Part 32 (2/2)
Often in the earliest dawn she would rise from the springy, odorous bed of balsam boughs and slip out alone for her morning swim. A run through the pines to a little rocky cape, with a small cave she knew, and to glide, naked, into that gla.s.s-smooth water, warmer than the sunless air, and swim out softly, silently, making hardly a ripple, turn on her back and lie there--alone with the sky--this brought peace to her heart. She felt so free from every tie to earth, so like a soul in s.p.a.ce, floating there with the clean, dark water beneath her, and the clear, bright heaven above her; and when the pale glow in the east brightened to saffron, warmed to rose, burst into a level blaze of gold, the lake laughed in the light, and Vivian laughed, too, in pure joy of being alive and out in all that glittering beauty.
She tramped the hills with the girls; picked heaping pails of wild berries, learned to cook in primitive fas.h.i.+on, slept as she had never slept in her life, from dark to dawn, grew brown and hungry and cheerful.
After all, twenty-seven was not an old age.
She came back at the summer-end, and Dr. Bellair clapped her warmly on the shoulder, declaring, ”I'm proud of you, Vivian! Simply proud of you!”
Her grandmother, after a judicious embrace, held her at arm's length and examined her critically.
”I don't see but what you've stood it first rate,” she admitted. ”And if you _like_ that color--why, you certainly are looking well.”
She was well, and began her second year of teaching with a serene spirit.
In all this time of slow rebuilding Vivian would not have been left comfortless if masculine admiration could have pleased her. The young men at The Cottonwoods, now undistracted by Susie's gay presence, concentrated much devotion upon Vivian, as did also the youths across the way. She turned from them all, gently, but with absolute decision.
Among her most faithful devotees was young Percy Watson, who loved her almost as much as he loved Dr. Hale, and could never understand, in his guileless, boyish heart, why neither of them would talk about the other.
They did not forbid his talking, however, and the earnest youth, sitting in the quiet parlor at The Cottonwoods, would free his heart to Vivian about how the doctor worked too hard--sat up all hours to study--didn't give himself any rest--nor any fun.
”He'll break down some time--I tell him so. It's not natural for any man to work that way, and I don't see any real need of it. He says he's working on a book--some big medical book, I suppose; but what's the hurry? I wish you'd have him over here oftener, and make him amuse himself a little, Miss Vivian.”
”Dr. Hale is quite welcome to come at any time--he knows that,” said she.
Again the candid Percy, sitting on the doctor's shadowy piazza, poured out his devoted admiration for her to his silent host.
”She's the finest woman I ever knew!” the boy would say. ”She's so beautiful and so clever, and so pleasant to everybody. She's _square_--like a man. And she's kind--like a woman, only kinder; a sort of motherliness about her. I don't see how she ever lived so long without being married. I'd marry her in a minute if I was good enough--and if she'd have me.”
Dr. Hale tousled the ears of Balzac, the big, brown dog whose head was so often on his knee, and said nothing. He had not seen the girl since that night by the arbor.
Later in the season he learned, perforce, to know her better, and to admire her more.
Susie's baby came with the new year, and brought danger and anxiety.
They hardly hoped to save the life of the child. The little mother was long unable to leave her bed. Since her aunt was not there, but gone, as Mrs. d.y.k.eman, on an extended tour--”part business and part honeymoon,” her husband told her--and since Mrs. Pettigrew now ruled alone at The Cottonwoods, with every evidence of ability and enjoyment, Vivian promptly installed herself in the Saunders home, as general housekeeper and nurse.
She was glad then of her strength, and used it royally, comforting the wretched Jim, keeping up Susie's spirits, and mothering the frail tiny baby with exquisite devotion.
Day after day the doctor saw her, sweet and strong and patient, leaving her school to the a.s.sistant, regardless of losses, showing the virtues he admired most in women.
He made his calls as short as possible; but even so, Vivian could not but note how his sternness gave way to brusque good cheer for the sick mother, and to a lovely gentleness with the child.
When that siege was over and the girl returned to her own work, she carried pleasant pictures in her mind, and began to wonder, as had so many others, why this man, who seemed so fitted to enjoy a family, had none.
She missed his daily call, and wondered further why he avoided them more a.s.siduously than at first.
CHAPTER XII.
ACHIEVEMENTS.
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