Say and Seal, Volume II

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

These words, or the manner which went with them, quite obliterated the idea of Mrs. Derrick from the doctor's head. But his manner did not change. He only addressed his talk to Faith and altered the character of it. Nothing could be more cool and disembarrassed. He had chosen his tactics.

They were made to regulate likewise the length of his visit, though the short summer evening had near run its course before he (in parliamentary phrase) "was on his legs" not to speak but to go. Then strolling on to the front door, he there met Reuben Taylor; flush in the doorway. The boy stept back into the hall to let him cone out; whence, as the doctor saw through the open window,—he went at once to Faith's side. But either accidentally or of design, Reuben stood so directly before her, that Dr. Harrison could see neither face—indeed could scarce see her at all. The little business transaction that went on then—the letter which Reuben took from his pocket and then again from its outer enveloppe,—the simple respect and pleasure with which he gave it to Faith—though colouring a little too,—all this was invisible, except to Mrs. Derrick. Faith's face would have told the doctor the whole. The pretty colour—the dropped eyes—and the undertone of her grateful, "I am very much obliged to you, Reuben!"

Reuben made no verbal answer, and staid not a minute longer, but the pleasure of his new trust was wonderful!

CHAPTER XVIII.

Faith did not have as uninterrupted a time for studies as she had counted upon for the next few months. In the first place, letters took a great many hours. In the second place, her studies were pretty frequently broken up of an evening by Dr. Harrison.

He certainly came often; whether it was because of the strength of attraction in that particular house, or the failure of any attraction beside in all the coasts of Pattaquasset, was a problem which remained unsolved by anything in the doctor's manner. His manner was like what it had been the evening just recounted. He amused himself, after his nonchalant fashion, and amused his hearers; he did not in the mean time call upon them for any help at all. He discerned easily that Faith had a little shyness about her; that might mean one thing or it might mean another; and Dr. Harrison was far too wise to risk the one thing by endeavouring to find out whether it was the other. The doctor was no fisher had no favour for the sport; but if he had been, he might have thought that now he was going to give his fish a very long line indeed, and let it play to any extent of shyness or wilfulness; his hand on the reel all the time.

The talk that would do for Miss Essie would not please Faith. The doctor knew that long ago. He drew upon his better stores. His knowledge of the earth we live on; his familiarity with nature's and art's wonders; history and philosophy; literature and science; and a knowledge of the world which he used as a little piquant spice to flavour all the rest of his knowledge. Thrown in justly, with a nice hand, so as not to offend, it did rather serve to provoke a delicate palate; while it unmistakably gratified his own. It was the salt to the doctor's dish.

But everything wants breaking up with variety, and variety itself may come to be monotonous. He asked Faith one evening if she knew anything of chymistry; and proceeded upon her reply to give her sundry bits of detail and some further insight into the meaning and bearing of the science. It was not August then, but it might have been, for the leisurely manner in which the doctor "unwound his skein" of talk, as if he were talking to himself or for himself; and yet he was, and he knew it, filling Faith's ears with delight. He took up the same subject afterwards from time to time; beginning from any trifle of suggestion, he would go off into an exquisite chymical discussion, illustrated and pointed and ornamented, as no lecturer but one loving both his subject and his object could ever make it. After a while the doctor began to come with bits of metal and phials of acids, and delight Faith and astonish Mrs. Derrick by turning her sitting-room into an impromptu laboratory. Such fumes! such gaseous odours! such ominous "reports", were never known in and about Mrs. Derrick's quiet household; nor were her basins and tumblers ever put to such strange, and in her view hideous, uses. But Dr. Harrison rather seemed to enjoy what appeared at first sight inconveniences; triumphed over the imperfections of tools and instruments, and wrought wonders over which Faith bent with greater raptures than if the marvels of Aladdin's lamp had been shewn before her. The doctor began by slow degrees; he let all this grow up of itself; he asked only for a tumbler the first time. And insensibly they went on, from one thing to another; till instead of a tumbler, the doctor would sometimes be surrounded with a most extraordinary retinue and train of diversified crockery and china. An empty butter-tub came to do duty for a water-bath; bottles and jars and cups and glasses, of various shapes and dimensions, attended or waited upon the doctor's operations; and with a slight apology and assurance to Mrs. Derrick he on more than one or two occasions appropriated the clock-shade for his use and behoof as a receiver. Then siphons began to come in the doctor's pocket; and glass tubes, bent and straight, open and sealed, in the doctor's hand; and one of his evenings came to be "better than a play." A most beautiful and exquisite play to Faith. Yet Dr. Harrison never forgot his tactics; never let his fish feel the line; and to Faith's joyous "How shall I ever thank you, Dr. Harrison!"—would reply by a dry request that she would induce Mrs. Derrick to have muffins for tea some evening and let him come.

And what did Dr. Harrison gain by all this? He did gain some hours of pleasure—that would have been very exquisite pleasure, but for the doubt that haunted him, and respecting which he could get no data of decision. The shyness and reserve did pass away from Faith; she met him and talked with him as a pleasant intimate friend whose company she enjoyed and who had a sort of right to hers; the right of friendship and kindliness. But then he never did anything to try her shyness or to call up her reserve. He never asked anything of her that she could refuse. He never advanced a step where it could with decency be repressed. He knew it. But he bided his time. He did not know what thorough and full accounts of all his evenings went—through the post-office.

He knew, and it rather annoyed him, that Reuben Taylor was very freely admitted and very intimately regarded in the house. There was perhaps no very good reason why this should have annoyed the doctor. Yet somehow he always rather identified Reuben Taylor with another of his friends. He found out, too, that Reuben much preferred the times when he, the doctor, was not there; for after once or twice coming in upon sulphuric acid and clock shades (from which he retreated faster than if it had all been gun-powder) Reuben changed his hour; and the doctor had the satisfaction of wishing him good evening in the porch—or of passing him on the sidewalk—or of hearing the swing of the little gate and Reuben's quick bound up the steps when his own feet were well out in the common ground of the road.