When Isabelle woke, the morning sun fretted the green shutters. She was
tired in every limb,--limp, content to lie in bed while Mrs. Strong lighted
the fire, threw open the shutters, and brought breakfast and the mail.
Through the east windows the sun streamed in solidly, flooding the
counterpane, warming the faded roses of the wall paper. A bit of the north
range of hills, the flat summit of Belton's Top with a glittering ice-cap,
she could see above the gray gable of the barn. The sky was a soft,
cloudless blue, and the eaves were busily dripping in a drowsy persistency.
She liked to lie there, watching the sun, listening to the drip, her
letters unopened, her breakfast untouched. She was delightfully empty
of thoughts. But one idea lay in her mind,--she should stay on, here,
just here. Since she had packed her trunk the Sunday before, a great deal
seemed to have happened,--a space had been placed between the outer world
that she had restlessly turned back towards and herself. Some day she
should go back to that other world--to Molly and John and all the rest.
But not now--no!...
As she lay there, slowly the little things of the past weeks since she had
travelled the cold road from White River--the impressions, the sights, the
ideas--settled into her thought, pushing back the obstinate obsessions that
had possessed her for months. The present began to be important, to drive
out the past. Outside in the street some one whistled, the bells of the
passing sleds jangled, a boy's treble halloa sounded far away,--unconscious
voices of the living world, like the floating clouds, the noise of running
water, the drip of the melting snow on the eaves,--so good it all was and
real! ...
Margaret had found that Peace the doctor had spoken of, Margaret whose
delicate curving lips had always seemed to her the symbol of discontent, of
the inadequacy of life. Margaret had found it, and why not she? ... That
explained the difference she felt these days in Margaret. There had always
been something fine and sweet in the Southern woman, something sympathetic
in her touch, in the tone of her voice even when she said cynical things.
Now Margaret never said bitter things, even about the wretched Larry. She
had always been a listener rather than a talker, but now there was a balm
in her very presence, a touch upon the spirit, like a cool hand on the
brow. Yes! She had found that rightful heritage of Peace and breathed it
all around her, like warmth and light.
Margaret came in with the noon mail, which she had collected from the box
in the post-office. As she tossed the papers and letters on the bed,
Isabelle noticed another of the oblong letters in the familiar handwriting
from Panama....
"Or is it that?" she asked herself for a moment, and then was ashamed. The
smile, the clear look out of the deep eyes, the caressing hand that stroked
her face, all said no,--it was not that! And if it were, it must be good.
"So you are going to stay with us a while longer, Isabelle.... I shall
unpack your trunk and hide it," Margaret said with smiling conviction.
"Yes,--I shall stay, for the present.... Now I must get into my clothes.
I've been lazing away the whole morning here--not even reading my letters!"
"That's right," Margaret drawled. "Doing nothing is splendid for the
temperament. That's why the darkies have such delightful natures. They can
sit whole days in the sun and never think a thought." With her hand on the
door she turned: "You must send for Molly,--it will be good for her to
forget the dancing lessons and frocks. My children will take her down to
Mill Hill and make a boy of her."
"Well,--but she will be a nuisance, I am afraid. She is such a young
lady."...
At last Isabelle tore open a letter from her husband, one that Margaret had
just brought. It was concise and dry, in the economical epistolary style
into which they had dropped with each other. He was glad to hear that her
rest in the country was doing her good. If it agreed with her and she was
content, she had better stay on for the present. He should be detained in
the West longer than he had expected. There were important suits coming on
against the railroad in which he should be needed, hearings, etc. At the
close there was an unusually passionate sentence or two about "the public
unrest and suspicion," and the President and the newspapers. "They seem to
like the smell of filth so much that they make a supply when they can't
find any."
Broils of the world! The endless struggle between those who had and those
who envied them what they had. There was another side, she supposed, and in
the past Cairy had been at some pains to explain that other side to her.
Her husband must of course be prejudiced, like her father; they saw it all
too close. However, it was a man's affair to settle, unless a woman wished
to play Conny's role and move her husband about the board. Broils! How
infinitely far away it seemed, all the noise of the world! ... She began to
dress hurriedly to report at the hospital for the afternoon. As she glanced
again at her husband's letter, she saw a postscript, with some scraps of
St. Louis gossip:--
"I hear that Bessie is to get a divorce from Falkner. I wonder if it can be
true.... I saw Steve in the street last week. From what I learn the lumber
business isn't flourishing.... Pity he didn't swallow his scruples and stay
with us where he would be safe!"
Poor Alice--if Steve should fail now, with all those children! And then she
remembered what Alice Johnston had said to Vickers, "You see we have been
poor so much of the time that we know what it is like." It would take a
good deal to discourage Alice and Steve. But John must keep an eye on them,
and try to help Steve. John, it occurred to her then for the first time,
was that kind,--the substantial sort of man that never needed help himself,
on which others might lean.
* * * * *
So Isabelle stayed in the mountain village through the winter months. Molly
came with her governess, and both endeavored to suppress politely their
wonder that any one could imprison herself in this dreary, cold place. The
regular nurses came back to the hospital, but Isabelle, once having been
drawn in, was not released.
"He's a hard master," Margaret said of the doctor. "If he once gets his
hand on you, he never lets go--until he is ready to."
Apparently Renault was not ready to let go of Isabelle. Without explaining
himself to her, he kept her supplied with work, and though she saw him
often every day, they rarely talked, never seriously. He seemed to avoid
after that first night any opportunity for personal revelation. The doctor
was fond of jokes and had the manner of conducting his affairs as if they
were a game in which he took a detached and whimsical interest. If there
was sentiment in his nature, an emotional feeling towards the work he was
doing, it was well concealed, first with drollery, and then with scientific
application. So far as any one could observe the daily routine, there was
nothing, at least in the surgical side of the hospital, that was not coldly
scientific. As Renault had said, "We do what we can with every instrument
known to man, every device, drug, or pathological theory." And his mind
seemed mostly engrossed with this "artisan" side of his profession, in
applying his skill and learning and directing the skill and learning of
others. It was only in the convalescent ward that the other side showed
itself,--that belief in the something spiritual, beyond the physical, to be
called upon. One of the doctors, a young Norwegian named Norden, was his
assistant in this work. And every one in the place felt that Norden was
closest of all to the doctor. Norden in his experiments with nervous
diseases used hypnotism, suggestion, psychotherapy,--all the modern forms
of supernaturalism. His attitude was ever, as he said to Isabelle, "It
might be--who knows?"--"There is truth, some little truth in all the ages,
in all the theories and beliefs." Isabelle had a strong liking for this
uncouth Northman with his bony figure and sunken eyes that seemed always
burning with an unattained desire, an inexpressible belief. Norden said to
her, the only way is "to recognize both soul and body in dealing with the
organism. Medicine is a Religion, a Faith, a great Solution. It ought to be
supported by the state, free to all.... The old medicine is either machine
work or quackery, like the blood-letting of barbers." ...
It was an exhilarating place to live in, Renault's hospital,--an atmosphere
of intense activity, mental and physical, with a spirit of some large,
unexpressed truth, a passionate faith, that raised the immediate finite and
petty task to a step in the glorious ranks of eternity. The personality of
Renault alone kept this atmosphere from becoming hectic and sentimental. He
held this ship that he steered so steadily in the path of fact that there
was no opportunity for emotional explosions. But he himself was the
undefined incarnate Faith that made the voyage of the last importance to
every one concerned. Small wonder that the doctors and nurses--the
instruments of his will--"could not be driven away"! They had caught the
note, each one of them, of that unseen power and lived always in the hope
of greater revelations to come.
As the order of the days settled into a rhythmic routine with the passing
of the weeks, Isabelle Lane desired more and more to come closer to this
man who had touched her to the quick, to search more clearly for her
personal Solution which evaded her grasp. There were many questions she
wished to have answered! But Renault had few intimate moments. He avoided
personalities, as if they were a useless drain upon energy. His message was
delivered at casual moments. One day he came up behind Isabelle in the
ward, and nodding towards Molly, who was reading a story to one of the
little girl patients, said:--
"So you have put daughter to some use?"
"Yes!" Isabelle exclaimed irritably. "I found her going over her dresses
for the tenth time and brought her along.... However does she get that air
of condescension! Look at her over there playing the grand lady in her
pretty frock for the benefit of these children. Little Snob! She didn't get
_that_ from me."
"Don't worry. Wait a day or two and you will see the small girl she is
reading to hand her one between the eyes," Renault joked. "She's on to Miss
Molly's patronage and airs, and she has Spanish blood in her. Look at her
mouth now. Doesn't it say, 'I am something of a swell myself?"
"They say children are a comfort!" Isabelle remarked disgustedly. "They are
first a care and then a torment. In them you see all that you dislike in
yourself popping up--and much more besides. Molly thinks of nothing but
clothes and parties and etiquette. She has twice the social instinct I ever
had. I can see myself ten years hence being led around by her through all
the social stuff I have learned enough to avoid."
"You can't be sure."
"They change, but not the fundamentals. Molly is a little _mondaine_,--she
showed it in the cradle."
"But you don't know what is inside her besides that tendency, any more than
you know now what is inside yourself and will come out a year hence."
"If I don't know myself at my age, I must be an idiot!"
"No one knows the whole story until the end. Even really aged people
develop surprising qualities of character. It's a Christmas box--the inside
of us; you can always find another package if you put your hand in deep
enough and feel around. Molly's top package seems to be finery. She may dip
lower down."
'So I am dipping here in Grosvenor,' thought Isabelle, 'and I may find the
unexpected!' ... This was an empty quarter of an hour before dinner and
Renault was talkative.
"Who knows?" he resumed whimsically. "You might have a good sense of humor
somewhere, Mrs. Lane, pretty well buried."
Isabelle flushed with mortification.
"You are witty enough, young woman. But I mean real humor, not the rattle
of dry peas in the pod that goes for humor at a dinner party. Do you know
why I keep Sam about the place,--that fat lazy beggar who takes half an
hour to fetch an armful of wood? Because he knows how to laugh. He is a
splendid teacher of mirth. When I hear him laugh down in the cellar, I
always open the door and try to get the whole of it. It shakes my stomach
sympathetically. The old cuss knows it, too, which is a pity! ... Well,
young mademoiselle over there is play-acting to herself; she thinks she
will be a grand lady like mamma. God knows what she will find more
interesting before she reaches the bottom of the box. Don't worry! And did
you ever think where they catch the tricks, these kids? If you went into
it, you could trace every one down to some suggestion; it wouldn't take you
long to account for that high and mighty air in your child that you don't
fancy. If you don't want her to pick up undesirable packages, see that they
aren't handed out to her."
"But she has had the best--"
"Yes, of course. Lord! the best! Americans are mad for the best. Which
means the highest priced. I've no doubt, Mrs. Lane, you have given Molly
all the disadvantages.... Did you ever sit down for five minutes and ask
yourself seriously what is the best, humanly speaking, for that child? What
things _are_ best any way? ... Do you want her to end where you are at your
age?"
Isabelle shook her head sadly:--
"No,--not that!"
"Cultivate the garden, then.... Or, to change the figure, see what is
handed out to her.... For every thought and feeling in your body, every act
of your will, makes its trace upon her,--upon countless others, but upon
her first because she is nearest."
Molly, having closed her book and said good-evening to the little patient,
came up to her mother.
"It is time, I think, mamma, for me to go home to dress for dinner." She
looked at the little watch pinned to her dress. Renault and Isabelle
laughed heartily.
"What pebble that you tossed into the pool produced that ripple, do you
think?" the doctor quizzed, twirling Molly about by her neck, much to her
discomfort.
"He treats me like a child, too," Isabelle complained to Margaret; "gives
me a little lesson now and then, and then says 'Run along now and be a good
girl.'"
"It is a long lesson," Margaret admitted, "learning how to live, especially
when you begin when we did. But after you have turned the pages for a
while, somehow it counts."