A SHRED OF HOPE.
Tom Robinson's recovery continued a matter of fear and trembling for a
week longer before it became merely a process of time. But no sooner was
it clearly established to the initiated, and only likely to be
endangered by some unforeseen accident, than Annie Millar, in her
delight, lost sight of her former tactics, and called on Dr. Harry
Ironside to rejoice with her on their success.
"We have been permitted to pull him through. Oh, isn't it glorious? I
know we ought, as we are miserable sinners, to go down on our knees and
give God the thanks, and I hope we do with all my heart; but I also want
to sing and dance--don't you, Dr. Ironside?"
Nobody could imagine that Dr. Harry Ironside was indifferent to the
wonderful recovery, which was such a credit to his skill, of the man
whom he had nursed as if Tom Robinson had been his brother; but Dr.
Harry forgot all about his patient at that moment when he saw his
opportunity and seized it.
He had never had a faint heart, young as he was, but he had been dealing
with an exceedingly coy and high-spirited mistress. However, even she
had not been able to defy the effect of the last month of incessant
intercourse, of being engrossed in common with one object of interest,
when both had hung, as it were, on a man's failing breath, and were
indissolubly linked while it lasted. In the light of its fitful rising
and falling, its feeble fluttering, the terrible moments when it
appeared to stop and die away, how small and vain was every other
consideration! But their joint work was done by God's help, as they had
hardly dared to hope for a time, and now it was Harry's innings.
"I have something to say to you, Miss Millar. I have wished to say it
for a long time. You will not refuse to hear me?"
They were alone together in the little side-room, empty but for its
hospital stores, where they had so often consulted, with and without Dr.
Capes, on the condition of the ward. There was no longer any fluster of
doubt and hesitation in his manner. He stood there in his young comely
manhood, prepared to put his fate to the test, claiming his right to do
so, and challenging her to deny his claim.
In a moment Annie saw what Rose had seen some time ago, but had not
taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was
of this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal
terror, from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside,
to the afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to
her in the matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the
operating theatre. Then he had bowed low, muttered a few words in
confused greeting, and looked at her with all his man's heart in his
eyes; and she had felt by a sure, swift intuition, that, as she valued
her dearly held personal freedom and her allegiance to her family,
there must be war to the knife between her and this self-willed young
man. She must, as discretion is the better part of valour, flee from
him, while refusing to own, even to herself, any more humiliating
reason for the flight than her duty, the honour of St. Ebbe's, and the
folly of Rose in playing into his hands.
Now Annie was caught, and had to listen to him whether she would or not,
while she and not he quaked with fright and agitation. For he stood
before her, like a conqueror already, in the little room with its
shelves of phials, which they had all to themselves, where burly farmers
and iron-gray corn-factors would soon be thronging in the course of
transacting their every-day business.
But presently she forgot all about herself in the interest of the tale
he had to tell, and told well in his newly-found courage and coolness,
in his personal modesty and professional enthusiasm. He had just taken
his degree as she knew. He and his sister Kate had inherited a
competence from their parents. He might look about him till he found a
lucrative and agreeable country practice in a choice neighbourhood,
where he could command good society and a little hunting, shooting, and
fishing in their seasons. Or he might be on the watch for a West End
London practice, which, while affording him all the interests and
amusements of town, ought to bring him speedily into notice, and raise
him, step by step, to the height of his profession. He had begun his
medical career by thinking of both these eventualities as desirable,
each in its kind, and had gone on cherishing a leaning to the first,
till--he must say it--her example and influence had inspired him with
greater ardour in the cause of science and of humanity. He had made
inquiries and had heard of a post--in fact he had got the refusing of
it--in connection with a new settlement, a fresh attempt to plant a
colony where the climate was favourable on one of the great African
rivers. His income at first would be small, and he must take his share
of the hardships and labours of those who aimed at being more than
gold-diggers or miners in the diamond-fields--that is, pioneers of
civilization. The prospect, so far as it referred to scientific
investigations, and to a large increase to accredited stores of
knowledge, was simply splendid. Farther, he was assured of the sympathy
and support of the leading men among the colonists, since they had
already, to their credit, sought his co-operation. Those of them who
were in the van--on the spot--had gone so far as to lay the foundation
of an hospital, in addition to a church, to deal alike with black men
and white, to labour for their spiritual and physical healing in common.
He had almost made up his mind to take the post, but he wished to ask
her opinion and advice first.
She was tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness
forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put
him off with an evasive answer. She spoke bravely and wisely.
"I think it would be most right and honourable for you to go. With your
ability and training you might furnish invaluable aid to a young colony;
while it would be like another college course for you, with nature for
your teacher. Any young man of spirit and philanthropy, with love for
his calling, might well covet the chance. If the colony flourish, you
and your profession, and the hospital you speak of, will flourish with
it, and have as fine a future before you as you can desire. If the
scheme fail, you can but return to England; and you will not have lost
the time which a young man can well spare. For you will bring back all
you have gained from a far wider sphere of usefulness, and from a
fresher experience than you could ever hope to secure by staying at
home. But if what you really want," Annie corrected herself, with a
twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her
earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do
within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter
alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I should have tried the
former."
"That is enough," he said with conviction.
"But what will your sister say?" she hastened to inquire, in order to
turn the conversation from ominous personalities.
"Oh! it will be a blow to poor little Kate," he owned regretfully,
"because she is too young to go out with me at once, and set about
keeping house for me as she has always proposed--a rough, primitive
style of housekeeping it will be out there for many a day. But she is
not without pluck, and she is as true as steel, though I say it. She
must learn some of your fearlessness and faith, and make the best of
things. She must go to one of our aunts in the meantime, and when
matters are smoother and easier, and the fate of the colony is decided,
perhaps she may join me. I do not believe that there is any danger to
speak of from the native tribes, only it will not be drawing-room work
for some time to come. You see it is not the same with a girl like Kate
as it would be with a woman like you," he had the boldness to insinuate.
"You would be a tower of strength in yourself from the beginning; you
might be the making of a newly-founded hospital."
"Poor Kate!" said Annie, hastily apostrophizing the girl she had been
said to ignore, and speaking in accents of far deeper pity than she had
any idea of.
"And what do you say?" he turned upon her.
"I?" she cried in much confusion. "I have said my say."
"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the
earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that."
"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite
meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you
till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private
feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude."
"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off
all alone, so far as old friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at
your bidding."
"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say
so."
"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning,"
he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come
back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will
find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'"
"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her
guard; "but _you_ had much better wait and look out for some more
gracious person to welcome you."
"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully;
"that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or
dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way,
which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was
concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and
brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would
give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in
cleverness and goodness."
"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital
service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A
faded woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward."
"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love
me."
"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone.
"Never mind what I deserve, if I get what I have wished, longed, and
prayed for since the first moment I saw you--think of that, Annie."
"I can't," she said, almost piteously, while she suffered him to take
her hand. "I meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my
independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry
Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and
mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me
to fail them."
"I am content to wait for my prize," he said, daring to kiss her lovely
cheek, and he was content--for the moment.
"And you must not breathe a word of what has happened," she charged him.
But here he grew restive. "I must, dearest. Why, it would be doubly
dishonourable not to speak at once to Dr. Millar, confined as he is to
his chair; you cannot fail to see that."
"They will all laugh at me," sighed the subdued Annie, with comical
ruefulness. "Rose will laugh, and May. I believe even Dora and mother
will laugh."
"Let them." He gave the permission with cheerful insensibility to the
ordeal, even though Annie's feelings were so much involved in it. "It
may be a warning to some of them." Then he was so callous as to add,
"Who cares though the whole world, including Tom Robinson, were to join
in the guffaw."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up with bright sweetness, "I think I could
bear it if I heard Tom's voice in the chorus. He used to have rather a
foolish, nervous laugh, for so sensible and brave a man. But I am sure I
should not think it foolish, or anything save delightful, if I heard it
again."