Part 24 (1/2)

It's all that's strong enough to last, and it's a long, long thing, giving your promise to marry.”

And then that shrewd reflective note crept into his voice again as he added: ”But if it kept coming to a body the way you speak of, to be thinking of somebody else all the time, and be sorry for them, and all that, I should be a little mite doubtful if there wasn't something after all besides pity at the bottom of it. A body wouldn't keep on so very long being sorry for one person, if he was right down in love with another. He'd forget about that one before he knew it. It's like Aaron's rod, you see. Some things get swallowed up terrible quick when the one that's bigger and more alive stretches itself out among 'em.”

She did not ask any more questions. She kept her eyes on the stars for a long time after that. And her grandfather spoke to Dobbin presently in a tone of impatience. ”Get up; get up; it's time we were home long ago.”

It was certainly later than usual when they drew up at the door. Aunt Elsie opened it, looking out rather anxiously when the wheels of the carriage stopped. ”I guess we've been a little longer than common on the way, we've had so much to talk about,” said the old gentleman, cheerfully. Then, as he got down from the carriage, and left it in the hands of Tom, who stood ready with the lantern, he added, stretching himself, ”I declare, I feel sort o' chilly and stiff in the joints.

Mebbe I'd better have a little sup of something warm before I get into bed.”

Esther had thought that would be the last time of going to prayer-meeting with her grandfather, and so it proved, but not because she had taken her flight before the next Wednesday evening came. Perhaps it was a cold settling upon him with the raw gray weather which November ushered in, but he was feverish next morning, and kept the house, complaining of draughts which no one else felt, and a little querulous, as he was apt to be when anything ailed that outer man in whose general soundness he took such pride.

For three days he sat by the fire, swallowing boneset tea in quant.i.ties and of a degree of bitterness which filled the household, especially Esther, with admiration; but he sternly rejected Aunt Elsie's suggestion that he should send for a physician, being in practice disposed to the opinion that a man had no use for a doctor until he had reached the point where the chances were against a doctor or any one else being able to help him. He was in something of a strait, however, when Sunday came and he was clearly unable to attend church. To admit the gravity of his case by sending for a medical man was one thing, but to absent himself from the house of G.o.d, unless such state of gravity existed, was another; and between the two horns of the dilemma he tossed painfully all the morning. In the end Aunt Elsie settled it, and she was quite willing that he should take what grumbling comfort he could in representing himself as a martyr to feminine insistence when the doctor appeared.

Evidently the latter did not think he had been called too soon. He sent his patient promptly to bed, and now, having advertised himself as sick, the old gentleman obeyed orders with the meekness of a lamb. It would be only a few days, of course; but while it lasted he meant to make the most of his case, and take his full dues in the way of sympathy and attention.

That the minister would come promptly was certain, and there would be opportunity for testing the fidelity of his brother deacons to the duty of visiting the sick and afflicted. Undoubtedly there would be prayers sent up in his behalf from the pulpit and at the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, and-let us not judge the good man too severely! his own gift in prayer was of no common order-he really hoped the pet.i.tions would be well expressed. As for his own family, it went without saying that they would wait upon him with unfailing attention, while he lay, as he plaintively expressed it, on his ”bed of pain and languishment”; and feminine attentions were dear to the soul of Ruel Saxon.

He did not have to suggest to Esther that she should delay her departure for Boston. Indeed, it is possible that he forgot her plans altogether, and she remembered them herself only to say quietly to Aunt Elsie, ”I shall stay, of course, till he is better. I couldn't think of leaving him now, and perhaps I can be some help to you in taking care of him.”

Aunt Elsie was not an effusive woman, but the tone in which she said, ”It'll be a real comfort to have you here,” made the girl look happy.

She meant to slip across the fields later in the day and tell Aunt Katharine that her going had been postponed, but her grandfather grew restless as the day wore on, and seemed to feel neglected if some one were not constantly at his side.

”I really think Aunt Katharine ought to know it,” she said at supper, and Tom, who was sitting at the table, responded promptly, ”I'll go and tell her, if you want me to.”

”Will you?” she said eagerly. ”Thank you, Tom. Tell her I'll come down and see her myself as soon as grandfather gets a little better.”

”And don't let her feel too much worried about him,” cautioned his mother. ”He isn't any worse than he was last week, only he's in bed, and that makes him seem worse.”

”All right,” said Tom, ”I'll go as soon as I'm through milking.”

Esther thanked him again, though in her heart she would rather he had proposed to spend an hour in his grandfather's room. It was several days since she had seen Aunt Katharine, and she would have liked a little chat in the pleasant living-room, where that big wood stove had been set up, and the windows were growing gay with old-fas.h.i.+oned chrysanthemums.

They were the only flowers she ever kept in her windows, and she excused her partiality for these on a whimsical plea of pity.

”They count on being taken in,” she said one day, when Esther came upon her in the garden potting them for the winter. ”They know they can't do half their blossoming outdoors at this time o' year, but that's the way they time it every season. Look at those buds, thick as spatter, and they won't half of 'em have a chance to show their color unless somebody goes to the trouble of taking 'em in and doing for 'em. I hate to see things go so far and then make a fizzle of it.” And she had pressed the earth about their roots in the big stone jars with a carefulness of touch and a look of exasperated patience which the girl had enjoyed immensely.

The friends.h.i.+p which to others seemed so odd seemed to her now the most natural thing in the world, and more and more she valued it. Once, in the soreness of that clash with Kate, she had poured out her heart to her mother. Perhaps Kate had done so too in the days that followed her return; but the reply which Mrs. Northmore made had cleared the atmosphere for Esther, at least, and left the intimacy free and untroubled.

”My dear child,” she wrote, ”I am sure you will not believe that I share your sister's uneasiness over your friends.h.i.+p with Aunt Katharine. The questions over which she has brooded so long are real and vital, and I am not sorry that you should come to know them through knowing one who holds her views upon them with such deep and unselfish earnestness as your Aunt Katharine. A braver or truer heart than hers I have never known. But it must have occurred to you-if not, it surely will later-that she sees only one side of some of the great facts of our woman's life. The reformer who sees only one side of any question is needed, no doubt, to startle others into recognition of facts they would otherwise miss, but in the end the reform must depend on those who see both sides, and see them with steady fairness. If your life shall be as happy as I hope it may be, I cannot think you will permanently hold some of Aunt Katharine's opinions; but meanwhile I would not have you shut your heart to her or her word. Oh, believe me, my dear, there is no eye-opener in the world like love.”

The old woman was drawing the shades behind the chrysanthemums in the windows when Tom came to her house in the dusk of that evening. He had expected to deliver his message at the door, but she insisted on his coming in and rendering it with careful detail. Certainly he did not err on the side against which his mother had cautioned him. Indeed, if the old gentleman had heard his grandson's statement of his case he would probably have felt a strong inclination to get out of bed and go to his sister's at once for the express purpose of telling her that he was much worse than the boy had represented.

Tom was not inclined to anxieties, and a certain inquisitorial att.i.tude which his grandfather had maintained during the past few days as to his own work at the barn, and the amount of care which Dobbin was receiving, had left the impression on his mind that his grandfather was not suffering as much as he might be.

He revealed this to some extent as he answered Aunt Katharine's questions, and she, after putting them sharply for a few minutes, settled back in her chair with an air of evident relief. She was not surprised to learn that Esther had put off her going to Boston. ”I should know she'd do it,” she said, nodding, and she added, with a peculiar smile, ”I s'pose your grandfather hated dreadful bad to disappoint her.”

Tom disclaimed any knowledge on this head, and then remarked acutely, ”He'll keep her busy enough while she stays. He doesn't seem to want her out of his sight a minute.”

”Hm,” said Miss Saxon. ”I'll warrant he'd keep 'em all busy if they were there.” And then she remarked casually, ”It must seem sort of quiet at your house compared with what 'twas this summer.”

”Kate was the liveliest one,” said Tom, and he said it with such a tone of regret that his aunt looked at him keenly.

”You liked her, did you?” she asked.