THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
Philip's convalescence was a period of enforced companionship between
the two. Mr. De Jarnette had to wait the lifting of the quarantine
before he could go back to the city. Even the court had to wait for the
quarantine. The case would have come on before this had it not been for
postponement on account of it. Nobody had defied it but John Harcourt.
He had done so twice. The first time Richard received him and took his
message to Margaret, watching her closely as she read it.
"Mr. Harcourt?... Oh, yes, I think I will go down--if he isn't afraid. I
_want_ to see him."
He heard Harcourt say a moment later, "Oh, hang your quarantine,
Margaret! I _had_ to come!"
Margaret! It had come to that. The next time Mr. Harcourt came the
master of the house sent a servant for Margaret and walked in the garden
while the visitor was there.
If Richard and Margaret had been companions in sorrow they certainly
were now in joy. His relief that his negligence had not been visited
with the punishment it deserved made him another man than the one she
had known. As to the girl,--she was bubbling over with gladness. She
even jested with him, calling him "Unker Wichard" once, then blushing at
the familiarity, and taking herself to task for it afterwards. But after
all, she told herself in impatient protest, they had fought for him side
by side--why should they not, for a few short hours at least, rejoice
together. He was her foeman still, but the sick-room and its revelations
forbade that he should ever seem her bitter enemy again. She would not
permit herself to think of the case at issue between them. Philip would
live. That was enough now. Let to-morrow and its complications take care
of to-morrow. She could not be less than grateful to him for his
tenderness to Philip. How sweet the apple blossoms were! And the
lilacs!--the bushes that Richard's mother planted, grown to great trees
now. How they filled the air with their fragrance. It was a beautiful
world! Oh, a beautiful world!
A reaction came, of course. As time passed, a depression--natural enough
perhaps--followed the jubilance of those first days. A growing unrest
possessed her. She was not quite easy about Philip, though he seemed to
be getting well. The doctor came only every other day now--or had until
the last few days again. Philip had taken a fancy--just a child's
passing fancy, of course--to go into the next room which was cool and
dark, and opened into his. She came upon Dr. Anderson one day lifting
his eyelids. The next day he brought a friend out with him. She need not
be alarmed, he told her. The case had been rather an unusual one and he
had spoken to Dr. Hawes about it. That was all. But he asked Margaret to
leave them to themselves for a while, which seemed strange to her.
She went down that day to the back porch where Mammy Cely was ironing,
and dropped down on the old stone step. It was not Philip alone that
troubled her this morning. The situation was pressing upon her more and
more each day. How would it all end? and when? It would soon be time for
the quarantine to be lifted. And then--She wished sometimes that when
the case came up she could go into it with all her old hatred of Richard
De Jarnette hot within her. But she knew in her inmost soul that she
never could. Sometimes it rose tempestuously as of old, and sometimes it
died away as a wind dies, leaving a becalmed ship upon a lifeless sea.
What was the matter with her any way? she asked herself angrily. What
had got into her that she could not control her moods?... And why should
Richard De Jarnette make it all so much harder for her by being first
one thing and then another? He was a regular _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_!
"Mammy Cely," she said suddenly, in pursuance of this thought,
"sometimes it seems to me that we are all of us two persons--one evil
and the other good. Sometimes one is on top and sometimes the other. I
get tired of the fight."
"That's so, honey!" said Mammy Cely, never pausing in her work, "that's
jes' the way it is. Ef you was standin' in the pulpit you couldn't
'spound that doctrine any better 'n what you have. Humph! don't I know!
The good Cely been fightin' 'g'inst the bad Cely in me for forty years,
chile, an' all on account er that nigger-trader. I been prayin' fur that
man ever sence I got religion. Yaas 'm! _I had to to git thoo!_ That's
what you has to do--pray fur yo' enemies.
"And now when we're havin' a big meetin' and they all gits to shoutin'
and clappin' their hands, and weavin' around, and singin'
'Oh-h, there shall be mo'nin',
Mo'nin', mo'nin', mo'nin',
Oh-h, there shall be mo'nin',
At the jedgment seat of Christ,'
seems lak I git so happy, and see my Savior so plain that I jes' calls
out, 'Lord, save that man!' (I know the Lord gwineter know who I mean
'thout me callin' any names.)
"And at that here leaps up that ole black Cely in me (that ole sw'arin',
cussin' Cely) and says, 'Yaas, Lord! save him at the last, but shake him
over hell fur a while, and swinge him jes' a little bit!'... Then I know
I got to git down on my knees and go at it ag'in! Yaas 'm, that's the
way we has to fight!"
A few days after this Margaret was sitting at the window in Philip's
room late in the afternoon. The quarantine had been raised and Richard
had gone to town that day for the first time. Somehow it had been a
trying day. Philip had been restless without him. She had been telling
him a story, but it had not been a very satisfactory one--Philip had had
to make frequent suggestions and amendments, for she was absent-minded
and not in her best story-telling vein.
Her eyes wandered down the long avenue of elms that had given the place
its name. What monarchs they were! Well might they be called the kings
of the tree-world. They led clear down to the gate--the big gate that
Philip had been so proud to open for his uncle. How jealous she had been
over that,--and how foolishly. One could hardly see the gate from this
window. She leaned further out. Yes, there was the gate, and--
"Mama," said Philip, "are you looking for Unker Wichard?"
"No!" she said with a sharpness most unusual. "I am looking at the
elms."
"Ain't it most time for Unker Wichard to come?" asked Philip,
querulously. He at least had missed him.
His mother did not answer, except to say as Mammy Cely came in with some
newly hatched chickens to show him, "I'll run down and get you some
lilacs, dearie."
In the garden, laid out after the fashion of a half century ago, were
the lilac trees, white and purple, now in their glory. The garden, kept
immaculate by Uncle Tobe's unremitting care, was as Richard De
Jarnette's mother had left it, with beds of old-fashioned flowers edged
with box. At the further end of it was an arbor covered not with grapes,
but with a luxuriance of wistaria, the long clusters of which hung down
through the trellised roof. The old wistaria, too, was a tree, gnarled
and twisted. It had broken down several arbors, Mammy Cely said, but
Richard would not have it destroyed.
Margaret sat on the seat under the wistaria. She had torn off the lilacs
ruthlessly and had her hot face buried in their cool depths. On the way
hither she had seen a horseman cantering up the avenue. She would stay
here until he had left Philip's room and gone downstairs. She did not
wish to see him. She would be glad if she could never see him again.
There had been a truce between them--yes, of course there _had_ to be
while Philip was so ill--but that was over now. He was her enemy after
all--must always be--no matter which way the thing was settled. It was
best that she should see as little of him as possible. Of course she
would have to remain here as long as Philip needed her--her heart stood
still at the thought of what would happen when he did not need her--but
she would manage it so as to be away when he was in Philip's room. That
would be better--far better.
Then looking up she saw the man she was planning to avoid coming down
the walk toward her.
"I am looking for you," he said, baring his head, sprinkled with gray,
to the soft spring air. "Philip said you were among the lilacs."
She pointed to the fragrant mass in her lap, glad of their confirmation.
"How has he been?"
"Better--I think. Yes--I am sure he is better."
He sat down beside her. "That sounds as if you were keeping something
back. What is it?"
His voice was so kind that foolish tears got into her voice.
"I feel as if something were being kept back from me," she said
passionately. "That is just what the trouble is. It--it seems silly in
me to go to you with every little thing--but--I have no one here--"
"I don't want you to feel that anything which concerns Philip is too
little or too great to come to me with," he said, gravely. "Remember
always that my interest in him is second only to your own. Now--what is
it?"
"Well, if Philip is getting along so well--and he certainly seems to
be--why should Dr. Anderson bring other doctors out here to see him?"
"Other doctors?" he repeated, with a startled look. "What do you mean?"
"I told you about the one who was here a few days ago.
"Yes. I think you said Dr. Anderson told you there were some features
about the case that made it an unusual one, and that he brought the
doctor out to see him for that reason."
"He did. But to-day he brought out another one--somebody from Johns
Hopkins, I think they said--and when I had made up my mind to stay in
the room this time, Dr. Anderson sent me off on some fool's errand--to
get something that I know he didn't want--and when I got back whatever
they wanted to do was done. But just as I got into the room I heard this
man say, 'So long as it affects only the outer circumference
of'--something, I could not catch that--'there is little to fear, but
if--' and then he saw me and stopped."
He did not make light of her fears. He met them with sober sense.
"I shouldn't worry over this, I think. You know that Dr. Anderson can be
trusted. If there is anything you need to know he will tell you.
Besides, you are not even sure that they were talking about Philip.
There is nothing alarming about a physician's taking a brother
practitioner to see a case.... What time will the doctor be here
to-morrow? I may wait and see him myself. Now don't worry over it any
more."
How easy it is to learn to rely on one stronger than ourselves. Margaret
went back to the house strengthened and helped. Richard De Jarnette had
calmed her fears as he would have quieted Philip. She felt almost
humiliated that he should have such power, but she was comforted.
After that talk in the arbor it did not seem quite practicable to put
into effect her determination to absent herself when he was in Philip's
room. In fact, that very night they sat before the open fire which was
kindled as night fell, she with Philip in her arms, and he in his
arm-chair across from her, and though there was not much conversation
between them, there was companionship in his presence.... Their mutual
interest in Philip was a bond between them now that she was so isolated
from her friends.... He had been very gentle to her in the arbor.
"Mama, sing to me," said Philip. And Margaret sang softly the cradle
songs he loved. They made a sweet picture as they sat thus. But in the
midst of her songs Richard got up abruptly and went into the other room,
drawing a great breath when he got there.
The nurse had been reading here, but had gone down-stairs. He stood a
moment looking around the room. It was strangely decorated, if
decoration it could be called. On the walls were Madonna pictures of
every name and age. In his present mood it moved him strangely to see
them. It seemed as if in her desperate fear of being supplanted she had
tried to keep always before Philip the close and tender bond between
mother and child. Nothing else could explain all these pictures. His
eyes went from one to another, pausing longest before that one of modern
times which has been called the "Madonna of the Slums." That seemed to
him the truest of them all and to have the most pathos. Here was no
Virgin of the Immaculate Conception upheld by a knowledge of her
mission,--only the human mother bearing on her arm, divinely strong, the
sleeping child. He wanted to take it from her and rest her arm,--her
tired arm. There was no halo here,--nothing but the shawl, the insignia
of the lowly, about the patient face. He recalled something he had read
once about how in the "elder days of art" the masters painted a nimbus
round the mother's head, leaving her face often inane and weak; but how
later, with a deeper insight if not a subtler skill, he put the halo in
the face.
As he looked at the pictures with this thought in his mind, his eye fell
on the photograph of Margaret and Philip on the mantel.... He took it up
and looked at it.... Yes, the halo was there as surely as in the face of
Virgin mother.... They all had it. He turned the picture to the wall
with a quick frown. This was brave preparation he was making for the
trial which would soon be on now. As he turned the face from him the
words italicized stood out from the printed slip:
"_One scrap alone I hold of all that once was mine._"
He pushed the picture under a book and went out of the room.
Dr. Anderson did not come out till afternoon, but when he did the
Baltimore man was with him. They went almost directly to the sick-room.
"Let me have the nurse, please, this time," the doctor said, and
Margaret, frightened and half indignant, was left outside with Richard.
When the consultation was at an end, the Baltimore man would not sit
down, excusing his haste on the ground that he must catch a train.
Mr. De Jarnette followed him into the hall.
"Doctor--"
"Can't stop," said the doctor, curtly. "Dr. Anderson will say to the
mother all that needs to be said." Plainly he did not recognize Mr. De
Jarnette's rights in the case.
"Dr. Anderson," Margaret was saying when he stepped back into the room,
"what is it? I _must_ know."
For a moment the doctor did not reply. When he did it was not in answer
to her question.
"Mrs. De Jarnette, will you sit down?"
She dropped into the proffered chair. There was something in his voice
that took her strength.
"Mr. De Jarnette, will you too be seated? I have something
of--of--importance--to communicate, and it should be said to both."
Richard De Jarnette was leaning on the mantel. He did not change his
position.
"Go on," he said, briefly.
The doctor gave a slight shrug and turned his back upon him.
"My child," he said very gently, "I want to talk with you about the
nature of this disease. We are not so much afraid of scarletina, or
scarlet fever as you call it, as we used to be. We know better how to
manage it."
"Yes," murmured Margaret, not knowing to what all this tended, "he
really seems to be recovering more quickly than I had even hoped--but--"
"Ye--es, ye--es," continued the doctor, making carefully spaced lines on
a scrap of paper and avoiding her eye. "You see it is not the disease
that we are most afraid of--that is generally easy enough--it yields to
treatment--but--it is--the complications that sometimes arise,--the
after effects."
He was looking into her face now, and she grew white to the lips.
"Doctor!--"
"Yes," with a slight shake of the head, "it is the after effects. I have
known, many children to be left with permanent ear or eye trouble from
scarlet fever. Possibly the danger may be averted--we can never tell at
first--but--"
"Mama!"
Margaret stepped hastily into the next room. In her heart which had
divined the truth she was thankful for a reprieve.
"What do you mean?" asked Richard De Jarnette, harshly, driven by a
great fear. "Why do you torture her so? Say plainly what you mean."
The outraged physician turned upon him savagely.
"I mean, sir," he said with some stiffness, "that this lady's child, who
has unfortunately been allowed to contract scarlet fever, is in great
danger of going blind. Do I make myself plain?"
His voice was low, but so intense in its indignation that it penetrated
to the room beyond.
Richard De Jarnette staggered back as from a blow.
"_Blind!_... Good God!"
He turned abjectly toward the doorway between the two rooms where stood
Margaret, white as death but with face transfigured. _This_ was her
opportunity.... And what would Philip do without her if--With a swift
movement she fell on her knees at his feet and stretched out her hands.
"Richard! oh, Richard!" she cried, her heart in her eyes. "Will you give
him to me if he is blind?"
The old doctor turned to the window with a groan.
And Richard De Jarnette--
Have you ever stood before a monarch of the forest marked for the
woodman's ax? Have you noted its majestic spread, its trunk of massive
girth, its towering branches where
"The century-living crow
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died"?
Have you stood thus and marveled not that so magnificent a thing could
fall by hand of puny man? And have you further noted how it stood at
last--majestic still, but with its strength so sapped, and its
potentiality so meshed that any child might cause its overthrow?
For weeks the mighty oak of this man's pride and obstinacy had been
preparing for its fall. Weak hands they were which had given the
blows--a woman's and a child's; no one suspected that its strength was
gone, he least of all; but when the crucial moment came, it needed but a
baby's groping touch to lay it low.
He took her hands and raised her to her feet.
"Margaret!... Margaret!" he said brokenly. "From this hour--come what
may--the child is yours."
The door closed behind him and the sound of his heavy tread echoed
through the hall,--but she did not hear. The old doctor wiped his eyes,
looked cautiously around, and stole from the room,--but she did not
perceive.
She was on her knees beside her child, sobbing as though her heart would
break.