Part 55 (1/2)
The weather cleared up again the next day, and for a fortnight it was lovely. In this region we saw less of the sadness of the dying year than in our own parish, for there being so few trees in the vicinity of the ocean, the autumn had nowhere to hang out her mourning flags. But there, indeed, so mild is the air, and so equable the temperature all the winter through, compared with the inland counties, that the bitterness of the season is almost unknown. This, however, is no guarantee against furious storms of wind and rain.
Not long after the occurrence last recorded, Turner paid us another visit. I confess I was a little surprised at his being able to get away so soon again; for of all men a country surgeon can least easily find time for a holiday; but he had managed it, and I had no doubt, from what I knew of him, had made thorough provision for his cure in his absence.
He brought us good news from home. Everything was going on well. Weir was working as hard as usual; and everybody agreed that I could not have got a man to take my place better.
He said he found Connie much improved; and, from my own observations, I was sure he was right. She was now able to turn a good way from one side to the other, and finding her health so steady besides, Turner encouraged her in making gentle and frequent use of her strength, impressing it upon her, however, that everything depended on avoiding everything like a jerk or twist of any sort. I was with them when he said this. She looked up at him with a happy smile.
”I will do all I can, Mr. Turner,” she said, ”to get out of people's way as soon as possible.”
Perhaps she saw something in our faces that made her add--
”I know you don't mind the bother I am; but I do. I want to help, and not be helped--more than other people--as soon as possible. I will therefore be as gentle as mamma and as brave as papa, and see if we don't get well, Mr. Turner. I mean to have a ride on old Spry next summer.--I do,” she added, nodding her pretty head up from the pillow, when she saw the glance the doctor and I exchanged. ”Look here,” she went on, poking the eider-down quilt up with her foot.
”Magnificent!” said Turner; ”but mind, you must do nothing out of bravado. That won't do at all.”
”I have done,” said Connie, putting on a face of mock submission.
That day we carried her out for a few minutes, but hardly laid her down, for we were afraid of the damp from the earth. A few feet nearer or farther from the soil will make a difference. It was the last time for many weeks. Anyone interested in my Connie need not be alarmed: it was only because of the weather, not because of her health.
One day I was walking home from a visit I had been paying to Mrs.
Stokes. She was much better, in a fair way to recover indeed, and her mental health was improved as well. Her manner to me was certainly very different, and the tone of her voice, when she spoke to her husband especially, was changed: a certain roughness in it was much modified, and I had good hopes that she had begun to climb up instead of sliding down the hill of difficulty, as she had been doing hitherto.
It was a cold and gusty afternoon. The sky eastward and overhead was tolerably clear when I set out from home; but when I left the cottage to return, I could see that some change was at hand. s.h.a.ggy vapours of light gray were blowing rapidly across the sky from the west. A wind was blowing fiercely up there, although the gusts down below came from the east. The clouds it swept along with it were formless, with loose fringes--disreputable, troubled, hasty clouds they were, looking like mischief. They reminded me of Sh.e.l.ley's ”Ode to the West Wind,” in which he compares the ”loose clouds” to hair, and calls them ”the locks of the approaching storm.” Away to the west, a great thick curtain of fog, of a luminous yellow, covered all the sea-horizon, extending north and south as far as the eye could reach. It looked ominous. A surly secret seemed to lie in its bosom. Now and then I could discern the dim ghost of a vessel through it, as tacking for north or south it came near enough to the edge of the fog to show itself for a few moments, ere it retreated again into its bosom. There was exhaustion, it seemed to me, in the air, notwithstanding the coolness of the wind, and I was glad when I found myself comfortably seated by the drawing-room fire, and saw Wynnie bestirring herself to make the tea.
”It looks stormy, I think, Wynnie,” I said.
Her eye lightened, as she looked out to sea from the window.
”You seem to like the idea of it,” I added.
”You told me I was like you, papa; and you look as if you liked the idea of it too.”
”_Per se_, certainly, a storm is pleasant to me. I should not like a world without storms any more than I should like that Frenchman's idea of the perfection of the earth, when all was to be smooth as a trim-shaven lawn, rocks and mountains banished, and the sea breaking on the sh.o.r.e only in wavelets of ginger-beer or lemonade, I forget which. But the older you grow, the more sides of a thing will present themselves to your contemplation. The storm may be grand and exciting in itself, but you cannot help thinking of the people that are in it. Think for a moment of the mult.i.tude of vessels, great and small, which are gathered within the skirts of that angry vapour out there. I fear the toils of the storm are around them. Look at the barometer in the hall, my dear, and tell me what it says.”
She went and returned.
”It was not very low, papa--only at rain; but the moment I touched it, the hand dropped an inch.”
”Yes, I thought so. All things look stormy. It may not be very bad here, however.”
”That doesn't make much difference though, does it, papa?”
”No further than that being creatures in time and s.p.a.ce, we must think of things from our own standpoint.”
”But I remember very well how, when we were children, you would not let nurse teach us Dr. Watts's hymns for children, because you said they tended to encourage selfishness.”
”Yes; I remember it very well. Some of them make the contrast between the misery of others and our own comforts so immediately the apparent--mind, I only say apparent--ground of thankfulness, that they are not fit for teaching. I do think that if you could put Dr. Watts to the question, he would abjure any such intention, saying that only he meant to heighten the sense of our obligation. But it does tend to selfishness and, what is worse, self-righteousness, and is very dangerous therefore. What right have I to thank G.o.d that I am not as other men are in anything? I have to thank G.o.d for the good things he has given to me; but how dare I suppose that he is not doing the same for other people in proportion to their capacity? I don't like to appear to condemn Dr. Watts's hymns. Certainly he has written the very worst hymns I know; but he has likewise written the best--for public wors.h.i.+p, I mean.”