DOCTOR STEDMAN'S PATIENT
Bright and early the next morning, Mrs. Pryor presented herself at Mrs.
Tree's door. It was another Indian summer morning, mild and soft. As she
came up the street, Mrs. Pryor had seen, or thought she had seen, a
figure sitting in the wicker rocking-chair on the porch. The chair was
empty now, but it was rocking--perhaps with the wind.
Direxia Hawkes answered the visitor's knock.
"How do you do, Direxia?" said Mrs. Pryor, in sprightly tones. "You
remember me, of course,--Miss Maria. Will you tell Mrs. Tree that I have
come, please?"
She made a motion to enter, but Direxia stood in the doorway, grim and
forbidding.
"Mis' Tree can't see anybody this morning," she said.
Mrs. Pryor smiled approvingly. "I see you are a good watch-dog, Direxia.
Very proper, I am sure, not to let my aunt, at her age, be annoyed by
ordinary visitors; but your care is unnecessary in this case. I will
just step into the parlor, and you can tell her that I am here. Probably
she will wish me to come up at once to her room, but you may as well go
first, just to prepare her. Any shock, however joyful, is to be avoided
with the aged."
She moved forward again, but Direxia Hawkes did not stir.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I am so; but I can't let you in, Mis' Pryor, I
can't nohow."
"Cannot let me in?" repeated Mrs. Pryor. "What does this mean? It is
some conspiracy. Of course I know there is a jealousy, but this is
too--stand aside this moment, my good creature, and don't be insolent,
or you will repent of it. I shall inform my aunt. Do you know who I
am?"
"Yes'm, I know well enough who you are. Yes'm, I know you are her own
niece, but if you was fifty nieces I couldn't let you in. She ain't
goin' to see a livin' soul to-day except Doctor Stedman. You might see
him, after he's ben here," she added, relenting a little at the keen
chagrin in the visitor's face.
Mrs. Pryor caught at the straw.
"Ah! she has sent for Doctor Stedman. Very right, very proper! Of
course, if my aunt does not think it wise to see any one until after the
physician's visit, I can understand that. Nobody is more careful about
such matters than I am. I will see Doctor Stedman myself, get his advice
and directions, and call again. Give my love to my aunt, Direxia, and
tell her"--she stretched her neck toward the door--"tell her that I am
greatly distressed not to see her, and still more to hear that she is
indisposed; but that very soon, as soon as possible after the doctor's
visit, I shall come again and devote myself to her."
"Scat!" said a harsh voice from within.
"Mercy on me! what's that?" cried Mrs. Pryor.
"Scat! _quousque tandem, O Catilina?_ Helen was a beauty, Xantippe
was--"
"Hold your tongue!" said Direxia Hawkes, hastily. "It's only the parrot.
He is the worst-actin'--good mornin', Mis' Pryor!"
She closed the door on a volley of screeches that was pouring from the
doorway.
Mrs. Pryor, rustling and crackling with indignation against the world in
general, made her way down the garden path. She was fumbling with the
latch of the gate, when the door of the opposite house opened, and a
large woman came out and, hastening across the road, met her with
outstretched hand.
"Do tell me if this isn't Mis' Pryor!" said the large women, cordially.
"I felt sure it must be you; I heard you was in town. You haven't
forgotten Mis' Weight, Malviny Askem as was? Well, I am pleased to see
you. Walk in, won't you? now do! Why, you _are_ a stranger! Step right
in this way!"
Nothing loth, Mrs. Pryor stepped in, and was ushered into the
sitting-room.
"Deacon, here's an old friend, if I may presume to say so; Mis' Pryor,
Miss Maria Darracott as was. You'll be rejoiced, well I know. Isick and
Annie Lizzie, come here this minute and shake hands! Your right hand,
Annie Lizzie, and take your finger out of your mouth, or I'll sl--I
shall have to speak to you. Let me take your bunnet, Maria, mayn't I?"
Deacon Weight heaved himself out of his chair, and received the visitor
with ponderous cordiality. "It is a long time since we have had the
pleasure of welcoming you to Elmerton, Mrs. Pryor," he said. "Your
family has sustained a great loss, ma'am, a great loss. Miss Phoebe
Blyth is universally lamented."
Yes, indeed, a sad loss, Mrs. Pryor said. She regretted deeply that she
had not been able to be present at the last sad rites. She had been
tenderly attached to her cousin, whom she had not seen for twenty years.
"But I have come now," she said, "to devote myself to those who remain.
My cousin Vesta looks sadly ill and shrunken, really an old woman, and
my aunt Mrs. Tree is seriously ill, I am told, unable even to see me
until after the doctor's visit. Very sad! At her age, of course the
slightest thing in the nature of a seizure would probably be fatal. Have
you seen her recently, may I ask?"
Deacon Weight crossed and uncrossed his legs uneasily. Mrs. Weight
bridled, and pursed her lips.
"We don't often see Mis' Tree to speak to," she said. "There's those
you can be neighborly with, and there's those you can't. Mis' Tree has
never showed the wish to _be_ neighborly, and I am not one to put forth,
neither is the deacon. Where we are wished for, we go, and the reverse,
we stay away. We do what duty calls for, no more. I did see Mis' Tree at
Phoebe's funeral," she added, "and she looked gashly then. I hope she
is prepared, I reelly do. I know Phoebe was real uneasy about her. We
make her the subject of prayer, the deacon and I, but that's all we
_can_ do; and I feel bound to say to you, Mis' Pryor, that in _my_
opinion, your aunt's soul is in a more perilous way than her body."
Mrs. Pryor seemed less concerned about the condition of Mrs. Tree's soul
than might have been expected. She asked many questions about the old
lady's manner of life, who came to the house, how she spent her time,
etc. Mrs. Weight answered with eager volubility. She told how often the
butcher came, and what costly delicacies he left; how few and far
between were what she might call spiritooal visits; "for our pastor is
young, Mis' Pryor, and it's not to be expected that he could have the
power of exhortation to compare with those who have labored in the
vineyard the len'th of time Deacon Weight has. Then, too, she has a way
that rides him down--Mr. Bliss, I'm speakin' of--and makes him ready to
talk about any truck and dicker she likes. I see him come out the other
day, laughin' fit to split; you'd never think he was a minister of the
gospel. Not that I should wish to be understood as sayin' anything
against Mr. Bliss; the young are easily led, even the best of them.
Isick, don't stand gappin' there! Shut your mouth, and go finish your
chores. And Annie Lizzie, you go and peel some apples for mother. Yes,
you can, just as well as not; don't answer me like that! No, you don't
want a cooky now, you ain't been up from breakfast more than--well, just
one, then, and mind you pick out a small one! Mis' Pryor, I didn't like
to speak too plain before them innocents, but it's easy to see why Mis'
Tree clings as she doos to the things of this world. If I had the
outlook she has for the next, I should tremble in my bed, I should so."
Finally the visitor departed, promising to come again soon. After a
baffled glance at Mrs. Tree's house, which showed an uncompromising
front of closed windows and muslin curtains, she made her way to the
post-office, where for a stricken hour she harried Mr. Homer Hollopeter.
She was his cousin too, in the fifth or sixth degree, and as she
cheerfully told him, Darracott blood was a bond, even to the last drop
of it. She questioned him as to his income, his housekeeping, his
reasons for remaining single, which appeared to her insufficient, not
to say childish; she commented on his looks, the fashion of his dress
(it was a manifest absurdity for a man of his years to wear a sky-blue
neck-tie!), the decorations of his office. She thought a portrait of the
President, or George Washington, would be more appropriate than those
dingy engravings. Who were--oh, Keats and Shelley? No one admired poetry
more than she did; she had read Keats's "Christian Year" only a short
time ago; charming!
"And what is that landscape, Cousin Homer? Something foreign, evidently.
I always think that a government office should be representative _of_
the government. I have a print at home, a bird's-eye view of Washington
in 1859, which I will send you if you like. I suppose you have an
express frank? No? How mean of Congress! What did you say this mountain
was?"
Mr. Homer, who had received Mrs. Pryor's remarks in meekness and--so
far as might be--in silence, waving his head and arms now and then in
mute dissent, now looked up at the mountain photograph; he opened and
shut his mouth several times before he found speech.
"The picture," he said, slowly, "represents a--a--mountain; a--a--in
short,--a mountain!" and not another word could he be got to say about
it.
Doctor Stedman had a long round to go that day, and it was not till late
afternoon that he reached home and found a message from Mrs. Tree saying
that she wished to see him. He hastened to the house; Direxia, who had
evidently been watching for him, opened the door almost before he
knocked.
"Nothing serious, I trust, Direxia!" he asked, anxiously. "I have been
out of town, and am only just back."
"Hush!" whispered Direxia, with a glance toward the parlor door. "I
don't know; I can't make out--"
"Come in, James Stedman!" called Mrs. Tree from the parlor. "Don't stand
there gossiping with Direxia; I didn't send for you to see her."
Direxia lifted her hands and eyes with an eloquent gesture. "She is the
beat of all!" she murmured, and fled to her kitchen.
Entering the parlor Doctor Stedman found Mrs. Tree sitting by the fire
as usual, with her feet on the fender. Sitting, but not attired, as
usual. She was dressed, or rather enveloped, in a vast quilted wrapper
of flowered satin, tulips and poppies on a pale buff ground, and her
head was surmounted by the most astonishing nightcap that ever the mind
of woman devised. So ample and manifold were its flapping borders, and
so small the keen brown face under them, that Doctor Stedman, though not
an imaginative person, could think of nothing but a walnut set in the
centre of a cauliflower.
"Good afternoon, James Stedman!" said the old lady. "I am sick, you
see."
"I see, Mrs. Tree," said the doctor, glancing from the wrapper and cap
to the bowl and spoon that stood on the violet-wood table. He had seen
these things before. "You don't feel seriously out of trim, I hope?"
Mrs. Tree fixed him with a bright black eye.
"At my age, James, everything is serious," she said, gravely. "You know
that as well as I do."
"Yes, I know that!" said Doctor Stedman. He laid his hand on her wrist
for a moment, then returned her look with one as keen as her own.
"Have you any symptoms for me?"
"I thought that was your business!" said the patient.
"Hum!" said Doctor Stedman. "How long, have you been--a--feeling like
this?"
"Ever since yesterday; no, the day before. I am excessively nervous,
James. I am unfit to talk, utterly unfit; I cannot see people. I want
you to keep people away from me for--for some days. You must see that I
am unfit to see anybody!"
"Ha!" said Doctor Stedman.
"It agitates me!" cried the old lady. "At my age I cannot afford to be
agitated. Have some orange cordial, James; do! it is in the Moorish
cabinet there, the right-hand cupboard. Yes, you may bring two glasses
if you like; I feel a sinking. You see that I am in no condition for
visitors."
The corners of Doctor Stedman's gray beard twitched; but he poured a
small portion of the cordial into two fat little gilt tumblers, and
handed one gravely to his patient.
[Illustration: "'PERHAPS THIS IS AS GOOD MEDICINE AS YOU CAN TAKE!' HE
SAID."]
"Perhaps this is as good medicine as you can take!" he said.
"Delicious! Does the secret of this die with Direxia? But I'll put you
up some powders, Mrs. Tree, for the--a--nervousness; and I certainly
think it would be a good plan for you to keep very quiet for awhile."
"I'll see no one!" cried the old lady. "Not even Vesta, James!"
"Hum!" said Doctor Stedman. "Well, if you say so, not even Vesta."
"Vesta is so literal, you see!" said Mrs. Tree, comfortably. "Then that
is settled; and you will give your orders to Direxia. I am utterly unfit
to talk, and you forbid me to see anybody. How do you think Vesta is
looking, James?"
Doctor Stedman's eyes, which had been twinkling merrily under his shaggy
eyebrows, grew suddenly grave.
"Badly!" he said, briefly. "Worn, tired--almost sick. She ought to have
absolute rest, mind, body, and soul, and, instead of that, here comes
this--"
"Catamaran?" suggested Mrs. Tree, blandly.
"You know her better than I do," said James Stedman. "Here she comes, at
any rate, and settles down on Vesta, and announces that she has come to
stay. It ought not to be allowed. Mrs. Tree, I want Vesta to go away;
_she_ is unfit for visitors, if you will. I want her to go off somewhere
for an entire change. Can it not be managed in some way?"
"Why don't you take her?" said Mrs. Tree.
The slow red crept into James Stedman's strong, kindly face. He made no
reply at first, but sat looking into the fire, while the old woman
watched him.
At last--"You asked me that once before, Mrs. Tree," he said, with an
effort; "how many years ago was it? Never mind! I can only make the same
answer that I made then. She will not come."
"Have you tried again, James?"
"Yes, I have tried again, or--tried to try. I will not persecute her; I
told you that before."
"Has the little idiot--has she any reason to give?"
Doctor Stedman gave a short laugh. "She doesn't wish it; isn't that
reason enough? I said something about her being alone; I couldn't help
it, she looked so little, and--but she feels that she will never be
alone so long as--that is, she feels that she has all the companionship
she needs."
"So long as what? So long as I am alive, hey?" said the old lady. Her
eyes were like sparks of black fire, but James Stedman would not meet
them. He stared moodily before him, and made no reply.
"I am a meddlesome old woman!" said Mrs. Tree. "You wish I would leave
you alone, James Stedman, and so I will. Old women ought to be
strangled; there's some place where they do it, Cap'n Tree told me about
it once; I suppose it's because they talk too much. She said she
shouldn't be alone while I lived, hey? Where are you going, James? Stay
and have supper with me; do! it would be a charity; and there's a larded
partridge with bread sauce. Direxia's bread sauce is the best in the
world, you know that."
"Yes, I know!" said Doctor Stedman, his eyes twinkling once more as he
took up his hat. "I wish I could stay, but I have still one or two calls
to make. But--larded partridge, Mrs. Tree, in your condition! I am
surprised at you. I would recommend a cup of gruel and a slice of thin
toast without butter."
"Cat's foot!" said Mrs. Tree. "Well, good-night, James; and don't forget
the orders to Direxia: I am utterly unfit to talk and must not see any
one."