CHAPTER XXVII.
It so happened that the first griddleful of muffins did not do credit to their raising—(or to their bringing up, elegant reader!)—therefore Mr. Linden's teatray waited for the second. Of course the other tea waited too. Mrs. Derrick walked out into the kitchen to see what was the matter with the griddle; Faith discovered that one spoon on the tray looked dull, and went to the spoonbasket to change it. Thus occupied, and giving little reprehensive glances at the spoons generally, and mental admonitions to Cindy, with the open closet door half screening her from the rest of the room, she was startled—not by the opening of another door, but by these words,—
"Miss Faith, shall I carry this tray upstairs?"
To this day it is uncertain what sort of a spoon Faith brought back!—or indeed whether she brought any at all. There was one flash of gladness in her cheek and her eye, with the exclamation, "Mr. Linden!"—then she came from the closet just her old little self.
"Are you well enough to be down stairs, sir?"
"In whose estimation, ma'am?"
"Because if you are, Mr. Linden," she said with a face of laughing pleasure, "won't you please come into the other room?"
"I think not," he said, laughing a little too,—if the exertion of coming down had made him pale, the pleasure partly concealed it. "I will take a chair here, if you please. Am I alone, of all Pattaquasset, to be forbidden to pay my respects to you to-night? Miss Faith, how do you do?"
"I am very well. But Mr. Linden, if you will please come into the other room, there is an easy chair there. Please do! this room is cold, for the fire got down while we were seeing people."
She led the way as she spoke, without waiting for another denial; pushed the table and a great chair of state, or of ease, in the sitting-room, into closer neighbourhood; and renewed the brilliancy of the fire. Then lit up the lamp and cleared books away from the table; all done with quick alacrity.
"That will do almost as well as the couch, won't it?" she said; and then repeated in gentler tones her question, "Are you well enough to be down, Mr. Linden?"
"I don't know, Miss Faith!—I am well enough to want to be down. How can you let the charms of society divert your mind from your books for a whole afternoon? Have you been so studious for the last few days only because you had nothing else to do?"
She laughed at the question, and went off, leaving Mr. Linden in a region of comfort. More comfort came soon in the shape of the teatray, borne by Cindy; then Mrs. Derrick; and lastly Faith herself appeared—bearing a plate of the muffins, perfect this time, and delicate as they had need to be for a delicate appetite. Mr. Linden was presently served with one of these and a cup of smoking tea; and Faith thought, and her look half said it, that being down stairs would do him no harm. Certainly the surprise and pleasure of such company to tea did Mrs. Derrick good, whoever else missed it; though it is presumable no one did. The pleasant sighing of the wind round the house and in the chimney (it sighed alone for that evening) the sparkling of the fire, the singing of the maple or hickory sticks, the comfortable atmosphere of tea and muffins diffused, like the firelight, all through the room; gave as fair an assemblage of creature comforts as need be wished; and the atmosphere of talk was as bright, and savoury, and glowing too, in its way; though the way was quiet. Mr. Linden amused himself (and Faith) by giving her little lessons in the way she would have to talk in those French "noonspells" she had in prospect: making Mrs. Derrick laugh with the queer sounding words and sentences, and keeping Faith interested to that point, that if he had not attended to her tea as well, she would scarce have got any.
"I shall not be hard upon you at first," he said smiling,—"when I see you sitting in silent despair because you want something at my end of the table, I will help you out with a 'que voulez-vous, mademoiselle?' and perhaps with a 'voulez-vous?' this or that. But after a week or two, Miss Faith, if you go without any dinner, it will not move me in the least."
Faith looked as if she would gladly forego her dinner to escape the French asking for it, and yet not quite so neither. But this ordeal was more terrible to her by far than all the rest; she could face them, indeed, they had ceased to be anything but pleasure—or pleasure with a spice that enhanced it; but at this she trembled. To the above speech—or threat,—she simply answered,
"I shall be so glad to see you come home to tea, Mr. Linden!"
"And so glad to see me go away from dinner!"
"I didn't say that."
"You will—" said Mr. Linden,—"I can imagine you falling back in your chair and exclaiming, 'Ah, quand voulez-vous partir, monsieur!'—which of course will make it extremely difficult for me to remain a moment longer."
"I don't think you can imagine me doing it," said Faith laughing. "I can't imagine myself."
"That proves nothing. Only don't ever say to me, 'Monsieur! partez à l'instant!'—because—"
"Because what, Mr. Linden?" said Faith seriously.
"Because we might disagree upon that point," he said with rather a demure arch of his eyebrows. Faith's full silver rang out, softly.
"You see!" she said. "It's beginning already. I don't know in the least what you are talking about!"
"No—you do not," was the laughing reply. "But Miss Faith, if I am kept at home long enough, and society keeps at home too, instead of coming between us and our exercises, those conversations will seem less terrible by the time they begin. I should certainly get you a pocket dictionary, but I prefer to be that myself. How far can you ride on horseback at once?"
"On horseback?" said Faith, much as if those words had been also
French, or an algebraical puzzle.
"That was what I said."
"I know that was what you said—I didn't know what you meant, Mr. Linden. I have never been really on horseback but a few times in my life—then I rode a few miles—I don't know exactly how many."
"I wonder people don't do it more"—said Mrs. Derrick. "When I was a girl that was the common way of getting about; and nobody ever got thrown, neither."
"Wouldn't that be the pleasantest way of getting to Mattabeeset?" said
Mr. Linden.
An illumination answered him first; then "Oh, yes!"
"I want you to see what is to be seen over there," he said,—"shall we go some day, if I get well enough before cold weather?"
Faith's quiet words of agreeing to this proposal were declared to be a sham by her eyes, cheeks, lips and brow, every one of which was giving testimony after a different fashion.
At this moment the door opened. It happened that Dr. Harrison had encountered Cindy at the hall door, where she was either loitering to catch snatches of indoor conversation, or waiting to entrap Jem Waters. But there she was, and being asked for Mr. Linden replied that he was down stairs, and without more ceremony ushered the doctor in; and entering the whole view lay before him in its freshness. Mrs. Derrick, complacent and comfortable, sat behind the no-longer-wanted tea-tray, listening and playing with a spoon. Faith's face, though considering her unfinished muffin, was brilliant with rosy pleasure; while the fire which she had for some time forgotten to mend, lay in a state of powerful inaction, a mass of living coals and smoking brands. In the glow of that stood the easy chair, and therein Mr. Linden, although with the air and attitude of one wanting both rest and strength, was considering with rather unbent lips no less a subject than—One and Somewhat!—further the doctor's eyes could not read. The precise direction of those other eyes was shaded. The doctor came up and stood beside them.
"Did I order you to stay up stairs?" he said in soft, measured syllables, without having spoken to anybody else.
"Good evening, doctor!" said Mr. Linden offering his hand. "As I meet you half way, please excuse me for keeping my seat."
From that hand, the doctor passed to Faith's; which was taken and held, just enough to say all he wished to say; which, be it remarked in passing, was a good deal.
"May I approach Mrs. Derrick?" said he then, turning round to Mr. Linden with a cool, funny, careless, yet good-humoured, doubt upon his face.
"What is the present state of your nerves?"
"Depending upon your answer, of course!—which the ordinary rules of society forbid me to wait for. Madam!—are you in sufficient charity with me to give me a cup of tea?"
"Yes, doctor—if the tea's good enough," said Mrs. Derrick with her usual quietness. "And if it isn't I'll have some more." So saying she got up and went towards the kitchen to call Cindy. The doctor skilfully intercepted this movement, placing himself in her way.
"May I ask, where you are going?" he said with a sort of gentle kindliness he did not always put on.
"Why to get some tea that's fit to give you, doctor. I don't think this is."
"Will you give me something else?"
"I'll give you that first," said Mrs. Derrick—"I'll see about the rest." And passing out into the kitchen she gave her orders about the teapot, and a quiet little injunction to Faith to go in and sit down.
"Mother, you're tired," said Faith. "Let me see about the tea!"
"I guess I will!" said Mrs. Derrick. "I'm not going to have the house stand up on one end just because Dr. Harrison wants his tea. You go off, pretty child,—if you stay here he'll think you're baking muffins for him, and I don't choose he should."
"Why I would do it, mother," said Faith. She went off, however, into the other room and sat down gravely, quite the other side of the fireplace from the tea-table. Dr. Harrison was standing on the rug with his back to the fire, and followed her with his eye.
"How do you do?" he said in a softened voice, stepping a step nearer to her. She looked up and gave him a frank and kind "very well!"
Was it altogether professional, the way in which he took up her hand and held it an instant?
"Cool, and quiet," he said. "It's all right. I didn't frighten you out of your wits yesterday?"
The "no, sir," was in a different tone.
"Do you suppose," he said, "that your mother will ever bear the sight of me again?"
"Why I hope so, sir," said Faith smiling.
"I don't know!" he said. "I wonder if I have been so much more wicked than I knew of? I don't think I have. I couldn't have punished myself any more."
Mrs. Derrick came in, followed by teapot and muffins, and having with her usual politeness requested the doctor to take a seat at the table, she proceeded to pour him out a cup of tea, nor even stinted him in sugar.
"If I stay at home according to your orders," said Mr. Linden, "I shall have all the trustees after me."
"You aren't just the person they ought to be after," said the doctor. "Mrs. Derrick, I don't know why we never have anything at our house so good as this." The doctor was discussing a buttered muffin with satisfaction that was evidently unfeigned.
Mrs. Derrick knew why—but she wouldn't tell him, though exulting in her own knowledge. A low knock at the parlour door announced Reuben Taylor.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Derrick—" he said,—"but I went"—
"I am here, Reuben," said Mr. Linden.
The boy stayed not for more compliments then, but passing the ladies and the doctor with a collective bow, and "good evening, Miss Faith," went round with a quick step and a glad face to Mr. Linden. And kneeling down by him, with one hand on his shoulder, gave him the post despatches, and asked and answered questions not very loud but very earnestly. That was a phasis of Reuben Dr. Harrison had not seen before. He took good and broad note of it, though nothing interrupted the doctor's muffin—or muffins, for they were plural. Neither did he interrupt anything that was going on.
"Are you better, sir? are you really well enough to be down stairs?"—Dr. Harrison would hardly have known the voice. And the answering tone was of the gentlest and kindest, though the words failed to reach the doctor's ears. Some directions, or commissions, apparently, Mr. Linden gave for a few minutes, and then Reuben rose to his feet with a long breath that spoke a mind very much relieved. He paused for a moment on his way out, opposite Faith, as if he wanted a word in that quarter; but perhaps the doctor's presence forbade, for all the congratulation that Reuben gave her was in his face and bow. That did not satisfy Faith if it did him. She jumped up and gave him her hand, almost affectionately.
"You see I am safe and well, Reuben."
"I am so thankful, Miss Faith!" And the words said not half.
The doctor had finished his muffins and was standing before the fire again. "Have you found out yet, my man," he said in a somewhat amused voice,—"whose friend you are?"
The words jarred—and the colour on Reuben's face was of a different tint from that which had answered Faith. It was with his usual reserved manner, though nothing could be more civil, that he said, "No sir—no more than I knew before." But the respect was from Reuben as a boy to Dr. Harrison as a man. Faith's eye glanced from one to the other, and then she said, "What do you mean, Dr. Harrison?"
"Only a play of words," said the doctor lightly. "This young fellow is very cautious of making professions—as I have found."
"He has no need, sir," said Faith. She quitted as she spoke, the boy's hand which she had held until then, and came back to her seat. The words were spoken quietly enough and with as gentle a face, and yet with somewhat in the manner of both that met and fully answered all the bearing of the doctor's.
"You need not wait, Reuben," said his teacher—"I shall see you again by and by."
"Who is that?" said the doctor as Reuben went out.
"One of my body-guard," said Mr. Linden, with lips not yet at rest from their amused look.
"Are you waited upon by a Fehm-gericht? or may the members be known by the uninitiated?"
"I beg pardon!" said Mr. Linden,—"but as you seemed to know him, and as you really did know his name a week ago—That is Reuben Taylor, Dr. Harrison."
"So do I beg pardon! His name I do know, of course—as I have had occasion; but the essence of my enquiry remains in its integrity. Him I do not know. Where and to whom does he belong?"
"He is one of those of whom we spoke this morning," said Mr. Linden. "True servant of God is his title—to Him does Reuben belong. His home here is a little hut on the outskirts of Pattaquasset, his father a poor fisherman."
There was a minute's silence, all round.
"May I ask for a little enlightening, Miss Derrick?" said the doctor. "What do you mean, if you will be so good as to let me know,—by a person who 'does not need' to make professions."
Faith hesitated.
"Will you please say first, Dr. Harrison, just what you mean by 'professions?'" she said somewhat timidly.
"I shall shelter myself under your meaning," said he looking at her.
"Fact is, I am not good at definitions—I don't half the time know what
I'm saying myself."
Faith cast an involuntary glance for help towards Mr. Linden; but getting none she came back to the doctor and the question, blushing a good deal.
"I think," she said, "professions are telling people what you wish them to believe of you."
The doctor looked comical, also threw a glance in the direction of Mr.
Linden, but put his next question seriously.
"Why do you say this Reuben Taylor does not need to make professions? according to this definition."
"Because those who know him know what he is, without them."
"But do you mean that there is no use in making professions? How are you to know what a man is?"
"Unless he tells you?" said Faith smiling.
The doctor stood, half smiling; evidently revolving more thoughts than of one kind. With a face from which every shadow was banished he suddenly took a seat by Mrs. Derrick.
"Do you know," he said with gentle pleasantness of manner and expression, "how much better man I should be if I should come here and get only one definition a day from your little daughter?"
"What one has she given you now?" said Mrs. Derrick, whose mind evidently stood in abeyance upon this speech.
"One you didn't hear, ma'am. It was a definition of me, to myself. It isn't the first," said the doctor gravely. "Mrs. Derrick, are you friends with me?"
"As much as I ever was," said Mrs. Derrick, smilingly. "I always thought you wanted putting in order."
"How did you know that?"
"Why, because you were out of order," said Mrs. Derrick, knitting away.
The doctor uttered the lowest of whistles and looked down at his boot.
"It's because of that unlucky dog!" he muttered. "Linden—" (glancing up from under his eyebrows) "when I was a boy, I set my dog on Miss Faith's cat."
"Felt yourself called upon to uphold natural antipathies—"
"Miss Faith, have you a cat now?" said the doctor looking over to her.
"No, sir."
"And I have no dog!" said the doctor. "I have only horses. If I could manage to do without animals altogether,—Mrs. Derrick, have you forgiven me?" This last was in a changed tone.
"I don't want to talk about it, doctor," said Mrs. Derrick very soberly.
"About forgiving me?" he said as soberly.
"And I don't mean to."
"Nor I," said the doctor quietly; "but you are going to inflict more punishment on me than I deserve."
"What am I going to do?" said Mrs. Derrick. "If you know, I don't."
"Refuse to give me your hand, perhaps."
"I never did that to anybody, yet," she said pleasantly.
"Then you must let me do as we do in another country."
He bent his face to her hand as he spoke, and kissed it. There was no mockery in the action. Done by some people it would have been ridiculous. By Dr. Harrison, in the circumstances, it was in the highest degree graceful. It spoke sympathy, penitence, respect, manly confession, and submission, too simply not to be what it certainly was in some measure, a true expression of feeling. Mrs. Derrick on her part looked amused,—her old recollections of the boy constantly tinged her impressions of the man; and perhaps not without reason.
"You're as like yourself as ever you can be, doctor!" she said, smiling at him. "How you used to try to get round me!"
"I don't remember!" said the doctor. "I am sure I never succeeded, Mrs.
Derrick?"
"I'm afraid you did, sometimes," she said, shaking her head. He smiled a little, and turned the other way.
"Linden, I've been considering the German question."
"Will it please you to state the result?"
"This!" said the doctor. "I have come to the conclusion,—that in order to be One and Somewhat, it is necessary to begin by being Nought and All—Thus ranging myself in security on both sides of a great abyss of metaphysics. What do you think? Unphilosophical?"
"Unsafe—" said Mr. Linden. "And impossible."
"Humph?"—said the doctor. "Nothing is impossible in metaphysics—because you may be on both sides of an abyss, and in the bottom of it!—at once—and without knowing where you are. The angel that rode Milton's sunbeam, you know, was no time at all going from heaven to earth; and I suppose he went the other way as quick."
"I don't see the abyss in that case," said Mr. Linden,—"but
——'Uriel to his charge
Returned on that bright beam'—
so probably he did."
"Yes"—said the doctor.—"And my meaning skipped the abyss,—also on a sunbeam. It referred to the unsubstantial means of travelling in use among metaphysicians."
"And among angels."
"That reminds me," said the doctor. And quitting his stand on the rug, which he had taken again, he went over to Faith and sat down by her.
"Is the Nightingale flourishing on her rose-bush to-day?"
"What, sir?" said Faith, her eyes opening at him a little.
"I beg pardon!" said the doctor. "I have been living in a part of the world, Miss Derrick, where it is the fashion to call things not by their right names. I have got a foolish habit of it. Do you feel quite recovered?"
"Quite. I'm a little tired to-night, perhaps."
"I see you are, and I'll not detain you. Mrs. Custers wants to see you again." He had dropped all banter, and was speaking to her quietly, respectfully, kindly, as he should speak; in a lowered tone, but not so low as to be unheard by others than her.
"I will try to see her again soon—I will try to go very soon," she answered.
"Would you be afraid to go with my father's old stand-bys?—they are safe!"—
"I cannot do that, Dr. Harrison—but I will try to see her soon."
"Can you go without riding?"
"No," she said smiling; "but I must find some other way."
"I won't press that point," said the doctor. "I can't blame you. I must bear that. But—I want for my own sake to have the honour of a little talk with you—I want to explain to you one or two things. Shall you be at leisure to-morrow afternoon?"
"I am hardly at leisure any time, Dr. Harrison. I do not suppose I shall be particularly busy then."
"Then will you take that time for a walk?"
Faith hesitated. "I have very little time, sir."
"But you take time to go out?"
"Not much."
"I will not ask much. A little will do; and so much you owe to skyey influences. You will not refuse me that?"
"I will go, Dr. Harrison," Faith answered after an instant a little soberly. He rose up then; proposed to attend upon Mr. Linden, and they went up stairs together.