The news that the late Mr. Cherrington’s house on Saville Street had
been let for a school, within a few months after his death, could not
have been a surprise to any one in the neighborhood. Ten years before,
when Mr. Cherrington and those prominent in his generation were in
their heyday, Saville Street had been sacred to private residences
from one end to the other, but the tide of fashion had been drifting
latterly. There was already another school in the same block, and
there were scattered all along on either side of the street a
sprinkling of throat, eye, and ear doctors, a very fashionable
dressmaker or two, an up-town bank, and numerous apartments for
bachelors.
The news could not have been a surprise even to Mr. Homer Ramsay, but
that crusty old bachelor in the seventies brought down his
walking-stick with a vicious thump when he heard it, and remarked that
he would live to be ninety “if only to spite ‘em.” This threat,
however, had reference, not to Mr. Cherrington’s residence, but his
own, which was exactly opposite, and which he had occupied for more
than forty years. It was a conviction of Mr. Ramsay’s that there was a
conspiracy on foot to purchase his house, and accordingly he took
every opportunity to declare that he would never part with an inch of
his land while he was in the flesh. A wag in the neighborhood had
expressed the opinion that the old gentleman waxed hale and hearty on
his own bile. He was certainly a churlish individual in his general
bearing toward his fellow-beings, and violent in his prejudices. For
the last ten years his favorite prophecy had been that the country was
going to the devil.
Besides the house on Saville Street, Mr. Ramsay had some bonds and
stock--fifty or sixty thousand dollars in all--which tidy little
property would, in the natural course of events, descend to his next
of kin; in this case, however, only a first cousin once removed. In
the eye of the law a living person has no heir; but blood is thicker
than water, and it was generally taken for granted that Mr. Horace
Barker, whose grandmother had been the sister of Mr. Ramsay’s father,
would some day be the owner of the house on Saville Street. At least,
confident expectation that this would come to pass had long restrained
Mr. Barker from letting any one but his better half know that he
regarded his Cousin Homer as an irascible old curmudgeon; and perhaps,
on the other hand, had justified Mr. Ramsay in his own mind for
referring in common parlance to his first cousin once removed as a
stiff nincompoop who had married a sickly doll. Not that Mr. Horace
Barker needed the money, by any means. He was well-to-do already, and
lived in a more fashionable street than Saville Street, where he
occupied a dignified-looking brown-stone house, from the windows of
which his three little people--all girls--peeped and nodded at the
organ-grinder and the street-band.
The name of the person to whom Mr. Cherrington’s house had been leased
was Miss Elizabeth Whyte. She was twenty-five, and she was starting a
school because it was necessary for her to earn her own living. She
considered that life, from the point of view of happiness, was over
for her; and yet, though she had made up her mind that she could never
be really happy again, she was resolved neither to mope nor to be a
burden on any one. Mr. Mills, the executor of Mr. Cherrington’s
estate, who believed himself to be a judge of human nature withal, had
observed that she seemed a little overwrought, as though she had lived
on her nerves; but, on the other hand, he had been impressed by her
direct, business-like manner, which argued that she was very much in
earnest. Besides, she was vouched for by the best people, and Mrs.
Cyrus Bangs was moving heaven and earth to procure pupils for her. It
was clearly his duty as a business man to let her have the house.
Until within a few months Elizabeth Whyte had lived in a neighboring
town--the seat of a college, where the minds of young men for
successive generations have been cultivated, but sometimes at the
expense of a long-suffering local community. Her father, who at the
time of her birth was a clergyman with a parish, had subsequently
evolved into an agnostic and an invalid without one, and she had been
used to plain living and high thinking from her girlhood. Even parents
who find it difficult to keep the wolf at a respectful distance by
untiring economy will devise some means to make an only daughter look
presentable on her first appearance in society. Fine feathers do not
make fine birds, and yet the consciousness of a becoming gown will
irradiate the cheek of beauty. Elizabeth at eighteen would have been
fetching in any dress, but in each of her three new evening frocks she
looked bewitching. She was a gay, trig little person, with snapping,
dark eyes and an arch expression; a tireless dancer, quick and
audacious at repartee; the very ideal of a college belle. The student
world had fallen prostrate at her feet, and Tom Whittemore most
conspicuously and devotedly of all.
Tom was, perhaps, the most popular man of his day; a Philadelphian of
reputedly superfine stock, fresh-faced and athletic, with a jaunty
walk. There was no one at the college assemblies who whispered so
entrancingly in her ear when she was all alone with him in a corner,
and no one who placed her new fleecy wrap about her shoulders with
such an air of devotion when it was time to go home. She liked him
from the very first; and all her girl friends babbled, “Wouldn’t it be
a lovely match?” But Tom’s classmates from Philadelphia, when they
became confidential in the small hours of the morning, asked each
other what Tom’s mother would say. Tom was a senior, and it was
generally assumed that matters would culminate on Class-day evening,
that evening of all evenings in the collegiate world sacred to
explanation and vows. Elizabeth lay awake all that night, remembering
that she had let Tom have his impetuous say, and that at the end he
had folded her in his arms and kissed her. Not until the next morning,
and then merely as an unimportant fact, did it occur to her that,
though Tom had told her she was dearer to him than all the world
besides, there was no definite engagement between them. It was only
when whispers reached her that Tom, who had gone to Philadelphia to
attend the wedding of a relation, was not coming back to his
Commencement, that she began to think a little. But she never really
doubted until the news came that Tom had been packed off by his mother
on a two years’ journey round the world.
What mother in a distant city would be particularly pleased to have
her only son, on whom rested the hopes of an illustrious stock, lose
his heart to a college belle? But Elizabeth can scarcely be blamed for
not having taken the illustrious stock into consideration. She kept
saying to herself, that, if he had only written, she could have
forgiven him; and it was not surprising that the partners with whom
she danced at the college assemblies during the next five years
described her to each other as steely. Indeed, she danced and prattled
with such vivacious energy, and her black eyes shone so like beads,
that college tradition twisted her story until it ran that she had
thrown over Tom Whittemore, the most popular man of his day, and that
she had no more heart than a nether millstone. And all the time, just
to prove to herself that she had not cared for him, she kept the roses
that he had given her on that Class-day evening in the secret drawer
of her work-box. It had been all sheer nonsense, a boy and girl
flirtation. So she had taught herself to argue, knowing that it was
untrue, and knowing that she knew it to be so.
Then had come the deaths of her father and mother within three months
of each other, and she had awakened one morning to the consciousness
that she was alone in the world, and face to face with the necessity
of earning her daily bread. The gentleman who had charge of the few
thousand dollars belonging to her father’s estate, in announcing that
her bonds had ceased to pay interest, had added that she was in the
same boat with many of the best people; which ought to have been a
consolation, had she needed any. But this loss of the means of living
had seemed a mere trifle beside her other griefs; indeed, it acted as
a spur rather than a bludgeon. The same pride which had prompted her
to continue to dance bade her bestir herself to make a living. Upon
reflection, the plan of starting a school struck her as the most
practicable. But it should be a school for girls; she had done with
the world of men. She had loved with all her heart, and her heart was
broken; it was withered, like the handful of dried roses in the secret
drawer of her work-box.
* * * * *
Elizabeth was fortunate enough to obtain at the outset the patronage
of some of those same “best people” in the adjacent city, who happened
to know her story. Fashionable favor grows apace. It was only after
hearing that Mrs. Cyrus Bangs had intrusted her little girl to the
tender mercies of Miss Whyte that Mrs. Horace Barker subdued the
visions of scarlet-fever, bad air, and evil communications which
haunted her, sufficiently to be willing to send her own darlings to
the new kindergarten. People intimate with Mrs. Barker were apt to say
that worry over her three little girls, who were exceptionally healthy
children, kept her a nervous invalid.
“I consider Mrs. Cyrus Bangs a very particular woman,” she said, with
plaintive impressiveness to her husband. “If she is willing to send
her Gwendolen to Miss Whyte, I am disposed to let Margery, Gladys, and
Dorothy go. Only you must have a very clear understanding with Miss
Whyte, at the outset, as to hours and ventilation and Gladys’s hot
milk. We cannot move from the seaside until a fortnight after her term
begins, and it will be utterly impossible for me to get the children
to school in the mornings before half-past nine.”
It never occurred to Horace Barker, when one morning about ten
o’clock, some six weeks later, he called at the kindergarten with his
precious trio, that there was any impropriety in breaking in upon Miss
Whyte’s occupations an hour after school had begun. What
school-mistress could fail to be proud of the distinction of obtaining
his three daughters as pupils at any hour of the twenty-four when he
saw fit to proffer them? He expected to find a cringing, deferential
young person, who would, in the interest of her own bread and butter,
accede without a murmur to any stipulations which so important a
patroness as Mrs. Horace Barker might see fit to impose. He became
conscious, in the first place, that the school-mistress was a much
more attractive-looking young person than he had anticipated, and
secondly, that she seemed rather amused than otherwise at his
conditions. No man, and least of all a man so consummate as Mr.
Barker--for he was a dapper little person with a closely cropped beard
and irreproachable kid gloves--likes to be laughed at by a woman,
especially by one who is young and moderately good-looking; and he
instinctively drew himself up by way of protest before Elizabeth
spoke.
“Really, Mr. Barker,” she replied, after a few moments of reflection,
“I don’t see how it is possible for me to carry out Mrs. Barker’s
wishes. To let the children come half an hour later and go home half
an hour earlier than the rest would interfere with the proper conduct
of the school. I will do my best to have the ventilation satisfactory,
and perhaps I can manage to provide some hot milk for the second one,
as her mother desires; but in the matter of the hours, I do not see
how I can accommodate Mrs. Barker. To make such an exception would be
entirely contrary to my principles.”
Horace Barker smiled inwardly at the suggestion that a school-mistress
could have principles which an influential parent might not violate.
“When I say to you that it is Mrs. Barker’s particular desire that her
preferences regarding hours should be observed, I am sure that you
will interpose no further objection.”
Elizabeth gave a strange little laugh, and her eyes, which were still
her most salient feature, snapped noticeably. “It is quite out of the
question, Mr. Barker,” she said with decision. “Much as I should like
to have your little girls, I cannot consent to break my rules on their
account.”
“Mrs. Barker would be very sorry to be compelled to send her children
elsewhere,” he said solemnly, with the air of one who utters a dire
threat.
“I should be glad to teach your little girls upon the same terms as I
do my other pupils,” said Elizabeth, quietly. “But if my regulations
are unsatisfactory, you had better send them elsewhere.”
Horace Barker was a man who prided himself on his deportment. He would
no more have condescended to express himself with irate impetuosity
than he would have permitted his closely cropped beard to exceed the
limits which he imposed upon it. He simply bowed stiffly, and turning
to the Misses Barker, who, under the supervision of a nurse, whom they
had been taught to address by her patronymic Thompson instead of by
her Christian name Bridget, had been open-mouthed listeners to the
dialogue, said, “Come, children.”
It so happened that as Mr. Horace Barker and the Misses Barker
descended the steps of the late Mr. Cherrington’s house, they came
plump upon Mr. Homer Ramsay, who was taking his morning stroll. The
old gentleman was standing leaning on his cane, glaring across the
street; and, by way of acknowledging that he perceived his first
cousin once removed, he raised the cane, and, pointing in the line of
his scowling gaze, ejaculated:
“This street is going to perdition. As though it weren’t enough to
have a school opposite me, a fellow has had the impudence to put his
doctor’s sign right next door to my house--an oculist, he calls
himself. In my day, a man who was fit to call himself a doctor could
set a leg, or examine your eyes, or tell what was the matter with your
throat, and not leave you so very much the wiser even then; but now
there’s a different kind of quack for every ache and pain in our
bodies.”
“We live in a progressive world, Cousin Homer,” said Mr. Barker,
placing his eyeglass astride his nose to examine the obnoxious sign
across the way. “Dr. James Clay, Oculist,” he read aloud,
indifferently.
“Progressive fiddlesticks, Cousin Horace. A fig for your oculists and
your dermatologists and all the rest of your specialists! I have
managed to live to be seventy-five, and I never had anybody prescribe
for me but a good old-fashioned doctor, thank Heaven! And I’m not dead
yet, as the speculators who have their eyes on my house and are
waiting for me to die will find out.” Mr. Ramsay scowled ferociously;
then casting a sweeping glance from under his eyebrows at the little
girls, he said, “Cousin Horace, if your children don’t have better
health than their mother, they might as well be dead. Do they go
there?” he asked, indicating the school-house with his cane.
“I am removing them this morning. Anabel had concluded to send them
there, but I find that the young woman who is the teacher has such
hoity-toity notions that I cannot consent to let my daughters remain
with her. In my opinion, so arbitrary a young person should be
checked; and my belief is that before many days she will find herself
without pupils.” Whereupon Mr. Barker proceeded on his way, muttering
to himself, when at a safe distance, “Irrational old idiot!”
Mr. Ramsay stood for some moments mulling over his cousin’s answer; by
degrees his countenance brightened and he began to chuckle; and every
now and then, in the course of his progress along Saville Street, he
would stand and look back at the late Mr. Cherrington’s house, as
though it had acquired a new interest in his eyes. His daily promenade
was six times up and six times down Saville Street; and he happened to
complete the last lap, so to speak, of his sixth time down at the very
moment when Miss Whyte’s little girls came running out on the sidewalk
for recess. Behind them appeared the school-mistress, who stood
looking at her flock from the top of the stone flight.
Elizabeth knew the old gentleman by sight but not by name, and she was
therefore considerably astonished to see him suddenly veer from his
ordinary course, and come slowly up the steps.
“You’re the school-mistress?” he asked, with the directness of an old
man who feels that he need not mince his words.
“Yes, sir. I’m Miss Whyte.”
“My name’s Ramsay; Homer Ramsay. I live opposite, and I’ve come to
tell you I admire your pluck in not letting my cousin, Hortace Barker,
put you down. I’ll stand by you, too; you can tell him that. Break up
your school? I should like to see him do it. Had to take his three
little girls away, did he? Ho, ho! A grand good joke that; a grand
good joke. What was it he asked you to do?”
“Mr. Barker wished me to change some of my rules about hours, and I
was not able to accommodate him, that was all,” answered Elizabeth,
who found herself eminently puzzled by the interest in her affairs
displayed by this strange visitor.
“I’ll warrant he did. And you wouldn’t make the change. A grand good
joke that. I know him; he’s my first cousin once removed, and the only
relation I’ve left. And he is going to try and break up your school.
I’d like to see him do it.”
“I don’t believe that Mr. Barker would do anything so unjust,” said
Elizabeth, flushing.
“Yes, he would. I had it from his own lips. But he shan’t; not while
I’m in the flesh. What did you say your name was?”
“Whyte--Elizabeth Whyte.”
“And what made you become a school-teacher, I should like to know?”
“I had to earn my living.”
“Humph! In my day, girls as pretty as you got married; but now the
rich ones are those who get husbands, and those who are poor have to
tend shop instead of baby.”
“I know a number of girls who were poor, who have excellent husbands,”
said Elizabeth quietly, spurred into coming to the rescue of the sex
she despised. “But,” she added, “there are many girls nowadays who are
poor who prefer to remain single.” She was amused at having been led
into so unusual a discussion with this queer old gentleman.
“Bah! That caps the climax. When pretty girls pretend that they don’t
wish to be married, the world is certainly turned upside down. Well, I
like your spirit, though I don’t approve of your methods. I just
dropped in to say that if Horace Barker does cause you any trouble,
you’ve a friend across the way. Good-morning.”
And before Elizabeth could bethink herself to say that she was very
much obliged to him, Mr. Ramsay was gone.
That very day after school, while Elizabeth was on her way across the
park which lay between Saville Street and the section of the city
where her rooms were, she dodged the wrong way in a narrow path, so
that she ran plump into the arms of a young man who was walking in the
opposite direction. Most women expect men to look out for them when
they dodge, but Elizabeth’s code did not allow her to put herself
under obligations to any man. To tell the truth, she was in such a
brown study over the events of the morning that she had become
practically oblivious of her surroundings. When she recovered
sufficiently from her confusion at her clumsiness to take in the
details of the situation, she realized that the individual in question
was a young man whom she was in the habit of passing daily at this
same hour. Only the day before he had rescued her veil which had been
swept away by a high wind; and here she was again, within twenty-four
hours, forcing herself upon his attention. She, too, of all women, who
had done with men forever!
But Elizabeth’s confusion was slight compared with that manifested by
her victim, who, notwithstanding that his hat had been jammed in by
her school-bag (which she had raised as a shield), was so profuse in
the utterance of his apologies and so willing to shoulder all
responsibility, that her own sensibilities were speedily comforted.
She found herself, after they had separated, much more engrossed by
the fact that he had addressed her by name. Although they had been
passing each other daily for over two months, it had never occurred to
her to wonder who he might be. But it was evident that she was not
unknown to him. She remembered now merely that he was a gentleman, and
that he had intelligent eyes and a pleasant, deferential smile. The
recollection of his blushing diffidence made her laugh.
On the following day, when they were about to pass as usual, she was
suddenly confronted in her mind by the alternative whether to
recognize him or not. A glance at him as he approached told her that
he himself was evidently uncertain if she would choose to consider
their experience of the previous day as equivalent to an introduction,
and yet she noticed a certain wistfulness of expression which
suggested the desire to be permitted to doff his hat to her. To
acknowledge by a simple inclination of her head the existence of a man
whom she was likely to pass every day seemed the natural thing to do,
however unconventional; so she bowed.
“Good afternoon, Miss Whyte,” he said, lifting his hat with a glad
smile.
How completely our lives are often appropriated by incidents which
seem at the time of but slight importance! For the next few months
Elizabeth was buffeted as it were between the persistent persecution
of Mr. Horace Barker and the persistent devotion of Mr. Homer Ramsay.
With Mr. Barker she had no further interview, but not many weeks
elapsed before the influence of malicious strictures and insinuations
circulated by him concerning the hygienic arrangements of her school
began to bear their natural fruit. Parents became querulous and
suspicious; and when calumny was at its height, a case of
scarlet-fever among her pupils threw consternation even into the soul
of Mrs. Cyrus Bangs, her chief patroness. But, on the other hand, she
soon realized that she possessed an ardent, if not altogether
discreet, champion in her enemy’s septuagenarian first cousin once
removed, who sang her praises and fought her battles from one end of
Saville Street to the other. Mr. Ramsay no longer railed against
electric cars and specialists; all his fulminations were uttered
against the malicious warfare which his Cousin Horace and that blood
relative’s sickly wife were waging against the charming little Miss
Whyte, who had hired Mr. Cherrington’s house across the way. What is
more, he paid Elizabeth almost daily visits, during which, after he
had discussed ways and means for confounding his vindictive kinsman,
he was apt to declare that she ought to be married, and that it was a
downright shame so pretty a girl should be condemned to drudgery
because she lacked a dowry. This was a point on which the old
gentleman never ceased to harp; and Elizabeth labored vainly to make
him understand that teaching was a delight to her instead of a
drudgery, and that she had not the remotest desire for a husband. And
by way of proving how indifferent she was to the whole race of men,
she continued to bow to the unknown stranger of her daily walk without
making the slightest effort to discover his name.
Pneumonia, that deadly foe of hale and hearty septuagenarians, carried
Mr. Homer Ramsay off within forty-eight hours in the first week of
May. And very shortly after, Elizabeth received a letter from Mr.
Mills, the lawyer, requesting her to call on a matter of importance.
She supposed that it concerned her lease. Perhaps her enemy had bought
the roof over her head.
Mr. Mills ushered her into his private office. Then opening a
parchment envelope on his desk, he turned to her, and said: “I have
the pleasure to inform you, Miss Whyte, that my client, the late Mr.
Homer Ramsay, has left you the residuary legatee of his entire
property--some fifty or sixty thousand dollars. Perhaps,” he added,
observing Elizabeth’s bewildered expression, “you would like to read
the will while I attend to a little matter in the other office. It is
quite short, and straight as a string. I drew the instrument, and the
testator knew what he was about just as well as you or I.”
Mr. Mills, who, as you may remember, was a student of human nature,
believed that Miss Whyte lived on her nerves, and he had therefore
planned to leave her alone for a few moments to allow any hysterical
tendency to exhaust itself. When he returned, he found her looking
straight before her with the document in her lap.
“Is it all plain?” he asked kindly.
“Yes. But I don’t understand exactly why he left it to me.”
“Because he liked you, my dear. He had become very fond of you. And if
you will excuse my saying so,” he added, with a knowing smile, “he was
very anxious to see you well married. He said that he wished to
provide you with a suitable dowry.”
“I see,” said Elizabeth, coloring. She reflected for a moment, then
looked up and said, “But I am free to use it as I see fit?”
“Absolutely. I may as well tell you now as any time, however,” Mr.
Mills added smoothly, “that Mr. Ramsay’s cousin, Mr. Horace Barker,
has expressed an intention to contest the will. He is the next of kin,
though only a first cousin once removed.”
Elizabeth started at the name, and drew herself up slightly.
“You need not give yourself the smallest concern in the matter,” the
lawyer continued. “If Mr. Barker were in needy circumstances or were a
nearer relative, he might be able to make out a case, but no jury will
hesitate between a first cousin once removed, amply rich in this
world’s goods, and a--a--pretty woman. I myself am ready to testify
that Mr. Ramsay was completely in his right mind,” he added, with
professional dignity; “and as for the claim of undue influence, it is
rubbish--sheer rubbish.”
Elizabeth sat for a few moments without speaking. She seemed to pay no
heed to several further reassuring remarks which Mr. Mills, who judged
that she was appalled by the idea of a legal contest, hastened to let
fall. At last she looked straight at him, and said with firmness, “I
suppose that I am at liberty not to take this money, if I don’t wish
to?”
“At liberty? Bless my stars, Miss Whyte, anybody is at liberty to
refuse a gift of fifty thousand dollars. But when you call to see me
again, you will be laughing at the very notion of such a thing. Go
home, my dear young lady, and leave the matter in my hands. Naturally
you are overwrought at the prospect of going into court.”
“It isn’t that, Mr. Mills. I cannot take this money; I have no right
to it. I am no relation to Mr. Ramsay, and the only reason he left it
to me was--was because he thought it would help me to be married.
Otherwise he would have left it to Mr. Barker. I have no intention of
marrying, and I should not be willing to take a fortune under such
circumstances.”
“The will is perfectly legal, my dear. And as to marrying, you are
free to remain single all your days, if you wish to,” said Mr. Mills,
with another knowing smile. “Indeed, you are overwrought.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I am sure that I shall never change my
mind,” she answered. “I could never take it.”
Elizabeth slept little that night; but when she arose in the morning,
she felt doubly certain that she had acted to her own satisfaction.
What real right had she to this money? It was coming to her as the
result of the fancy of an eccentric old man, who, in a moment of
needless pity and passing interest, had made a will in her favor to
the prejudice of his natural heir. Of what odds was it that that heir
had ample means already, or even that he was her bitter enemy? Did not
the very fact that he was her enemy and that she despised him make it
impossible for her to take advantage of an old man’s whim so as to rob
him? She would have no lawsuit; he might keep the fifty thousand
dollars, and she would go her way as though Mr. Homer Ramsay and Mr.
Horace Barker had never existed. Mr. Ramsay had left her his money on
the assumption that she would be able to marry. To have taken it
knowing that she intended never to marry would have been to take it
under false pretences.
Mr. Mills consoled himself after much additional expostulation with
the reflection that if a woman is bent on making a fool of herself,
the wisest man in the world is helpless to prevent her. He set himself
at last to prepare the necessary papers which would put Mr. Horace
Barker in possession of his cousin’s property; and very shortly the
act of signal folly, as he termed it, was completed. Tongues in the
neighborhood wagged energetically for a few days; but presently the
birth of twins in the next block distracted the public mind, and
Elizabeth was allowed to resume the vocation of an inconspicuous
schoolmistress. From the object of her bounty, Mr. Horace Barker, she
heard nothing directly; but at least he had the grace to discontinue
his persecutions. And parental confidence, which, in spite of
scarlet-fever, had never been wholly lost, was manifested in the form
of numerous applications to take pupils for the coming year. For the
first time for many weeks Elizabeth was in excellent spirits and was
looking forward to the summer vacation, now close at hand; during
which she hoped to be able to fit herself more thoroughly for her
duties after a few weeks of necessary rest.
One evening, about a fortnight before the date when the school was to
close, she noticed that the print of her book seemed blurred; she
turned the page and, perceiving the same effect, realized that her
vision was impaired. On the following morning at school she noticed
the same peculiarity whenever she looked at a book. She concluded that
it was but a passing weakness, the result of having studied too
assiduously at night. Still, recognizing that her eyes were
all-important to her, she decided to consult an oculist at once. It
would be a simple matter to do, for was there not one directly
opposite in the house next to Mr. Ramsay’s? The sign, Dr. James Clay,
Oculist, had daily stared her in the face. She resolved to consult him
that very day after school. To be sure she knew nothing about him
individually, but she was aware that only doctors of the best class
were to be found in Saville Street.
She was obliged to wait in an anteroom, as there were three or four
patients ahead of her. When her turn came to be ushered into the
doctor’s office, she found herself suddenly in the presence of the
unknown young man whom she was accustomed to meet daily on her way
from school. Her impulse at recognizing him, though she could not have
told why, was to slip away; but before she could move, he looked up
from the table over which he was bent making a memorandum.
“Miss Whyte!” he exclaimed with pleased astonishment and some
confusion, advancing to meet her. “In what way can I be of service to
you?”
“Dr. Clay? I should like you to look at my eyes; they have been
troubling me lately.”
Elizabeth briefly detailed her symptoms. He listened with gravity, and
then after requesting her to change her seat, he examined her eyes
with absorbed attention. This took some minutes, and when he had
finished there was something in his manner which prompted her to say:
“Of course you will tell me, Dr. Clay, exactly what is the matter.”
“I am bound to do so,” he said, slowly. “I wished to make perfectly
sure, before saying that your eyes are quite seriously affected--not
that there is danger of a loss of sight, if proper precautions are
taken--but--but it will be absolutely necessary for you to abstain
from using them in order to check the progress of the disease.”
“I see,” she said, quietly, after a brief silence. “Do you mean that I
cannot teach school? I am a school-teacher.”
“I knew that; and knowing it, I thought it best to tell you the whole
truth. No, Miss Whyte; you must not use your eyes for at least a year,
if you do not wish to lose your sight.”
“I see,” said Elizabeth again, with the hopeless air of one from whom
the impossible is demanded. “I thank you, Dr. Clay, for telling me the
truth,” she added, simply. “Have I strained my eyes?”
“You have evidently overtaxed them a little; but the disease is
primarily a disease of the nerves. Will you excuse me for asking if at
any time within the last few years you have suffered a severe shock?”
“A shock?” Elizabeth hesitated an instant, and replied gently: “Yes;
but it was a number of years ago.”
“That would account for the case, nevertheless.”
A few minutes later Elizabeth was walking along the street, face to
face with despair. She had not been able to obtain permission from the
doctor to use her eyes even during the ten days which remained before
vacation. He had said that every moment of delay would make the cure
more difficult. She must absolutely cease to look at a book for one
whole year. It would be necessary at first for her to visit him for
treatment two or three times a week. He had said--she remembered his
exact words--“I cannot do a very great deal for you; we can rely only
on time for that; but believe me, I shall endeavor to help you so far
as it lies in human power. I hope that you will trust me--and--and
come to me freely.” Kind words these, but of what avail were they to
answer the embarrassing question how she was to live? She must give up
her school at least for a year; that seemed inevitable. How was she to
earn her daily bread if she obeyed the doctor’s orders? Would it not
be better to use her eyes to the end, and trust to charity to send her
to an infirmary when she became blind? Why had she been foolish enough
to refuse Mr. Ramsay’s property? But for a quixotic theory, she would
not now have been at the world’s mercy.
It was the sting of shame which this last thought aroused, following
in the train of her bitter reasoning, that caused her to quicken her
pace and clinch her hands. That same pride, which had been her ally
hitherto, had come to her rescue once more. She said to herself that
she had done what she knew was right, and that no force of cruel
circumstances should induce her to regret that she had not acted
differently. She would prove still that she was able to make her own
way without assistance, even though she were obliged to scrub floors.
A shock? The shock of a betrayed faith which had arrayed her soul in
bitterness against mankind. Must she own that she was crushed? Not
while she had an arm to toil and a heart to strive.
The next ten days were bitter ones. Elizabeth, after disbanding her
school, began to plan and contrive for the future. Schemes bright with
prospect suggested themselves, and faded into smoke at the touch of
practicability. She had a few hundred dollars, which would enable her
to live until she had been able to devise a plan, and she determined
that the world should not think that she was discouraged. The world,
and chiefly at the moment Dr. Clay, whose kindness and earnest
attention during the visits which she paid him suggested that he felt
great pity for her. Pity? She wished the pity of no man.
One evening while she was alone in her parlor, wrestling with her
schemes, the maid entered and said that a gentleman wished to see her.
A gentleman? She could think of none who would be likely to call upon
her, but she bade the girl show him in; and a moment later she was
greeting Dr. Clay. Presently, while she was wondering why he had come,
she found herself listening to these words: “I am a stranger to you to
all intents and purposes, but you are none to me. For months I have
dogged your footsteps unknown to you, and haunted this house in my
walks because I knew that you lived here. The memory of your face has
sweetened my dreams, and those brief moments when we have passed each
other daily have been sweeter than any paradise. I know the story of
your struggle with that coward and of your noble act of renunciation.
It cut into my heart like a knife to speak to you those necessary
words the other day, and I have been miserable ever since. I said to
myself at last that I would go to you and tell you that I could not be
happy apart from you; and that your happiness was mine. This seems
presumptuous, intrusive: I wish to be neither. I have merely come to
ask that I may be free to call upon you and to try to make you love
me. I am not rich, but my practice is such that I am able to offer you
a home. Will you allow me to come to see you, at least to be your
friend?”
The silence which followed this eager question seemed to demand an
answer. Elizabeth, who had been sitting with bent head, looked up
presently and answered with a sweet smile:
“I have no friends, Dr. Clay. I think it would be very pleasant to
have one.”
A few minutes later when he was gone, Elizabeth sat for some time
without moving, with the same happy smile on her lips. He had asked
nothing more and she had given him no greater assurance. Why was it
that at last she buried her face in her hands and sobbed as though her
bosom would break? Why was it, too, that before she went to bed that
night she took a handful of withered flowers, mere dust and ashes,
from the secret drawer of her work-box, and, wrapping them in the
paper which had enclosed them, held them in the flame of the lamp
until they were consumed? Why? Because love, unwatched for, unbidden
had entered her heart, which she thought sere as the rose-leaves, and
restored light to the sunshine and joy to the world.