“If you do,” he wrote, “you have but to say so, and though I am committed, I will extricate myself in some way rather than wound you in the slightest degree.”
It would be some time ere an answer to this letter could be received, and until such time Guy could not honorably hear Maddy’s lessons as he had agreed to do. But Maddy was not suspicious, and accepting his trivial excuse, waited patiently, while he, too, waited for the letter, wondering what it would contain.
CHAPTER XII.
A GENEROUS LETTER.
At last the answer came, and it was Maddy who brought it to Guy. She had been home that day, and on her return had ridden by the office as Guy had requested her to do. She saw the letter bore a foreign postmark, also that it was in the delicate handwriting of some female, but the sight did not affect her in the least. Maddy’s heart was far too heavy that day to care for a trifle, and so placing the letter carefully in her basket she kept on to Aikenside.
The letter was decidedly Lucy-ish in all that pertained to her “dearest darling,” her “precious Guy,” but when she came to Maddy Clyde, her true, womanly nature spoke; and Guy, while reading it, felt how good she was. Of course he might teach Maddy Clyde all he wished to teach her, and it made Lucy love him better to know that he was willing to do such things. She wished she was there to help him; they would open a school for all the poor, but she did not know when mamma would let her come. That pain in her side was not any better, and her cough had come earlier this season than last. The physician had advised a winter in Naples, and they were going before very long. It would be pleasant there, no doubt, only she should be farther away from her boy Guy, but she would think of him, oh, so often, teaching that dear little Maddy Clyde, and she would pray for him, too, just as she always did. Then followed a few more lines sacred to the lover’s eye, lines which told how pure was the love which sweet Lucy Atherstone bore for Guy Remington, who, as he read, felt his heart beat with a throb of pain, for Lucy spoke to him now for the first time of what might possibly be.
“I’ve dreamed about it nights,” she said. “I’ve thought about it days, and tried so hard to be reconciled; to feel that if God will have it so, I am willing to die before you have ever called me your little wife, or I have ever called you husband. Heaven is better than earth, I know, and I am sure of going there, I think, but oh, dear Guy, a life with you looks so very sweet, that sometimes your little Lucy shrinks from the dark grave, which would hide her forever from you. Guy, you once said you never prayed, and it made me feel so badly, but you will, when you get this, won’t you? You will ask God to make me well, and may be He will hear you. Do, Guy, please do pray for your Lucy, far away over the sea.”
Guy could not resist that touching appeal, “to pray for his little Lucy,” and though his lips were all unused to prayer, bowing his head upon his hands he did ask that she might live, beseeching the Father to send upon him any calamity save this one—Lucy must be spared. Guy felt better for having prayed, it was something to tell Lucy, something that would please her well, and though his heart yet was very sad, a part of the load was lifted, and he could think of Lucy now without the bitter pain her letter first had cost him. Was there nothing that would save her, nobody who could cure her? Her disease was not hereditary; surely it might be made to yield; had English physicians no skill, would not an American do better? It was possible, and if that mother of Lucy’s would let her come where doctors knew something, she might get well; but she wouldn’t; she was determined that no husband should be burdened with an ailing wife, and so if the mountain would not come to Mahomet, why, Mahomet must go to the mountain, and Guy fairly leaped from his chair as he exclaimed: “I have it—Doc!—he’s the most skillful man I ever knew; I’ll send him to England; send him to the Atherstones; he shall go to Naples with them as their family physician; he can cure Lucy; I’ll speak to him the very next time he comes here;” and with another burden lifted from his mind, Guy began to wonder where Maddy was, and why that day had been so long.
He knew she had returned, for Flora had said she brought the letter, and he was about going out, in hopes of finding her and Jessie, when he heard her in the hall, as she answered some question of Mrs. Noah’s; stepping to the door, he asked her to come in, saying he would, if she chose, appoint the lessons talked about so long. Ordinarily, Maddy’s eyes would have flashed with delight, for she had anticipated so much from these lessons; now, however, there was a sad look upon her face and she could scarcely keep from crying as she came at Guy’s bidding, and sat upon the sofa, near to his armchair. Somehow it rested Guy to look at Maddy Clyde, who, having recovered from her illness, seemed the very embodiment of perfect health, a health which glowed and sparkled all over her bright face; showing itself as well in the luxuriance of her glossy hair as in the brilliancy of her complexion, and the flash of her lustrous eyes. How Guy wished that Lucy could share in what seemed almost superfluity of health; and why shouldn’t she? Dr. Holbrook had cured Maddy; Dr. Holbrook could cure Lucy; and so for the present dismissing that from his mind, he turned to Maddy, and said the time had come when he could give those promised lessons, asking if she would commence to-morrow, after she was through with Jessie, and what she would prefer to take up first?
“Oh, Mr. Remington,” and Maddy began to cry: “I am afraid I cannot stay they need me at home, or maybe Grandpa said so and I don’t want to go, though I know it’s wicked not to; oh, dear, dear!”
Here Maddy broke down entirely, sobbing so convulsively that Guy became alarmed, and wondered what he ought to do to quiet her. As she sat the bowed head was just within his reach, and so he very naturally laid his hand upon it, and as if it had been Jessie’s smoothed the silken hair, while he asked why she must go home. Had anything occurred to make her presence more necessary than it was at Aikenside? and into the young man’s heart there crept a feeling that Aikenside would be very lonely without Maddy Clyde.