The next few days were quiet dreamy ones to the invalid. Not much
conversation was allowed in his room, and he did not seem inclined to
talk. To watch Victoria as she glided silently about performing the
usual duties, was happiness enough for him. There was a world of
enduring patient love in his eyes, as they followed her every motion.
His thoughts were always of her. “Was there ever woman so noble, so
forgiving? If he had loved her in the days gone by, what was _this_
feeling which now thrilled him whenever she laved his face or touched
his hand? It was as if the hand of an angel had been laid upon him.” He
felt purified, exhilarated, free from all sin. Her calm spirituelle face
soothed and quieted him. He longed to utter what was in his mind; to
tell her how sanctified she had become to him; to pray to her as a
Catholic prays to his patron saint. Knowing his sin, knowing how he had
deceived her, she did not turn from him in scorn and loathing, as any
other woman would have done, but true to herself, compassionate,
forgiving, she had stayed by him tenderly nursing him back to health and
strength. He knew that to her never-ceasing care he owed his life, but
not for a moment was he vain enough to attribute it to love for him. The
love which was just springing up in her heart like a tender flower, must
have been ruthlessly crushed when she knew of his base deception which
had continued for so many years, and now that she knew Roger was living,
her love would again return to him and rightfully, Andrew did not rebel
at the thought. There could never be any more hatred for Roger in his
heart. The noble conduct of this more than noble woman had forever
dispelled it. Without a murmur he would resign her, content in knowing
that she had forgiven him; content to worship her from afar, living over
again the fragrant past, taking no hopes for the future for he could see
none. The doctor had said that Roger’s days were numbered, but what of
that, Victoria would never return to him who had ruined her life. Ah,
no, her forebearance could not be expected to extend that far, and
somehow the thought did not affect him, as it would have done before
this sickness. His love for Victoria was purer, of a higher order than
before. She seemed no longer a mortal but a being most celestial, and he
would not have been at all surprised had he seen wings suddenly appear
upon her form and Victoria soaring away into space far, far beyond his
gaze.
Victoria was conscious of Andrew’s eyes following her every motion, and
she strove to curb the strong passion which at times threatened to
master her. She longed to cast herself beside him; to confess the
overpowering influence which drew her to him despite her will; to tell
him that now, God pity her, she loved him with a strength, a passion,
which was as deep as his own, and that the man upstairs, who should be
all in all to her, was nothing, nothing, nor ever would be. She cared
for him less than she cared for Mary, and in the same maternal way; but
for the man who had sinned so grievously against her and her child; who
had not hesitated to commit a crime which if known meant years of
imprisonment; for this man, guilty though he might be, she was willing
to suffer anything, rather than be separated from him. And why _was_ it
so? That she was unable to explain even to herself. She only knew that
so it was, incredible as it might seem to anybody who had never been
tempted in like manner. To save the man she loved she resolved to keep
Roger in imprisonment, whatever might be the cost, and to let things go
on as before. She felt a satisfaction in the thought that in so doing
her guilt would be equal to Andrew’s. Therefore one could not reproach
the other.
Few words had passed between them. Once when she had been feeding to him
some gruel, he had kissed her hand and murmured: “My angel,” in tones
which stirred every fiber in her heart, and set them quivering. She had
not answered him. She could not. If she had, such a torrent of burning
words would have escaped her, that in his weak state might have proved
disastrous. To kill him now would be to kill herself, so she veiled her
eyes when obliged to approach him, and her calm, low voice, and rather
cold features, told not of the storm-tossed soul within the fragile
frame.
Mary had been allowed in for a few moments each day, but her incessant
chattering wearied Andrew. He loved his child. The sight of her glad
face brought him new life. Her kisses were like strong wine, yet in a
short time he tired of her, and was glad when the door closed upon her,
and he was once more left alone with his waking dreams, wherein
Victoria, “his angel,” was always the central figure.
Despite Victoria’s entreaties the doctor had gone back to his cheerless
bachelor quarters which he shared with a younger colleague who had taken
the doctor’s patients during Andrew’s illness. Back to a landlady who
resembled a feather pillow tied tightly around the middle; a landlady
who wore a false front many shades darker than the back hair; who
sniffed when she poured his tea, sniffed when she passed him an article
of food, and who had a very annoying habit of inquiring after each and
every patient by name, and of enumerating their several ailments for the
benefit of the other boarders who did not know, and who did not care to
know, but who bore the infliction with martyr-like stoicism. From what
source she gathered her information was a mystery to the doctor who was
most reticent in all things pertaining to his profession. He would have
left her establishment long ago only it was “Hobson’s choice” with him.
There was none other. She was sole monarch over the stomachs of all the
homeless men in Fort Henry, and if any dared to grumble at the food
placed before him she could afford to toss her head and tell him, “if he
didn’t like it he knew what he could do,” which was just what the
hapless individual did not know. The doctor never grumbled over the
culinary arrangements. He was never known to perpetrate but one joke on
the good woman, which, although hugely enjoyed by those who heard it,
fell far short of the mark shot at.
One day the doctor came to his dinner with a ravenous appetite. He had
been in the saddle since daybreak without a mouthful. A brown substance
was set before him which he eyed rather suspiciously. At last hunger
conquered suspicion, and he took a mouthful. He chewed and chewed, and
finally with a gulp which brought the tears to his eyes, he swallowed
it. The few who had suffered before him were watching silently.
“What do you call this dish?” he gravely asked his landlady.
“Fried sole,” she replied, busy with the cups and saucers.
“Ah?” he exclaimed, quickly. “What shoemaker do you deal with? I must
know him.”
A general laugh followed his query. Only the landlady maintained her
gravity. She had heard nothing to laugh at. “I most generally trade at
the sign of the boot,” she said, casting a withering look around the
table, but which changed to a smile as she looked at the doctor. “I
never had cause to complain, although I will say that my last congress
gaiters ain’t goin’ to wear near so good as t’others, but on the whole
I’d advise you to go there, doctor. They’ll treat you well, especially
if you have corns.”
The doctor looked helplessly at his companions and then collapsed. His
first and only joke had been a failure. “Requiescat in pace,” he
murmured, which quotation caused another outbreak among the diners, but
they were quickly frowned down by the austere mistress. She had no
affinity between fried soles and her shoemaker, but she _did_ look with
approving eyes at the doctor, who had noticed her feet enough to ask
what shoemaker she employed. “He was a dear man, and near her own age;
could it be possible he was thinking of matrimony, and with her? Well,
if so, he should be rewarded. She had saved a tidy little sum since
Samuel died,” (Samuel being the dear departed, of course), “and it
should be all his, every cent. He should see how generous she could be.
The dear, good man.”
After this she watched over his going out and coming in with almost
wisely solicitude. She managed by hook or by crook to know who were his
patients, and what their ailments. It necessitated a reckless
expenditure of coppers among the street gamin, but it might pay her in
the end, so she thought. He could not very well ignore her, when he
found how anxiously she studied his every interest. She even went so far
as to purloin several medical works from his study in his absence, so as
to read up against the time when she might have to entertain him whole
evenings in her parlor, which until now had been sacred to Sundays and
“other high days,” as she called them. No boarder’s profane foot had
ever desecrated the jaundiced carpet, whose flaring green and yellow
figures, if made in our day and time, would have driven Oscar Wilde much
wilder. The stiff, horsehair chairs were miracles in their way. It
required courage and a certain amount of finesse on the part of a
would-be occupant, ere he dared entrust himself to their embrace—a cold,
slippery embrace, not at all reassuring. Even a huge oil painting of the
dear, departed Samuel, taken in Highland costume, could not lend a
festive aspect to the room. In all things but the carpet it was
decidedly funereal. Into this “cheerful” retreat she ushered the doctor
the night of his return from “The Five Gables.” She had literally killed
the fatted calf in honor of his return. The supper-table groaned beneath
the unwonted weight of so many delicacies heaped upon it. The widow was
resplendent in a new false front which _curled_. She had given several
shin-plasters for those curls, “something quite new,” the shopkeeper
told her, “and recently adopted by the Queen of England.” It was not
without some misgivings that she indulged in this reckless piece of
extravagance, but there was much at stake. Those curls might be the
means of a proposal. “Mrs. Dr. Arthur Harrison.” The name was magical.
Without so much as a sigh she counted out the necessary amount, and the
curls were hers.
She made the chore boy saw a new board for her stays, which she laced
until every breath she drew was a sigh. She could not even sniff without
a pang in her bosom, and after she was dressed she ordered the maid of
all work to go around her with a tape line. She smiled, although it was
a mighty effort, when she heard the girl exclaim: “Thirty-four inches,
Mistress Jackson; that’s two inches less than last week, and three
inches less than the week before.” What a sacrifice was she offering
upon the altar of her love. She met the doctor with a fat smile, which
she meant should be captivating, but which only served to make her
ridiculous. The doctor thought as he went slowly to his study: “I wonder
what has come over the old lass. She seems a good deal spruced up. It
must be that she is on the war path for a successor to the dear
departed. Well I wish her all the good fortune that may attend her.
Fortune is a fickle jade.”
He did not dream that all these demonstrations were in honor of his
modest self.
The boarders looked at one another as their landlady with a sweet smile,
asked the doctor to accompany her to the parlor as they left the table.
What was about to happen? Were the skies going to fall? Were their eyes
to behold that sacred veil, i. e.—the door—lifted so that at last they
might gaze on what lay beyond? Oh, no, the landlady had other plans. As
the doctor could hardly refuse her invitation this first evening of his
return, he acquiesced with as good grace as possible.
Taking his arm and giggling like a girl of sixteen, she swept him out of
the door on to the veranda, and unlocking the big green door, ushered
him with an awed manner into the sacred room. The semi-twilight which
struggled through the drawn shades, was embarrassing in the extreme to
the doctor, who was all at sea as to his surroundings. He dared not
advance a step in any direction, for huge shapes loomed up before him,
the likeness of which he could only imagine. Vague feelings of mistrust
as to his landlady’s designs began to steal upon him. He wished he had
not come. She still held his arm, and she now gave it a little squeeze
which made him feel chilly. “Horrors! what was this dreadful woman about
to say or do?” He resolved to forestall her by saying: “Madam, take pity
on my youth and innocence. I am an orphan, with neither father or
mother, and two hundred miles from home,” but ere he could muster his
courage she had left him, and in a moment he heard a flint struck, and
she came toward him bearing a candelabra which she set upon a table. He
could now see where he was, and as she said: “Be seated, doctor,” he
gingerly consigned himself to one of the horsehair chairs, which looked
to him like an evil spirit in disguise.
She seated herself in a similar chair, which she drew perilously near
the doctor. He would have liked to move away, but he felt a slipperiness
which warned him that any unguarded move might send him upon the floor.
He raised his eyes to where hung the portrait of the dear departed.
Here, at least, was a safe subject for conversation.
“A fine-looking man,” he said, nodding at the sepulchral face of Samuel.
“Ah, now, you be talking,” replied the widow, with a loud sniff, which
caused her untold agony in the region of her waist. “Oh, he was a man
what _was_ a man, was that one. Never a word of fault about anything,
just that even tempered was he. Give him his ale and a pipe, and you’d
never know he was in the house. He was Scotch, you know.”
“I perceive that,” said the doctor, who felt in duty bound to say
something.
“Yes,” continued the widow, “that picture I had copied. A man came along
and stopped with me two weeks. He never paid me any board money. He
hadn’t any money, so he said as how he would paint my Samuel’s picter.
It’s as nateral as life, only one thing, Samuel had a cast in one eye. I
often longed to know how he would look with two straight eyes, so I had
him painted with both eyes alike. Oh, how I have admired that picter. It
was the only thing I didn’t quite love him for, that squint. Sometimes
it were worse nor others, and I know when he was courting me, I used to
imagine he had one eye on me and tother on the timepiece, as if he was
thinking about going every minute. He’s been dead seven year. I wore my
bombazine as long as any widow ever does. I mourned him faithful. Folks
ought not to gossip if I see fit to choose another.” She heaved a sigh
and looked coyly at the doctor. “I have saved a good bit of money, and
it’s all in stocks and bonds. This house and the next one is mine, clear
from debt. I don’t owe anybody. I’m as good a match for a man of my age
as you’ll find in a long run.”
The doctor fidgeted. “Was he listening to a proposal from this old
busybody, who was old enough to be his mother, or she ought to be, if
she wasn’t? Would nothing help him out of this dilemma?” In his
uneasiness he had been perilously nearing the edge of the chair, but he
was unaware of his peril. He was trying to conjure some excuse for
leaving the room without telling a down-right lie. “My dear,”—he was
about to add “madam,” but his evil star was just then in the ascendant,
for, without warning, before he could regain his balance, the
treacherous horsehair deposited him at the widow’s feet. She did not
wait for him to finish his sentence. The sight of him upon his knees
before her, where she had so often seen him in her dreams, was too much,
and clasping him around the neck, she held his head tightly against her
expansive breast, while she sobbed: “Yes, I know I am your dear. Oh,
Arthur! how happy we shall be! I’ll turn all the boarders away, and
we’ll live here all alone, just you and me, ducky.”
The doctor struggled to free himself. He felt as if he was slowly
suffocating, but she held him fast.
“Oh, how good it seems to again hold a dear head like this,” she
continued, patting him heavily. The doctor groaned.
“And don’t my petsie, wetsie, feel good?” she asked, kissing the bald
spot on his head. “Is he sick? Oh, I am such a wonderful nurse. Where is
the pain, ducky?”
She let up on her hold of him for a moment, and he partly struggled to
his feet, but she caught him again.
“Let me go, woman!” he roared, “you must be mad, stark, staring mad!
Marry you? Why, I’d poison you within a week.”
“Woman!” she gasped, “oh, that I should live to hear my Arthur call me
woman!” She made one grand effort to hold him, but there came a sound
like the distant report of a pistol; with a shriek she loosened her
arms, and the doctor ignominiously fled. Fled out through the green
door, leaving it open behind him; around the porch, into his study,
where he bolted and barred the doors and windows. Then he sat down and
laughed. Laughed until the tears came at the spectacle he must have
presented upon his knees, with the widow hugging him for dear life.
To what good angel he owed his happy release he knew not, but the widow
knew only too well. The long suffering stays at last rebelled, and at
the most critical moment revenged themselves by bursting.
So ended the widow’s courtship. She sat long that night gazing at
Samuel’s portrait. “To think he should have witnessed my humiliation,”
she murmured, and then to her excited fancy, one eye began to take on
that leer which had been so distasteful to her, and sighing heavily, she
arose and turned the picture toward the wall.