CHAPTER VII.
It was the tenth of November when my accident happened: it was late in February before I again sat up and began to feel once more that I belonged to the world of flesh and blood, and to take in slowly, with unaccustomed mind and ear, sights and sounds outside the monotonous world of pain where I had lived so long that I felt bitterly I had earned the right to die. Few glimpses of light had enlivened the terrible blackness of my cruel experience: they had all come from my mother's smile. Occasionally, for a few moments when I lay with my head upon her breast, I was reinspired with a desire to live; but at most times a settled sense of suffering and gloom cut me off from every sweet source of comfort in life. But after I had sat up once—once parted with the dreary prospect of the chintz and lace which curtained my bed—I was a little stronger. Deep was the silence of the icebound shore that day, sparkling the blue waters across which the sun marked a glittering track. My mother sat beside me, and Helen knelt by my reclining-chair watching my face with eager, earnest eyes, divining every wish and foreseeing all my needs. She served me with such an enthusiasm of devotion that in my morbid state, with every nerve strained to its highest tension, I suffered merely in looking at her. But Dr. Sharpe himself had begged me to let her stay with me, because she fretted so when away from me. I had but one wish in life, it seemed to me—to get back to Belfield. The luxury with which I was surrounded was an oppression to my every sense. I was fed from priceless porcelain, and the markets were ransacked to find dainties for my taste; my room was freshly decorated every day with flowers, both cut and growing in pots, and the air was heavy with their scents; forced fruits from the greenhouses, heaped in silver baskets on every table toward which I turned, tempted my dull appetite. I wanted my old room at home: I wanted to lie in my hard narrow bed and see the walls flush with the reflection of the dawn in the east—to have Carlo lift the latch of my door, and enter stealthily and stand at my bedside, wagging his tail and looking up at me with his solemn brown eyes as he waited for me to stretch out my hand, that he might lick it all over for his good-morning. There, in those dear familiar places, I should be able to think over the evil that had come upon me—might perhaps, out of all my broken threads, regather one or two.
For from the first I had been told the trials I was to confront. My life had been saved, although it was at first despaired of, but I must be permanently lame. It had been a most unlucky fall for me, but a glorious case for the surgeons—fractures and compound fractures, broken ribs and dislocated shoulders. In old times, when I had planned out my future, I had said that I would be a surgeon when I grew up; but now, although all my doctors—and my experience of doctors had come to be as wide as most people's—had been most patient, tender and untiring in their study and treatment of my case, I resigned without one murmur my wish to enter the profession.
One morning, while I was still absolutely helpless, a fierce gleam of light reflected up from the sea shot athwart my face. Helen sprang up and carefully adjusted shades and curtains.
"You are a kind little nurse, Helen," said I. "What does the new governess think of the way you spend your time?"
"Oh, Mademoiselle Lenoir quite enjoys it," returned my mother, laughing: "she sits about reading novels and eating bonbons. I will go and see what she is doing now."
"Do, mother," said I, "and take a walk in the greenhouses yourself.—Helen, you'll take good care of me, won't you?"
She flung her arm about my neck and pressed her quivering lips against my hair.
"I wish I could do something for you," she cried plaintively.
"But you do a great deal, Helen. Of course my mother does everything best of any one, but you come next."
She gave me a piteous little smile. "I wish I could do something better than any one else," she whispered: "it was all my fault."
"Now, dear little girl, I shall send you away if you say that any more. Nothing was your fault—nothing. Don't take up that weary strain again. I want you to tell me all about that morning, though: I never heard yet how you came to be on the cliff at all. Your grandfather had forbidden you to go there."
Her lips still quivered. "I am afraid I shall cry," she said with a little gasp.
"You must not cry: it does me harm to see anybody cry," I answered imperiously. "Now tell me about it all."
She regained her self-command at once: "Georgy asked me about the cliff, and I told her that grandpa said I was never to go there—never. But she took me by the arm and pulled me: she pulled me hard—she is stronger than I am," said the poor little mite. It was not difficult to guess the remainder of the story from the child's disjointed words: she struggled not to blame her cousin. Georgy, on reaching the brow of the precipice, had amused herself by throwing stones down the ravine, that she might enjoy their rumble and clatter. When this too mild pleasure shortly palled upon her, she tried to induce Beppo, the delicate Italian greyhound, to go down, and finally, vexed with him for not seeking such a form of suicide, she flung him over—half in sport perhaps, for Georgy's pastimes were sometimes rather savage. He regained his footing before he was swallowed up in the abyss, and stood on the little shelf of rock thirty feet below, whining at first in entreaty, then howling in such abject terror that Helen, broken-hearted at such misery, slid fearlessly after him, but found herself unable to retrace her steps.
"Did not Georgy try to help you?" I asked.
"I don't think she did," answered Helen, fixing her great eyes upon me. "She kept calling to me at first not to be a coward and to come back. Then she ran away, and I did not see her any more until—"
"How many times did you call me?" I asked.
"I don't know. I seemed to know you would come, but I felt afraid I could not hold on any longer. Just when I was tired out I heard you coming."
I had some stirrings of curiosity about my own fate.
"Did you send the people after me?"
"When I saw you going down," said she, growing pale even to her lips, "I could not move at first. I was not sure what I ought to do. Then I remembered, and ran as fast as I could to papa. I forget what came afterward. I remember that grandpa was holding me in his arms and crying very much, and that papa and Mills and all the men were bringing you across the lawn."
"Don't tell me any more," said I quickly: "I can't quite bear it."
It was late in April when I finally went back to Belfield, and even by that time I was so far from possessing strength or health that not only Mr. Floyd accompanied me, but Dr. Sharpe and Mills as well. Jack Holt and Harry Dart and Tony Thorpe came about me at once: all the good people of Belfield thronged to bring me something—words of comfort and cheer, jellies, Easter lilies, cakes and oranges—but the one I had most longed to see did not come. Once more at home, I grew stronger both in body and mind: the spring-time did me good, although welling up within me all the time, so imperiously, so irresistibly, that I never entirely lost the pain, was the thought that never before had I failed to watch the first uncoilings of the fern-fronds beneath the dead leaves of the former year; the willow catkins, the fragrant arbutus, all the signs of inspiration from the earliest breaths of spring in the hedges and meadows and woods about Belfield. But still, as I lay on my sofa and tried four times a day the great feat of crossing our parlor from wall to wall, I could guess all the beautiful things that were going on out of doors, and I was happier for the coming summer-time, for is any state so sombre, any grief so unquenchable, any burden of despondency so oppressive, but that the divine gladness of the awakening earth stirs it with its revivifying breath? My misfortune did not inspire me with mystical, heavenly resignation, but I began to be able to look its results in the face.
"Nothing so hampers us in life as the failure to accept our fate with courage," my guardian said to me once. "Be as brave as you can. Do you remember what Medea says in reply to that cruel reminder of her losses?—'Husband, countrymen, riches, all gone from you: what remains?' She answers, 'Medea remains.'"
It had become evident to me, without interrogations on my part, that my mother and Mr. Floyd had resigned at least all present hopes of marriage. All their thoughts seemed to be centred in me, and I felt myself a hinderance in their plans of happiness. So, while I was still holding my guardian's hand, I reminded him of our talk on the bluff that far-off November morning.
"Do you think I would take your mother from you too, my dear boy?" said he bluntly. "Do you think she would come to me if I wanted to take her?"
"But it seems too much of a sacrifice."
"Get well, then, at once," Mr. Floyd exclaimed, laughing. "As soon as you can walk up the church-aisle all the Belfield wedding-bells shall ring their loudest."
Jack Holt brought me some white roses one day in June, which I knew could never have grown anywhere in Belfield except against the eaves of a certain Gothic cottage. I asked him if Georgy sent them, and why she never came to see me.
"I have wondered too why she never comes," he returned; "and I have asked her, but she tells me her mother bids her stay away from you."
"Georgy was not used to be so obedient," said I. "Ask her to come. I suppose she thinks I am frightful to behold, but I fancy I'm much the same, unless I begin to look like a girl. I'm getting into the habit of doing everything so languidly, so effeminately, Jack, that I wonder sometimes if there is any masculine vigor left in me. What can I do to try? I can never run any more: it will be a long time before I can pull my old stroke with an oar. I might shoot at a mark, and if you and Harry will come I will hobble out and try to-morrow."
"Floyd," began Jack with some hesitation, "from Georgy's reluctance to see you I have sometimes thought she was concerned in the matter of your accident."
"Not in the least," I cried stoutly: "never believe that for a moment. It was my own affair entirely, and to this day I can't quite decide that I was not both clumsy and stupid not in some way to keep myself from falling."
I was sitting alone that evening, toward the late sunset, when Georgy came. Showers had fallen all the afternoon, but now the clouds had risen from the west, and, although now and then a few drops fell, the east was spanned by a rainbow and the turbid masses of cloud above took on colors of crimson and purple. I heard the gate click, and turning I saw Georgy Lenox coming in, attended by both Jack Holt and Harry Dart. Each held an umbrella over her—Jack in earnest, and Harry in joking solicitude for her bright summer ribbons. It was evident enough that they were all in high spirits, and I seemed to hear the sparkling impertinences which issued from her laughing lips as she looked from one to the other of the boys with many a toss of her yellow curls and shrug of her round shoulders. They left her at the door, which stood wide open, and I called to her to come in. She entered, but waited a moment on the threshold, growing a little pale as she looked at me. Then rallying, "How do you do, Floyd?" she exclaimed. "You see that I have come at last?"
"I am glad to see you," I returned. "But come nearer: I want to shake hands with you."
She approached, and I clasped her hand, looking up into her face. She had grown more womanly in these last seven months, and far more beautiful; and, looking in her face, I at first forgot to speak.
"How queer you are!" said she, pouting, but laughing. "Why do you look at me so?"
I do not know whether I spoke or not, but she bent and kissed me, and thus answered my feverish longing, the gratification of which overpowered me with a sudden intoxication like that of wine.
"I only did it because you are ill," said she, putting her hands to her face and peeping out at me from between her fingers. "You look so thin and changed, Floyd! I knew you would, and I dreaded to see you: I am afraid of sick people."
"I am harmless enough. Am I very horrible?"
"You are dreadfully white, and your eyes were not so large before you were sick. Oh, how many times I have asked the boys how you were!"
"But you never came, Georgy."
"Oh, I am past sixteen now, and mamma will not let me go and see boys."
"I see," said I with an indefinable sigh, "that you are almost a woman. And Jack is eighteen."
"The boys are so full of their examinations! Do you think Jack will pass? He is such a stupid old dear! I always feel as if I knew the most, yet I know nothing—actually nothing at all."
"Jack will pass. Whatever place in the world he tries for will always be ready and waiting for him. I am more anxious about Harry: he cares so little about his chances, and trusts always to inspiration and good luck."
Georgy looked at me somewhat curiously: "Don't you feel badly, Floyd, to have the boys go to college and leave you behind?"
We three had planned years ago how we were to enter college together, yet no one of us had yet alluded to my disappointment, and it was difficult for me to bear her question and answer it unflinchingly.
"This is one of my many hard things to bear, Georgy."
"'Tis dreadful for you," she exclaimed with energy. "To think what you were, Floyd, a tall, handsome, dandified fellow, and now changed all at once into a hopeless cripple!"
I even found the strength to endure this and give no sign. In my darkest hours of dejection I had said these words to myself, but no one had hitherto uttered them within my hearing.
"I wonder," she went on, "what you will do? Shall you try to be a doctor, Floyd?"
"No, Georgy: I have given up that idea."
"It does seem wretched. What does Mr. Floyd say?"
"Everything that is most considerate. I have had a hard experience, Georgy, but I have at last learned how tender and faithful many of my friends are." I regarded her steadily, and she flushed crimson.
"I suppose you think," she retorted, "that I might have come to see you oftener. But to tell you the truth, Floyd, I have been almost angry with you, and so has mamma. Of course it was not your fault that you fell down the cliff, and I almost felt as if I were to blame a little about it, although not nearly so much as that silly Helen. To think of her going after a miserable little dog! Oh, how I hated Mr. Raymond for what he said to me! You cannot think how cruel he was, Floyd, when I went back to the house, after hiding away all the morning. The doctors were up stairs with you, and nobody knew if you were dead or alive. He laid all the blame on me—all of it—and kissed and petted Helen, and cried over her as if she had been brought back from the grave. And the housekeeper went up and packed my things, and I was sent out of the house as if I were a murderer or thief, or something dreadful. Mr. Floyd came home with me: he came after your mother. He was in a dreadful state of mind, and scarcely spoke all the way, except once to tell me that I was very young, and that I must pray to God to give me a heart. Just as if I were not crying and sobbing all the time! Then, when mamma saw me and I had to tell her all about it, she burst out angrily against me, telling me that I had lost all my chances of having any of Uncle Raymond's money. I had not thought of that before, and it did seem worse than anything else. Do you wonder I have felt half angry with you?"
"You teach me to wonder at nothing, Georgy. You must forgive me for injuring your chances of inheriting Mr. Raymond's money;" and I laughed with some bitterness. "But take heart," I went on: "little Helen loves you, and told me to tell you she was sure you meant no harm, and that she was sorry you were sent away."
"Little proud, stuck-up thing!" exclaimed Georgy. "It makes me so angry to think of that child's having everything under her orders—all the servants down on their knees before her, with 'Miss Floyd' this and 'Miss Floyd' that! And then how ridiculously both her father and Uncle Raymond worship her!"
"She was very generous to you, Georgy."
"And why should she not be? There is no reason why, instead of putting up with a few rings and chains and dresses, I should not have half of everything at The Headlands. I am older than she is, and need things more, and I am prettier than she is: don't you think me prettier, Floyd?"
"Yes, I think you are," I rejoined quietly. "But everybody says Helen will grow up to be very beautiful."
"I don't believe it," observed Georgy tartly. "She is too pale, and her eyes are too big: then she is such a solemn little thing. Don't you like golden hair best, Floyd?"
"Yes."
"And blue eyes?"
"Well, I don't know. But yes, I do," I added, meeting hers.
"Do you really think that Helen will grow up to be beautiful?" she pleaded after her momentary triumph.
"Yes, I certainly do," I answered stubbornly.
"We shall see," she exclaimed, tossing her head.
"Don't think," said I, "that I believe that she will be more beautiful than you, Georgy. I don't imagine any girl could be that, but—"
"Well, what else?" she asked, smiling and dimpling.
"But think of something besides beauty," I ventured humbly. "'Tis so poor a preparation for a woman's life, Georgy, to care merely for outside loveliness. I want you to pray for a sweet, loving, grateful nature, Georgy—not to nurse bad, revengeful thoughts."
She stared at me in profound surprise, then burst out laughing. "I didn't know you had grown pious," she observed with a shrug; and, seeing the fruits and confectionery piled on the table at my side, begged me to offer her some, and fell to eating them ravenously, despite the dignity of her sixteen years, and after devouring all she could, carried the rest of them away in her arms.
I sat quietly thinking about her after I was left alone. I smiled to myself at the thought of her coquettish parting glance, for I was sure she would have kissed me again had I asked her; but I wanted no more of her kisses, although I had found them so sweet. I seemed to have suddenly grown stronger and wiser where she was concerned; yet I suppose the poor truth of the matter was, that she had stung my vanity keenly, and said little to endear herself to me in our recent interview. Her words, instead of harming me, had roused all the resentment of the strong vital force within me. I felt curiously stirred, almost elated, in remembering what she had said, and contrasting her prophecies of impotence and failure with my growing sense of power. When the door-bell rang presently I myself hobbled across the floor on my crutches and opened it.
Jack Holt stood there. "Why, 'tis not really you, Floyd?" he exclaimed in surprise; and taking away one of my crutches, he himself supported me back to my chair. "I was afraid to come in," he went on, sitting down by my side, "lest you should already be over-tired; but if you are well enough to see me I have something to tell you."
"Oh, I am better to-night. In fact, all at once I feel that I am not always going to be the good-for-nothing fellow I have been of late. I begin to have a consciousness that somewhere within me life and energy are stirring again."
"I am so glad!" said he with a voice of some constraint, and looked at me fixedly. "Georgy was here," he observed presently.
"Yes."
"She did you good."
"I don't know," I returned with an effort at indifference: "she may have roused me a little."
He started up, and began to pace the floor with a flurried air quite unusual with him, now and then stopping abruptly and seeming to bend all his energies to the arrangement of a book or mantel-ornament, as if their displacement caused him annoyance—conduct so unlike his ordinary phlegmatic demeanor that I suspected him of extreme embarrassment.
"Speak out, old fellow!" said I briefly. "What's the use of all this hesitation?"
He turned squarely round and faced me, yet did not meet my eyes, but looked over and beyond me. I have never forgotten his face as I saw it then: the heavy features were all fixed in sombre lines; his eyes were like my dog Carlo's, full of honesty and patience, but I knew that he was suffering.
"I am older than you, Floyd—" he began.
I assented: "Yes, three years older."
"Old enough," he pursued, "to have thought a good deal about the time when I shall be an independent man. As soon as I am through college I am to take the pistol- and rifle-factories off my father's hands. The papers are already made out, and will be signed on my twenty-first birthday; so from that time I shall have an income which will entitle me to marry and settle as early as I please."
I gazed at him in profound surprise.
"You are only fifteen," he went on. "I dare say you have not thought of marrying anybody yet."
"No indeed!" I burst out petulantly.
"I have," said he dropping his eyes. "I am older, you know, and I have thought a good deal about it. It has seemed to me for a long time now that but one thing could possibly happen—that I shall marry Georgy as soon as I leave college. Her mother will let her marry no one but a man rich enough to make her life pleasant in the world: my secure prospects seem to justify my reliance on my chances of winning her."
"I knew you liked her," I muttered hoarsely. His words and manner overwhelmed me with wonder.
"Yes," he went on, his dull voice gaining softer modulations, "I love her with all my heart. You know I do: there can be no use in concealing it. I think of nothing for myself: 'tis all for her. She—" He broke off, growing furiously red and shamefaced, then recovered his self-composure. "But notwithstanding all this," said he with a sad, patient, steady face and voice, "I have decided that I ought to give her up. It was my intention to have everything settled before I went to college, but this afternoon I made her tell me the truth about your accident: since then I feel that you have the first claim upon her."
"I don't know what you mean."
He smiled and shook his head. "You have lost a great deal," he returned with unwonted tenderness: "you need much happiness, much private, individual contentment, to enable you to bear the troubles that have come upon you. Georgy was in a measure concerned in causing them: she ought to make full atonement for all the harm she has done. Ever since you came back I have felt that if I could do you any good I would cut off my right hand to serve you. At last I see a way. If you wish it, Floyd, the dearest wish of your heart may come to pass."
"The—dearest—wish—of—my—heart?" I stuttered. "I don't know what you mean."
He laughed quietly. "I suspect you know all about it," he said. "You are a quiet fellow, but I am not so blind as not to have found out that you are in love with Georgy. But in spite of that, I used to feel, although you are handsomer than I, and a thousand times cleverer, that I had the first claim upon her. You are younger than she is; she will be a grown woman while you are still a boy: in fact, there were plenty of reasons why I never hesitated to come before you. But now I feel bound in honor to tell you that I give her up—that—that you can—"
He paused and looked at me, believing he had said enough, but I was stupefied by my ignorance, shyness and doubt. "Do you mean," I blurted out, "that you will give up marrying her—that I can have her in your place?"
"That is precisely what I mean."
"You will do nothing of the sort," I cried roughly. "Even if she cared for me—which she does not—nothing could induce me to marry anybody, and least of all Georgy Lenox."
For she had wounded my pride and vanity to the quick, and even the kiss she had given me seemed a very Judas kiss of falsehood and betrayal.