Part 78 (1/2)
At that last word, I popped up to look about the room, and the doctor caught hold of me with ludicrous haste. A pain shot through my body.
”Avast, avast, my hearty,” cries he. ”'Tis a miracle you can speak, let alone carry your bed and walk for a while yet.” And he turned to Dorothy's mother, whom I beheld smiling at me. ”You will give him the physic, ma'am, at the hours I have chosen. Egad, I begin to think we shall come through.
”But pray remember, ma'am, if he talks, you are to put a wad in his mouth.”
”He shall have no opportunity to talk, Dr. Barry,” said Mrs. Manners.
”Save for a favour I have to ask you, doctor,” I cried.
”'Od's bodkins! Already, sir? And what may that be?”
”That you will allow me to see Miss Manners.”
He shook with laughter, and then winked at me very roguishly.
”Oh!” says he, ”and faith, I should be worse than cruel. First she comes imploring me to see you, and so prettily that a man of oak could not refuse her. And now it is you begging to see her. Had your eyes been opened, sir, you might have had many a glimpse of Miss Dolly these three weeks past.”
”What! She has been watching with me?” I asked, in a rapture not to be expressed.
”'Od's, but those are secrets. And the medical profession is close-mouthed, Mr. Carvel. So you want to see her? No,” cries he, ”'tis not needful to swear it on the Evangels. And I let her come in, will you give me your honour as a gentleman not to speak more than two words to her?”
”I promise anything, and you will not deny me looking at her,” said I.
He shook again, all over. ”You rascal! You sad dog, sir! No, sir, faith, you must shut your eyes. Eh, madam, must he not shut his eyes?”
”They were playmates, doctor,” answers Mrs. Manners. She was laughing a little, too.
”Well, she shall come in. But remember that I shall have my ear to the keyhole, and you go beyond your promise, out she's whisked. So I caution you not to spend rashly those two words, sir.”
And he followed Mrs. Manners out of the room, frowning and shaking his fist at me in mock fierceness. I would have died for the man. For a s.p.a.ce--a prodigious long s.p.a.ce--I lay very still, my heart b.u.mping like a gun-carriage broke loose, and my eyes riveted on the crack of the door. Then I caught the sound of a light footstep, the k.n.o.b turned, and joy poured into my soul with the sweep of a Fundy tide.
”Dorothy!” I cried. ”Dorothy!”
She put her finger to her lips.
”There, sir,” said she, ”now you have spoken them both at once!”
She closed the door softly behind her, and stood looking down upon me with such a wondrous love-light in her eyes as no man may describe.
My fancy had not lifted me within its compa.s.s, my dreams even had not imagined it. And the fire from which it sprang does not burn in humbler souls. So she stood gazing, those lips which once had been the seat of pride now parted in a smile of infinite tenderness. But her head she still held high, and her body straight. Down the front of her dress fell a tucked ap.r.o.n of the whitest linen, and in her hand was a cup of steaming broth.
”You are to take this, Richard,” she commanded. And added, with a touch of her old mischief, ”Mind, sir, if I hear a sound out of you, I am to disappear like the fairy G.o.dmother.”
I knew full well she meant it, and the terror of losing her kept me silent. She put down the cup, placed another pillow behind my head with a marvellous deftness, and then began feeding me in dainty spoonfuls something which was surely nectar. And mine eyes, too, had their feast.
Never before had I seen my lady in this gentle guise, this task of nursing the sick, which her doing raised to a queenly art.
Her face had changed some. Years of trial unknown to me had left an enn.o.bling mark upon her features, increasing their power an hundred fold. And the levity of girlish years was gone. How I burned to question her! But her lips were now tight closed, her glance now and anon seeking mine, and then falling with an exquisite droop to the coverlet. For the old archness, at least, would never be eradicated. Presently, after she had taken the cup and smoothed my pillow, I reached out for her hand. It was a boldness of which I had not believed myself capable; but she did not resist, and even, as I thought, pressed my fingers with her own slender ones, the red of our Maryland holly blus.h.i.+ng in her cheeks. And what need of words, indeed! Our thoughts, too, flew coursing hand in hand through primrose paths, and the angels themselves were not to be envied.
A master might picture my happiness, waking and sleeping, through the short winter days that came and went like flashes of gray light. The memory of them is that of a figure tall and lithe, a little more rounded than of yore, and a chiselled face softened by a power that is one of the world's mysteries. Dorothy had looked the lady in rags, and housewife's cap and ap.r.o.n became her as well as silks or brocades.
When for any reason she was absent from my side, I moped, to the quiet amus.e.m.e.nt of Mrs. Manners and the more boisterous delight of Aunt Lucy, who took her turn sewing in the window. I was near to forgetting the use of words, until at length, one rare morning when the sun poured in, the jolly doctor dressed my wounds with more despatch than common, and vouchsafed that I might talk awhile that day.