CHAPTER XLIII
For the second time in his life, Ervin McArthur was nursed back to health by the gentle hands of the maid of Sunahlee. By day her slim fingers wrought incessantly for his comfort, by night she rested in a rudely made arm chair by his cot.
To Captain Dillard and the surgeon the air of order, of complete sufficiency in the rough cabin was a miracle, daily enacted. Was a bandage necessary? Helen produced it. Barley water? Broth? They had merely to announce Ervin’s needs and shortly she would be found administering to them. Often he was restless at night. Tossing uneasily he would mutter—always of Helen. Now he would speak with the old-time winning raillery the girl remembered so well, now seriously of his inventions, astonishing her with references to details which were beyond her understanding.
“How little we know of the mental processes of those we love!” she mused. “While I mourned over the infrequency of his letters, he was making me his hourly companion and confidante.”
“It is Helen, dearest. Be calm now, and sleep,” she would tenderly adjure him, bringing the burning eyes searching to hers.
“It is my little Helen,” he would breathe in relief, and drop into slumber.
There were times when his delirium became stormy. Raving, he would denounce her fickleness, her rapacious coquetry and her assumed sympathy.
At such times her loving coaxing would fail to soothe him. “False! Fickle! You merely want to add another scalp to your belt! Oh, I could turn savage, too, and bear you away by force and keep you for my own in some wild spot—ah, go away! Go away!”
Helen, smoothing back the dark locks, now dry with fever, felt a superstitious fear in the presence of such pronounced delirium.
“Ervin, your own Helen is here! You know your own little Helen!”
“Heartless girl! I know you at last! I never want to see you again.”
At last the fever abated, the wound began to heal and one lovely morning the dark eyes looked clearly into the blue ones of his devoted nurse. Repressing her tears of joy, she told him of his illness, leading his mind back to the circumstances of his escape. Then, with gentle insistence, she forced him to close his eyes and, holding her hand, he fell into rational sleep. Then the little maid might have been seen slipping to her knees and weeping, as she poured out her gratitude and joy to the Divine Physician.
In the evening she sat by his side again and told him all the news the camp knew. He lay quietly regarding her from his pillows.
“Helen,” he asked, “how long have you been here?”
“To-morrow will be six weeks,” she replied.
“You have lived in this rough camp all that time and nursed me. You have endured privation and provided me with comforts—I know no hospital in the world has snowier sheets than these. Ah, Helen, what do I not owe to your precious hands and your loving heart? If you knew, if you only knew, little girl, how you bring home to me my utter unworthiness—fill my inmost soul with burning remorse—”
“Hush, darling, do not excite yourself.” She wiped away the tears that trickled down the white cheeks and took his head on her breast as a mother takes her child to rest.
“My darling boy,” she crooned. “I know you have been in the world and have lived as a man lives, while I have been sheltered in my little nook, loving as a woman loves, and trusting as a woman must. I have fretted sometimes, Ervin—I would not have you believe me more patient than I deserve. But, dearest, I have seen more of your heart and mind since I have been here than I ever knew before. In your delirium—”
“My delirium?” he interrupted. “What did I rave about?”
“About me, you precious silly, and about your work. You told me more about your inventions than my poor little head could ever understand, but it showed me your feeling, dear. Sometimes,” she went on, chidingly, “you were harsh to your poor Helen and denounced her as a heartless coquette, and you wouldn’t be soothed. But of course it was only delirium—I had found the portrait in your pocket, and I knew, dear.”
The sick man groaned and Helen hastened to lay him back upon his pillow. She bade him be quiet and close his eyes.
“Helen,” he persisted, “how did you know I was sick?”
“The dragoon came home—do you remember our compact? I don’t know what happy chance freed it, but I took its return as a message from you and sought until I found you.”
“You have always been my guardian angel, haven’t you, dear? Even when we were little you always shielded me from the consequences of my own folly and loved me through all my meanness. And then that trial—oh, I can never, never make it up to you! My love and devotion the rest of my life is yours, sweetheart, but it can never repay you.”
“I am repaid now, Ervin,” she responded, the quick tears dropping on his forehead, as his thin hand drew her face to his own.
The next morning Ervin woke to find a twisted note in the rude arm chair which had formerly held the slim figure.
“Dear Ervin,” it ran. “Doctor Gray says you are out of danger now, and I must go back to my father. I have just had a note from your mother and she says he grows feebler every day. Your mother will be in Charleston by the time you can be moved, and so I know my dear boy’s recovery is assured.
“I am slipping away to spare you the pain of parting, but I shall carry away the memory of our sweet talk of last night and my prayers for you will go up night and day. Always your loving
Helen.”
It was well that she hurried home swiftly, for an enemy more fearful than minie balls had attacked her. Ere she left the city by the sea, her lips were parched, and her tongue in the glass looked like brick dust. Feverish and dizzy, she left the little train at the Dunvegan station and tried to make her way as best she could through the village. None knew she was coming, and none met her. Some girls saw her in the distance and wondered if that reeling figure could be Helen Preston returned to Dunvegan. Out and over the old road she struggled until the long hill must be climbed that led up to Sunahlee. She remembered vaguely how, in her childhood days, she used to run up its steepness with Ervin—she would be brave and try it now. At the first step, she stumbled and fell in the rhododendron bushes by the wayside. “O God—” she murmured, “I think I—am—going—to—faint—. Keep—Ervin—well—for Jesus’—”
Uncle Ben had seen her fall, and found her there unconscious. Faithful in all things, he bore her to the great house, his dogs pulling loyally at their traces.
The physician came in due time, and looked grave. Doctor Allerton was there also. When he saw Doctor McIntyre’s lips quiver he went to the window and looked out past the ivy-covered cabin, past the blue-peaked Wahaws, past the gate of Heaven.
Each day found the blazing fever stronger and its victim weaker.
One day she begged piteously for water, and whispered, excitedly:
“He loves me; he told me he loved no one else! He is coming back—”
The delirium that had once befriended had now come to murder.
When another week had passed, the Death-wind blew softly. From the tomb of Tawiskara he came, and each violet in the Silver Creek Valley knelt humbly before him. The honeysuckle nodded reverently as he passed, and the soughing pine murmured a requiem.
He stopped at the wistaria that clung round the porch and trembled at his touch, and then passed onward through the open window, and played with the fair curls he had come to claim. She seemed to hear his call and to follow.
Down the great, wide steps she went, in a snowy gown with sprays of gentian that made it all the whiter, down through the door to welcome him, and on out into the moonlight. By the wistaria she stood and smiled at him.
He looked down into her face, and his words were sweet. How love had witched his features in answer to a woman’s prayer!
He reached forth his hands to her, and his summons seemed compelling. With lissome grace she moved toward his arms. His hand touched her breast, his dark eyes enraptured her, the burning passion of his soul thrilled each cord of her responsive heart into ecstasy.
Then the watchers at the bedside, who did not know that she had gone down to meet her lover again under the moonlit wistaria, saw the smile on her face, watched the pale lips purse winsomely and heard her whisper softly:
“Dare you!”