; the turning of it ever so slowly was hard and caused him great pain.

"I scarcely think chess would be the thing anyway--it's too heavy and requires too much thinking to be good for an invalid. You must have something light and amusing. That's the sort of game we must give you to keep you from moping."

The doctor spoke to the husband, but his eyes were on the wife and regarding her anxiously, though his lips were smiling.

There was no responsive smile on Anne's pale face. It was quite still and grave as it always was, but a thin cloud of alarm seemed suddenly rising in her clear gaze, as white smoke floats over the crystalline sky of a winter's day. But yet she said not a word.

The doctor also fell unexpectedly silent, with his eyes fixed sternly on the back of the sick man's chair and a frown gathering between his shaggy, grizzled brows, as it always gathered when he was sorely perplexed. He was only an old-fashioned country doctor--merely a good man first and scientist afterwards. So that he now sat speechless, casting about in his troubled thoughts for the gentlest words wherewith he must wound the quiet, pale-faced woman, whose very lack of comprehension appealed to his great heart as all helplessness did. He saw, as only doctors can see, how frail was the body holding this strenuous spirit. As he thus sat silent, gathering courage, the utter stillness of the room grew tense. The young man, sitting on the other side of the chamber, silent and ill at ease, moved uneasily, keeping his eyes on the floor. The soft, monotonous murmur of the bees in the honeysuckle over the window sounded unnaturally loud and shrill.

At last the doctor spoke distinctly and firmly, but without looking at Anne:--

"There is only one thing to do. We must find a partner for Tom--Mr. Gordon here has kindly offered--and we must give him a real good, lively game of cards."

It was out now, and he was glad and sorry at the same time.

Anne gave a startled cry, inarticulate, like the terror of a dumb creature. She recoiled as if a black pit had opened at her feet.

"Tom's need is very great. He is very, very weak," the doctor urged, in the space of the recoil.

Anne instantly flew to her husband as the mother bird flies to the fallen fledgling, and laid her little trembling hands on his broken shoulders, as the mother bird spreads her weak wings between helplessness and danger.

"I will take care of him," she said, speaking out of that tender, protecting maternal instinct which is the divine part of every good woman's love for her husband.

"I can see no other way," the doctor urged gently, not knowing what else to say.

"There must be some other way! Surely our Father never forces us to commit sin. Surely in His mercy He gives us a choice;" Anne panted, like a frightened wild creature at bay.

Yet she faced the two men steadily over her husband's powerless head, her clear eyes clouded darkly now, and her set face as white and as inscrutable as the cold mask of death.

"I can only say again what I have said before," the doctor repeated weakly, glancing at Anne and quickly looking away.

"The way will mercifully be opened unto me. A light will be shown as a lamp to my feet."

Anne's murmured words were barely to be heard, yet they bore, nevertheless, to the three men who listened, the full strength of her faith, firm as the Rock of Ages.

The doctor arose hurriedly and went out into the passage, and stood for a while in the doorway, looking at the quiet big road, at the peace of the green earth, and at the sunlight flooding the blue heavens. When he turned back his sunken eyes were wet and he could not meet Anne's gaze nor the sick man's, which was also turned upon him with all its dumb, restless, desperate misery--with all its terrible voiceless clamor for relief.

"I don't know what to do," he said, trying to speak lightly, but sighing in spite of himself and spreading out his hands. "I suppose we'll have to give it up, Tom, old fellow. Well, maybe Anne knows best after all. These wives of ours usually do know better what is good for us than we know ourselves. A good wife is always more to be depended upon than medicine when a man's pulling through a tedious convalescence. You don't need any more medicine. I am coming, though, every day, if I can--just as a neighbor, to see how you are getting along."

He turned away from the sick man. He could not look at him without being compelled to renew the struggle with Anne; that infinitely cruel, that ineffably piteous struggle which wrung his own heart, and which would be useless in the end. He took one of Anne's cold little hands in his warm large clasp, thinking how small and weak it was to hold so firmly to its mistaken ideals, how much more firm than his own, which was not strong enough to hold to an unmistakable duty. And then he and Lynn Gordon went away, as best they could go, both feeling as the conscientious and the impressionable must always feel after having, however unwillingly, stirred the depths of the deep, still pool of another's life.

Out of the house, and out of hearing, the doctor became, however, once more himself in a measure. He smote his powerful thigh with his strong hand, and upbraided himself aloud for most disgraceful moral cowardice. He convicted himself, almost in a shout, of having deserted Tom Watson--poor devil--and of having virtually run away, like the veriest coward, simply because he knew that, in a moment more, he would have been crying like any child. And all on account of the silly fanaticism of a woman with a mind no wider than a cambric needle--sheer foolishness, morbid sentimentality--and much more of the same tenor, while Lynn Gordon laughed at him a little nervously.

"But, foolish or wise, she believes what she does believe. By the eternal, I'd like to hear any man doubt it! Why, young sir, that little slim, unbending splinter of a woman is the stuff that they threw to the beasts in old Rome!"

* * * * *

There was no consciousness of heroism in Anne's own sadly humble thoughts. When the doctor and the young man were gone, she bent down silently and kissed her husband with tender timidity, as if begging his forgiveness for what she could not help. Kneeling by his side, as she often knelt in her unwearying service, she strove to look into his averted face, and to meet and to hold his miserable eyes with her own clear gaze, from which the clouds were fast drifting away. The white light behind her strange eyes had sunk low under the shock, and had died out in the stress of terror; but it was gradually beginning to rise and shine again through the crystal windows of her soul. Her husband did not look at her; he seemed not to hear what she said; he was staring after the two men who were walking away down the big road, his look straining to follow them as a chained animal strains its fetters toward companionship. Anne saw nothing of this; she was not a bright woman, and entirely without imagination. She saw only that he did not notice her, that she was far from his thoughts. And she was used to being over-looked by her husband, and accustomed to being forgotten by him. She arose and went quietly across the room, and brought a footstool, and sat down upon it by his side, laying her head on the arm of his chair, with her hands folded on her lap.

She was not weeping,--she had never been a crying woman,--and in truth she was not more unhappy at this moment than she had been for years. She was, indeed, even less unhappy, now that the shock was well over and the danger safely passed. A feeling of peace was in truth already hovering in her breast, though very timidly, as a frightened dove comes slowly back to its nest. This spirit of peace had begun to brood in Anne's lonely heart soon after her husband's hurt, although Anne herself was scarcely aware of the fact. Through the endless months of his greatest suffering she had been not only upheld, but comforted, by the growing belief--changing little by little to exaltation--that the torture was but a fiery furnace intended for the purification of her husband's soul and her own--for she, too, suffered with every pang which wrenched his shattered body. It was a terrible faith, and yet it was the faith of the martyrs; and Anne held not back from sealing it, as they sealed it, with life itself,--ay! even unto the dear life of her husband, which was infinitely dearer to her than her own. For she loved him as none save a nature such as hers can love; with an intense, narrow, almost fierce and wholly terrible concentration. It was a love which had almost entirely excluded every one else; not only every other man, but her father and mother and sisters and brothers, all had been shut out from her inmost heart, from her earliest youth till this latest moment when she sat unnoticed by her husband's side. He had never loved her with the best love that he was capable of giving. Love is perhaps never quite equal, certainly it never seems equal, in any marriage. The one always loves more, or less, than the other. And then, in circumscribed lives, such as Anne's and Tom's were, both men and women choose the one whom they prefer from among the few whom they chance to know; they cannot choose from a large number which might possibly have induced a different selection. But the width of the world would not have altered Anne's choice. And a love like hers changes no more with time than it is influenced by environment; it is too little of the flesh, and too much of the spirit to age, or to wither, or to grow cold. Even her husband's neglect had made no difference through all the unhappy years of her married life; even his disregard of religion did not lessen or alter her love, although it put her and her husband farther apart than they might otherwise have been, and came nearer than all else to breaking her heart. She could bear the loss of happiness in her daily life; she could bear to be deprived of her husband's society day after day and night after night, by interests and associations in which she had no part,--living was but waiting, anyway, to Anne. But she could not bear the thought of the Long Time without the beloved. To Anne, as much as to any mediaeval saint in any rock-ribbed cell, the longest, happiest earthly life measured nothing against a glorious eternity. Her husband was handsome, spirited, high-hearted, masterful, compelling, and kind, too, in his careless way; another woman might have been happy and proud to be his wife; but Anne's heart had ached from first to last for the one thing of which she never spoke, and for which she was always praying.