with a curl upon her lips, yet a kinder note in her voice to soften the
harshness of her words, she slowly, deliberately, replied:
"My good, good friend, Jean Francois, you lie!"
"Nance!"
"Jean Francois!"
"Very well, then," said he, with a shrug, "have your way.... As for you,
however, my dear, the road can be no more for you."
He had been dreading saying this to her. It had been upon his lips a
dozen times in the last few days, yet his uncertainty as to the wiseness
of talking to her at all upon such a subject had kept his mouth
closed.... He now continued:
"Like your tall, dark brother of the gentle eyes, your task lies in the
better way."
"Dear old Jean Francois," came the reply, without resentment and with
perfect understanding, "there you go preaching already! What do you know
about my task? After all, dear-a, it is where my heart leads. If I
should choose the merry pack, what of it? I think I should not mind
turning back right now, would you? Nobody's seen us! No one knows! Come,
my comrade, and away while the call is loud! What do you say? I am
ready!"
"You impulsive jade," said he, evidently pleased, "would you banish me
from Oldmeadow?"
"Not in a thousand years, you old goose," she replied with tenderness.
"But you will--you surely will, if you insist on sharing Columbine and
Rogue with me. I'll have to discover another green field, another pair
of children--"
"And I, Monsieur," she said with gaiety, "I shall again drop from the
heavens into your top-o'-the-morning."
"Then I shall go back to my France and the sunny fields of Picardy."
"I love France," was her reply.
"Look!" exclaimed Jean Francois, pointing up the road.
A doctor's gig was approaching, driven at a rapid gait. Nance's heart
almost stopped beating. There could be no doubt as to whom the vehicle
belonged. It came nearer and the portly figure of old Doctor Felix
Longstreet became evident, and, by his side, young Dr. Charles Reubelt
King. Both were vainly trying to appear dignified and severe. Jean
Francois was in the mood that could, with equal ease, pray, cry, or
fight.
"With the help of the bon Dieu to fight like hell," he murmured
gleefully, as he realized his pugnacious tendencies.
"Good-by for now, dear Jean Francois," whispered Nance; "but another
day ... another day.... O, God!"
The gig drew up and stopped with a jerk. Dr. King climbed out; the old
doctor shouted in a voice which tried to be severe, yet was tempered
with gladness, and trembled with relieved anxiety:
"Get right in here this minute, Nance Gwyn! Your Aunt Barbara has been
intensely worried about you. As for me, you know I didn't care a
tinker's damn. Charles, there, is a fool!"
Nance was driven rapidly into Oldmeadow, leaving Charles and Jean
Francois to come leisurely with the caravan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE DAY OF FAITH
None of the folk of Oldmeadow saw much of me during the years I spent
preparing myself to take care of their colics, rheumatism, and
occasionally, I assure you, only when it was necessary, to cut off their
legs. I also have taken as goodly care of their hearts, their gentle
souls, and the love which they have bestowed upon me. You doubtless
remember the years at Virginia in which I returned for a few short
months each summer and exploited my erudition on the boys who remained
at home. Also I strutted in conspicuous glory beside Nance, whom I duly
treated with becoming condescension upon the part of one so wholly
promising of greatness. Then they almost forgot me, though I felt I was
needed betimes to tie tick-tacks upon tempting front doors, during my
four years in the medical college. This was the period during which
Nance was learning French and violin at some college in Boston.
Perhaps it was never before made known, but when I graduated I received
a very delightful letter from Doctor Longstreet inviting me to come to
Oldmeadow and really learn something about medicine! Meanwhile I was to
gradually assume his practise so he might have the more time for his
river.
"Then," he concluded, "when I shall have taken my immortal rod and
crossed the river--praise God not into Indiana, but to some
Virginia-like country, where pills are out of fashion and the only
restriction worthy of mention is that the truth must needs be told about
the fish you catch--you will have everything your own way here."
I might here mention that the only thing the old gentleman had against
the river was that it did not flow between Virginia and Kentucky.
"Think of it," he would ejaculate; "so beautiful a river as ours and
the Yankees north of it! It will be different in the next world. Then
Virginia shall be on one bank and Kentucky on the other. And Yankee
Indiana--" But why speak here of the place to which Indiana is duly
consigned for eternity.
At any rate, with a grateful and happy heart I accepted the invitation
so generously given me by Doctor Longstreet and, in due time, promptly
arrived ready for business.
* * * * *
I had been home less than two weeks. A great deal of this time, it is
true, I had given to getting settled in the office of Doctor Longstreet.
I had dined once with Nance, however, and had taken part in a few
scrappy conversations. There was a slight reservedness upon her part
toward me which seemed to be largely because of the almost continuous
absence of several years. This I believed would shortly wear off.
One late afternoon we were strolling about her yard and talking of many
things: of herself when she would permit it, of Jean Francois, of
Monsieur l'Abbe Picot, and the happenings of Oldmeadow. Finally we
leaned against the fence and gazed across the street at the silent old
house of the pillars. Its owner was away and the place looked lonely.
"Well, I'm quite grown up now," smiled Nance jestingly, "and still I
have not come into my possessions.... I wonder when, Charles?" she
asked, much in her old-time manner.
"When this blessed old village that we have owned for so very long," I
replied, with a meaning glance toward my shining new instrument case and
pill-bag, which I always carried with me, "increases my collection of
patients."
Like untried youth I was unconscious of limitations. That, if Nance
wanted it, I could not make money enough to buy the place, never
occurred to my dreaming brain.
"It would be really wicked, I suppose, to wish they would go on and get
sick," she said, "but I do think they might have you in now and then for
a little friendly, advisory chat about their rheumatism, rose-bushes,
and the like, that they might learn how interesting you are."
Since I have had some years in which to think of this episode, I feel
that there must have been a trifle of irony in her remark. At the time
it appeared serious enough.
"Never mind, Nance," I replied, "my collection of friendships is
sufficiently large at present. Anyhow, just think of a statement of
account like this:
"TO DR. CHARLES REUBELT KING _Dr_.
MISS JEMIMIAH APPLEBLOSSOM, _Cr._
April 27, to one half-hour's chat on rose-bushes $10.00
December 2, to fifteen minutes' conversation upon weather 5.00
Same date, one hour's rheumatism talk 15.00
Total $30.00
Please remit."
"Well, it is all right, Charles, my friend. It will come, and meanwhile
we can wait for the time.... Monsieur l'Abbe once said to me, 'Blessed
are the makers of dreams, for theirs is to own a river, divers trees,
many hills, even a village, and their abode shall be a house in the
heart.'"
In my memory I call that the day of faith.
"Let's go over and sit upon the portico," I suggested. It met with her
approval, and a few moments later we were beneath our beloved old
pillars.
"I wonder where he is?" she asked.
"Who is?" I said, for I was not interested in any third parties.
"Monsieur l'Abbe," she replied.
"Doubtless in New Orleans," I answered. I might just as well have said
New Guinea, for I had mentioned the first place which occurred to me.
Suddenly, from far above in the sunset sky, we heard the faint,
plaintive cry of wild geese.
"O, it is the sign of the coming of Jean Francois," she cried. "He'll be
here in less than a fortnight.... Have any of you heard from him?" she
asked.
"Your grandfather," I replied, still not interested.
For fully half an hour we sat and looked upon the river, watching the
nightfall. It is difficult to talk at such an hour. It brings out all of
your sentiments. Old memories crowd your mind and the whole is made
sweet by a note of sadness.... Then Nance turned to me:
"You must tell me all about yourself, Charles, and your plans," she
said, with a suddenly deepening interest.
Now what better could a man want? Here I was just out of college, young,
untried, and bursting with hope. Was there anything of greater interest,
I ask you, than my possibilities, my plans, my expectations? Nance was
exceedingly wise. Immediately, and with enthusiasm, I launched into my
attainments, and my dreams. With a sweet patience she sat and listened.
(I am now inclined to think, Jean Francois, that, in imagination, she
was with you and Rogue and Columbine somewhere upon the road.) Now I
feel sure that I must have made a slight mistake in not at least hinting
that if I hoped to make any money it was that I might use it to obtain
the home of her heart's desire; that if I sought for honors, it was that
I might take them to her, placing my triumphs at her feet as her due;
and that, perhaps though illy defined in my own mind, all that I
was--and it looked big to me, for had I not toiled for it?--and all
that I hoped to be was because, from the old remembered days of
childhood I had loved her with all of my life.... I did not hint this.
Perhaps I was taking it for granted that she knew. Then you know how
ambitious youth can become wrapped utterly in its expectations?... All
of this I have since had ample time to see.
"It is time we returned, Charles," she at last broke in, arising from
her seat.
We walked through the yard and across the street arm in arm. At the door
I bade her good-night, as I had a hundred times before, by raising her
flower-scented hand to my lips and kissing it while pressing her fingers
ever so tenderly.
* * * * *
It all seemed quite the usual way, Jean Francois. Now wouldn't that
pretty well indicate that a man had some privileges? Eh?
As for the trouble, I'll tell you how it began.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE DAY OF DOUBT
For a very long time I was quite at a loss to determine whether it was
the red of her hair or the lips of her large and interesting mouth which
caused me to love Nance Gwyn. Even to this day, as a lover of long
standing, I am not always certain that I know the whys and wherefores of
such an inconsistent mixture of passion and tenderness. There have been
moments, such as when a wild whisp of it would come taunting my face
with its soft caresses, or when my hands inadvertently must need touch
it for a seemingly timeless instant, that I was very sure, as sure as I
knew for some reason I loved her with all of my life, that it was her
hair. Of one thing I have always been confident: I could never have
loved a woman whose hair was other than the color of Nance's.
Of course there were times when I thought it was for other things than
the hair and the lips. Her feet, for example, when I came upon her
wading in the Middleton's brook. This hurrying little stream ran through
the heart of a small woodland pasture near town. It was in a leafy
hollow and its course was over great flat rocks with occasionally
sandy-bottomed pools worn by the fall of water. The place was a favorite
summer-time haunt of the old days. It was cool, inviting, and dim with
an abundance of fern, green moss, and tiny wild violets.
Now, in the first place, how was I to know Miss Nance Gwyn had sauntered
down there in the middle of the afternoon? About five o'clock I came in,
tired and hot, from a long drive to the country. So soon as I found no
calls waiting for me, I thought of the pool in the Middleton's woods.
Just before climbing the fence which would bring my destination into
view, I heard one of Jean Francois' songs, but coming from the throat of
the adorable Nance:
"It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green cornfield did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
"Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
"This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that life was but a flower
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When the birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
"And therefore take the present time
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crowned with the prime
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring."
I shall steal upon her and surprise her, I thought. So I crept silently
over the fence, stepped around a tree, and how should I know with what
my eyes were to be greeted?
There she sat like a nymph upon a ledge of projecting rock, idly
dabbling her feet in the shallow water of the pool. But that was not
all. Her dress was gathered from beneath her and slightly raised above
her knees, disclosing some very frilly, lacy lingerie. I stood as one
dumbfounded. I did not know whether to run and doubtless get caught in
my hurrying away, or to take it as a matter of course, boldly facing it
out. While I was arriving at a decision she raised the slenderest,
whitest, most adorable pink-soled foot it would be possible for any
woman to possess, with dainty air from the water, bringing her knee
beneath her chin, and placed her heel upon the rock upon which she sat.
Then she reached behind her for a pair of flimsy silk stockings and some
slippers. Never before or since have I seen a picture at once so
innocent and yet so seductively beautiful.
All of this took place, you must understand, in a very few seconds. Just
here, however, when I was preparing for as hasty and as silent a retreat
as possible, she involuntarily raised her face and caught me full in the
eyes.
"Hello, Nance," said I, careless like, as I came forward, "been wading?"
"Wading," she replied, hastily standing, with a look of mingled dismay
and anger upon her face. "As for you, Mr. King, I think you had better
go!"
"Nance," I began.
"Go!... Did you hear me? I say, go!" she exclaimed, trembling, her
cheeks becoming sickly white.
* * * * *
I went precipitately and as I hurried to town I gave myself such a
lecture as a man ever got. Yet, in spite of my reproach for an
unfortunate incident which happened very innocently, I could not keep
from my mind that I was now very sure of another reason why I loved
her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE DAY OF LOST CONFIDENCE
I shall not bore you with the details of my work in once more
establishing confidence. And, at that, it was a sort of shaky,
at-arms-length confidence. One morning, a few days after the episode of
Middleton's brook, Nance came into my office, very properly and
charmingly clad, and perched herself upon the top of her grandfather's
writing-table. She was extremely saucy-looking, and inclined to be
impudent. I came and stood by, looking down upon her. She was unusually
pretty and tempting with an air of old-time daring in the tilt of her
face.
At that moment I was sure I loved her for the three or four adorable
little freckles upon her nose. The sight of these same scarcely
perceptible beauty spots, which appeared regularly with the summer,
carried me back to a day when I had made fun of the sun's tampering
with her complexion. In those days she chose to sniffle very pityingly,
yet becomingly, in the vain attempt to make me repentant. As she sat
before me, instead of the handsome young woman she was, I saw an awkward
girl of eleven or twelve with spindling legs that were rather uncertain
in their movements; long thin arms with small bony hands, all attached
to a shapeless little body, the only redeeming feature of which was a
truly promising face and wonderfully beautiful hair as red as burnished
brass. I remembered that, on many occasions, there was mud between the
toes of her bare feet, for she always had possessed a boy's propensity
for puddling. This brought to mind the wading I had seen earlier in the
week, and I admit I blushed at the contrast presented to my mind.
"Are you still web-footed?" I asked, with a reminiscent smile.
"When I grow to be a very old woman," she replied impudently, "I shall
dabble in the puddles in my back yard; climb apple-trees in the spring;
and help my boys make snow men at Christmas time."
Then I had but to see her merry, mischievous face to discover the Nance
of my friend, the happy pedler. "Is it her feet or her hair," was
rattling through my brain, "or is it the old-day Nance, or the
beautiful, splendid young woman now sitting on her grandfather's desk?"
Here she picked up an open knife, a piece of pine from the window sill,
drew her lips into a distractingly tempting pucker and began to whistle
and whittle in imitation of one of the village's wise-acres at the
store. I watched her for a moment with a heart which I was almost sure
she could hear thumping away like a trip hammer. Hadn't I seen her
whistle a thousand times, it seemed a thousand years ago, and gravely
imitate every rheumatic old gentleman who occupied a chair in summer
under the awning, or a box in winter behind the stove at Mr.
Appleblossom's? Then all of a sudden I knew it was for her thumb. The
big barlow had unceremoniously taken a whack at this adorable part of
her hand and, as she smilingly held it aloft, a tiny stream of blood
oozed forth and fell on the handkerchief she held beneath it. It was
really a mere trifle, but immediately I looked deeply concerned, hauled
out my instrument case, and removed what I needed therefrom with much
seriousness and dignity. Meantime as I bathed the injured member she
looked on, though two tears stood in her eyes, with an impish grin which
left no doubt but that she readily saw through my hypocrisy. Anyhow she
let me use absorbent cotton, much adhesive plaster, and great yards of
bandage with which to bind it. I was a very long time doing the work,
and when I had it completed, as I have said before, I was sure it was
for her thumb.
Now you know--at least if you are a woman and young and pretty--that a
doctor, even if he is doing nothing more than dressing a thumb, may get
unusually close to his patient without the least mischievous intentions.
Therefore I am sure you will not blame me when I tell you that I was led
to it by the soft caress of her perfumed hair as it now and then
brushed dangerously against my cheek; the occasional touch of her knees
bringing vividly annoying memories of a few days past, as I busied
myself about her; and, as I bent above her, the healthful, sweet odor of
her breath in my nostrils; these things, I say, with the alluring
mystery of all of her, breathing, pulsating, hot, close beside me,
overpowered me and I was trembling when she looked up to thank me. Then,
before I knew it or had time to think, I had my arms about her, crushing
her to me, and passionately kissing her lips.
It might not be telling things too much just to mention that she fought
a brief little battle quite consistent with the temperament of her hair.
Then, when she learned how strong and determined were my arms, suddenly
she ceased to struggle, her eyes becoming friendly and timid. Ah, surely
this was the moment that, while the glorious hair, the feet, the
freckles, and the thumb did not lose caste, the heart within me crowned
her lips!
"Now, strange to say," commented Dr. King to Jean Francois, "it was the
next day she ran away.... You may understand why, but I do not."
"I do," was the laconic reply of the happy pedler.
PART THIRD
MIDWINTER: EIGHT MONTHS LATER
We talked of "Children of the Open Air,"
Who once on hill and valley lived aloof,
Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof
Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair.
Till, on a day, across the mystic bar
Of moonrise, came the "Children of the Roof,"
Who find no balm 'neath evening's rosiest woof,
No dews of peace beneath the Morning Star.
We looked o'er London, where men wither and choke,
Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies,
And lore of woods and wild-wind prophecies,
Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke:
And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke
Leave never a meadow outside Paradise.
--_Theodore Watts-Dunton._
CHAPTER TWENTY
MONSIEUR L'ABBE AT HOME
The snow had fallen all day in great, heavy, wet flakes until the trees,
as if by the magic of Aladdin's lamp, were opulent crystal palaces,
while the fence posts were white-cowled mendicants with bowed heads,
begging without the gates. As night drew near the cold came with it,
bitter and penetrating. A cutting north wind cleared the sky; the stars
appeared, shimmering in distant glory, but barren of sympathy; the moon
came climbing over the frozen hills, casting her wake upon the
uninviting gray waters of the river; the leaping flames from ample cozy
hearths flashed hospitable beacons far into the streets; while the
crunching snow beneath hurried feet, or the rattle of the wagon of a
belated traveler, caused the fireside dreamer to snuggle in his warm
corner, thanking life for shelter and for food.
It was early evening. I sat alone by the glowing backlogs in the great
fireplace of my office enjoying that delicious animal sensation which
comes to one who, after having been all day in the cold, is now
thoroughly warm, drowsy, and reasonably secure in the thought that one
will not have to venture forth. As I sat and stared into the embers
beneath the andirons my mind, released from the task of the day,
naturally sought the channel of its dream-things.
Nance! was she not always in my mind, my heart? Was there ever a time,
which the business of the moment did not demand, that I was not building
a thousand fancies of her? I was yet childlike enough to imagine myself
saving her life from some dangerous disease, telling her dramatically of
my passion, and, in the end, receiving the reward of her hand. Aye, what
dreams men dare to build!
My practise had so grown with the coming of winter that I did not get to
see as much of her as I should have liked, but when I could I sought her
and always found her my splendid, true friend. Yet some mysterious and
inexpressible something in her personality and bearing withheld me, so,
while she was all that was friendly, there was still a more sacred
portal closed to me. What her inclinations and ambitions were I could
not discover, save that she was diligently pursuing the study of
folk-lore while showing a special interest in my patients. This was
markedly so when any of them needed a womanly touch not to be found in
their homes. Against my protest she nursed three severe cases entirely
through to convalescence. The motherless child of Martin Farewil she
brought through double pneumonia; old Sarah Boutwell, a widow, childless
and seventy-six, after a lingering spell of fever, died in her arms;
Elizabeth Book, a servant living alone on the outskirts of town, gave
birth to a bastard, and would have suffered inhumanly from inattention
had Nance, to the horror of Oldmeadow and the prostration of Aunt
Barbara, not spent the greater part of a month with the woman.
Notwithstanding this task she had chosen she was just as much alive and
as merry as of old. With it all she was becoming more serious and
considerate. In fact the care-free, hoydenish girl seemed to have
ripened into a strong-hearted, wholesome, healthful woman. She showed an
unusual grasp of things, her relation to them, and their value to life.
Her humor saved her from taking this new attitude too seriously.
Old Doctor Felix Longstreet, her immortal grandfather, now retired from
active practise, had joined the autocratic group of cracker-barrel
philosophers. Daily he hobbled with rheumatic legs over the flagstones,
bowing gallantly to the women whom he passed, to my office, where he
still maintained a desk. There, upon the sidewalk beneath the shade of
the honey-locust trees in summer, by the fireplace in winter, he gave
many charming dissertations upon politics, fishing, religion,
when-I-was-a-boy, and medicine. God bless him for one of the finest
gentlemen I ever knew.