CHAPTER VI
Claude's Memories
Deborah recovered from her afternoon over Sambo's sick-bed far less rapidly than the small negro did from the effects of his remarkable breakfast. In fact, three days after that upon which he had substituted the fly agaric for hoe-cake, he was running about the plantation as usual, only with a new and useful working knowledge concerning vermilion-colored fungi. With beautiful impartiality he sought the still-room on the afternoon of the first day that he left the cabin. He found its door locked, and presently discovered that Miss Deb was to be seen nowhere about the grounds. On making peremptory inquiries, he was informed, much to his disgust, that his play-fellow was ill in bed, without amanita for cause, and that he might not dream of such a thing as seeing her. Thereupon, retiring to the still-house door-step, young Sambo lifted up his voice and wept, though he got no consolation from the process.
Strictly speaking, Deborah was not in bed. She was too restless to remain long in any one place, but she felt no desire to leave the house. What care she needed, and a little more, was lavished on her by Madam Trevor, her cousins, and the slaves. Nevertheless, she was very wretched. She could not understand her continual weariness and her impatience with the familiar scenes of everyday life. She suffered inexpressibly with the mid-day heat, and shivered with cold through the mild nights. "Nerves" were to her unnecessary and incomprehensible things, and her disgust with herself was none the less exasperating because it was unreasonable. Dr. Carroll, however, was wiser than she. A week after Sambo's affair he heard of her condition and went out to her at once. His prescription pleased the whole family, with the exception, perhaps, of Sir Charles. He proposed taking her back with him to Annapolis, to spend ten days under his own hospitable roof, with his two sisters to take care of her, and young Charles for company. Permission for the visit was granted on the asking, and, upon the next afternoon, Deborah set out in the family coach, with the doctor on horseback as outrider. The only regret that she felt on leaving was, oddly enough, the parting from Sir Charles. His attentions to her during the past week had been remarkably delicate. Madam Trevor herself could hardly have objected to them. Through long hours he had sat near her while she lay upon a sofa, generally with Lucy or Virginia, or both, beside her, recounting little stories of his own or his comrades' adventures; describing London and London life; stopping when he saw that his voice tired her; fanning her, perhaps, in silence; arranging the tray that held her meals on the stand beside her; and only once in a long, long time looking into her wandering eyes with an expression that would set her to thinking of grave and far-off things. Thus she left the plantation, feeling a new and not unpleasant regret at losing the companionship which had almost made her illness worth the having.
Dr. Carroll's sisters, Mistress Lettice and little Frances Appleby, awaited their guest with solicitation. The coach that held her arrived at their door just at tea-time, and Deborah was smiling with pleasure when the doctor lifted her out and carried her bodily up the walk and into the house, with St. Quentin on one side, his son on the other, and the little old maids smiling together in the doorway. The young lady then refused absolutely to retire, but sat up to tea, partook of some of Miriam Vawse's raspberry conserve, and afterwards lay upon the sofa in the parlor with an unexpressed hope in her heart that Claude might come.
Claude was to have come. Mistress Lettice, when she learned from her brother that their guest would arrive that afternoon, had sent down a polite request by young Charles that monsieur would honor them with his presence in the evening. As politely de Mailly returned thanks for the invitation, gave no definite reply, but intended to go. Upon that afternoon, however, the Sea-Gull arrived, after a fair voyage, from Portsmouth; and in her came a long letter and a consignment of rents from Mailly-Nesle to his cousin. Many things were happening in France. In March, war with England and Maria Theresa had been declared, and the French armies prepared for a campaign. In May came the astounding intelligence that, through the influence of la Châteauroux, who loved the heroic, Louis would command his forces in person. A week later it was understood that the favorite was to follow in the royal train, together with the King's staff, his aides, his chefs, his valet, and the impedimenta. The letter was dated May 28th. As he read it, Claude's heart burned; and with the evening, in the bitterness of his memories of the old life, and in the wretched conjectures that he made as to what was the French news now, he forgot Deborah. Where was she, Marie Anne, his cousin? What battles had been fought over the water? Was the fifteenth Louis still reigning over France? Had not some chance shot struck him, and with him the third daughter of the de Maillys, down in all their clanging glory? Did la Châteauroux never now think of the cousin exiled for her, at her instance? Henri did not say. And Miriam Vawse of the Annapolis inn wondered that night what news her lodger had received, that he should sit, stoop-shouldered, over the empty fireplace, and forget that, only two blocks away, in Dr. Carroll's house, Debby Travis was vainly waiting for him to come to her.
Claude did remember her next morning, when the sunlight gave matters a different aspect, and the letter had been shut away in his trunk. So it was with only half his mind on French battle-fields and a vaguely dreamed-of Dettingen, that he ate his colonial breakfast; and afterwards, as he left the ordinary and bent his steps leisurely northward towards Dr. Carroll's house, his homesickness fled quite away.
The Carrolls' breakfast had ended some time ago (Claude's Versailles habits of late rising were not yet broken); and Deborah, already bettered by the change of scene and atmosphere, had come down to the morning meal. She was now in the doctor's study, leaning back in his great chair, while young Charles stood moodily facing the window, sulky because she was not yet well enough to bear a morning on the bay, so obtaining for him a vacation on plea of hospitality.
"Now I know why you won't mind about me any more. Here's your de Mailly coming up the walk. Faith, I'll not bear it! You've grown into a fine lady, Debby, and are no fun nowadays. I'd as soon have Lucy running with me."
"And you, Charles, are ungentlemanly. If you were anything but a child, I wouldn't speak to you this sennight."
"I'm as old as you, lacking a month."