Faint from the all-night strain upon her feelings, Phillida returned to
her home from the Graydon to find her mother and sister at breakfast.
"Philly, you're 'most dead," said Agatha, as Phillida walked wearily
into the dining-room by way of the basement door. "You're pale and sick.
Here, sit down and take a cup of coffee."
Phillida sat down without removing her bonnet or sack, but Agatha took
them off while her mother poured her coffee.
"Where have you been and what made you go off so early?" went on Agatha.
"Or did you run away in the night?"
"Let Phillida take her coffee and get rested," said the mother.
"All right, she shall," said Agatha, patting her on the back in a
baby-cuddling way. "Only tell me how that little boy is; I do want to
know, and you can just say 'better,' 'worse,' 'well,' or 'dead,' without
waiting for the effect of the coffee, don't you see?"
"The child has diphtheria. I don't know whether I ought to come home and
expose the rest of you."
"Nonsense," said Agatha. "Do you think we're going to send you off to
the Island? You take care of the rest of the world, Philly, but mama and
I take care of you. When you get up into a private box in heaven as a
great saint, we'll hang on to your robe and get good seats."
"Sh-sh," said Phillida, halting between a revulsion at Agatha's
irreverent speech and a feeling more painful. "I'll never be a great
saint, Aggy. Only a poor, foolish girl, mistaking her fancies for her
duty."
"Oh, that's the way with all the great saints. They just missed being
shut up for lunatics. But do you think you'll be able to save that
little boy? Don't you think you ought to get them to call a doctor?"
"I? Oh, I gave up the case. I'm done with faith-healing once for all,
Agatha." This was said with a little gulp, indicating that the
confession cost her both effort and pain.
"You--"
"Don't ask me any questions till I'm better able to answer. I'm awfully
tired out and cross."
"What have you been doing this morning?" said Agatha, notwithstanding
Phillida's injunction against questions.
"Getting Miss Bowyer out of the Martin house. Mr. Martin was determined
to have her, and he went for her when his wife sent him for a doctor."
"Miss Bowyer! I don't see how you ever got her out," said Agatha. "Did
you get a policeman to put her into the station-house on the mortal
plane?"
"No; I did worse. I actually had to go to the Graydon and wake up
Charley Millard--"
"You did?"
"Yes; I couldn't get a messenger, and so I went myself. And I put the
case into Charley's hands, and he sent his man Friday scampering after a
coupe, and I came home and left him to go over there and fight it out."
"Well, I declare!" said Agatha. "What remarkable adventures you have!
And I never have anything real nice and dreadful happen to me. But he
might have brought you home."
"It wasn't his fault that he didn't. But give me a little bit of steak,
please; I have got to go back to the Martins'."
"No, you mustn't. Mother, don't you let her."
"I do wish, Phillida," said the mother, "that you wouldn't go down into
the low quarters of the town any more. You're so exposed to disease. And
then you're a young woman. You haven't got your father's endurance. It's
a dreadful risk."
"Well, I'm rather responsible for the child, and then I ought to be
there to protect Mrs. Martin from her husband when he comes home at
noon, and to share the blame with her when he finds his favorite put out
and Charley's doctor in possession."
"So you and Charley are in partnership in saving the boy's life," said
Agatha, "and you've got a regular doctor. That's something like. I can
guess what'll come next."
"Hush, Agatha," said the mother.
Phillida's appetite for beefsteak failed in a moment, and she pushed her
plate back and looked at her sister with vexation.
"If you think there's going to be a new engagement, you're mistaken."
"Think!" said Agatha, with a provoking laugh, "I don't think anything
about it. I know just what's got to happen. You and Charley are just
made for each other, though for my part I should prefer a young man
something like Cousin Philip."
Phillida was silent for a moment, and Mrs. Callender made a protesting
gesture at the impulsive Agatha.
"I don't think you ought to talk about such things when I'm so tired,"
said Phillida, struggling to maintain self-control. "Mr. Millard is a
man used to great popularity and much flattery in society. He would
never stand it in the world; it would hurt him twenty years hence to be
reminded that his wife had been a--well--a fanatic." This was uttered
with a sharp effort of desperation, Phillida grinding a bit of bread to
pieces between thumb and finger the meanwhile. "If he were to offer to
renew the engagement I should refuse. It would be too mortifying to
think of."
Agatha said nothing, and Phillida presently added, "And if you think I
went to the Graydon to renew the acquaintance of Charley,
it's--very--unkind of you, that's all." Phillida could no longer
restrain her tears.
"Why, Phillida, dear, Agatha didn't say any such thing," interposed Mrs.
Callender.
"If you think," said Agatha, angrily, "that I could even imagine such a
thing as that, it's just too awfully mean, that's all. But you've
worried yourself sick and you're unreasonable. There, now, please don't
cry, Philly," she added, going around and stroking her sister's hair.
"You're too good for any man that ever lived, and that's a great
misfortune. If they could have split the difference between your
goodness and my badness, they might have made two fair average women.
There, now, if you don't eat something I'll blame myself all day. I'm
going to toast you a piece of bread."
In spite of remonstrance, the repentant Agatha toasted a piece of bread
and boiled the only egg that Sarah had in the house, to tempt her
sister's appetite.
"Your motto is, 'Hard words and kind acts,'" said Mrs. Callender, as
Agatha came in with the toast and the egg.
"My motto is, 'Hard words and soft boiled eggs,'" said Agatha, who had
by this penance secured her own forgiveness and recovered her gayety.
In vain was Phillida entreated to rest. She felt herself drawn to Mrs.
Martin, who would, as she concluded, have got rid of Miss Bowyer, and
seen the doctor and Charley, and be left alone, by this time. So,
promising to be back by one o'clock, if possible, she went out again,
indulging her fatigue so far as to take a car in Fourteenth street.
Arrived at Mrs. Martin's, she was embarrassed at finding Millard sitting
with his aunt. She gave him a look of recognition as she entered, and
said to Mrs. Martin, who was holding Tommy:
"I thought I should find you alone by this time."
This indirect statement that she had not considered it desirable to
encounter Millard again cut him, and he said, as though the words had
been addressed to him, "I am expecting Dr. Gunstone every moment."
"Dr. Gunstone? I am glad he is coming," said Phillida, firing the remark
in the air indiscriminately at the aunt or nephew, as either might
please to accept it.
At that moment Millard's valet, Robert, in the capacity of pioneer and
pilot, knocked at the door. When Millard opened it he said, "Dr.
Gunstone, sir," and stood aside to let the physician pass.
Gunstone made a little hurried bow to Millard, and, without waiting for
an introduction, bowed with his usual deference to Mrs. Martin.
"Good-morning, madam; is this the little sufferer?" at the same time
making a hurried bow of courtesy to Phillida as a stranger; but as he
did so, he arrested himself and said in the fatherly tone he habitually
used with his young women patients, "How do you do? You came to see me
last year with--"
"My mother, Mrs. Callender," said Phillida.
"Yes, yes; and how is your mother, my dear?"
"Quite well, thank you, doctor."
The doctor dispatched these courtesies with business-like promptness,
and then settled himself to an examination of little Tommy.
"This is diphtheria," he said; "you will want a physician in the
neighborhood. Let's see, whom have you?" This to Millard.
Millard turned to his aunt. She looked at Phillida. "There's Dr. Smith
around the corner," said Phillida.
Dr. Gunstone said, "Dr. Smith?" inquiringly to himself. But the name did
not seem to recall any particular Smith.
"And Dr. Beswick in Seventeenth street," said Phillida.
"Beswick is a very good young fellow, with ample hospital experience,"
said Gunstone. "Can you send for him at once?"
Robert, who stood alert without the door, was told to bring Dr. Beswick
in the carriage, and in a very short space of time Beswick was there,
having left Mrs. Beswick sure that success and renown could not be far
away when her husband was called on Gunstone's recommendation, and
fetched in a coupe under the conduct of what seemed to her a coachman
and a footman. Beswick's awkwardness and his abrupt up-and-downness of
manner contrasted strangely with Dr. Gunstone's simple but graceful
ways. A few rapid directions served to put the case into Beswick's
hands, and the old doctor bowed swiftly to all in the room, descended
the stairs, and, having picked his way hurriedly through a swarm of
children on the sidewalk, entered the carriage again, and was gone.
Millard looked at his watch, remembered that he had had no breakfast,
and prepared to take his leave.
"Thank you, Charley, ever so much," said his aunt. "I don't know what I
should have done without you."
"Miss Callender is the one to thank," said Millard, scarcely daring to
look at her, as he bade her and Dr. Beswick good-morning.
When he had reached the bottom of the long flight of stairs, Millard
suddenly turned about and climbed upward once more.
"Miss Callender," he said, standing in the door, "let me speak to you,
please."
Phillida went out to him. This confidential conversation could not but
excite a rush of associations and emotion in the minds of both of them,
so that neither dared to look directly at the other as they stood there
in the obscure light which struggled through two dusty panes of glass at
the top of the next flight.
"You must not stay here," he said. "You're very weary; you will be
liable to take the disease. I am going to send a professional nurse."
This solicitude for her was so like the Charley of other times that it
made Phillida tremble with a grateful emotion she could not quite
conceal.
"A professional nurse will be better for Tommy. But I can not leave
while Mrs. Martin has any great need for me." She could not confess to
him the responsibility she felt in the case on account of her having
undertaken it the evening before as a faith-doctor.
"What is the best way to get a nurse?" asked Millard, regarding her
downcast face, and repressing a dreadful impulse to manifest his
reviving affection.
"Dr. Beswick will know," said Phillida. "I will send him out." She was
glad to escape into the room again, for she was afraid to trust her own
feelings longer in Millard's company. The arrangement was made that Dr.
Beswick should send a nurse, and then Millard and Beswick went
down-stairs together.
Phillida stayed till Mr. Martin came home, hoping to soften the scene
between husband and wife. In his heart Martin revered his wife's good
sense, but he thought it due to his sex to assert himself once in a
while against a wife whose superiority he could not but recognize. As
soon as he had accomplished this feat, thereby proving his masculinity,
he always repented it. For so long as his wife approved his course he
was sure that he could not be far astray; but whenever his vanity had
made him act against her judgment he was a mariner out of reckoning, and
he made haste to take account of the pole star of her good sense.
He had just now been impelled by certain ugly elements in his nature to
give his wife a taste of his power as the head of the family, the more
that she had dared to make sport of his new science and of his new
oracle, Miss Bowyer. But once he had become individually responsible for
Tommy's life without the security of Mrs. Martin's indorsement on the
back of the bond, he became extremely miserable. As noontime approached
he grew so restless that he got excused from his bench early, and came
home.
Motives of delicacy had prevented any communication between Phillida and
Mrs. Martin regarding the probable attitude of Mr. Martin toward the
transactions of the morning. But when his ascending footsteps, steady
and solemn as the Dead March in "Saul," were heard upon the stairs,
their hearts failed them.
"How's little Tommy?" he asked.
"I don't think he's any better," said Mrs. Martin.
"Come to think," said the husband, "I guess I'd better send word to Miss
Bowyer to give it up and not come any more, and then I'd better get a
regular doctor. I don't somehow like to take all the responsibility,
come to think."
"Miss Bowyer's given up the case," said Mrs. Martin. "Charley's been
here, scared to death about Tommy. He brought a great doctor from Fifth
Avenue, and together they sent for Dr. Beswick. Miss Bowyer gave up the
case."
"Give up the case, did she?" he said wonderingly.
"Yes."
"Well, that's better. But I didn't ever hardly believe she'd go and give
it up."
Mr. Martin did not care to inquire further. He was rid of
responsibility, and finding himself once more under the lee of his wife,
he could eat his dinner and go back to work a happier man.