CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
STOLEN WATERS ARE SWEET.
I was neither in good spirits nor in good temper during the next few days. My mother and Julia appeared astonished at this, for I was not ordinarily as touchy and fractious as I showed myself immediately after my sojourn in Sark.
I was ashamed of it myself. The new house, which occupied their time and thoughts so agreeably, worried me as it had not done before. I made every possible excuse not to be sent to it, or taken to it, several times a day.
The discussions over Julia's wedding-dress also, which had by no means been decided upon on Saturday afternoon, began to bore me beyond words. Whenever I could, I made my patients a pretext for getting away from them.
One of them, a cousin of my mother—as I have said, we were all cousins of one degree or another—Captain Carey, met me on the quay, a day or two after my return. He had been a commander in the Royal Navy, and, after cruising about in all manner of unhealthy latitudes, had returned to his native island for the recovery of his health. He and his sister lived together in a very pleasant house of their own, in the Vale, about two miles from St. Peter-Port.
He looked yellow enough to be on the verge of an attack of jaundice when he came across me.
"Hallo, Martin!" he cried, "I am delighted to see you, my boy. I've been a little out of sorts lately; but I would not let Johanna send for your father. He does very well to go dawdling after women, and playing with their pulses, but I don't want him dawdling after me. Tell me what you have to say about me, my lad."
He went on to tell me his symptoms, while a sudden idea struck me almost like a flash of genius.
I am nothing of a genius; but at that time new thoughts came into my mind with wonderful rapidity. It was positively necessary that I should run over to Sark this week—I had given my word to Miss Ollivier that I would do so—but I dared not mention such a project at home. My mother and Julia would be up in arms at the first syllable I uttered.
What if I could do two patients good at one stroke, kill two birds with one stone? Captain Carey had a pretty little yacht lying idle in St. Sampson's Harbor, and a day's cruising would do him all the good in the world. Why should he not carry me over to Sark, when I could visit my other patient, and nobody be made miserable by the trip?
"I will make you up some of your old medicine," I said, "but I strongly recommend you to have a day out on the water; seven or eight hours at any rate. If the weather keeps as fine as it is now, it will do you a world of good."
"It is so dreary alone," he objected, "and Johanna would not care to go out at this season, I know."
"If I could manage it," I said, deliberating, "I should be glad to have a day with you."
"Ah! if you could do that!" he replied, eagerly.
"I'll see about it," I said. "Should you mind where you sailed to?"
"Not at all, not at all, my boy," he answered, "so that I get your company. You shall be skipper, or helmsman, or both, if you like."
"Well, then," I replied, "you might take me over to the Havre Gosselin, to see how my patient's broken arm is going on. It's a bore there being no resident medical man there at this moment. The accident last autumn was a great loss to the island."
"Ah! poor fellow!" said Captain Carey, "he was a sad loss to them. But I'll take you over with pleasure, Martin; any day you fix upon."
"Get the yacht ship-shape, then," I said; "I think I can manage it on Thursday."
I did not say at home whither I was bound on Thursday. I informed them merely that Captain Carey and I were going out in his yacht for a few hours. This was simply to prevent them from worrying themselves.
It was as delicious a spring morning as ever I remember. As I rode along the flat shore between St. Peter-Port and St. Sampson's, the fresh air from the sea played about my face, as if to drive dull care away, and make me as buoyant and debonair as itself. The little waves were glittering and dancing in the sunshine, and chiming with the merry carols of the larks, outsinging one another in the blue sky overhead. The numerous wind-mills, like children's toys, which were pumping water out of the stone-quarries, whirled and spun busily in the brisk breeze. Every person I met saluted me with a blithe and cheery greeting. My dull spirits had been blown far away before I set foot on the deck of Captain Carey's little yacht.
The run over was all that we could wish. The cockle-shell of a boat, belonging to the yacht, bore me to the foot of the ladder hanging down the rock at Havre Gosselin. A very few minutes took me to the top of the cliff, and there lay the little thatched, nest-like home of my patient. I hastened forward eagerly.
The place seemed very solitary and deserted; and a sudden fear came across me. Was it possible that she should be dead? It was possible. I had left her six days ago only just over a terrible crisis. There might have been a relapse, a failure of vital force. I might be come to find those shining eyes hid beneath their lids forever, and the pale, suffering face motionless in death.
Certainly the rhythmic motion of my heart was disturbed. I felt it contract painfully, and its beating suspended for a moment or two. The farmstead was intensely quiet, with the ominous stillness of death. All the windows were shrouded with their check curtains. There was no clatter of Suzanne's wooden clogs about the fold or the kitchen. If it had been Sunday, this supernatural silence would have been easily accounted for; but it was Thursday. I scarcely dared go on and learn the cause of it.
All silent still as I crossed the stony causeway of the yard. Not a face looked out from door or window. Mam'zelle's casement stood a little way open, and the breeze played with the curtains, fluttering them like banners in a procession. I dared not try to look in. The house-door was ajar, and I approached it cautiously. "Thank God!" I cried within myself as I gazed eagerly into the cottage.
She was lying there upon the fern-bed, half asleep, her head fallen back upon the pillow, and the book she had been reading dropped from her hand. Her dress was of some coarse, dark-green stuff, which made a charming contrast to her delicate face and bright hair. The whole interior of the cottage formed a picture. The old furniture of oak, almost black with age, the neutral tints of the wall and ceiling, and the deep tone of her green dress, threw out into strong relief the graceful, shining head, and pale face.
I suppose she became subtly conscious, as women always are, that somebody's eyes were fixed upon her, for she awoke fully, and looked up as I lingered on the door-sill.
"O Dr. Martin!" she cried, "I am so glad!"
She looked pleased enough to be upon the point of trying to raise herself up in order to welcome me, but I interposed quickly. It was more difficult than I had expected to assume a grave, professional tone, but by an effort I did so. I bade her lie still, and took a chair at some little distance.
"Tardif is gone out fishing," she said, "and his mother is gone away too, to a christening-feast somewhere; but Mrs. Renouf is to be here in an hour or two. I told them I could manage very well as long as that."
"They ought not to have left you alone," I replied.
"And I shall not be left alone," she said, smiling, "for you are come, you see. I am rather glad they are away; for I wanted to tell you how much I felt your goodness to me all through that dreadful week. You are the first doctor I ever had about me, the very first. Perhaps you thought I did not know what care you were taking of me; but, somehow or other, I knew every thing. My mind did not quite go. You were very, very good to me."
"Never mind that," I said; "I am come to see how my work is going on. How is the arm, first of all?"
I almost wished that Mother Renouf or Suzanne Tardif had been at hand. But Miss Ollivier seemed perfectly composed, as much so as a child. She looked like one with her cropped head of hair, and frank, open face. My own momentary embarrassment passed away. The arm was going on all right, and so was Mother Renouf's charge, the sprained ankle.
"We must take care you are not lame," I said, while I was feeling carefully the complicated joint of her ankle.
"Lame!" she repeated, in an alarmed voice, "is there any fear of that?"
"Not much," I answered, "but we must be careful, mam'zelle. You must promise me not to set your foot on the ground, or in any way rest your weight upon it, till I give you leave."
"That means that you will have to come to see me again," she said; "is it not very difficult to come over from Guernsey?"
"Not at all," I answered, "it is quite a treat to me."
Her face grew very grave, as if she was thinking of some unpleasant topic. She looked at me earnestly and questioningly.
"May I speak to you with great plainness, Dr. Martin?" she asked.
"Speak precisely what is in your mind at this moment," I replied.
"You are very, very good to me," she said, holding out her hand to me, "but I do not want you to come more often than is quite necessary, because I am very poor. If I were rich," she went on hurriedly, "I should like you to come every day—it is so pleasant—but I can never pay you sufficiently for that long week you were here. So please do not visit me oftener than is quite necessary."
My face felt hot, but I scarcely knew what to say. I bungled out an answer:
"I would not take any money from you, and I shall come to see you as often as I can."
I bound up her little foot again without another word, and then sat down, pushing my chair farther from her.
"You are not offended with me, Dr. Martin?" she asked, in a pleading tone.
"No," I answered; "but you are mistaken in supposing that a medical man has no love for his profession apart from its profits. To see that your arm gets properly well is part of my duty, and I shall fulfil it without any thought of whether I shall get paid for it or no."
"Now," she said, "I must let you know how poor I am. Will you please to fetch me my box out of my room?"
I was only too glad to obey her. This seemed to be an opening to a complete confidence between us. Now I came to think of it, Fortune had favored me in thus throwing us together alone.
I lifted the small, light box very easily—there could not be many treasures in it—and carried it back to her. She took a key out of her pocket and unlocked it with some difficulty, but she could not raise the lid without my help. I took care not to offer any assistance until she asked it.
Yes, there were very few possessions in that light trunk, but the first glance showed me a blue-silk dress, and seal-skin jacket and hat. I lifted them out for her, and after them a pair of velvet slippers, soiled, as if they had been through muddy roads. I did not utter a remark. Beneath these lay a handsome watch and chain, a fine diamond ring, and five sovereigns lying loose in the box.
"That is all the money I have in the world," she said, sadly.
I laid the five sovereigns in her small, white hand, and she turned them over, one after another, with a pitiful look on her face. I felt foolish enough to cry over them myself.
"Dr. Martin," was her unexpected question after a long pause, "do you know what became of my hair?"
"Why?" I asked, looking at her fingers running through the short curls we had left her.
"Because that ought to be sold for something," she said. "I am almost glad you had it cut off. My hair-dresser told me once he would give five guineas for a head of hair like mine, it was so long and the color was uncommon. Five guineas would not be half enough to pay you though, I know."
She spoke so simply and quietly, that I did not attempt to remonstrate with her about her anxiety to pay me.
"Tardif has it," I said; "but of course he will give it you back again. Shall I sell it for you, mam'zelle?"
"Oh, that is just what I could not ask you!" she exclaimed. "You see there is no one to buy it here, and I hope it may be a long time before I go away. I don't know, though; that depends upon whether I can dispose of my things. There is my seal-skin, it cost twenty-five guineas last year, and it ought to be worth something. And my watch—see what a nice one it is. I should like to sell them all, every one. Then I could stay here as long as the money lasted."
"How much do you pay here?" I inquired, for she had taken me so far into counsel that I felt justified in asking that question.
"A pound a week," she answered.
"A pound a week!" I repeated, in amazement. "Does Tardif know that?"
"I don't think he does," she said. "When I had been here a week I gave Mrs. Tardif a sovereign, thinking perhaps she would give me a little out of it. I am not used to being poor, and I did not know how much I ought to pay. But she kept it all, and came to me every week for more. Was it too much to pay?"
"Too much!" I said. "You should have spoken to Tardif about it, my poor child."
"I could not talk to Tardif about his mother," she answered. "Besides, it would not have been too much if I had only had plenty. But it has made me so anxious. I did not know whatever I should do when it was all gone. I do not know now."
Here was a capital opening for a question about her friends.
"You will be compelled to communicate with your family," I said. "You have told me how poor you are; cannot you trust me about your friends?"
"I have no friends," she answered, sorrowfully. "If I had any, do you suppose I should be here?"
"I am one," I said, "and Tardif is another."
"Ah, new friends," she replied; "but I mean real old friends who have known you all your life, like your mother, Dr. Martin, or your cousin Julia. I want somebody to go to who knows all about me, and say to them, after telling them every thing, keeping nothing back at all, 'Have I done right? What else ought I to have done?' No new friend could answer questions like those."
Was there any reason I could bring forward to increase her confidence in me? I thought there was, and her friendlessness and helplessness touched me to the core of my heart. Yet it was with an indefinable reluctance that I brought forward my argument.
"Miss Ollivier," I said, "I have no claim of old acquaintance or friendship, yet it is possible I might answer those questions, if you could prevail upon yourself to tell me the circumstances of your former life. In a few weeks I shall be in a position to show you more friendship than I can do now. I shall have a home of my own, and a wife who will be your friend more fittingly, perhaps, than myself."
"I knew it," she answered, half shyly. "Tardif told me you were going to marry your cousin Julia."
Just then we heard the fold-yard gate swing to behind some one who was coming to the house.