ROGER’S MASTER
The doctor—whose name was Square—was a bluff old countryman who was
accustomed to ride miles over the moor every day on his old white mare,
Jessie, in pursuit of his calling. A picturesque figure was Silas
Square, immensely big and powerful, gruff and short of speech, but with
a heart as soft as a woman’s. He came every morning and evening during
the worst period of Frances’ illness, Nurse Dolly always accompanying
him, and his strong kindly presence never failed to encourage, even at
the time when Nell’s whispered confidences told Frances that he believed
the end to be near. He did not talk much in the sick-room. His remedies
were old-fashioned and drastic, but he always in some fashion conveyed a
sense of confidence to his patients. She generally managed to smile at
him when he came.
“You’ve got some pluck,” he said to her once, when he had watched the
application of a poultice that caused her acute pain.
And she smiled at him again bravely, though she could not speak in
answer, so tightly was her endurance stretched.
And then one day he looked at her with eyes that fairly beamed their
congratulation. “You’ve done it!” he said. “You’re through the worst,
and, madam, you’re the bravest woman it has ever been my lot to attend!”
She valued these words immensely. They were so spontaneous, and he was
very obviously not a man given to flattery.
Thenceforward his visits dropped to once a day, but he always gave her a
sympathy that amazed her with its intuition. His kindly concern for her
welfare never failed, even when he had finally loosened her chain, and
drawn her back from the abyss into safety.
But he would not hear of her being moved. “You’ve had a very stiff
time,” he said. “And you’ve got to rest. You’re in excellent hands. The
Dermots all love having you. So why worry?”
“Because they don’t know me. Because I am a stranger,” she made answer
at last, when her strength had returned sufficiently for her to feel the
difficulties of her position. “I can make no return to them for their
kindness. I have got to make my living. I have no money.”
“Is kindness ever repaid by money?” he said, with a smile in his shrewd
eyes. “You can’t go yet. I won’t sanction it. That heart of yours has
got to tick better than it does at present—a long way better—before
you think of earning your living again.”
“Then I must go to a hospital,” said Frances desperately, “I can’t go on
in this way. I really can’t.”
“You’ll do as you’re told,” said old Dr. Square with a frown. “And
you’ll take cream—plenty of it—every day.”
Then he went away, and Frances was left to fume in solitude.
“You’re fretting,” said Nurse Dolly severely when she took her
temperature a little later. “That’s very wrong of you and quite
unnecessary. Now you will have to take a sedative.”
She did not want the sedative. She was approaching that stage of
convalescence when fretting is almost a necessity, and she fought
against any palliative. But Dolly would take no refusal, and in the end,
with tears of weakness, she had to submit.
“There now!” said Dolly practically, when she had won the day. “What a
pity to upset yourself like that! Now don’t cry any more! Just go to
sleep!”
She went to sleep, cried herself to sleep like a child that has been
slapped, and slept deeply, exhausted, till late into the night. Then she
awoke to find with great surprise the child Ruth curled up in the big
bed beside her. The fair head was actually on her pillow, the
flower-like face close to her own.
“Why, darling, little darling!” whispered Frances.
Ruth’s hands, soft and loving, clasped hers. “I’m not asleep,” she
whispered back. “Do you mind me in bed with you?”
“Mind!” said Frances, gathering her close. “As if I could!”
Ruth gave a faint sigh. “I’ve been lying awake to ask you. I came
because of a dream I had. Elsie wanted to send me away, but I wouldn’t
go. So she put me into bed with you while you were asleep. I’m glad you
don’t mind.”
“Go to sleep, my Rosebud!” said Frances very tenderly. “I wouldn’t part
with you for all the world.”
She found out later that little Ruth was accustomed to spend her nights
promiscuously among her young aunts. She chose her own place of rest,
like a wandering scrap of thistledown, disturbing none. They always
welcomed her fondly wherever she went, but none ever coerced or
persuaded her. She lived her own life; they had no time to spend upon
her, and she was curiously independent of them all. She went in and out
quite fearlessly, seeing her visions behind those sealed lids, a child
of strange spirituality to whom grief was unknown.
She brought her simple comfort to Frances that night, and they slept
together in absolute peace. It was the best night that Frances had had
throughout her illness.
In the morning she felt better. She and the little girl lay murmuring
together in the misty sunshine of the dawn.
“I am going to the Stones to-day,” said Ruth. “I wish you could come.”
“The Stones!” Memory pierced Frances, and she shrank a little
involuntarily. But: “Tell me about the Stones!” she said.
“I go and play there,” said Ruth. “Some people are afraid of them. I
don’t know why. The fairies play their pipes there, and I lie and
listen. And sometimes, when they think I am asleep, the biggest stones
talk. But I don’t know what they say,” she added quaintly. “It isn’t our
language at all. I daresay the fairies would understand, but they always
run away and hide when the stones begin.”
“What are the Stones?” said Frances.
“Oh, just stones, the same as God made when He made the earth. They
stand in a big circle. I don’t know why He put them like that, but they
have been so ever since the world began. I expect He had a reason,” said
the child. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, dear,” said Frances gently. “And you like to go there?”
“Yes,” said Ruth. She hesitated a moment as one to whom a subject is
sacred; then: “My mother went to heaven from there,” she said. “So of
course God must come there sometimes. I hope He’ll come there some day
when I’m there.”
“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” said Frances.
“Afraid of God? Oh no! Why should anyone be afraid of God? He loves us,”
said the child.
Frances kissed the upturned face that could not see the sun. “Bless you,
little darling!” she said. “Is there anyone who wouldn’t love you, I
wonder?”
Ruth left her soon after, and Nurse Dolly came in, brisk and efficient,
to prepare her for the day.
“I am glad to see you better,” she said. “But you mustn’t sit up
yet—not till you have had three days without a temperature. The doctor
says so.”
“I will be very good,” Frances promised. “But do you think I might have
my bed pushed near the window? I should so love to look out.”
Dolly considered the request judicially for a moment or two. She was
recognized commander-in-chief in the sick-room. “We’ll see about it,”
she said. “But it’s a heavy bed to move and has no castors. Still—we’ll
see.”
She smiled upon Frances and proceeded with her toilet with her usual
ready deftness.
Then she departed, and Frances heard her cheery voice calling for
Oliver.
Through the window she heard a man’s voice reply. “Oliver’s gone to put
the pigs in the cart for market. What do you want him for?”
“Oh, it’s all right; you’ll do,” said Dolly, still brisk and cheery.
“Just come along and help me to move Miss Thorold’s bed! She has a fancy
for lying in the sunshine.”
There was no answer to that save a grunt, and a moment later the sound
of a pipe being tapped against the side of the step. Frances felt a
quick flush rising in her face. She wished with all her heart that she
could have restrained Dolly’s well-meaning arrangement as she heard the
sound of a man’s tread upon the stairs.
Dolly re-entered, looking well pleased with herself. “Here’s Arthur come
to move you,” she said. “He’s strong enough.”
Arthur entered behind her. His great frame with its broad shoulders
filled the narrow doorway. He looked straight at her, and she thought
his look was oddly lowering, even challenging.
“Come in!” said Dolly.
Frances said nothing. She was tongue-tied.
He came forward into the room, moving with the careless strength of
conscious power. He paused at her bedside.
“Are you feeling better?”
She recovered herself with an effort. “I am much better, thank you,” she
said, and held out her hand.
He paused an instant as if she had taken him by surprise. Then abruptly
he gripped and held the outstretched hand. His face changed magically.
He smiled at her, and his smile was good to see. It took years from his
appearance, belying the iron-grey of hair that had once been as black as
his brows.
“I’m glad of that,” he said. “I hope they are doing all they can for
you.”
“They are doing far too much,” Frances said. “I feel so ashamed lying
here.”
“Why ashamed?” he said.
She coloured again, painfully, under his eyes. “I have never been in
anyone’s debt before,” she said. “And this—this is more than I can ever
hope to repay.”
His smile passed, and again his face was hard with the hardness of the
fighter. “There is no debt that I can see,” he said. “We are all at the
mercy of circumstance. If it comes to that, we owed it to ourselves to
do what we could for you.”
It was brusquely spoken, but his look, grim though it was, seemed to her
to hold a hint of friendliness. The dog Roger, who had entered behind
him, came nosing up to the bedside and she slipped her hand free to
fondle him. There was something in this man’s personality that
embarrassed her, wherefore she could not have said.
Roger acknowledged her attention with humble effusion, glancing
apologetically towards his master the while.
“You are very kind to put it like that,” she said at last, as he stood
immovably beside her. “But I can’t bear to be a burden upon
anyone—especially—especially——”
“Especially what?” he said.
She answered with difficulty. “Especially people who have to work as
hard as you do.”
“People in our walk of life, do you mean?” he said, and she heard the
echo of a sneer behind the words.
“Arthur, you are not to make her talk,” said Dolly severely. “She had a
temperature yesterday all through over-excitement and fretting, and it
throws her back at once. Will you please move the bed and go?”
She spoke with her habitual decision, and Frances was aware of a strong
resemblance between the brother and sister as Arthur turned to comply.
She herself was near to tears, such was her weakness and distress of
mind, and while her bed was being moved across to the window she could
not look at either of them. But when the move was at length
satisfactorily effected and she could gaze forth over the dewy sunlit
fields, she commanded herself sufficiently to utter a low word of
thanks.
He came back to her then, and stood beside her. “You are most welcome at
Tetherstones,” he said. “Please don’t talk of debts and burdens! They
don’t come into the reckoning here.”
His tone was restrained, but it held an unmistakable note of apology.
She lifted her eyes in amazement, but he had already turned away. He
went out of the room with the free, deliberate swing with which he had
entered, and she heard him descending the stairs with Roger pattering
behind.
“For goodness’ sake, never take any notice of Arthur!” said sensible
Dolly, as she whisked about the room setting it in order. “He always was
a bear, and the circumstances he talks about haven’t been such as to
have a very taming effect on him.”
Then she knew that by some means Dolly had obtained that semi-apology in
order to keep her patient’s temperature normal.