NEXT DOOR TO THE EVERGREENS.
"Even her little mirror
Bore witness to the change;
For to love the face within it
Was something; new and strange.
She had looked before and seen it
So thin and hard and grey;
Looked, that her hair and collar
Were smooth and in trim array."
_Isa Craig-Knox._
"Cara, Dr. Stewart has come to see you."
It was Faith who spoke. It was the afternoon after Miss Cosie's tea
party, and she had met her old acquaintance down the village and had
brought him in at his solicitation to see her sisters. Matters were
not quite satisfactory to-day. Faith had had a sleepless night after
her excitement, and a racking headache had been the consequence. And
Miss Charity had been in one of her trying moods. A fresh access of
pain made her exacting and irritable. Faith's nervousness and pale
looks met with scant sympathy. "If you were not quite so fond of
gadding about and leaving other people to do your work you would not
be so tired," was the severe comment; the truth being, that poor Miss
Charity was having a bad time of it, and had missed Faith's soft
voice and gentle manipulations.
It did not improve matters when Miss Hope came to the rescue, and
took the book out of her sister's unwilling hands. "There, Faith,
run along and put on your bonnet and get some air; I will read to
Charity," she said, in her brusque, kindly way, and settled herself
vigorously to her task; and Faith, who knew how Cara hated Hope's
reading, hesitated and lingered, and then finally yielded to the
temptation of the fresh air and sunshine.
It was a little trying that at this moment she should meet Dr.
Stewart.
At thirty-five a sleepless night is no beautifier, one lacks youth's
cosmetiques then. Faith knew her heavy half-extinguished eyes had
black rings round them. The face under the close little Quaker
bonnet looked older and more worn than it had last night.
"How do you do, Miss Faith? we can see each other more clearly than
we could last evening. Well, we have neither of us grown younger,"
and Dr. Stewart scrutinized his pale companion with the utmost
composure.
Faith glanced at him rather timidly; his manner troubled her, it was
more brusque, a little rougher than it used to be. The shy young
doctor had seen the world since then. Dr. Stewart certainly looked a
little different this afternoon. He was much older and stouter than
she had thought him yesterday; his whiskers were iron-grey, and his
face had a brown, weather-beaten aspect, and the lines round the
mouth were a trifle hard and sarcastic. She could see him more
clearly than in Miss Cosie's dim room.
"You find me changed too, I dare say," he continued abruptly, reading
her thoughts more shrewdly than of old. "You see I have knocked
about the world for the last seven or eight years, and that makes a
man old before his time."
"I don't think you look particularly old, Dr. Stewart."
"Well, forty is not exactly patriarchal," somewhat sarcastically.
"On the whole I think I am rather proud of my grey hairs, they make
me more important. You ought to have kept younger, Miss Faith,
leading this quiet pastoral life of yours; you have not had all the
hard hits and thumps that fate has dealt me."
"I think inaction is sometimes more trying," she answered faintly,
for this absence of sympathy fretted her; and just then they met
Cathy walking down the road with free easy gait, and carrying a
basket of poppies and wild flowers. She nodded to them hurriedly and
passed on. Dr. Stewart looked after her.
"That is a fine girl with a fine character, I will be bound," he
said, "but I think I admire Miss Marriott more; I like her soft
brunette coloring, and then she has such splendid eyes. Is that fine
fellow, young Clayton, rather smitten with her?"
"I think, I am almost sure, that he cares for some one else; at
least, one never knows," putting up her hand to her head.
"No, one never knows; there is a fate in these things, I believe.
That elder Miss Clayton looks very worn, a story there I expect; most
unmarried women have had their story,--one can read it in their
faces,--and men too, for that matter. There is a skeleton in every
one's cupboard they say. At forty we begin to wonder if life's worth
having after all. Well, well, you have a headache, I see; this
sunshine is making it worse. If you will allow me I will see you
home and call on your sisters."
"They are all at home; they will be very glad to see you," she
stammered, but her heart sank within her.
It was one of Cara's bad days, she might not receive him graciously;
and then what would Dr. Stewart think of their humble little
household? She was absent and nervous all the rest of the way. No
wonder he found her changed.
"Cara, Dr. Stewart has come to see you," she said, in a deprecating
voice, as though she were committing some solecism.
Miss Hope put down her book with a start, and Miss Charity looked up
sharply from her knitting. "Whom did you say, Faith?" in an
inflexible voice.
"An old hospital friend of hers, one of ten years' standing,"
observed Dr. Stewart, throwing himself into the breach with military
promptness. In a moment he recognized the position; his shrewd,
observant glance took in the little parlor and the occupants in a
trice.
It was not a very attractive scene to a man of the world; the details
were homely and uninteresting. The bay window with its geraniums and
fuchsias; the sharp little bright-eyed woman with her high
cheek-bones and thin curls; Miss Hope, vigorous and loud-voiced; and
Miss Prudence's ungainly figure hovering in the background. Faith,
with her pale face and grey dress, looked like a soft speck of shadow
in the sunlight. Dr. Stewart's masculine breadth and freedom of
movement seemed to fill up the little room.
"Dr. Stewart! have we ever heard of him, sister?" asked Miss Charity,
a little sarcastically, and appealing to Miss Hope.
"If you have I dare say you have forgotten it; ten years is a long
time for ladies' memories. I was house-surgeon in the hospital at
Carlisle, where your sister worked."
"Humph!" responded Miss Charity, dryly.
Dr. Stewart's eyes twinkled at the sight of Faith's despondent face;
he was quite master of the position. Miss Charity's cool reception
did not daunt him in the least. He placed himself leisurely by the
side of the little square couch, and eyed its occupant curiously; he
turned over the books that were piled on the narrow table beside her,
and read their titles one after another, and then he began to talk.
How he talked! Faith's downcast face brightened; after a time she
became less nervous. Dr. Stewart did not address himself to her, he
seemed to ignore her existence completely. He talked to Charity, who
let her knitting fall out of her hot, dry fingers as she listened; to
Miss Hope, sitting there erect and open-eyed; even to poor, grim Miss
Prudence, to whom few people talked. Faith raised her soft eyes
every now and then in surprise; she had no idea Dr. Stewart was such
a clever, well-read man; his brusqueness did not jar on her now. To
judge by his conversation he might have read half the books that were
written. He swallowed up Miss Charity's little modicum of
information in a moment, and left her high and dry, with all her long
sentences unsaid. Miss Hope gasped and said, "There, now, would you
have believed it!" to the stock of choice anecdotes with which he
regaled them. Never were four maiden ladies so well entertained on a
summer's afternoon.
Even Miss Prudence, the most rigid of housekeepers, counted over her
scanty store of preserves mentally, and decided to ask him to tea.
Faith almost held her breath for the next moment; but Dr. Stewart
accepted the invitation with alacrity. While the tea was brewing and
Miss Prudence hunted out a remnant of rich cake, he drew his chair a
little closer to Miss Charity, and questioned her somewhat minutely
on the subject of her accident.
"You suffer, of course, a great deal? It is a complicated case, I
fear."
"Yes; I have had my share of pain," she answered cheerfully. The
sharp angles had relaxed now.
"And your prospect of ease is small?"
"Ah, well! it might be worse," she returned resignedly; and somehow
the restless bright eyes and thin ringlets were less repellant to
him. "I have bad times and good times, and have to lie here and make
the best of it. We need to have broken wills, Dr. Stewart."
"Cara is so very patient," interposed Faith, leaning over her
sister's couch.
Miss Charity gave her an odd little push.
"No; I am dreadfully cross, and give heaps of trouble. One's pain
gets into one's temper. Faith's been a good girl to me all these
years; I don't know what I should have done without her."
"Oh, Cara! please don't speak so," whispered poor Faith with tears in
her eyes.
It was Dr. Stewart who said "Humph!" now. He glanced curiously at
the two women before him. Faith was considered quite a girl still by
her sisters.
"I have a temper myself; I believe every one has, though he or she
will not always own to it," he remarked coolly, as he placed himself
by Miss Prudence, and helped himself liberally to seed cake.
It was getting quite dark when he rose at last to take leave. Faith
accompanied him to the door.
"Well, is your headache better? you are not quite so pale," he asked,
not unkindly, as they stood together.
"Yes; the walk and the tea has done it good," she answered evasively.
What if he should guess at her sleepless night?
"I hoped I should have come in for a compliment, and that my
conversation might have helped to charm it away. You used not to be
so matter-of-fact, Miss Faith."
Such a rush of color answered him. "I wonder you recollect so long
ago," she returned somewhat unsteadily.
"I wonder at it myself. Perhaps you have helped to jog my memory.
Well, well, we were young and foolish once. So this has been your
life for the last ten years?"
"Yes; just this, and nothing else," with a sigh.
"No wonder you are thin, and have forgotten how to smile. Ten years
of this sort of thing! Well, you women beat us after all;" and then
he turned on his heel and went down the little garden path bordered
by Faith's roses.
In a very little while Dr. Stewart took up his position in Hepshaw,
and buckled to his work in a stout, uncompromising manner that seemed
natural to him. From his patients he reaped golden opinions, in
spite of a deeply-rooted dislike of humbug, and a tendency to shrug
his shoulders impatiently over feminine fads and fancies. He was
soon a general favorite. He was prompt and kind-hearted; in cases of
real suffering nothing could exceed his patience and watchfulness.
People soon got over his little brusqueness, and said openly that Dr.
Stewart was a real acquisition to the neighborhood.
He had taken temporary lodgings in the village; but report was
already busy with the fact that Juniper Lodge, Dr. Morgan's old
house, next door to the Misses Palmer, had been visited more than
once by the new surgeon. By-and-bye suspicion became certainty, when
painters and workmen arrived on the premises. Soon the forlorn
exterior of Juniper Lodge began to wear a brighter look--the old
green verandah was repainted, fresh papers and plenty of whitewash
made the dark old rooms habitable, the evergreen shrubs were cut down
or transplanted, the walks weeded and gravelled, a van-load of
furniture made its appearance, and a tidy-looking woman with a
pleasant Scotch face, answering to the name of Jean, took up her
residence. The next day there was a brass plate up; and Dr. Stewart
quietly walked into the Evergreens, and announced formally to the
sisters that he was their next-door neighbor.
"And a very pleasant neighbor too," observed Miss Hope to her
gossips; "so different to Dr. Morgan, with that slatternly
housekeeper of his always down at heels and talking to the postman at
the gate. That Jean must be a treasure; it is a treat to look at her
caps and aprons. I have been all over the house, and you could eat
your dinner off the floor, as the saying is. Dr. Stewart drops in to
see us very often; it brightens Charity to have a good chat with him.
They have fine long arguments sometimes, only he always gets the best
of it. He makes a rare commotion when he comes, for he always pulls
up the blinds and throws up the windows, though I tell him not to
expose our shabby old carpet. He had Charity and her couch out on
the lawn the other evening; just fancy! and the poor thing has never
been out for years. She was so pleased and excited that we all had a
cry over it, and then he scolded us all round."
It was quite true that the arrival of Dr. Stewart as their next-door
neighbor made a great change in the little household at the
Evergreens; the introduction of the masculine element diffused new
life and activity. During his brief visits, for he seldom stayed
long, it was wonderful how much Dr. Stewart contrived to effect. The
close little parlor where Faith had toiled over weary books or sewn
long seams by Cara's couch for ten monotonous years was a different
place now. The obnoxious geraniums no longer blocked up the window,
there was plenty of air and light; Faith no longer gasped with pale
cheeks in the close oppressive atmosphere. On fine afternoons Miss
Charity's couch was wheeled out under the apple-trees; the poor lady
could watch the butterflies glancing round her, or the great brown
bees humming round her neighbor's hive. Instead of Trench's
'Parables,' or D'Aubigné's 'Reformation,' suspicious green volumes in
certain standard editions lay beside her. Faith had no need to
stifle hardly-to-be-repressed yawns over Kingsley's 'Hypatia,' or
'Two Years Ago.' 'Laura Doone' and Black's 'Adventures of a Phaeton'
held them enchained for hours.
"I am afraid our tastes are demoralized, we are getting very lax and
dissipated over our reading. It is very nice, but there is no method
in it," sighed Miss Charity.
"You have had solids for ten years, now your digestion needs a
lighter form of nourishment; all work and no play dulls the brain as
well as poor Jack," returned Dr. Stewart decidedly. He had come in
for one of his brief, business-like visits; he was always dropping in
somewhere, at the Vicarage, at Church-Stile House, at Elderberry
Lodge, even at the Sycamores, where comely Mrs. Morris with her seven
olive branches lived. He did not favor Brierwood Cottage often with
his visits, but he constantly met Queenie going to and from her
school, and walked beside her in animated conversation.
Faith met them sometimes as she went about her charitable errands
among the cottages; she would turn a little pale and pass on somewhat
hurriedly. Dr. Stewart never stopped her on these occasions; he
would go on with his talk, casting shrewd kindly glances under the
girl's shady straw hat. Poor Faith would look at them wistfully,
with a shy, deprecating smile; she would have a certain sinking of
heart for hours afterwards. "He admires her, I knew he would," she
would say to herself a little sadly.
Poor Miss Faith! it may be doubted if this revival of an old intimacy
were a source of unalloyed pleasure. True, the changeless monotony
of her days was broken up; but the new interest and excitement had
their draw-backs.
Time, after its usual kindly fashion, had to a certain extent healed
her wound; the passionate yearning of ten years ago had merged into
sad serenity. Faith treasured the remembrance of those few fleeting
months, as women will treasure their one romance; those unfinished
hopes and fears were buried tenderly in her breast. She had ceased
to suffer, but she had not ceased to remember; the sacred impression
had stamped her whole life.
And now, when the freshness of youth had passed, she had met her
ideal again; but was the girl's ideal likely to be the woman's
reality? did she fully recognize in Dr. Stewart the dark young
surgeon in that Carlisle hospital, whose soft looks and words had won
her heart?
Faith winced secretly at these questions, as she did at Dr. Stewart's
brusque remarks. His experience, his knowledge of the world, his
laxity and breadth of church views, daunted the simple woman; once or
twice his roughness of argument hurt her.
"Ah, I am a poor creature!" she said to him once. "I am not one of
the clever ones, like you and Cara."
"No; you are only so so, Miss Faith; your knowledge of the world is
not in any way remarkable; you are not one of the strong-minded
women," with a little dry chuckle, with which he would conclude his
remarks.
But, though he hurt and disappointed her, there were times when a
sudden softening of voice or look brought back the past with strange
vividness. Now and then he let fall a word that showed that he too
had not forgotten, some chance allusion to old scenes, some memory of
her tastes. "Ah, you used to like this, Miss Faith," or some such
speech, that brought a flush of pleasure to her face.
Dr. Stewart looked very benign as he glanced at the homely group
before him on the afternoon in question.
"This is better than twenty feet by eighteen of stuffiness," he said
in his concise way.
The sisterhood were all gathered on the lawn. Miss Charity's
favorite--an enormous tabby--was purring underneath the old scarlet
wrapper; Miss Hope's knitting-needles clicked busily; Miss Patience
was occupied over some silk patch-work, the little squares and
diamonds shone in the sunlight; Faith was reading aloud 'Westward
Ho.' She put down the book with a bright, welcoming smile. The
interest of the story had moved her, her eyes shone with soft,
serious excitement; there was a scent of tall white lilies. Dr.
Stewart's bees were humming noisily; a light wind stirred the long
grass shadows; Miss Charity's curls were in disorder. Some fine
white-heart cherries hung over Dr. Stewart's head; he commenced
gathering some, "by way of dessert," he said coolly as he transferred
them to his own pocket. "Why did they not call you Cherry, Miss
Charity, instead of that affected Cara?"
"It is only one of Faith's whims," returned Miss Hope; "neither Prue
nor I ever use it; she begun it as a child and never left off."
"Why should I not use it, it is far softer and prettier than
Charity?" interposed Faith appealingly. Dr. Stewart gave one of his
dry laughs.
"Every one has a right to their own fancies. I am prosaic enough to
dislike pet names. Cara, when one is christened Charity!" with a
contemptuous shrug; "why, it is a direct snub to one's sponsors."
Faith looked uncomfortable; she always did when Dr. Stewart was in
one of his quizzical moods. At such times he was given to find fault
with everything. But in another moment he became serious.
"What an odd fancy that was of Chester's calling his little girl Nan.
She is a pretty little creature, and her father seems to dote on her.
I was over there yesterday; Mrs. Chester had one of her attacks."
"Poor thing!" sighed Miss Charity, "she is very delicate. People are
fond of calling her fanciful, and no doubt she is full of whimsies
like the rest of us; but it is hard work having an ailing body and an
ailing temper too."
"Yes," he assented; "she has her share of trouble, but she has got
the blessing of a good husband." But here Miss Prudence shook her
head grimly. She rarely joined in the conversation if a stranger
were present; and, as her remarks were generally of a lugubrious
nature, they were not greatly missed.
"An ill-assorted couple, doctor," smoothing her black mittens with
sad satisfaction. Miss Prudence was much given to expatiate in the
domestic circle on the evils of matrimony, and to thank Heaven that
she and her three sisters had not fallen into the hands of the
Philistines; a peculiarly happy state of resignation for an
unattractive woman, with a rigid and cast-iron exterior, and endowed
besides with a masculine appendage of the upper lip.
"Humph!" grunted the doctor laconically; for he had an ill-concealed
antagonism to Miss Prudence, and disliked gossiping about his
patients' affairs.
"If we were to add up all the ill-assorted marriages in the world,
the sum would last us a long time," observed Miss Hope
philosophically.
"Right, my dear madam," was the brisk answer; "but 'if folk, won't
suit themselves properly it is not other people's fault,' as the old
clerk said when--when the wrong couple got married."
"They say marriages are made in heaven," began Miss Charity, a little
sentimentally; but Dr. Stewart interrupted her.
"They say so; but don't you think there is a good deal of human
bungling and obstinacy at the bottom? One can't fancy the angels,
for example, taking a very great interest in a _marriage de
convenance_, or a ceremony where title-deeds and money-bags play too
prominent a part! I have seen something of human nature, Miss
Charity, and have often found occasion for astonishment at the sad
mess men, and women too, make over their lives."
"I don't think women are often to blame," observed Faith in a low
voice.
"Humph! so that is your experience," with an odd, inexplicable look
as he rose from the grass. "Well, ladies, this is vastly
entertaining, and one could learn a good deal, no doubt; but there is
work waiting for me in the shape of Jemmy Bates' broken leg, which,
by-the-bye, Miss Faith, is progressing most favorably," and, with a
benevolent nod that included them all, Dr. Stewart walked off, still
munching his cherries.