THE NEW DOCTOR.
"I learn'd at last submission to my lot,
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot."
_Cowper._
"I wonder how women of thirty-five feel under these circumstances,"
thought Cathy, as she followed the others up the narrow dark
staircase leading to Miss Cosie's neat sanctum. "I should have
imagined all sentiment would have been worried out of them by this
time, in this dismal old mill-pond they call life. It is very odd,
but it is amusing too," she continued, with a certain girlish
curiosity at the elderly romance that was impending before her eyes.
After all it was not without its pathos. "Perhaps he will not
recognize her when they meet, or most likely he has a wife and two or
three children somewhere; I would not answer for him. It is the
women who are faithful in these cases. In my opinion Jacob is the
exception, not the rule. Poor old Jacob, how threadbare they have
worn him! He was very patient and deep, but I liked Esau best."
Cathy mused on in her rambling fashion. Now and then she and Queenie
exchanged glances full of meaning.
"Is it--can it really be he?" whispered Queenie, as she tied and
untied Cathy's velvet.
"Not a doubt of it," replied the other. "Hush! we shall hear more
by-and-bye."
Miss Faith looked at them both with soft dazed eyes. She had no idea
that they were talking of her. "Angus Stewart! there cannot be two
of that name," she said to herself, as she smoothed out her ruffles
with trembling hands, and tried to adjust her pearl brooch to her
liking. "I wonder when I shall see him, and if he will know me
again." But here Miss Cosie rushed upon them with a small whirlwind
of interjections and exclamations.
"Oh, my dears; there, there, you all look as fresh as rosebuds. What
do you think? The most wonderful thing has happened. Just fancy
Christopher taking it into his head to bring him here!"
"To bring whom, dear Miss Cosie?" asked Cathy quickly, for Miss
Faith's color was varying dangerously.
"Why, Mr. Mac'ivor, or what's his name--something Scotch I am sure.
The new doctor, I mean. And there they are talking as comfortably as
though they had known each other for years, instead of minutes.
Christopher has taken him over to the church already.'
"If Mr. Stewart be here we had better go down," observed Cathy,
demurely, but her eyes danced with fun.
"Ah, Stewart, of course. There, there, my dear, my head is like a
sieve, as Kit always tells me. 'Why, Charlotte, there must be a hole
in your brain somewhere,' as he often says. And there he is, dear
fellow, looking as pleased as though he had got some one to his
liking; and indeed he seems a pleasant, sociable sort of person."
"Yes; but your tea will be spoiled if we stand talking any longer,"
put in artful Cathy; and Miss Cosie took the hint, and trotted off in
her velvet high-heeled slippers, looking like a little grey mouse of
a woman, in her dove-colored gown and soft Shetland shawl.
"There, there, my dear, if I had not forgotten all about the tea!"
they could hear her exclaim. as she whisked down the passage.
"Now we will go down," exclaimed Cathy, promptly. "Come, Miss Faith,
you are just as nice as possible;" for the nervous fingers were still
adjusting the troublesome ruffle. "Think what a loss you have over
those last chapters of 'Trench's Parables,' and how Cara will miss
you," continued the mischievous girl, as she hurried on her trembling
companion. "You have exchanged 'the feast of reason and the flow of
soul' just for Miss Cosie's junket and fruit."
"I wish--I almost wish I were back with Cara," gasped poor Miss Faith
at the parlor door; and indeed the ordeal was a trying one even to a
woman of thirty-five.
Mr. Logan made the necessary introductions as easily as possible.
"Here, ladies, is our new doctor, Mr. Stewart; give him a hearty
welcome to Hepshaw. This is our girls' school-mistress, Miss
Marriott, and this is Miss Catherine Clayton, but Miss Faith Palmer
ought to have come first."
"Miss Faith Palmer?" queried a pleasant voice, for the parlor was
somewhat dim; "here at least I ought to require no introduction," and
the new-comer pressed forward to catch a farther glimpse of Miss
Faith's pale face.
"Yes, we are old friends, Mr. Stewart," she returned, putting a very
cold hand in his. She was glad of the half-light; he could not see
her, she thought. How his voice thrilled her? Was it really ten
years ago since she had last heard it?
"You are the last person I expected to see to-night," he continued,
still standing near her. "It was very forgetful of me. I remember
now that you said you lived at Hepshaw, but all sorts of things have
driven it clean out of my head."
"All sorts of things! He is married then," argued Cathy, shrewdly.
"Oh, you men, you men!"
"Ten years is a long time, a very long time," faltered Miss Faith.
She experienced a chill feeling at the same moment. Was it a
presentiment?
"Is it ten years since we met? I had no idea it was so long," he
returned, pulling his whiskers reflectively. "Do you recollect the
hospital and the boys' ward. What a capital nurse you used to be,
Miss Faith, and how attached your little patients were to you!"
"Is it--is everything just the same?" she asked, nervously.
"As when I was house surgeon there, do you mean? I don't know; I
have been away from Carlisle a good many years. The hospital work
got humdrum somehow, and I had a berth offered me as army surgeon in
Bombay; and as Alice was married, and my mother was dead, I thought I
might as well try my luck. I got tired of it though."
"Alice married!"; with a quick flush of interest. They were sitting
at Miss Cosie's tea-table now. Mr. Stewart was by his hostess, but
he had found room for his old acquaintance beside him.
"You can't think how pleasant it is to meet an old friend in a
strange place," he had observed confidentially to Miss Cosie, and the
little woman had nodded and smiled delightedly.
"Yes, Alice is married; pretty girls will sometimes," with the
humorous sparkle in his eyes that she remembered so well. "She
married a clergyman in Lincolnshire, and has two fine boys of whom
she is very proud; I have just been staying with them in their
pleasant vicarage. By-the-bye, she asked after you."
"After me?" with another rush of sensitive color that made her look
years younger.
"Yes; she asked if I had seen you, but I could not satisfy her on
that point. Don't you think it was a shabby trick, Miss Faith,
vanishing from Carlisle as you did, and never coming back? I always
meant to ask you that question if we ever met again."
"I hoped to come back; I never meant to leave like that," she
returned in such a low voice that Dr. Stewart had some trouble to
hear her. "It was my sister's accident. You remember that I told
you when I wished your mother and Alice good-bye."
"Yes; but I trusted that it was only a temporary affair, and that you
might soon have been set free."
"I am not free yet," in a sad voice that went far to explain to Dr.
Stewart the meaning of the worn, patient face and set lines.
The Faith Palmer of ten years ago had been a fair, pretty girl, with
the lightest step and the happiest laugh imaginable, and all manner
of bright winning ways. It was a sweet face still, he thought, only
so thin and careworn, and all the soft coloring faded. Even her
voice was subdued and quieted past recognition; the despondence of
the key had touched him painfully from the first.
Faith's scrutiny had not been half so severe. Dr. Stewart was older,
of coarse, and browner; well, and stouter, and he was becoming very
grey; but what did that matter? There were the pleasant outlines,
that had lingered for ten years in her memory, the shrewd, twinkling
eyes, with their touch of humor, and the clear, genial voice.
"What does that mean? we are none of us free, for the matter of
that," he asked abruptly, but not unkindly. "Here I am tying myself
down for life in this northern village, because an Indian sun chose
to play the most confounded tricks with my liver, and to make my
existence a burthen to me. Do you mean that your sister is still an
invalid?"
"Yes; I have been nursing her for ten years. There are the others,
but she has got used to me. Poor Cara, she is to lie down all her
life, they say."
"Humph! that accounts for it," with a dissatisfied glance, and
pulling his whiskers rather fiercely. "Well, Miss Faith, I can't say
home-nursing has agreed with you."
"That means that you find me changed," thought poor Miss Faith,
trying to swallow down a very large lump in her throat. She had
sustained her share in the conversation with tolerable success up to
the present moment, but now the chilliness was creeping over her
again. Why had he not tried to find out what had become of her?
Hepshaw and Carlisle were not so very far apart after all. True, she
had promised him to return, and had left him in perfect confidence
that she would redeem her promise; but she had not been to blame for
her failure. "I gave it all up, all that I knew was waiting for me,
because Cara wanted me," she thought; "but he never tried to find out
what had become of me."
It was well for Faith Palmer that Cathy, who was watching them from
the other side of the table, struck in boldly at this juncture; it
gave her time to swallow down the troublesome lump, and regain her
lost self-command. During the animated talk that followed, and in
which Dr. Stewart bore a chief part, she sat plaiting the snowy
table-cloth with her slender fingers, and saying over and over to
herself, "Ten years, and he never cared to know whether I was alive
or dead."
When tea was over she moved away from him, and took refuge beside
Miss Cosie and her knitting. He would amuse himself with the younger
ones of course. She had noticed already that Cathy had seemed to
interest him with her frank liveliness, and then there were Langley
and Queenie. Queenie was looking so pretty this evening, with those
deep-colored roses in her dark dress. If only she could sit quiet in
her corner, and watch him unobserved! It was hard work finding
appropriate answers to Miss Cosie's somewhat rambling remarks.
"Of course he will take a fancy to one of them," she thought, taking
advantage of a pause during which Miss Cosie counted her stitches,
and quite ignoring the fact that there might possibly be a Mrs.
Stewart somewhere. "I wonder which it will be. Queenie Marriott is
far prettier to my taste, her eyes are lovely; but then Cathy is very
taking. Men of forty generally fall in love with young girls; and
then he is such a young-looking man, and does not look his age," and
Faith sighed as she thought of her faded youth.
"Did you speak, my dear?" asked Miss Cosie, at this point. "Knit
one, purl two, and knit two together. There, there, I am a stupid
companion. Why don't you go and join that merry party opposite?
Look at Kit; how delighted he seems with the doctor."
"Miss Cosie," stammered Faith, "did he--did Dr. Stewart say anything
about his being married. He did not mention his wife, I mean. Cathy
was wondering, and, and----"
"Married! why, to be sure, how stupid of us! I never thought of such
a thing for a moment. Of course he must be; and not one of us has
asked after her," and the little woman patted her big curls in a
flurried manner. "Kit, Kit, my dear," in a loud whisper, "do tell
Dr. Stewart that I want to speak to him."
"Oh, Miss Cosie, pray don't. How can you think of doing such a
thing?" exclaimed Faith, in a perfect agony at this unexpected
proceeding. "He is such a stranger. What will he think of us?" But
her protestations were in vain, for Dr. Stewart had left his place
with alacrity, and had come up to them with the brightest possible
face.
"Did you send for me, Miss Logan?"
"Dear, dear, to think of that, when I have not been called Miss Logan
for the last twenty years. Why even the Bishop says Miss Cosie; but
then, as Faith says, you are a stranger among us, and don't know our
manners."
"Did Miss Faith say that? Well, I shall hope not to be a stranger
long. I will promise not to offend again, Miss Cosie."
"There, there, my dear, if he has not got it as pat as possible, as
though he had known me all my life. Why even the school-children,
bless their little hearts, call me Miss Cosie; I don't know myself
under any other name. But talking of names, Dr. Stewart, and you
have a nice funny, outlandish one of your own, here we have been
together for two whole hours and not one of us has asked after Mrs.
Stewart."
"My mother is dead, Miss Cosie," he replied, very gravely, while
Faith flushed and grew white, and wished herself home again with
Cara. It was too dreadful of Miss Cosie. What would he think of
them?
"Poor thing! well, well, she is better off," returned his
sympathizing questioner; "she is where the weary are at rest, you
know, one must think of that. But I was not speaking of your poor
dear mother, Dr. Stewart, but of your wife."
For a moment Dr. Stewart looked at her in some perplexity, and then
he got red, and glanced at Faith; but Faith had taken possession of
Miss Cosie's knitting, and was doing her best to reduce it to
hopeless and intricate confusion, and then a decidedly amused
expression crossed his face.
"What makes you saddle me with a wife, Miss Cosie?"
"There, there, you must not take it amiss of us," returned the little
woman earnestly, laying her hand on his arm. "Of course we shall be
glad to know her; and if there is anything that I can do to make her
more comfortable when the poor thing comes amongst us a stranger, I
will do it with all my heart."
"But, my dear Miss Cosie," with a smile, "I have no wife."
"No wife!" and Miss Cosie's eyes grew round, and she threw up her
plump little hands in astonishment; "no wife! do you mean she is dead
too, Dr. Stewart?"
"I mean that I never had one," laughing now outright. "Don't you
know poor men have no right to such luxuries? When one has a mother
and a sister to maintain, one must put away those sort of thoughts,
however much one is tempted," and Dr. Stewart spoke now in a
curiously constrained voice.
"Miss Cosie, I must go home now, Cara will be looking for me,"
exclaimed Faith, rising hurriedly. There was a misty look in the
soft blue eyes, and the color had returned to her face.
"May I take the right of an old friend, and come and see you and your
sisters to-morrow," asked Dr. Stewart, as he held her hand. "May I
come and talk to this Cara, of whom I have heard so much?"
"Yes; we shall be very glad," she replied, almost inaudibly, and then
he let her go.
He left Miss Cosie after that, and went back to the little group
gathered round the window; but a change had come over them; they
seemed talking seriously.
"Miss Catherine, are you in earnest?" Mr. Logan was saying, in an
incredulous voice. He pushed his spectacles up to his forehead as he
spoke, and the keen, near-sighted eyes seemed to probe the girl's
soul as he spoke.
Cathy winced, but she maintained her ground unflinchingly.
"Ask Garth and Langley what they think on that subject."
"She is leading us a sad life about it," returned Garth, tilting his
chair that he might have a better view of Queenie. Somehow the
combination of the dark dress and roses took his fancy. Miss
Marriott was certainly very pretty to-night; even Dr. Stewart seemed
to find a certain witchery in the dark eyes, at least Garth thought
so, which put him a trifle out of humor. He had been so long without
a rival in Hepshaw, that the introduction of this sudden new element
of manhood was likely to disturb his equanimity. "Langley says there
are no valid objections, so I suppose we shall have to let her go."
"Let us ask Dr. Stewart what he thinks of it," put in Langley, and,
to her sister's relief, she quietly turned to him, and gave a brief
sketch of Cathy's plan, to which he listened with ready interest,
asking a question here and there in a skilful professional manner.
When he was in possession of all the facts, he turned to Cathy.
"I don't see why it should not answer; at least you might give it a
trial. I like your idea of every woman being trained to a definite
employment; I never could understand the enforced helplessness of the
sex. I have known pitiable examples of women being left dependent on
over-taxed brothers, or turned upon the world absolutely without
resources."
"Your rule holds good with generalities, but in Miss Catherine's
case," began Mr. Logan, but Cathy somewhat proudly interrupted him.
"If it be Miss Catherine's wish to be independent, and hold her own
against the world, no one has a right to interfere. No," speaking
with sparkling eyes, and a certain storminess of manner, "I am not
one of those women who could bear to be cramped and swathed with the
swaddling-clothes of conventionality; I claim my right to work for
work's sake, and to be as free as any other of God's creatures."
"You are quite right, Miss Clayton; I admire your sentiments,"
observed Dr. Stewart.
"Hear, hear," from Garth, somewhat sarcastically. He did not wholly
approve of his wilful little sister's plan. "Bless me, child, you
are hardly more than eighteen; you seem in a vast hurry to make
yourself independent of your brother; no one wants to get rid of you,
you little monkey."
Cathy melted a little at that. She gave him an affectionate glance.
"All the same, you will be wanting to get rid of me one of these
days," she returned, meaningly, and Garth reddened. "Besides, I
don't mean to leave home for good and all; I want to go up to London
and learn nursing in all its branches, and then I shall know if I am
fit for it. A fair trial is all I ask; and if Garth consents, no one
has a right to raise an objection," in an injured, appealing voice.
"You have chosen a noble profession," began Dr. Stewart warmly, but
Mr. Logan quietly interrupted him.
"Granted, my dear sir, provided the motives are equally noble."
"Now, Cath, you are going to catch it from your Mentor," observed her
brother in an amused tone. "Mr. Logan has discovered a flaw in your
grand scheme."
"I suppose one can discover flaws in everything," returned the Vicar
in a musing tone. "Youth is the time for great projects; sometimes
they are another name for restlessness and discontent. Youth lights
a candle,--a farthing dip-light sometimes,--and sets out through the
world to look for duties, and leaves the hearth-stone cold, and old
hearts growing chill round it. I have an old-fashioned notion, that
woman's mission, in its perfectness, very rarely lies beyond the
threshold of home."
"How about Florence Nightingale?" interrupted Cathy.
"Or Sarah Judson?" from Langley.
"Or Mrs. Fry? or Joan of Arc?" commented Dr. Stewart.
"Or we might add Grace Darling, and a score of others," put in Garth.
"All typical women, raised up in their generation to perform a
certain work, and performing it right nobly. The world calls them
heroines, and with reason. They are heroines in the true sense of
the word, for they have discovered the needs of the world, and,
recognizing their own power to remedy, have fearlessly dared to cross
the threshold of home duty for the larger arena, where only the
strong prevail and the weak go to the wall."
"Cathy does not pretend to be a Florence Nightingale," put in
Langley, quietly.
"I thought you always told us to elevate our standard?" a little
defiantly, from Cathy.
"The higher the better," with a benign glance at her; "but it must be
a true standard, unselfishness and self-sacrifice for its base, and
built up of pure motives. If it be one-sided it will topple over."
"Ah! I can't read parables," rather crossly.
"Are you sure that you are really trying to read mine? You remind me
of some little child, Miss Catherine, gathering shells by the
sea-shore, and throwing all the pearls away. If you look far enough
into the meanings of things you will perceive their value. About
your plan, now?"
"I will not hear a word against it," she returned wilfully, and going
over to Miss Cosie. "It is bad enough to have to argue with all
one's home people; but to be lectured in public, and before Dr.
Stewart--no, indeed, Mr. Logan."
"Very well, I will reserve what I have to say in private," he
returned, looking after her with a sort of indulgent tenderness, as
though she were the little child to whom he had compared her; and
Queenie, who was near him, saw a certain vivid brightness in his eyes
as he watched her.
The circle broke up after this; but, though it was tolerably late for
Hepshaw hours, they did not yet talk of separating. It was a lovely
moonlight night, and, at Garth's invitation, Queenie strolled with
him up and down the Vicar's steep, narrow garden. Dr. Stewart joined
them, and talked for some time about his Indian experiences.
They were both novel and interesting, and engrossed them wholly.
Queenie was so fascinated by his description of Indian scenery that
she with difficulty remembered the lateness of the hour, and that
Langley and Cathy would be wondering at her absence; but she at last
made an excuse to leave them.
She lingered for a moment under the shadow of the house to watch the
two dark figures still pacing up and down the steep path. This
evening's excitement had quickened her pulses. The arrival of the
stranger, Miss Faith's repressed agitation at the sight of him,
Cathy's strange restlessness and plan for leaving home, had disturbed
the even current of events. The moral air seemed charged with
electricity and rife with disturbance; somewhere a storm seemed
impending. This sense of movement, of vitality, was not unpleasant;
youth dreads nothing more than monotony. It is only in age that one
sits with folded hands expecting nothing. Garth's manner, too, had
given her pleasure; it had been more than usually friendly. There
had been appreciation in his glance, a certain cordiality in his
tone, that had fallen pleasantly on her ear. "If he will only remain
my friend I shall envy no girl her lover," thought Queenie, with a
sudden fulness of heart; but at that moment she was startled from her
reverie by the sound of voices in the dark entry behind her.
She could hear Mr. Logan's quiet tones, and yes, surely that voice
answering him was Cathy's! Before she could free herself a sentence
or two reached her ear.
"You will think over what I have said, my child? You will be good
and give up this, to please me?"
"No, no," returned the girl passionately, and the low, vehement tones
gave Queenie a shock, for they were broken as though with weeping;
"you must let me go. I will not stay and make you wretched, as I
know I should do."
"You would make me very happy, Catherine."
"No, indeed, Mr. Logan, you are too great, too high for me; I cannot
reach to you. I should tire myself and you with my efforts to be
good. Oh, you must let me go! I must be free! indeed, indeed, I
must be free!"
"Then go, my wild bird, and take my blessing with you; only--" but
here the tones were too low to be distinguished; only as Queenie
moved away a figure brushed past her, and glided down the garden path.
It was Cathy.