Part 45 (1/2)
As Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l could not be persuaded to enter ”an Episcopal monkish inst.i.tution” of which she disapproved so vigorously, she went back alone to Nutwood and busied herself with household preparations for winter.
When the judge and his daughter reached home, Dr. Plympton expressed himself much pleased with improved conditions which Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l could not discover, and Eglah's apprehensions were allayed. Her father's increasing dependence upon her touched and cheered her inexpressibly, and for his sake she diligently a.s.sisted him in work that forced her thoughts into a new channel. An important appropriation bill, in which Judge Kent's native State was much interested, would be presented to Congress about the middle of December, or soon after the holiday recess, and he had been requested by old friends and const.i.tuents to address the Senate committee, advocating a favorable report. The collection and arrangement of necessary statistics kept her busy at his side, and when the last type-written page was added to the pile at his elbow, he patted her hand fondly and complimented her useful accuracy.
Rejoicing in the accomplishment of their tedious task, the trap was ordered, and father and daughter drove until the dinner hour.
She noticed he dozed twice while she talked, although when they reached home he seemed as well as usual, humming a gay little Sicilian song as he divested himself of overcoat and m.u.f.fler. It had been a perfect autumn day, crisp, crystalline. The deep, vivid yellow of the great undulating ma.s.s of walnut foliage hung against the western sky like cloth of gold curtains around a porphyry shrine, above which Venus burned as ministering taper. With her cheek pressed to the window pane in the library, Eglah watched the fading after-glow, and her hands clutched each other. This was the day when from the iron-bound, ice-sheathed fiords of Smith's Sound the sun disappeared. The long Polar night had set in. Would Mr. Herriott ever see the sun again?
She had procured all books written in English that related to Arctic travel, and in the sanctuary of her own room prepared, from an almanac and from explorer's diaries, a calendar, noting the length of each day, the coming of the moon, the date of shortest twilight, the falling of total darkness. Mr. Herriott's voyage began in May; no tidings had reached her. She expected none, but her lips moved: ”Oh, G.o.d, keep him in safety through the awful night!”
The dreary vision of her imagination contrasted sharply with the luxurious aspect of the library, where a fire of oak logs glowed beyond the marble hearth. A crimson velvet carpet covered the floor, and warm winter draperies enhanced the atmosphere of comfort. On the table an oval cut-gla.s.s basket held great cl.u.s.ters of orange chrysanthemums; not the huge, solitary, odorless globes now so popular in cities, but thickly studded, fragrant branches that bloom nowhere with such lavish sweetness as in old Southern gardens.
Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l brightened the lamp and began to match the squares of a calico ”rising sun” quilt she was making as her Christmas present to the Methodist parsonage. Judge Kent leaned back in his arm-chair, his silver-powdered head on the red cus.h.i.+on, good looking, debonair, thoroughly content; and in one hand he held a richly gilded liqueur gla.s.s, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with an emerald cordial. Eglah came to his side and put her hand on his wrist.
”Father, Dr. Plympton forbids liqueurs. Please do not drink that.”
”Only a thimbleful of _creme de menthe_! Babies take mint tea. Even Mrs.
Mitch.e.l.l drinks this.”
His fine eyes sparkled mischievously, and he bowed to her.
”No, sir. I make my mint cordial from my own garden, and I know what is in it; but you can't be sure about foreign-fangled mixtures.”
”I wish to make sure that delicious gumbo-file will not give me nightmare.”
”Father, I begged you not to touch it, and you had your favorite clam bouillon the doctor commends so highly.”
”Bouillon--gumbo-file? 'As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine.' My d.u.c.h.ess, don't scold. Your pretty mouth was made for sweeter uses. Kiss me.”
He brushed his white mustache aside, and leaning down she pressed her lips to his.
”Father, are you quite well to-night?”
”Quite well, and absolutely happy. Now, give me some music to round out and seal this glorious, perfect day.”
She opened the upright piano, and while she played one of his favorite fugues--Handel's in E minor--he kept time, swinging the tiny, gilded gla.s.s. Flickering flames in the wide chimney were reflected on the polished rosewood panels of the piano, and as they wavered up and down before her, Eglah thought of spectral auroral fringes flas.h.i.+ng in moonless Polar night, staining with prismatic hues the world of snow, kindling red beacons on pinnacles of immemorial ice.
The fugue ended, and as her fingers left the keys a tinkling crash caused her to turn her head.
The liqueur gla.s.s was shattered on the floor and Judge Kent lay insensible in his chair.
Paralysis appeared so complete that for some days Doctors Plympton and Eggleston entertained no hope; but the sufferer rallied surprisingly, and while his utterance was not fully intelligible, and he never regained the use of his lower limbs, he was often conscious.
Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l and the physicians would have welcomed a pa.s.sionate outbreak of the silent grief that seemed to have frozen Eglah, as, calm and dry-eyed, she ministered in the sick-room she rarely left. Two faithful men a.s.sisted in nursing--one by day, one by night, because she could not lift her father--and she slept on a cot beside him, or across the foot of his bed. She administered all his medicine, fed him with her own hands, caressed, and cheered him.
After a few weeks, though entirely helpless, he was able to be dressed and lifted into a reclining rolling-chair, and when the weather permitted she wheeled him around the sunny side of the long colonnade, where he usually fell asleep. The speech arranged so carefully for the Senate committee she read again critically, made a few corrections, and forwarded it with a brief announcement of his illness to the friends who had employed Judge Kent to prepare and deliver it in committee room.
Her stern self-repression discouraged conversation relative to the sufferer, and she buoyed herself with no false hopes.
A ripple of compa.s.sion stirred Y----, and some who had criticized her most severely for her haughty aloofness--some whose sole grievance was her absolute devotion to an ”unprincipled father”--left cards, words of sympathy, and flowers for Mrs. Herriott. Except the doctors, she saw no one but Mrs. Eggleston and Mr. Whitfield, who had lost his wife a few months previous. Bishop Vivian had died during the summer, but her father's rector came often. At times the sick man's clouded mind seemed incapable of retaining any impression, but he never failed to respond to music, and when his chair was rolled close to the piano and Eglah played selections he loved best, it comforted her to watch the pleased, contented expression of the placid, handsome old face so dear to her.
Noticing how wan and drawn the girl's lips were, the physicians urged Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l to persuade her to drive or walk.